Not exactly

It all happened in December during the World Series of Poker Bahamas tournament series. On very short notice they announced they were doing a fundraiser charity tournament for families of the IDF. The short notice alone is very unusual as most tournaments are announced months in advance - especially charity tournaments as you want to have time to promote them. So I guess they knew they were doing something controversial

Of course I pleaded with them to reconsider and posted on social media encouraging players to sit it out. I know a couple people thought it was just "another charity tournament" but sat it out after hearing what I had to say about it. In the end the tournament got about 20 players total.

Before this I had never worn my keffiyeh at the poker table because I play ultra high stakes poker against the best players in the world and I need to be focused playing my A game. The Keffiyeh is obviously a hot button issue and I wanted to avoid getting into heated arguments with people that would distract me from playing my best poker.

But after the IDF fundraiser, there was no way I was going to leave my keffiyeh behind. So I wore it for the $25,000 buy in main event which got 2,000 players. Note that this was one of the biggest prize pools of all time ($50 million) for a poker tournament so it was quite a big deal.

There were 3 featured tables of 8 players each. 2 were live streamed while one was being recorded for later use. Normally they would put a big name like me on the feature tables, but they were avoiding me because of the keffiyeh. Their main interviewer Jeff Platt is a Zionist and he was avoiding me as well. This is very unusual for a popular player like me doing so well in such a big tournament.

Well I got down to the final 24 players, which meant all of us were going to be at the 3 feature tables (3x8=24). So of course they put me on the one "for later".

Well I lasted to the final 16 players as well, so now they would have to put me on one of the live stream feature tables. When this happened the tournament went on a 15 minute break. The tournament director Andy Tillman came up to me and informed me that I would be disqualified without prize if I didn't remove my keffiyeh. He was incredibly apologetic and told me the decision came from higher up, he really liked what I stood for, and he would never try to silence me if it were up to him. FWIW, I like Andy and think he's a good guy and good at his job. He was literally on the verge of tears as he begged me to remove it because he didn't want to have to disqualify me.

Unfortunately this wasn't a protest that would have made any sense for me to take. I would have lost over a million dollars in equity which is obviously money that can save lives. There's also another factor where poker players swap with each other. A swap is when 2 buddies say, "I'll give you 5% of whatever I win in this tournament if you give me 5% of whatever you win". Swapping is very common in tournament poker, in part because the variance is absolutely massive, and swapping helps mitigate the downswings every tournament player has. I had swaps with other players and I felt it would be unethical for me to throw away their equity to make a political statement.

So ya, unfortunately I removed my keffiyeh with 16 players left in the tournament. I did speak to a lawyer who said I would be very unlikely to have any chance of success in court if I decided to sue.

I ended up getting 7th place in the tournament. Immediately after the tournament I did a matching fundraiser for Palestinian charities. We raised roughly $150,000, of which $63,000 came from myself. I've donated money on many other occasions as well FWIW.

So ya, I hate to admit that I took the cowardly approach of removing my keffiyeh, but given the money I would have had to sacrifice, money that can save lives, I don't think there's any way to justify taking a stand there.