• May 12, 2011 Broadcast on live television across Europe (albeit with a two-hour delay) and across the world, and to those watching on EPT Live; Freitez put on a show of unorthodox, but effective high-stakes poker, surging past his seven opponents with ease to a first place prize of €1,500,000, a bracelet from Official Sponsor Shamballa Jewels, and a seat.
• None whatsoever as Freitez had pulled the same stunt several times and knew exactly what he was doing. Verdict: Guilty as sin, sentenced to be an EPT poker pariah and set to appear as public enemy number 1 in every angle-shooting compilation until the end of time!

Freitez Poker Cheat

We’ve heard quite a few strong responses from online pros over PokerStars’ decision to change their VIP program. But perhaps Alex Millar has made the strongest statement yet after quitting Team PokerStars in protest over the VIP changes.

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It seems like the last few EPT events that I’ve seen have featured little known winners. And this trend definitely kept up after Ivan Freitez defeated fellow unknown Torsten Brinkmann to win the 2011 EPT Grand Live Final. Now this isn’t to say that Freitez was a total bum before he won the biggest EPT tournament of the year.

Best known by his ‘Kanu7’ handle, Millar has been a high-stakes grinder for quite some time. And he felt so strongly about the matter that he gave up his lofty sponsorship position. Here are a couple tweets from Millar on the matter:

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“I’d like to apologise to the players for my complete failure to be able to help in any way with the recent pokerstars VIP changes”

“With @RealKidPoker eventually failing as well I no longer feel I can represent the company and I have now left Team Pro Online”

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Prior to quitting Team PokerStars, Millar announced that he hoped to change some minds among PokerStars management. Obviously he wasn’t able to do this as the Supernova Elite level was eliminated along with mid/high-stakes rewards. So Kanu7 sacrificed his sponsorship money over the principle.

In his poker career, Millar has racked up $3,294,787 in cash-game winnings. However, he’s had a rough go of it in 2015 and has lost $136,042. Considering that he won’t be receiving VIP rewards to help with any future losses in 2016, it’s easier to see why the Brit has taken such a strong stance against Stars.

Freitez Poker

This is actually the second year in a row that a high-profile player has quit Team PokerStars. Victoria Coren-Mitchell did so in 2014, but under different circumstances. In Coren’s case, she didn’t like how parent company Amaya Gaming was pushing Stars towards casino gaming and sports betting. It had always been Coren’s principle that she didn’t want to represent non-skilled gambling, so she quit.