Some of you will remember Russ “Dutch” Boyd from World Series of Poker (WSOP) broadcasts years ago. One of the founding members of “The Crew”, a group composed of the then young guns Scott Fischman, Robert Boyd, David Smyth, Joe Bartholdi Jr, Tony Lazar, and Brett Jungblut, the group disbanded amidst tensions between Boyd and many of its members. Seen to some as a con man, and to others a certifiably insane genius, he can now be seen universally as a two-time WSOP bracelet winner.
Destiny repeated itself on Sunday when Boyd won his second bracelet in another short-handed event, this time limit hold’em. Facing Brian Meinders in heads-up play, Boyd climbed his way back from a 4-to-1 chip deficit to take the tourney down, walking away with the title and $234,065. Second place and $144,650 is nothing short of remarkable for Meinders, who came in 8th of this very same event last year.
Boyd’s first bracelet came in the $2,500 short-handed no limit hold’em even at the 2006 WSOP. Facing WSOP Champion Joe Hachem heads up in front of the television cameras, Boyd’s A5 outdrew Hachem’s AQ with a 5 on the river after both flopped the A. He took home the bracelet and $475,712, much to Hachem’s dismay.
Boyd began attending college at 12, graduating with a law degree from the University of Missouri Law School at just 18. Inspired by the movie Rounders, he ditched his law career for card rooms in California. He gained notoriety in 2003 at his 12th place finish at the WSOP Main Event, shortly forming “The Crew” weeks later.
To the poker community, Boyd is most notorious for coming under fire with his PokerSpot online card room between 2000 and 2001. Co-owned with his brother Robert, the appointed CEO, the site began raking in $100k a month. In 2001, after credit card processors were late in transferring money from deposits to the site, they were shorted for a six week period and unable to pay cashouts to its players.
The two began posting on the trailblazing rec.gambling.poker (RGP) newsgroup when users started voicing their concerns. “We did not receive your cashout request. I am not sure why, and we are still investigating, but we have no intention of keeping your money. This is a very isolated incident, and I think you’ll find very few complaints regarding our customer service.”
It all hit the fan, and the site pulled the plug shortly after. Wasting away multiple opportunities to sell its assets and pay back the outstanding money, some believe Boyd ran for the hills with some $400,000 of the outstanding cashouts, leaving people stranded and penniless. Others believe that a genius, in his right mind, wouldn’t botch an opportunity to make $100k a month, and in the site’s failure, was left a broken, insane mess, and committed for mental health concerns weeks later.
His most recent debacle involves the Two Plus Two Publishing company, owned by pro Mason Malmuth. For years, the company has sold millions of some of the finest poker strategy books on the market. In 2009, Malmuth filed suit against Boyd after it was found that since 2004, he had been operating a site at the address twoplustwopoker.com, making what were deemed “substantial” profits from his blatant infringement of the Two Plus Two brand. Boyd refused to cooperate, sending a two-word e-mail back to Malmuth in his correspondence. I will let you guess what those two words were. A resolution has yet to be seen.
But yah, he’s won two bracelets!
As a reader of the 2+2 forums I didn’t know about the copy cat website. I guess I should have been in NVG more often.
Flew completely under my radar too. I think you won’t find much about it on the forums because it’s a current legal case. And that, my friend, is why Google exists.