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Drew McIlvain was recently kicked out of the Tunica WSOP Circuit Main Event for collusion in chip dumping from another player.  An interview with him and WSOP VP of Corporate Communications Seth Palansky is currently featured over at PokerNews.com with McIlvain giving his side of the story and Palansky explaining why they took action.

McIlvain's collusion may have cost him a shot at ever winning another circuit ring.

The skinny of the article is as follows:

• A player suggested dumping his stack to McIlvain
• McIlvain never said no and continued to talk with him at length about it.
• McIlvain never informed a floor person about his opponent’s plan
• Palansky explains that the WSOP has footage, including audio of the conversation that points to collusion.

The more that McIlvain talked in the article, the more I side with the WSOP on this one.  His opponent mentioned the chip dump the first time.  Had he walked away and not said anything, he might have had a case of “hey, I didn’t think he was serious.”

That wasn’t the case.  He had at least a second conversation of where they clearly discussed how to do the act.

When asked how he should do it, his answer was “Hey man, I don’t know.”

Pay attention carefully here.  He didn’t say “I can’t do that” or “Let’s not do that” or even “I’m not interested.”  He said, “Hey man, I don’t know.”

Even after that, he could have went to one of the floor men and said “Hey, this guy is looking to chip dump to me.”

He could have even called the floor at the point the guy min-raised to him and stopped action and revealed that something was awry.  But he didn’t.

Also, the speed at which Bill Bruce jumped on this tells me that Seth is telling the truth about having both audio and video on this.

This reminds me of stuff I have seen in home games.  Someone gets tired of playing and they tell someone that they will shove against without looking, etc.

I’ve also seen people shoot an angle where they try and get a double-up when they pick up a hand.

In this case, I think McIlvain may have saw an opportunity to get some chips without a huge amount of risk.

The problem was that it was collusion and it cost him not just his tournament, but possibly his ability to ever play in the WSOP ever again.