Episode 264: Cheating! The Latest Soap Operas in Chess, Pro-fishing and More
In this episode, Shireen Ahmed, Lindsay Gibbs and Jessica Luther dive into the most recent cheating scandals in sport. But first, they talk about where they would put a new franchise of an unestablished sport.
Then, they discuss the latest in sports soap operas. First is chess, where a teenage takedown of a longtime world champion caused said champion to quit a $500,000 tournament. Unfounded rumors around the teenager's cheating include anal beads. Second, a pro-fishing tournament where winners were caught with prize-winning walleye stuffed with other fish and lead weights to make them heavier. Third, is the wild turn of events at the women's PSG football club, where arrests have been re-made concerning a hired violent attack on a player, that was instigated by a teammate. Fourth is the round-about conversations in the media on what is the true homerun record Aaron Judge is trying to break. Fifth, is a risky, perhaps unwise, multi-bluff hero play in a poker match, where the actual winner was bullied into giving her quarter of a million prize to the loser, because he couldn't fathom he actually lost, so she must have cheated.
Following this discussion, they preview a special Patreon segment about recent demonstrations Iran after the killing of Mahsa Amini, and how sport is both used a tool of the state and of protest.
Then, you'll here a preview of this week's interview w three women in US rugby: Kerri Heffernan, a former player and coach, and currently the Chair of the Women’s Rugby Coaches and Referees Association; Kat Aversano, the head coach of the Howard University women’s rugby team; and Alycia Washington, one of the top current players in the US. Listen to get ready for the Rugby Union World Cup that starts Saturday, October 8, in New Zealand.
Next, they burn some of the worst in sports on the Burn Pile. Then, they celebrate those shining light, including Torchbearers of the Week, all of the Puerto Rican athletes, including the Puerto Rican national men's ice hockey team and the Puerto Rican national women's basketball team, who dedicated recent victories to the victims of Hurricane Fiona.
They wrap up the show with What's Good and What We're Watching In Sports this week.
To attend a Live Show of Burn It All Down at Notre Dame on October 11, reserve a free ticket here.
This episode was produced by Tressa Versteeg. Shelby Weldon is our social media and website specialist. Burn It All Down is part of the Blue Wire podcast network.
Transcript
Shireen: Hey, flamethrowers! Just reminding you that Burn It All Down is going to Notre Dame next Tuesday, October 11th from 7:00-9:00pm. We will be at the Browning Cinema in the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center for a live show. All five of us will be there. It’s gonna be amazing. The event is free, but it is ticketed, so we encourage you to get your tickets. Link is in the show notes. Looking forward to seeing you all in South Bend.
Welcome to Burn It All Down, the feminist sports podcast you need. I'm Shireen, and I'm joined by Jessica and Lindsay. Today on the show, we are going to talk about cheating in sports. We also have a lot of great content on Patreon that you don't wanna miss, and today we'll be specifically talking about Iran and how it relates to sport and the freedom of women. So, top of the show, I wanted to ask you both, if you could have a new franchise or expansion team of a sport that's not basketball, hockey, or soccer, where would you have that team? And what sport would it be? So, Jessica, you go first.
Jessica: A behind the scenes thing here at Burn It All Down is whenever Shireen’s the lead, I'm always like, what is she gonna come up with for top of show? [laughter]
Lindsay: Because usually it's stuff you don't have to prepare at all. But then with Shireen, it always involves so much thinking. [laughter]
Jessica: Yeah, I really had to think about this. So, anyway, my answer to this is I'm gonna say a women's baseball league, because that's always my go-to sport that doesn't get enough love. And then I was trying to, like, where would I put this? And I was thinking about who you could build a team around. And Veronica Alvarez is this US women's baseball legend. She's the current manager of the US women's baseball team. I don't know if she lives there right now, but I do know she's from Miami, Florida, so you would definitely have to have something for this league based there in Miami. So that is my thoughtful answer to Shireen's random top of the show question.
Shireen: You know, I was gonna ask if you were gonna be a tree, what tree would you be? But I think I did that before. [laughs]
Jessica: I feel like you've done that three times.
Shireen: [laughs] Yes. Yes, that’s right.
Lindsay: Isn't that when I was writing in the doc at the same time as you were and I was, like–
Shireen: Yes. [laughs]
Lindsay: I was like, absolutely not. [laughter]
Jessica: You know, listeners, if you wanna tweet at Shireen what kind of tree you would be and why, she would adore you.
Shireen: I would love that. I actually might ask. For my answer, I actually said pickleball.
Lindsay: Of course, naturally.
Shireen: And I had this conversation with my son because he plays volleyball and he is putting his brothers in his league and they play with their dad. And I'm like, well, I wanna play with you too. And my son is not a good enough soccer player for me to agree to play with him. So I was like, pickleball. He's going to find a pickleball league and he and I are gonna go as doubles, my eldest, Saif. And I thought that was very sweet. And initially I said in Montreal, but then I realized that I hate their politics, and they are like absolutely racist against women in hijab. So I'm actually gonna go with Prince Edward Island. And Prince Edward Island has been on my brain because of Hurricane Fiona as well. And there's a lot of pickleball potential people there. And I think I could get a league going and I think it would be kind of fun. You know, I'm from the northwest shore there, that's where I am. And I consider that home. So it's like…But I feel like Charlottetown might be really like arrogant a little bit, because they're the city folks. So I feel like we could give 'em a run for their money in pickleball from the northwest shore. Lindsay, what about you?
Lindsay: The thing is, like, I know Shireen's not high right now, [Shireen laughs] but all of these are literally questions when you've been smoking and it's like 2:00am and somebody goes, “What kind of tree would you be and why?” Like, that's like what… [laughs]
Jessica: It's it's lovely. She just moves through the world like this.
Lindsay: I know. It’s so good.
Jessica: It’s like her natural state. It's lovely.
Lindsay: Yeah, I don't know. I picked volleyball because my theory is like you can just play it in one location, right? You can do it in arenas and stadiums that are already built, so like startup costs are low. Also, volleyball is super fun to watch. Really exciting, very fast paced. And I know that there's like pro leagues getting off the ground now, so, you know, I can get in on that. And at first I was like, ugh, I'd have to do it on like Wisconsin, because we know the Big Ten loves their women's volleyball. But then I was like, I don't wanna start something in Wisconsin. And so then I was like, well, Stanford's really good at volleyball, and they've won a lot of national championships. So why don't we do it in the Bay Area? Because you've got all this tech money. So that would be a really good place to start a volleyball team.
Shireen: Love it. And by the way, Linz, I would come to Wisconsin for you.
Lindsay: I don't think I would. [laughter] Sorry, sorry to our Wisconsin listeners.
Jessica: They do have like a lot of cheese.
Shireen: And women's hockey!
Lindsay: But the thing about cheese is, you know, I can get cheese in the Bay Area as well, but I cannot get the Bay Area everything else in Wisconsin. [laughs]
Shireen: Sport can be a beautiful thing. It can teach teamwork, determination, goal setting, improve physical health, toughen mental acuity, and helps to sharpen a drive while fueling passion. We experience the vast array of emotions through sports, be it joy from victory, or devastation from losses. According to stillmed.Olympics.org, fair play is a virtual rule of adherence whereby players and athletes abide by the rules of competition. Integrity, fairness, and respect are the principles of fair play. With them, the spirit of competition thrives, fueled by honest rivalry, courteous relations, and a graceful acceptance of results.
As we have interrogated and discussed many times on the show, the purity of sport is often tarnished by systems of oppression and corruption, abuse, and by cheating. And as much as we know there is strong sportsmanship and kindness and competition, we know that there are those with less genuine intentions. Perhaps it is a pressure, perhaps it is the ego, perhaps it is the money, but there are many cases in which cheating has taken over an athlete, a team, or an organization, that has rendered it rotten to the core. Today, we take a deep dive into some of the most recent and atrocious cases of cheating. Jess, can you get us started?
Jessica: Yeah. I'm so excited about this. So, the most exciting thing that has happened to chess since The Queen's Gambit [Shireen laughs] is easily the current controversy surrounding 19 year old Hans Niemann from the US, who has been accused of cheating by five time defending world champion and the number one chess player in the world for over a decade Magnus Carlsen of Norway. So these are our two guys, 19 year old Hans Niemann from the US, and Magnus Carlsen of Norway. He's been number one for a decade. Okay. So, in St. Louis, even though Carlsen had lost to Niemann, he was not out of that tournament. He could still keep playing. But he shocked everyone by withdrawing less than a day after his lost to Niemann – the first time Carlsen has ever done that in his entire chess career. The detail that matters here in their particular play for Carlsen is that Niemann was playing with black pieces, which is considered the more challenging position. So, he really shouldn't have been able to beat Carlsen, is what Carlsen is saying.
They played again soon after this time online, and Carlsen played a single move before resigning in protest of playing Niemann. In the wake of all of this, Niemann has admitted that he twice cheated at chess online when he was 12, and then three years ago when he was 16. He made sure to say though that he never cheated above board, which means he didn't cheat in person while playing chess. Last week, Carlsen posted a statement on Twitter in which he said that “cheating in chess is a big deal and an existential threat to the game.” And, “I believe that Niemann has cheated more and more recently than he has publicly admitted.” So I wanna ask you guys before I keep going, did you know that you could cheat on above board chess?
Lindsay: No. I don't have any clue how you would do that. Like, I don't get it.
Jessica: Yeah.
Shireen: I feel like I'm not…Because I've cheated in this, but my mom would hide cards under herself if we played card games. And maybe if your piece is out, if someone's focused on the board, you take another pawn, like pull it out from your sleeve and then put it on there? Do you know what I'm saying? Like, I feel like you can cheat at anything.
Jessica: Yeah.
Lindsay: Wait. Your mom is a card shark? [Jessica laughs]
Shireen: My mom is vicious. [laughter] No, she's pretty bad. Yeah, there's a lot. My parents both cheat, regularly. [laughter]
Jessica: Okay. So yeah, at the lower level, Shireen, at the youth level for sure, there's that kind of like basic ass cheating – things like parents mouthing moves to their children and that kind of thing. But when you think about it, at the pro level, that's kind of wild to think about someone…Honestly, the ego that it would take to cheat above board, I guess. Computers though now can beat humans at chess, right? We know this. It's been a while. So, there are things called chess engines that’s software that analyzes, plays, and suggests movements. Players can use these to cheat, right? To beat other players who are really good. And so players have been caught looking at their phone during bathroom breaks where they'll like input the game and then figure out what they need to do moving forward.
Shireen: Oh my god.
Jessica: Or a player can have a buzzer or some kind of signaling system that someone is using to help them that communicates moves to them. Like, this is such a problem that chess's governing body will have metal detectors, signal scanners, non-linear scanners, whatever those are, and thermal imaging at events to try to combat cheating. So, at one point in the middle of all this, Niemann – that's the teenager – he said, “I have never cheated in an over the board game. If they want me to strip fully naked, I will do it.” Now, look, what I'm about to tell you is all rumor, it's totally unfounded. But I have to tell you that the main rumor of how he did this to beat Carlsen was that he was using anal beads that buzzed, and so he was getting some kind of communication in his butt [laughter] telling him how to move those black pieces around the board. Again, no evidence, but there's like a full on explainer if you go to look for it. And it took the internet by storm, this idea. So, that is what is happening in chess right now.
Shireen: Okay. I have a question.
Jessica: Yeah.
Shireen: So, did the anal beads buzz out in morse code?
Jessica: Yeah, I don't know. That's a great question. I don't think everyone understands exactly how that would work. But obviously there's some kind of buzzing that people do in chess–
Shireen: [laughs] Lindsay’s face!
Jessica: So, however they memorize the buzzing, you just feel it in your butt?
Lindsay: Honestly, if this is true, props to him for the composure, because like, [laughter] the whole point of that is, like…Like, I've heard of devices where you can press a button for your partner in the middle of the day to like, excite them?
Jessica: To activate?
Lindsay: Activate. Thank you, Jess. [laughter] But I'm just thinking, so, that technology, I'm assuming that's the same type of thing.
Jessica: I think that's what they're suggesting. Yes.
Lindsay: Seemingly didn't make it super obvious. You know what I mean? Like, if he went “Ooh!” you know? [laughs]
Jessica: Yeah. This is a 19 year old. Yeah, yeah.
Shireen: You know, I never had chess on my kinky cheating card, my bingo card for that.
Jessica: It's quite the story. I mean it is interesting because Carlsen, his statement is very long, and he does suggest that he has more to say about what actually happened, but that he wants Neimann to say it's okay for him to talk about it. So, he seems to have some idea of like what's going on there. And hopefully, hopefully, cross your fingers, we will all at some point find out what that means. Before I give up the microphone, very quickly, there is another big time cheating scandal in a rather niche sport that I wanted to bring up: pro fishing in Ohio. Over the weekend, a video emerged of two fishermen, Chase Cominsky and Jake Runyon – don't they sound like fishers? Wow – stuffing the walleye fish they had caught for competition with weights and filets from other fish. Like, they had stuck filets of other fish down into the fish to make them weigh more. There’s a video of a dude...You gotta find this video.
There's a video of a dude cutting the fish open and pulling out weighted metal balls from the inside of the fish while other fishermen scream about arresting the man for theft. Apparently there's a fair amount of money to be made in these competitions, so the other competitors, rightly, I think, felt like they were being fleeced. I did read up a bit on cheating and fishing, and learned from a man – whose byline at Game and Fishing Magazine is for real, Keith “Catfish” Sutton – that organizers of fishing tournaments…Y’all, this is unbelievable to me. Organizers of fishing tournaments often use lie detector tests to determine if anyone cheated. Like, after you finish fishing, you go off to do your lie detector tests, and then they ask you all these questions to figure out if you were cheating somehow while you were fishing. Can you imagine if other sports used lie detector tests? It's amazing. So, fishing. They cheat there too.
Lindsay: Everyone needs to go, as Jess said, look at this video. First of all, there's just a few things I wanna point out about this video. It's all taking place…The name of the event I think was called the Fall Brawl. And so it's like all taking place in front of this sign that says Fall Brawl. And that's great.
Jessica: It's just a lot of angry men.
Lindsay: And they're so, so mad. And my favorite thing was one of the guys yelling at the man who cheated, who's just kind of standing there stoically throughout the video, and he goes, “Where's your crown now?!” So, I love that. I love that.
Shireen: Steve! His name was Steve.
Lindsay: Thank you.
Jessica: I watched it and was like, can we pull any of this video, the audio, for the show? But it's just men yelling. [laughs] Like, it is a visual thing to watch them pull the weights out of the fish. Like, it was truly shocking to me, even though I knew it was coming. Just again, I don't know. I think I'm too much of a coward to cheat like that. I would just be so terrified of that particular moment.
Shireen: The question that I had was, is there not like an x-ray machine that the fish can go through that they should have established to prevent like the lead beads? Like, that’s…
Jessica: They probably don't have portable x-ray machines.
Shireen: Yeah, that's true. And the money that he stole…He has a boat, he has thousands of dollars, according to the video. Like, is Steve gonna return the money? How is this gonna go down?
Jessica: Yeah. The one thing I read about it said that both of these guys that got caught had recently won other competitions, which means they won money. Presumably, everyone assumes, rightly, I think, that they cheated to get that money. Like, it has material consequence for these other anglers who feel like their money was taken.
Shireen: I'm gonna go next. And this story is completely wild and scary at the same time. On November 4th, 2021, Paris Saint-Germain and France national footballeuses Kheira Hamraoui of Paris Saint-Germain was leaving a team dinner, and she got into the car of teammate Aminata Diallo, but then was dragged from her car by two masked men. Her legs were beaten with an iron bar. And following the attack, Diallo was then taken into custody and interrogated for 35 hours, and she maintained her innocence. She was released without charges. Players including Kylian Mbappé from the men's side came to her defense. And at the time I actually insisted that it wasn't a Tonya Harding situation as many claimed and that it might be different, the story could be deeper. And the story was turning in many different directions. Not the first time or the last time I'm incorrect.
But it came to light that something else was also happening. They uncovered that the SIM card in Hamraoui's phone was actually registered to former Barcelona player Eric Abidal, who was the sporting director at Barça from 2018 to 2020 when Hamraoui played on the women's side. So, Hayet Abidal, Eric's now ex-wife, made a statement through her lawyer, said that Abidal admitted to an affair with Hamraoui. So the police investigated another path. Perhaps it was a crime of passion or perhaps it was something to do with that. And Hamraoui denied that the affair was connected to her attack at all. She didn't deny the affair. She denied that the attack was based on that. So, this is like a telenovela.
Jessica: This is horrible! She gets attacked and then–
Shireen: She's exposed.
Jessica: It comes out that she's had an affair. Like, she has to deal with…Oh.
Shireen: Yeah. All of this shit. It's pretty bad.
Jessica: That's horrible.
Lindsay: Even though the affair…So, the affair ended up having nothing to do with it. It was like a side…
Shireen: It was like, yeah, literally side.
Jessica: That's brutal.
Shireen: So, in an exclusive to L’Équipe magazine later in June 2022, Hamraoui opened up. The story was soon making global headlines, and she says it just was overwhelming and that “I was completely lost, confused, and overwhelmed by the events.” She added, “It took me several days to come back from the surface, but twice as many problems came for me. Fresh from a traumatic episode, I felt the weight of the media machine activated, and I was caught in a storm.” So, it was really bad. But two weeks ago, four men were arrested in connection with the attack, and they all named Diallo as the instigator and mastermind of the attack. So we're back to her teammate here.
Jessica: Where we started, right? Oh, man.
Shireen: That's where we started, because Hamraoui and Diallo actually do play the same position on the team. As of now, Diallo, her contract was not reinstated after it expired. So she's without a team, whereas Hamraoui is still with PSG. So actually, and I'm quoting from an ESPN article, “Four men cited the rivalry between the two players, that Diallo wanted to play instead of Hamraoui, as the motivation for the attack.” And this gets even more bizarre and sad. The investigators are now saying that Diallo suffers from multiple personality disorder and she struggles with mental health. And according to Footballogue, a Twitter account in French that's dedicated to French football, she took the name Bilel as a pseudonym to have an online affair with a young woman, and she also took the name Victor Newman from The Young and the Restless, the character. She engaged in online conversations with people using those two pseudonyms.
And like, I truly hope that Aminata Diallo gets help if she needs it, because this is really…And of course, you know, all sympathies are extended to Kheira Hamraoui. That kind of stuff is really traumatic, and she still has nightmares about it. And so, you know, attacking your teammate or having her attacked to propel your own career is so against the grain of everything we know that sports should be. This whole story is just, like I said, it's wild.
Jessica: I feel like we should absolutely stay here that people with mental health are much more likely to be victims of violence than to perpetuate it against someone else. I feel a little questionable about these cops and like what they're saying as a motivation here. But this is just…This is like, if someone wrote this as fiction, you would be like, nuh-uh.
Lindsay: And I think that's why like when the story first came out, you know, it went viral, and then there was a lot of blowback to people spreading it at first. And especially because of race, and it felt like, you know, everyone was jumping to conclusions. And I just think it's like, it's a story where you do need to be really sensitive because obviously nobody in their right mind would do something like this. So like, you do want the perpetrator to get help, right? And that's where, if anything, it reminds me of the Tonya Harding situation. I think what was the case was that the truth was a lot more complicated than the media made that out now to be, and that there are a lot more layers to both sides, just as it seems like there are here. At the same time, there's obviously no excuse to order an attack on a teammate.
Jessica: [laughs] No.
Lindsay: Like, that's inexcusable, even…And as Jess mentioned, there are a lot of people with mental health disorders who do not enact violence and perpetuate violence, and so…Oh, god, this is just really scary. Shireen, how have their teammates reacted?
Jessica: Yeah, that was my question.
Shireen: The thing is, that's a fair question. I actually interviewed Ashley Lawrence for something different very shortly after this happened, and her presser was clear that that was not a question that was going to be asked. And it's PSG and they're very tight with their PR machine and their comms, so nobody has said anything about anything. Like, the closest was that the men's side, Kylian Mbappé did speak publicly in support of Diallo when it happened the first time. And he's like, the police and the way the investigation was going, he didn't trust that fully, right? And of course it's okay for racialized folks and totally normal to be suspicious of those systems and processes.
Lindsay: Totally.
Shireen: So, that came up. But even after Diallo was arrested again, PSG hasn't said anything, because technically she's not associated with the team. So there's that idea that we don't have to say anything because she's not on contract with them. Her contract expired.
Lindsay: But wasn't she when this happened?
Shireen: She was, but she's not now, and so she was rearrested. So I feel like that's a very French thing to do of, [joking French accent] well, I'm not good going to talk about it, it’s not a problem – you know, kind of thing.
Jessica: Well, I feel like that's a normal sports thing. [Shireen laughs] Like, someone does something, they cut 'em off the team and they're like, we don't have to talk about it now because they're a former player. [laughs]
Shireen: We don’t have to talk about it.
Lindsay: I wonder what media availability is like and what the press is like, because like I do think that in, you know, America, reporters would keep pressing for answers on this at press conferences and everything. And there is this thing…You obviously wanna respect everyone involved and not force teammates to answer, but I can't imagine like a year of press conferences going by without, you know, this being brought up. Even if the team tried to make it not brought up. I don't know. This is just wild.
Shireen: I mean, it's something that I felt like will be made into a movie, some type of film about it, particularly when women's football in France is actually on the upswing and people are paying attention to it a lot more since the Women's World Cup in 2019. So it's just, it also made me feel terribly sad. Yeah, no anal beads here. No.
Lindsay: It's not fun. I mean, like I get the instinct to kind of laugh at the absurdity of it, right? And I think we're all…I know I've certainly been guilty of hearing stories and being like, oh my god, [laughs] like, what is happening? You know, type of laughter. But you're right. I'm sad for everyone involved.
Shireen: Yeah. Lindsay?
Lindsay: Alright. I've got a couple of cheating things I wanna talk about. One is I just kind of wanna quickly bring up, because it's been in the news so much this week, is baseball. This is obviously kind of, I guess, a more conventional cheating story than the others we've covered so far. But let's just quickly kind of bring up the fact that Aaron Judge is having this incredible season. As we're recording this, he has hit 61 home runs, tying Roger Maris’s home run record from 1961, which is remarkable. But the fanfare around this has treated this as if it is the home run record, the main home run record, and that if he gets to 62, he will be the home run king. But Sammy Sosa hit 63 home runs in ’99 and 64 in 2001, and 66 in '98. Mark McGwire hit 65 home runs in ’99 and 70 and ’98, and Barry Bonds has the record. He hit 73 in 2001.
Obviously Sosa and McGwire and Bonds are all part of the steroid era of baseball, before baseball took testing for steroids seriously. A lot of people put asterisks by all of their records and don't take them into account. But these actually still exist in the record books. They actually happened, and we can't pretend that they didn’t. Even Aaron Judge himself has said 73 is the record. You know, Roger Maris Jr. is coming out and saying clean records matter, which just, like…I’m sorry, the “matter” thing, you know? Just like, get out of that.
Jessica: Yeah.
Lindsay: But I just wanna read something from Matt Snyder at CBS Sports, which kind of puts how all of this just has to be put into context, right? In 1961, Roger Ramirez hit 61 home runs. It was an expansion year, so the product was more watered down than in previous seasons. Also, the AL schedule expanded to 162 games. With that context, you need to ding Maris a bit. All the stars aligned pretty well for his career year to get him to exactly 61 home runs. Rather convenient. If we did penalize Maris even slightly, it's on to Babe Ruth and his 60 homers in 1927. Only then, the league wasn't integrated yet. So can we really say the real home run record came in a league that didn't allow players of color? If we're gonna start throwing asterisks on numbers, every single 60+ homer season in history has one.
Jessica: And like, you're crossing your fingers that the person you're calling is clean. I mean, we don't know anything about Aaron Judge, like, whether or not he's doping, and there's no indication at this point that he is. But everything we know about baseball and doping, you are really honestly crossing your fingers. And also, you know, the home run race, steroid era, that was fun times.
Lindsay: It was so fun. It was so good. [laughter]
Jessica: I enjoyed it so much. I remember I was turning on the TV to watch these men hit baseballs, and it's still hard, even if you're juiced up, it's really hard to make that ball and that bat meet in the right way in order to put them over.
Lindsay: Yeah. I think you can appreciate what Aaron Judge is doing and you can feel however you wanna feel.
Jessica: Oh, absolutely.
Lindsay: But I just think it's so weird to just try and pretend that the history books don't exist in the way that they do.
Shireen: So, I have a question about this. So, I don't follow baseball except to look really cute in Blue Jays uniforms. But do they not test? So these places don't test regularly for steroids, or they do now?
Lindsay: They do now, yeah. They didn't during what is called the steroid era.
Jessica: Yeah. But you know, what that means is that people are still pushing up against that line. The idea that people are not doping anymore is not believable, even if they're testing for like outright anabolic steroids or whatever at this point.
Lindsay: But I wanted to finish with one that kind of is more in the theme of the rest of what we started with, which is there's another cheating controversy, this time in poker. This just happened like over the weekend. So, over at Defector, Patrick Redford kind of wrote about it. And guys, I don't know much about poker terminology, [Shireen laughs] but I'll read it. “Some truly wild poker nonsense went down during the Hustler Casino Live stream on Thursday, which resulted in multiple notes app statements on potential cheating, the flapping of a seemingly unflappable player, and more than a quarter million dollars being passed back and forth for reasons nobody could quite figure out. It begins in this clip in which Garrett Adelstein, one of the best players in the world, goes all in on an open-ended flush draw, and loses to Robbi Jade Lew, a less experienced player, after she stayed in on a hand she shouldn't have, and won with a jack-high.”
Here's what I understand about this situation, because a lot of that didn't make any sense to me, okay? Basically, both hands were very bad. There was a lot of bluffing involved, and based on standard rules that most high profile poker people follow, all rationale said that she should not have stayed in that hand, because it looked like he had a better hand, and it's very suspicious that she stayed in the hand throughout and kept calling. She kind of just got lucky at the end. Of course, she says it's a hero call, which is when you keep calling a bluff, you know, but you're bluffing too, but then you end up winning at the end. But the man says she was cheating. He essentially bullied her into giving him the money back, and then he made a six part notes app apology about it. I've spent about 30 minutes on this story, and I hate this man. [laughs] That’s all I could say. His name is Garrett Adelstein. I'm not gonna hide my bias. I hate this man.
Jessica: Six pages! Ooh. Images?
Lindsay: Six images, you know what I mean? Like, screenshots. And so first of all, if you watch the video, which might as well be in a foreign language to me. But it says that, you know, everyone in this video, all the poker players looked exactly like you think they're gonna look. So, this woman is the only woman at this table playing against all the men.
Jessica: Of course.
Lindsay: I think that the dealer might have been a woman too. But the condescending fucking way these men were laughing at this woman and talking down to her made me, like, I felt like I could run a marathon of just punching these people. [Jessica laughs] That’s how like fired up I got. Let me just read you a little bit from his six part notes application…I promise I'm not gonna read all six parts, because you might be wondering how do you cheat in poker beyond just being like a card shark? Which it seems like, like Shireen's mom… [Shireen laughs] But it seems like there would be–
Jessica: There's video!
Lindsay: It’s on live stream. So I was curious. So here's his explanation. He says, “I'm well aware the scariest/easiest way for someone to cheat on live stream is to have a device hidden that simply vibrates to indicate that you have the best hand. I'm sure the plan was to miniraise the turn and win the hand on the river when I don't improve. But all that changed when I read her for extremely weak in the turn and made an unorthodox play by raising all in. At that point, she would know she still had the best hand if she had such a hidden. And her lack of more in depth poker knowledge made it so she didn't understand that calling there would always be a dead giveaway.”
Jessica: So this is just…This could just be that she did something super risky in a risky game.
Lindsay: Exactly!
Jessica: And it just happened to pay off this time.
Lindsay: Yes.
Jessica: That's the actual…Okay.
Lindsay: That's what it seems is actually…Because here's the key thing. He does say in his statement that he is certain there is 0% chance that the ownership is involved. So he's a 100% sure she cheated, there’s 0% chance of the Hustler Casino Live stream group ownership is involved. And I read some of the Twitter replies, because I was really curious like what the poker community kind of was feeling about this. And I kind of expected a lot of bros to be like, yeah, man, yeah, yeah. No! A lot of people are just calling him out on his bullshit! They're like, you are a sore loser. This is the sorest loser thing we've ever seen. This guy Jason said, “You were a 100% certain she cheated and also 100% certain the operations were not involved in alleged cheating? I am 100% certain you don't know what 100% means.” [laughs]
A guy named Lord Boothby said, “No evidence of cheating provided. Or any theory as to how it happened. Hate to say it, but it looks like an inexperienced newcomer on the stream being bullied into paying back what she won by a respected big name pro.” And another guy just said, “The most long-winded way I've ever seen someone confess to the world that they're an absolute bitch.” [laughs]
Jessica: Which, yeah! I mean, yeah. It sounds like the cheater here is this guy who felt like he could bully someone he lost to into giving the money back.
Shireen: Yeah. That's terrible.
Jessica: Like, that's the actual cheat.
Lindsay: Yeah. Right. She didn't play exactly the way he wanted her to, exactly the way he expected her to.
Jessica: Which sounds like maybe she technically made bad choices, you know?
Lindsay: Yeah.
Jessica: She's the less experienced one, but it just happened to work out because card playing is…
Lindsay: Because it's random. It's random.
Jessica: Random. Thank you. That's the word I wanted. Huh. Men. I love that you brought us an “Ugh, men!” story. [laughs]
Lindsay: So we're just finishing with sexism, right? I'm gonna finish with Robbi Jade Lew's response. She said, “I read the man and made a hero call after he shoves on a turn brick card. Get over it. I'll say it again, like I've said before, I'm not playing nice in the sandbox anymore. Make it right or don’t. I don't give a fuck.” That's her hashtag #IDGAF. She said, “I've already moved on. I'll make it back either way.”
Shireen: Wow.
Jessica: Get over it!
Shireen: On Tuesday, Jessica spoke with three women in US Rugby: Kerri Heffernan, who has been part of rugby in the US for many decades and is currently the chair of the Women's Rugby Coaches and Referees Association; Kat Aversano, the head coach of Howard University women's rugby team; and Alycia Washington, one of the top current players in the US.
Alycia Washington: In no other sport will you find people wearing other teams' colors but cheering for the other team when they do something well. It’s like, it's a weird thing where we're just there for good rugby and good competition and for the advancement of the sport. You know, it's truly hard to describe unless you're involved in it, but the camaraderie of it, it's unparalleled, in my opinion.
Shireen: Listen to get ready for the Rugby Union World Cup that starts Saturday, October 8th in New Zealand.
Shireen: Onto everyone's favorite segment, the burn pile. Lindsay, what are you burning this week?
Lindsay: All right. I wanna talk about everything that's been going on in the NFL and concussions with Tua Tagovailoa. This has just been incredibly excruciating to watch. A little bit on Tua: He's from Hawaii, he went to Alabama, was the number five overall pick in the 2020 draft by the Dolphins. He's a quarterback, and he is been having a great season. He was the AFC offensive player of the week for week two of the NFL. But in week three against the Buffalo Bills, he went down and hit his head hard on the turf. He grabbed his head, got up, and then stumbled as he was leaving the game walking to the sidelines. His teammates kind of had to grab him. Seemed very clear to everyone involved that he had a concussion. But he received an initial concussion test, and after halftime he was cleared and played in that exact same game. The Dolphins, explaining this away, said that it was actually a back injury that he had aggravated. This was incredibly concerning just as is.
The NFLPA, in a pretty unprecedented move – this does not happen often – announced after that game that it was launching an investigation into whether protocols were followed. Well, just four days later, the Dolphins played in a Thursday night football game, and Tua was the starting quarterback. In that Thursday night football game, he was sacked in the second quarter, and he hit his head hard again against the turf, and then demonstrated what is known as the fencing response, where his hands immediately seized and cramped up into unnatural conditions, which is a clear sign of neurological trauma and of a concussion, and a pretty serious one at that. It was a very, very scary moment. Second impact syndrome, which is where you're not recovered fully from one concussion and then you could sustain another, is deadly. It can kill. It has killed many times. It is one of the scariest possible injuries out there.
Tua was stretchered off the field and taken to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center. But he was discharged later that night and flew home with the team. He is sidelined indefinitely. But I think it's pretty clear that this never should have happened. Over the weekend, it was announced that the unaffiliated neurotrauma consultant who was involved in the concussion check during the Bills game was fired. So, NFL protocol. There's a team doctor that looks at you and then an unaffiliated doctor who looks at you, and both of them have to clear you for you to get back into the game. Well, like I said, part of this NFLPA investigation found that this unaffiliated neurotrauma consultant skipped some steps and messed up some steps and should not have approved Tua to get back on the field. But I just wanna burn all of this. You know, NFLPA are saying they're working on revamping their guidelines, but I think that honestly this shows that we might be a little bit too worried about guidelines, that we've lost all fucking common sense here. There's one thing about following a checklist, and then there's another thing completely about ignoring the very clear eye test.
When someone stumbles, when they lose their balance, when they clutch their head, these are signs of brain injury. These are signs that the player cannot control in the immediate moment. These are signs that something is wrong, and that needs to be taken far, far more seriously by the league. It's absolutely sickening that a player like Tua, and many others that don't get the attention that Tua does because they're not a star quarterback, are put in a position where they're risking their literal futures, their brains, their thoughts, their ideas, their lives in order to play a game. I don't even have really anything snarky to say. It's just absolutely devastating. And all I hope is that by some miracle Tua ends up being okay. But I also fear that if he is okay, that everything will be swept under the rug completely. And that's another devastating thing, right? Because I don't wanna wish him any harm. But the coaches, the team doctors, the league itself, everyone should have stepped in. Burn.
All: Burn.
Shireen: I'm gonna go next. So, this past week, Tunisia was playing Brazil in a friendly, a pre-World Cup friendly at Parc des Princes in France. And what emerged was a banana being thrown in a racist attack on one of the players from Brazil. And you know, this is awful. So, Richarlison is a player. He plays for Tottenham Hotspurs in the English Premier League, and Richarlison de Andrade is a player who the banana was thrown at, arguably by Tunisian supporters. You're like, what the fuck? Why is this still happening? Like, it's awful. It's awful. And he was really upset. So, it was after his goal. He scored to bring it up to 2-1, and there were many different objects thrown at him, including bottles. But the banana landed right at his feet. And so he didn't actually…It’s reported that he didn’t seem to notice at the time, and it was pointed out to him.
You know, this has happened before. We've seen it particularly with Brazil. We remember a famous incident in 2014 of Danny Alves who ended up taking the banana, taking a bite, and then throwing it back towards the stands. But you know, this is something that is dreadful. It's awful. And Richarlison actually put in a tweet out there that until the police don't find the perpetrator and do something about it, this will continue every day and everywhere – and by every day and everywhere, he meant racism. It's awful. And Brazil ended up winning 5-1 over Tunisia. Not a surprise to anyone. Also completely not the point. The point is that this type of behavior is not acceptable anywhere, ever. And I wanna take all this, I wanna take the racism on the pitch, which is something I'm not looking forward to hearing about or seeing in the Men's World Cup, but it continues day to day. There should be crackdowns on this. This is not allowed. It's abusive and it's violence. I wanna take this and I wanna burn it. Burn.
All: Burn.
Shireen: Jess, can you wrap this up?
Jessica: Yeah, I can. Italy has elected its new government, and it is what the BBC has described as “Italy's most right-wing government since World War II.” It's not technically official yet, but the Prime Minister who will lead this government is Giorgia Meloni, a far-right – one might say fascist, or if you're being nice like the Guardian, “fascist-adjacent” – politician. Her party is rooted in the movement that arose out of Mussolini’s fascist supporters after the war. She has blatantly said – and just get ready, this woman's terrible. She has blatantly said, “Yes to the natural family. No to the LGBT lobby. Yes to sexual identity. No to gender ideology. No to Islamist violence. Yes to secure borders. No to mass migration. No to big international finance. No to the bureaucrats of Brussels.” In short, she's a hater of most people in groups, to say the least.
Here's how one writer at the Guardian summed Meloni up: “What's indisputable is that Meloni is a radical ultra-conservative who opposes gay adoption, fetishizes idealized confections of a traditional family unit she did not herself grow up in, associates refugee arrivals with crime and prostitution, and rallies against the influence of those eternally slippery, hazily undefined globalists.” She's terrible. So of course it took literally no time – we are talking mere days after the election – for the head of the International Olympic Committee, Thomas Bach, to meet with Meloni in Rome. And the IOC proudly proclaimed as much through their media arm, featuring a photo of Bach and Meloni smiling for the cameras. They were meeting because Italy is hosting the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milano and Cortina. Meloni told Bach during the meeting, “These Games are very important for us. Italy is more than able to stage magnificent Games, and we want to impress the world again. You can count on us.” Hmm.
Friends of the show NOlympics LA responded to the IOC’s tweet featuring their announcement of this meeting with an image of the Olympic torch being run into Berlin, with swastikas serving as the backdrop decoration, and the words, “The 1936 Olympic Organizing Committee would be proud.” There is something deeply chilling about seeing the IOC give its full-throated support to the woman who will lead the closest government to Mussolini since World War II. The echoes are loud, and we should assume based on everything we know about the Olympics and fascism that someone like Meloni and the people in her party would love to use the 2026 Games to bolster their nationalism and their standing in the country. We are four years away from the Olympics in Italy, and who knows who will be in charge of the country when the Games arrive, but I want to burn how quickly the IOC was willing to get their media reps in with a politician whose beliefs are a direct reminder of the worst of the Olympics' own history. There is no floor when it comes to the IOC, ever. So burn.
All: Burn.
Shireen: We here at Burn It All Down want to extend our deepest condolences to the families and the communities affected by the football stadium tragedy in the Java province of Indonesia. At least 125 people were killed in the soccer stampede, which includes 17 children. FIFA has called for an independent investigation, and Indonesian football authorities will be conducting their own incident report. Lives are more precious than soccer, said Arema FC president Gilang Widya Pramana. Inna Lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’un – to him we belong, and to him we return.
Shireen: After all that burning, let's lift up some amazing people. Linz, can you get us started?
Lindsay: Yeah. The FIBA World Cup has wrapped up. USA won gold. China won silver. And Australia, behind a phenomenal performance by Lauren Jackson, won bronze. I do see mentioned here, [Shireen laughs] and I'm guessing it's because Shireen wrote, that Canada did win fourth. You know, we usually bring up the fourth place winner. [laughter]
Jessica: When it's Canada, we do.
Lindsay: But it was a phenomenal tournament. I wish the time zone change hadn't made it so hard for me to watch, but it's okay, because the FIBA Women's Basketball World Cup in 2022 in Sydney is confirmed to have been the highest attendance ever in the history of the competition.
Shireen: I wanted to shout out Mayar Sherif, the first Egyptian woman to win a WTA tournament. She won the Parma Ladies Open. It was the first top 10 win of her career.
Jessica: The OL Reign are the 2022 NWSL Shield winner. They beat the Orlando Pride in front of a home record 10,746 person crowd to take it. Also, cheers to the San Diego Wave’s Alex Morgan, who is this season's Golden Boot winner with 15 regular season goals.
Lindsay: I love this one. USA Hockey’s national sled team won the first international para hockey cup of 2022, beating Canada 4-0 in the final. This is the seventh straight IPH title for the US team.
Jessica: Maria Sole Ferrieri Caputi became the first woman to referee a Serie A match in its 124 year history. She officiated the match between Sassuolo and Salernitana. In her Twitter bio, Ferrieri Caputi says that she has a PhD and is a researcher.
Shireen: Can I get a drumroll please?
[drumroll]
Torchbearers of the week are all the Puerto Rican athletes winning their games, tournaments, for their country. After Hurricane Fiona's devastation on the island of Puerto Rico, many of the island’s residents still remain without power. It's been almost two weeks after the storm. But during that time, a couple of teams played international tournaments despite what is happening at home, and we'd like to hold them up. On September 18th, the Puerto Rican men's ice hockey team that plays in the division one of the Amerigol LATAM Cup final won its first championship with a 4-3 Victory against Argentina at the Florida Panthers IceDen in Coral Springs, Florida. They dedicated their win to their country, and this is just hours after the initial storm hit. And during the FIBA Women's World basketball championships, Puerto Rico advanced to the quarterfinals for the first time in tournament history. And like the men's hockey champs, they dedicated their victory to the victims of the hurricane.
Shireen: Let's talk about what's good. Lindsay, what is good?
Lindsay: I am at the beach right now. I am coming get to you from my aunt's beach house in North Carolina, Oak Island specifically. Literally beach front. I mean, I'm still working all week. I've got a full week of work, but I feel so at peace and so happy. I've gotta say, it is easier to do work when you can hear the ocean. It just is. [Jessica laughs] Also, this place has a kitchen. I have not had a kitchen for four months. I've cooked every meal so far. My aunt gave me a long list of restaurants to try. Haven't tried one yet. I've just been cooking. Very happy.
Jessica: Aw. I love that.
Shireen: I love that too. Are you sleeping better by the ocean? Do you find that you sleep better?
Lindsay: I mean, I was just so tired when I got here because there was work being done in my place all last week. So I haven't had a normal sleep schedule and I've been moving things. I've been moving furniture all by myself. It has just been like…The first night I was here, I slept a crazy amount of time, but that was just because I think I just collapsed. So, I don't know. I think just any sleep right now feels like better sleep.
Shireen: Well, your selfies are gorgeous. I love that. [laughs]
Lindsay: Thank you.
Shireen: I went apple picking on Saturday, which y'all know is like one of my favorite activities. I love, love, love, love autumn. I love the fall. I went on a wagon. I went with my husband's family. The women do like a trip every year, and I got all Macintosh apples, a couple of Spartan, and I found a couple of pear trees, which is very exciting. I don't bake, but I do make a really good apple crisp, and I do actually throw in some pears because Macintosh apples, as you know, are quite tart, which I also love. But last week I was in Portland, Oregon, and I had so much fun. I was invited by friend of the show, Dr. Jules Boykoff. I hung out and I met his chickens, and I particularly had a bonding moment with one named Luna. Luna was great. I talked to her. Really cool feathers. I figured, like, we chilled.
And I got to see a Thorns game, which was very exciting because it was my first time watching Christine Sinclair play as a Thorn. I've actually never watched her play as a Thorn. I've only ever seen play for the Canadian women's national team. So, that was really fun. We won. It was a great, great game. And I haven't seen an NWSL game since before the pandemic, so it's been a really long time for me in person. So it was so fun to be there. I also saw friend of the show, DeVon Pouncey, who was wonderful. And I got to take Mark and Portland's a cool city, so it was just really nice to be…I'm very tired. I don't do well when I travel west. Like, I feel like I can go to Europe and whatever, and I'm fine if I go east. If I go west, it messes up my clock. So, I'm still adjusting, and the apples are helping. So that's my happiness. Jess, what's making you happy?
Jessica: Well, I’m gonna see y'all in a few days. [laughter]
Lindsay: Oh yeah!
Jessica: So, Burn It All Down is doing a live show on Tuesday, October 11th at 7:00pm at Notre Dame in the Browning Cinema, which is in the Performing Arts Center. So if you're anywhere in that area, do go onto our social medias, because you do have to request a ticket. It's free to the public, but there are tickets involved. I don't know all the mechanisms of that, but make sure you go do that if you are going to come see us. We hope that you are. So that is absolutely great. Getting my hair done tomorrow in preparation. This weekend I made yeast donuts in the air fryer, and that was good. That was good. Glazed, made the glaze. I just love yeast. [laughs] I love it. It was wonderful.
And I wanna say one more time, the day this episode drops, I'm gonna be moderating a discussion at BookPeople here in Austin at 7:00pm between Caryn Rose, author of Why Patty Smith Matters, and The Go-Go's bassist Kathy Valentine, whose memoir is titled All I Ever Wanted. Again, that is Thursday, October 6th at 7:00pm at BookPeople in Austin. I'm so excited about this. The books are wonderful. I can't believe that I get to sit with these two women and talk about women in rock and roll, including a member of The Go-Go’s. Just, it’s going to be very cool.
Shireen: I would like to add that I've been rallying hard to have Go-Go's music played in an episode somewhere. I have to find one song. So I'm really excited to see y'all also. I have so many ideas.
Jessica: [laughs] I dunno what that means, but…
Shireen: Think of top of the show, but in real life. I’m so excited. [laughs] So this is what we're watching this week: the Rugby Union World Cup, as mentioned, which runs from October 8th to November 12th. The NWSL playoffs–
Jessica: They don't start for another week though.
Shireen: Yeah, but they do not start for another week. That's it for this episode of Burn It All Down. This episode was produced by Tressa Versteeg. Shelby Weldon is our web and social media wizard. Burn It All Down is part of the Blue Wire podcast network. Follow Burn It All Down on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Listen, subscribe and rate the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, and TuneIn. For show links and transcripts, check out our website, burnitalldownpod.com. You'll also find a link to our merch at our Bonfire store. And if you wanna become a sustaining donor to our show, visit patreon.com/burnitalldown. Burn on, and not out.