Broke Poker Pro Now Owes $60K To Twoplustwo
May 7, 2014 3:12 pmOnce the toast of the poker world, Russell “Dutch” Boyd has gone through some trying times since winning his second career WSOP bracelet in 2010, and a year after Black-Friday the pro surprised the poker community by admitting he was broke. As the then 32 year-old explained in a Reddit.com post:
“Fallen on hard times since poker’s black Friday and I’ve been job hunting for the last two months. With money running out, I decided to suck it up and get whatever job I can, even if it’s washing dishes for minimum wage.”
A few years later, and Boyd’s situation has deteriorated further as he has now been slapped with an almost $60K bill ($25k in statutory damages and $33,985 in attorney fees) for infringing the trademark of poker strategy resource publisher Twoplustwo. Apparently, several year back Boyd registered the domain name “twoplustwopoker.com” before then linking it to a poker strategy web site.
In 2009, Two Plus Two Publishing LLC subsequently filed a lawsuit against Boyd accusing him of cyber-squatting and willfully diverting traffic away from their site. Now the case has finally been concluded after the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with a March 2012 judgement against Boyd, with Twoplustwo owner Mason Malmuth soon after releasing a statement on his site, saying:
“Last week, the Ninth Circuit upheld Two Plus Two’s judgment in full, agreeing with the District Court that Boyd’s actions were wrongful and that Boyd acted in bad faith in registering the domain name at issue. The Ninth Circuit also confirmed that Boyd’s registration was willful and deliberate, and therefore that the award of Two Plus Two’s attorney’s fees was proper.”
Now the company just needs to retrieve the money from Dutch Boyd, which may be easier said than done as he hasn’t even cashed in at a live tournament in almost a year. With the 2014 World Series of Poker round the corner, however, the poker pro may get ample opportunities to strike it big and clear away some of his debts. As Boyd ironically explained to Pokernews, recently:
“[It’s] definitely a bad beat. I guess there is one more person rooting for me to have a really successful Series this summer.”