The PokerStars meet and greet for online qualifiers to 2018 PokerStars and Monte-Carlo©Casino EPT was meant to be a fun occasion for satellite winners to eat, drink and mingle with poker pros from the PokerStars roster.

For at least one partygoer, though, it turned confrontational.

"I hate him!" he exclaimed upon seeing popular Twitch streamer and PokerStars Team Online's Lex Veldhuis.

The unsuspecting Dutchman waded into the room, which appeared be relaxed enough as people slowly filtered in and munched on lamb kebabs and sipped beer and wine. He quickly found himself accosted.

The aggrieved player, an online qualifier from Finland by the name of Tuomo Niskanen, revealed the source of his consternation. A budding streamer himself, he occasionally tuned in to Veldhuis' channel and found himself as a peripheral character in the show when the two shared a table. Veldhuis has a habit of tagging many of his opponents, and Niskanen didn't appreciate the label he was given.

"You have me with a fish tag!" Niskanen said pointedly.

Veldhuis wore the guilty smile of a kid who had been caught pilfering from the cookie jar.

"Fun tag," he said. "I play for fun, too."

Veldhuis explained further that the fun tag could have been simply the result of an instantaneous impression. Like an observer who immediately thinks Stephen Curry is a poor shooter because he missed an open shot, Veldhuis uses a snap-judgment method. That is, if he's seated with an untagged player, he automatically assumes the player is inexperienced and tags them right away so he has everyone categorized.

There are too many opponents on too many different tables to wait for any kind of sample size.

That explanation didn't appear to sway Niskanen.

"I have played with you a lot of times and you haven't changed it," he said suspiciously.

If Veldhuis was going to spend the evening under fire, he wasn't going to do it sober. He excused himself to grab a beer, and when he returned, the conversation continued with Niskanen continuing to express mock outrage.

The Finnish player went on to tell Veldhuis that he might want to pay a bit more attention to some of his tags. A friend of Niskanen's who has had plenty of success online, including wins in Sunday majors, still bears a "fun" tag as well on the stream, he said.

"That should tell you something," Veldhuis protested, still defending himself. "Sometimes, I get it wrong. Now, I'm not playing against him the way I should."

"Not anymore," someone nearby said with a laugh. "Now, you snitched on him!"

A video team soon hustled Veldhuis away to film a spot on the balcony, where more online qualifiers mingled with beers in hand, taking in the dusky ocean view or lounging on couches.

One such qualifier could be heard throughout the party, piping out thunderous laughs and booming French yells. Identifying himself only as "Jean," he said he played online as "173800" on PokerStars.

He said he won his seat to EPT Monte Carlo in three minutes, taking down a series of three Spin & Gos before spending the next hour exulting alone in his home.

Jean proclaimed himself to have no chance of winning the Main Event. And he didn't mind because "I don't like the money." The only thing that mattered, he said, was his family and friends, and if he made it into the money, he'd spend it all to fly his people in so they could all have a good time.

While Veldhuis had disappeared by this time — perhaps scampering to get online and change certain tags on PokerStars — other sponsored players had arrived. Andre Akkari and Maria Konnikova joined Ben "Spraggy" Spragg inside as waiters settled dessert trays onto a table.

Niskanen was still around, and while the conversation had turned to other things — flat earthers and trying not to swear while wearing sponsorship patches — eventually, things circled back to Veldhuis and his fun tags.

Niskanen wanted revenge, and he hatched a plan with Marc Convey of PokerStars Blog to get it. Veldhuis was scheduled to appear on a "PokerStars Twitch Special" with other sponsored players to battle for Spring Championship of Online Poker tickets on a live stream.

Veldhuis would get his own tag, the two decided. They'd have a special patch made, and Niskanen would march onto the stage and label Veldhuis the way the Dutch pro labeled all the poor grinders on stream who crossed his path.

On Sunday, it went exactly as planned. A little while into the game, Niskanen made his entrance.

"How are you Lex?" he asked, leaning on Veldhuis shoulder. "Do you know what? On the live stream, you are the fish."

With that, he slapped a purple and blue fish onto Veldhuis' chest and the pro laughed and clasped Niskanen's hand.

"As soon as I saw your face, I knew it was going to be brutal," he said. "I deserved this."

Tags: Lex Veldhuis