How bad is the current Partouche Poker Tour scandal

If you’re a poker lifer like myself the last two years have been pretty difficult to swallow, never mind to digest, and it seems like we have yet another serious scandal brewing with the controversy over the Partouche Poker Tour not honoring a supposed guarantee and the subsequent announcement that the tour would be shutting after the current tournament (the Season 5 Main Event) concludes.

Before I get into the current scandal at the Partouche Poker Tour Main event, I want to look at the other scandals and black eyes the poker world

has had to suffer through in recent years.

April 15, 2011 – Black Friday

June 29, 2011 – Full Tilt Poker goes offline

February 29, 2012 — Epic Poker League collapses

And wedged between all of these issues was Absolute Poker and UB Poker folding, other seized domains, and the minor scams and cheating scandals like Chinese Collusion Teams, Chino Rheem’s bad debts, the Girah/DogisHead/Jungleman drama, Erick Lindgren’s Fantasy Football debts, Brad Booth’s scams, and the latest gossip suggesting high-stakes players had their computers hacked.

You could actually date the downfall of the poker boom back to 2006, when perhaps the most controversial WSOP Champion in the modern poker era was crowned, the passage of the UIGEA, and the first real hints that players were circumventing the rules at online poker sites (whether super-using or multi-accounting).

So where does the current scandal at the Partouche Poker Tour fit in to all of this? Well, in my opinion the PPT’s failure to honor the guarantee stated on their website, and the subsequent dismissal by the PPT’s CEO Patrick Partouche, who basically thumbed his nose at the poker community

as he announced the Partouche Poker Tour’s run in the poker world was coming to a close –going so far as to take a swipe at the players who voiced their concerns over the failure to honor the guarantee, even implying this was the genesis of the PPT’s decision to shut its doors.

Here is a look at the full remarks made in English by Patrick Partouche during his speech on Thursday:

“I have heard, I have seen and I have been told that what Groupe Partouche was doing was not sufficient, almost dishonest.

“The Partouche Poker Tour bears my name and my family’s name. After 40 years in this business, reading ‘Partouche is a liar, Partouche is a cheater,’ this I cannot accept, neither can my teams.

“That is why I am announcing to you that you are playing the last edition of Partouche Poker Tour. The Partouche will stop Sunday night. We are sailing toward new horizons, we hope that other operators will put as much energy, as much willpower, and as much love to ensure that t

his game goes on and remains as much loved and adored from all fanatics which I’m a part of, as I believe a lot of people here know fully well.

“I’ve created this tournament by passion, I don’t have to be ashamed of it. Now if some young ego-driven players, craving for recognition, who aren’t even in final tables, allow themselves to say that we have cheated, that we have lied, I cannot accept it.

“There you have it ladies and gentlemen, I am going to announce the ‘shuffle up and deal’ of what will be the last edition of Partouche Poker Tour and I will tell you in terms of conclusion something I was told not very long ago. I was told, “When being spat on, you don’t have to say that it’s raining.”“The €5 million prize pool has never been guaranteed in all publications that you may have seen. There may have been some communication which I would not call clumsy but rather ecstatic last year just as the tournament was ended.

“

watch?v=L3AyEcdJhaI&feature=player_embeddedThere are things that I accept and things that I don’t. The poker community will find its own. I kiss you all, I wish you a good tournament and I wish you to win the €1 million that has always been guaranteed and is guaranteed.”

Of course there have also been some victories for poker in these years, with PokerStars saving players’ deposits at Full Tilt Poker and the recent ruling calling poker a game of skill, but the big stories have been, and will always be, the controversies, and unfortunately the Partouche Poker Tour’s recent actions have been another kick in the gut for all of us poker lifers.