Home / Poker News September 2012 / Marred by Controversy, Partouche Poker Tour Ends
Marred by Controversy, Partouche Poker Tour Ends
Posted by: James Carter. - Fri, 2012-09-07 08:58
In a piece we ran a day ago we detailed the controversy surrounding the guarantee of the Partouche Poker Tour’s Main Event. Since then, the scandal blew up and it eventually resulted in the complete cancellation of the PPT by Patrick Partouche, owner of Groupe Partouche, the company behind the event.
The controversy broke out on Wednesday, when the total number of participants in the two day 1 flights became known and the organizers made the announcement that the prize-pool would be a €4,264,580 one, well short of the purportedly advertised €5 million guarantee.
It was then that players began questioning Partouche officials, only to learn that the additional €735k would not be added to the prize-pool.
Then, the Head of the Partouche Poker our, Maxime Masquelier came out swinging, telling the field that his company had never guaranteed the €5 million in writing.
This prompted players to dig up all sorts of evidence including a Google cache file according to which at one point the PPT had indeed advertised a €5 million guarantee in writing. Someone even came up with a video later in which Jean-Jacques Ichai, Partouche’s Director of Marketing, made the announcement about the €5 million. In response to that, Ichai put up a post on Facebook, in which he said he would present his resignation the following morning.
To top things off, Patrick Partouche, freshly back from a trip, took the mic at the beginning of day 3 of the
poker tournament to make the announcement that the PPT would not return for another year.
Partouche’s arguments were shrugged right off by the players though and as he was leaving the stage he got into a heated exchange with professional player Tristan Wade. Wade basically asked Partouche about the €5 million, to which Partouche replied that it had never been guaranteed, to which Wade said there was proof to the contrary everywhere. Several other players expressed their displeasure to Partouche before he eventually left the scene.
