More poker tournament cheat-claims levelled at Partouche and other French companies

Source: pokernewsreport

There was uproar yesterday at the Palm Beach Casino in Cannes after Partouche withdrew the guarantee from their Main Event – two days after the event started!

When a major poker tournament offers a fixed prize guarantee, you pretty much expect it to still be in existence the day after you sit down to play in it. Unfortunately it is becoming a habit amongst French poker companies to first announce a guarantee and then withdraw it. First it was the €20 million no-longer-guaranteed ISPT and now the Partouche Poker Tour has got in on the act – announcing a 4.3 million Euro prize pool while their web site still advertises a 5 million Euro guarantee for the Partouche Poker Tour Main Event.
Players at the tournament reacted angrily to the news, with Todd Terry and Justin Bonomo the first to alert poker fans via twitter and asking those following the event to send them screenshots where it could be seen that the guarantee was promised. Word (again via Twitter) from Canadian pro Peter Jetten was that «One of the head Partouche people told me “this was not a guarantee but a marketing trick» and the online poker forums came alive with tales of how players had been scammed by Partouche Poker in the past.

My take: Well, I think some of these players are overreacting to Partouche's reducing the prize guarantee. Of course it's a marketing gig and not outright cheating. The fact is, these French companies are putting on good tournaments with big enough prize money. If the prize amounts vary from time to time, the players have to accept it. If I were them, I´d worry more about the online poker companies that allow major poker cheat scams to victimize its players.