Live Poker Scandal. And They Said Online Was Rigged.

The news has been announced today by the director of french casino network Partouche: Ali Tekintamgak one of the nine player who qualified in september for the final table of the Partouche Poker Tour which will took place tomorrow (saturday 6th) has just been disqualified for cheating.

Details are not known yet, but the director told that they have proof on videos, have reported to the authorities and are pressing charge.

It seems that Ali Tekintamgak was already disqualified during EPT talling main event this year after being caught receiving signals from fake bloggers/journalists looking at his opponent cards.

Ali Tekintamgak won the WPT Barcelona in 2010 for 278,000 euros.

What's more, there had been rumours going on around the circuit that this kind of stuff has been happening for quite some time. Shaundeeb made a post a couple of months ago before this disqualification occurred about such cheating scandals that are rumoured to have taken place. 


There has also been a clip on youtube about Ali Tekintamgak in action with someone from the media clearly giving him a signal of his opponents hole-cards whilst heads-up in at EPT Barcelona:





This stuff is just insane. This Ali guy has previously had fake reporters escorted and banned from European casinos before but still nothing serious has been done about this. Until now.


What's more despite claims that Ali didn't know the journalist or had seen him before, here is a picture from the WSOP 2010 that clearly shows the same reporter from the video standing on the opposite side of the table to Ali checking out his opponents hole-cards:

Ali and his friends defend his team of personal bloggers stating that he is a big name on the European circuit. He claims that this is a racially driven attack on him being Turkish. Yet as one poster on the 2p2 forums points out:

"first of all ali ist not famous over here...fact is...this is the first time i have realy heard of him...and i am following the german poker szene for years now...it is suspicious that there is a whole blogger team following him...since there are a lot more successful german players and none of em has a own blogger team...i mean...does any livepro have an own bloggerteam...??

i grew up in the same area as one of the blogger and know him...and it is so out of line to say we germans are racists...i have tons of turkish friends...and especially with our history...we germans...are so so so so so so so fckn cautiously with racism of any form...so there is no way that this would ever be the reason for these allegations...absolutely no way...

a friend of mine...manuel blaschke...was at the WPT FT with ali...and here is his reaction to all this...

"OMG...this guy was standin behind me all the time @ the FT..."

"like 5 times where i open OTB, ali defended his BB...i cbet...and he shoves for 5xpot...and those where all boards...that hit my range pretty good and where coordinated...but i just couldnt call because i never had a hand..."

and manuel is a realy nice guy...def not talking ********...

Legal action is currently being undertaken about this scandal and a prison sentence for Ali Tekintamgak is not off the cards.


To read up more information on this check out:


The thread on 2p2
French news article with English summary at the end

 Ali's HendonMob page