lol

Thats pretty ignorant to say that "All French are cheaters and/or *******s". But those are very shady circumstances.Is anybody from the tour gonna try to save their reputation and/or tour?I would like to hear from someone on the inside.

Wouldn't this one be enough?

I must say, I live in Belgium and over here we also have some Partouche Casino's and I see the same things happening on a day to day basis. Regulars get favored even when 2 minutes later the exact same situation happens on an other table and they rule the opposite of what has been decided only a few minutes earlier. I don't think it might be the unwillingness to cooperate (from the staff or casino personel), but the bad Partouche guiding lines which are way to vague in lots of situations.

Though I must say in some situations they do favor regulars depending on who it is. Something what also disturbes me a lot in Partouche casino's (or any casino for that matter) is the lack of (willingness)to avoid ppl to collude. On a day to day basis there are groups of 4 to 5 'friends' who come to play, when there isn't any place left and 2 or 3 other ppl are on a list for a new table they just open up the new table. The 5 friends and the 3 others. This is a situation that by now is conditioned in the Partouche casinos imo. Now I'm not saying to avoid these casino's but these are unfortunately the only places where I've seen these things happen so forgive me if I'm being too selective in my decision.

This does not surprise me at all. I have actually never played in this casino or in France, but I have played a few days in Namur in the France part of Belgium and the general attitude of the poker staff there was really terrible and obvious in favor of the locals. And from what I have heard this is not uncommon. It helps that most French poker players are really terrible; left the end of the weekend with a healthy profit, but with an unhappy feeling about how you get treated there as a visitor. Something that has never happened with me in other casino's all around the world.

That said; you should be aware that rules with regards to mucking, dead hands and so forth do vary by country. I'm from The Netherlands and the local casino's certainly have some rules that are probably a bit different than the rest of the world. This one is I think pretty obvious for most players once you sit down, but there is for example a betting line and only once cards or chips cross that line an action is valid (unless you declare it verbally). So if someone pushes a stack of chips forward, but not over the line and you immediately shout call and turn over the nuts you probably will be unpleasantly surprised to see him pull back his stack and fold.

General advice when playing in unknown games, or in games where you think the floor is not good; just never do anything that could be misinterpreted or could result in a bad ruling. Always verbally declare your action. Never show cards unless you are 100% sure that you have to (if some French players says something French that ends on call, never assume that he called; wait till you see him put chips in the pot, and recheck by asking if that was a call). And never release your cards before you see the pot shipping your way. Also never say anything during a hand that could be misinterpreted as declaring an action, or making a motion that could be misinterpreted as such.

This should basically keep you out of trouble if the floor is not good (or worse) or you simply don't know all the rules, and you should never assume that you know all the rules (because there is always some bizarre rule at every casino) and even the best floor can make mistakes.

non-french is the new black

How come you played the €3k today mement?

uhh he didn't

Let me guess - you are Euro and you assume every complaint against the French comes from the US? Seems like you are the boorish one and you are just building on the lolfrench stereotype.

Oh soz must have been a lookalike my bad

this is disgusting.

Most people understood, but you did not. It was a simple play on the typical lolfrench attitude. I will make sure to be more direct next time.

In casinos that have a lot of regulars and not many tourists, those regulars will usually have big advantages over randoms, and even randoms from the same nation will have small advantages over random foreigners. The reasons being:

- Some regs will have personal relationships with pit bosses and dealers that usually involves hidden romance, and sometimes promise of getting introduced to some other employer in another casino.

- Most regulars will also be losing fish in other casino games and will be "vip", never to be messed with (while also trying to make it look like they aren't looked after). In any decision, the person in charge has to make sure he or she doesn't get involved in a big problematic situation vs. a regular casino fish.

- Some people may have a reputation of being honest who think a big buyin event is the right time to exploit it.

- Because the casino doesn't have many customers regularly, most dealers and some pit bosses won't be well trained, which may lead them to listen to what other players saying, usually ending up in believing to the people who speak their own language. In a game where I go 5 times a week and there is a decision that hands on balance (or even slightly in the other party's favor) you can be 100% sure that if I say my opinion out loud, even if the pit boss won't ask me and won't look like he or she is listening to me, he or she will usually believe what I am saying.


I am speaking from a lot of experience both as a customer and as a guy who had personal relations with casino employees. I am typing these so that people who go to these events in a casino that has 1 big event all year and a small number of regs for the rest of the time, you should know what to expect.

I don't agree this kind of thing should ever happen and do think you should post about it, warn people, and possibly put pressure on the casino.

The most important thing you can do to defend yourself is:

Realize who the winning regulars are, and be friends with them. Ask them how much they are winning, tell them if you can exchange contact info you can let them know about other events in europe, but don't look like an organiser or someone whose job is to attract players, you will be despised. Look exactly like a winning poker regular who is just trying to be friends because you are similar people. People will sympathize a lot with fellow regs that are there only once a year, and will protect you against stuff like these. I can't remember the number of times I decided to get involved in a situation because I had a small chat with a person in question, and the number of times I totally ignored, not wasting my credit on someone I didn't know.

That said, it's sad to hear you were in a position to be cheated, and had to get involved with this kind of thing. Good that you posted about it. Now enjoy your luckbox!

so much rage in me, it seriously makes me sick to my stomach

You're probably not aware that Americans are considered oafish all across Europe (it's not one country btw)/most of the world! Whilst I'm sure it's just an unfortunate generalisation, you should be aware of it.

+1

For years I've been doing this. Waiting until I have the pot and every card is in the muck before I hand my cards to the dealer.

A new witness, a well known player, says that the non french player, once he showed his hand, the floor decided to declare the hand dead. THEN, the french showed his hand, and THEN, the non french said "I'm allin".

Business is Business BuddY...
Don't cry on MTT variance lol...
I agree non-french should pay higher Rake lol...

lol @ Cercle Wagram is okey (own by Corse): you better count the ships in pot when you are not a reg in the area and the dealer is not your friend...
Mafia own Casino... is that new?

Listen, French Poker market just opened... Partouche need French Stars, need French Winners, need buzz in France for his Casinos, need to make the Poker work out in France... Poker is already unfair for us in France cause of the crazy Rake we pay, the crazy laws... We need the Poker boom in France to help... On TV Show, on papers, on Internet, in Casinos we need to see French Winners to make the Business growing to help us, to help us to have more traffic and to help us to change the Gov laws on Poker too...
Do you know that Red Pro got 100% RB and some people got BI payed by sponsors? ... You really should open a Thread for this IMO... lol (same story at the end of the days)

lol @ Roumanian story, please stop being paranoid... what do you mean they are on the same table to kill/help each other, so French are together too for same reasons, what the point, did you notice that on some table more peoples was wearing shirt and on some other table more peaple was wearing jeans?... Life is not easy, especially when you are born non French... you are not the favorite in the hand lol...

GL
Peace

^^ Lol

Agree with ******oFrog, it's ok for the French to cheat in their home tournaments because they need french stars,

The French are tight... They stick together. If you're in a poker table dispute with a Local Frenchman, in France, with a French floor man, in a French tournament... you most likely are a dog for a favorable floor man ruling despite what happened.

I played this event last year and took 5th. Not only was I shocked at some of the rulings I saw during the tournament, I couldn't believe the lack of poker/English experience of some of the high ranking floor man/rules officials.

If you watch video of the final table you will see first hand, for lack of a better word collusion. The two French guys who took 1st and 2nd were buddies and obviously swapping action. Fine, great, people swap action all the time. However when you are going deep in a tournament, and you have a financial interest in another player at a shorthanded table, awkward spots like this one happen...... During the final table I think like 6 handed at this point they get into a blind battle with each other. They are both relatively shallow because it's late in the tourny. I'm Pretty sure the hand went as follows although it was last Nov. Guy raises AK from SB into his buddy. His buddy from the big blind who is a rather aggressive French player looks at the other French guy kinda funny, then reraises his AA. The initial French guy has a 100% standard ship with AK here I was thinking at the time with stacksizes. Yet he folds quickly for such a decision, and the hand is over. You mean to tell me that guy isn't jamming on me or anyone else at the table in the BB lightspeed in this same spot? Obviously the floor man and other players at the table didn't see the cards at the time so it's hard to stop such events.

The sad truth is poker attracts a lot of characters with low ethics and morals. Not only poker but money. A lot of people do a lot of things for money. Keep your head on a swivel and try to do the right thing.

If I were in the same situation at a final table as the two Frenchmen in my story, I don't know what I'd do with AK. I'd probably shove it.... but who knows. Just felt like this thread would enjoy another rant about PPT.



GL

can't make cars, can't fight wars.

the french countdown is perfectly fine. op if i saw this in a comp as described i would leave and demand a refund, as binger did, vote with your feet and stand up to this madness.

Hello,

I'd like to add my two cents about what happened the other night in the 1500 euro side event here in Cannes. As you may have heard/read, I was at the table when a controversial hand was played, the floor was called, all hell broke loose, a horrible decision was made, and I got kicked out of the tournament.

Let me start off by saying that yes, I think that very bad decisions were made by the PPT floor staff, and they should definitely look at improving their decision making protocols and floor staff training to eliminate some of the intrinsic biases and inconsistent decisions that have been alluded to in other posts. However, I do not think that there is systematic "cheating" going on by the PPT.

Before getting into the details of the incident, I would like to point out that the PPT people have been very helpful and welcoming to foreigners: they have negotiated great discounted hotels, organized car rides both from the airport and from the hotels to the event. In fact, the "incident" notwithstanding, they have provided one the highest levels of hospitality and friendliness of any foreign tournament I have been to. They even have attractive "PPT" girls who are fluent in French, English, and other languages, and are supposed to serve as translators to help facilitate communication. In addition, my experience with the people in Cannes has been overwhelmingly positive, and I very much appreciate the relaxed French culture, the food, the wine, and the beach. It is really a shame then that many peoples view of this event will be tainted by these incidents.

Now regarding what happened:
There was an appetizer controversy involving Ruben, the main course which involved blatant cheating, and then dessert, which involved me getting kicked out.

Appetizer:

At my first table there was a contentious hand involving Ruben, which he explains in detail in a post. Basically, on the river, his (French) opponent bet 1500 using 3 500's, Ruben raised to 3k using 3 1000's, which are very similar color to the 500's, the French player tabled his hand face up, but over the line which is supposed to kill your hand according to local rules. I don't think this player was trying to angle shoot at all... I believe he thought he was called and was showing his hand. I wasn't paying that close attention, so he might have been open mucking but I don't think so. Chaos then ensues, with the player wanting his cards back and and Ruben loudly insisting that his hand was dead since it crossed the line. In midst of the controversy, Ruben flashes his hand (a bluff) to the other side of the table, which I thought was ill-advised. This just made the other player more adamant in wanting to be able to call (he had top pair).

In most places your hand would not be dead just because you turn it over and push it forward to the center of the table... it is dead when the dealer touches it to the muck. But here, apparently, they have a strict betting line. If you release the cards from your hand in front of this line your hand is dead.

As Ruben describes, initially two different rulings were made in favor of the French player. It was a bit of a circus watching them trying to figure out what to do: nobody seemed to know what was going on and it was not clear who was in charge. At the time I didn't know what their rule was on folding, and I thought it was a tough decision. But in the end, one of the head floor guys came over and ruled against the French player: his hand was dead and Ruben got the pot. Given their rules, this is clearly the right decision, despite the objections of the French player who understandably was upset b/c he didn't see the raise.

Main course:

I was moved to a different table, where soon another controversy developed. On the turn the board read 2248r, a French guy had bet, and an Italian guy (sorry I don't know their names) was tanking. The clock was called, and as the floor was almost at 'one', the Italian guy moved all-in with his big chips. The French guy clearly saw this, and mucked his hand. He pushed his cards past the betting line and released them. The Italian guy then shows his bluff (A7o), at which point the French guy grabs his hand from the center of the table and wants to call. It was very clearly an angle shot, and deserves to be called cheating. He claims that he thought the floor finished his countdown and declared the Italian's hand was dead. I don't believe him. I didn't hear the floor say anything after the Italian moved in, and I was 3 feet away. Moreover, the Italian clearly made his all-in (just) before the countdown had finished.

What happened next was astonishing. For around 15 minutes, about ten floor-men congregated around the table, mainly talking amongst themselves, and also asking the dealer and the French guy what happened. The Italian guy didn't speak French, and only some English, so he had a lot of difficulty telling his side of the story. At this point, I inserted myself in the situation and tried to explain what happened, from the point of view of an impartial 3rd party who was at the table and watched the whole thing. The floormen were very quick with me, telling me it was none of my business! Pretty astonishing, considering I was dealt in the hand, and obviously it affects me if there is cheating going on at my table. Some of them spoke to me in English at first, but after a while, they claimed they didn't understand me and that they didn't speak English!

In the end, they made one of the worst decisions I've ever seen, and ruled that the French guy had the option of calling the raise, which he heroically did with his ATo, knowing his opponent had A7o. The river changed nothing and he won the pot, which was huge. They may have later decided that the turn bet didn't go into the pot, but the main pot was already large anyway... I am not sure since I wasn't around for very long.

Dessert:

During the incident, at one point I was standing 5 feet from my seat and frustratedly trying to talk to the floor people. Another gentleman, who I did not know and was not dressed like a floor staff, told me abruptly to get back to my seat and it was none of my business. To this, I unfortunately replied, "Who the **** are you?" As it turns out, who he was is the boss of everyone there; he ran the show. When I said that to him, all the floor guys started freaking out and yelling at me... saying that I couldn't talk to him like that. They then escorted me out and said I was disqualified. I demanded my buy-in back, and they at least did give that to me. Although that is a bit odd, since they didn't even know how many chips I had. I might have only had 2k left from my starting stack of 20k, in which case they'd be doing me a huge favor and also shorting the players remaining in the tourney. It turns out I had 22k so they were shorting me a little bit in chip-wise equity. Anyway, during all of this I asked what rule I had broken to get disqualified. I was only told "You cannot talk like that," or some such thing.

Now first of all, I was definitely rude. I shouldn't have used the language I did, and I apologized to the man a few minutes later. However, most everywhere I've played poker this would not be grounds for disqualification, rather just a penalty or warning. It may be the case that they have a strict "bad language" policy here and that one offense is grounds for expulsion. If so, I could accept their ruling. However, they would not show me any rules or explain to me in any detail. It seems clear to me that they were overly eager to penalize me because I was insulting to their boss and because I was arguing with them about their bad ruling. Again, I admit I was out of line, but the way they handled the entire situation made me feel that they were making up the rules as the pleased.

Summary:

Clearly there is a lot wrong with what happened in the incident(s) in question. But I hesitate to say that it is solely due to an explicit French bias by the tournament staff, as some have claimed. The similar situation involving Ruben was resolved against the interests of the French player (although before the correct ruling was made, two previous floormen at first made wrong decisions that might have looked biased).

However, there were too many cases where bad and possibly biased decisions were made, and that leaves a bad taste in the mouth. (Many have been mentioned: the bumping of several online players from day 1A to 1B to accommodate bigger name pros is one example of the biased and unfair decision making that was not for the French, but rather for certain American players.)

I think it comes down to this:
Some (but not all) of the tournament staff are incompetent, do not know the rules, or do not care. Further, they make no effort to overcome the language barrier, and so in a contentious situation are more likely to listen to the viewpoint of the French speakers than non-French speakers. This mystifies me, since they hired translators for this purpose.

Further, the attitude of some of the floor was unprofessional. They would not explain the rules or why they made a ruling, nor would they take the time to listen to other viewpoints. They basically had the attitude that I should sit down and shut up. Rather than addressing what I was saying, they would reply, "Why are you talking, this doesn't concern you. You weren't in the hand." Which again is ridiculous, since I was dealt into the hand, and in any case that shouldn't matter. If a player in your tournament has serious concerns about the integrity of the game you should take the time to listen to them, not brush them off and then pretend not to speak English.

The PPT needs to address these issues to preserve it's good name in the international poker community. They need to work on getting better training for their staff, possibly bringing in some international Tournament Directors (these problems would never arise in tournaments run by Matt Savage or Thomas Kremser, for example). Moreover, they need to have a more formal set of rules, which are clearly posted, and are followed rigorously by all of the staff. This will help eliminate much of the perceived, or actual, favoritism and incompetence that has tainted this otherwise great event.

best,
Michael

Nice summary and vey objective.

Just for my knowledge, is it a rule that english has to be spoken everywhere whilst playing poker?

It hardly seems fair, if for example, I am French, playing in France and only speak French that I should be at a disadvantage in my home country?

Surely it is fair to have the host country language spoken? If roles were reversed and I spoke no English but played in England or the USA I would feel like everyone speaking english was unjust.