Patrick Partouche (pictured), CEO of France’s Partouche Poker Tour (PPT), announced on Wednesday that after this year’s Main Event comes to a close Sunday, the PPT will be no more. This surprising news is just the latest chapter in what has become a poker soap opera. Before diving into the details of Partouche’s speech, it may be helpful to backtrack to events that have taken place over the last couple days.With 580 players paying the €8,500 to participate in the PPT Season 5 Main Event, the prize pool came in at a robust €4.3 million. That sounded great, except for the fact that it was well under the €5 million that tournament organizers had promised. One reason the PPT Main Event had become one of the world’s more popular tournaments is because its prize pool has had come with an ever-increasing guarantee.
If the story ended there, it would be still be fairly interesting and worthy of discussion, but there is more to this debacle. Rather than apologizing for the shortfall and perhaps coming up with some kind of excuse, tournament officials have simply denied the guarantee’s existence.
iGaming France reached out to Maxime Masquelier, Head of PPT, to put his feet to the coals on the issue. Masquelier said, “For a buy-in of €8,500, I think we can be proud of the final figure. At no time did we say that €5 million was secured when it is guaranteed in writing.”
As of the time this article was written, two instances of the publicized guarantee can be found right on the PPT’s website. One is in front page advertisement for Main Event super satellites containing the words, “5 MILLION EUROS” in white. The other is on the “Click & Chip” page, which provides tournament information and chip counts for the Main Event. The large, rectangular ad, which grabs the viewer’s eye more than anything else on the screen, reads, “Partouche Poker Tour Main Event 5 MILLIONS D’EUROS.”While neither ad specifically states “guaranteed,” any poker player would agree that it is reasonably implied.
Furthermore, the PPT has removed other instances of proof of the guarantee from the internet, but fortunately, archives of web pages are readily available. There once was text on Partouche.be that proudly proclaimed, “Offering a guaranteed prize pool of 5 MILLION EUROS, the Partouche Poker Tour once again affirms its place as Europe’s top tournament. Secure your seat on Partouche.be or in our Belgian casinos in 2012.”
The first part of that sentence has since been deleted, so there is now no mention of the guarantee.
On DomaineForges.com, the site for the one of the Partouche Group’s casinos, the following sentence used to be displayed (translated): “Participate in free largest poker tournament in Europe: The Partouche Poker Tour and €5 million guaranteed!” That is no more as well.
And then there was the appearance by Partouche Poker Group’s marketing director, Jean-Jacques Ichai, on French television on July 19. In an interview promoting the PPT, Ichai said, “The biggest [prize pool]. But we are the only tournament in Europe and the world where the prize pool is guaranteed. We started the first year with 2 million guaranteed, the second with 3 million, 4 million, and now we are in the fifth year with 5 million Euros guaranteed.”
After the interview clarifies for viewers that “guaranteed” means “no matter the number of participants in the end, you guarantee the 5 million,” Ichai replied, “We guarantee the 5 million and, more importantly, 1 million guaranteed for first each year.” Ichai posted on his Facebook page Thursday that he will be resigning from his position Friday morning.And that gets us back to Patrick Partouche.
Partouche’s announcement came in a press conference at the Cannes Palm Beach Casino, where the Main Event is being held: "For 40 years, I have dedicated my life, my name, my family, to gaming, all gaming, including poker, a true passion. And now I hear that what we do is not enough, is not honest. The Partouche Poker Tour bears my name, that of my family. I will not accept, my staff will not accept, that people can say ‘Partouche are thiefs’, ‘Partouche are cheats’. As a result, this week you attended the last edition of the Partouche Poker Tour. We hope that others will invest the same energy, the same desire, the same love so that this game continues."
Partouche also referenced “young players with a lot of ego and in need of recognition, who have not even made the final table and call us cheats and thieves.”
