I’ve been receiving a lot of messages about the situation with Aleksandr Shevliakov, leading to my 6th place finish in the EPT Monte Carlo Main Event yesterday, so I’ve made some comments below to address it. The reason for this post is strictly because I believe that it is important to protect the game that we all love, and to point out the players who may willingly attempt to compromise the integrity of the incredible game of poker.
To start, I want to commend the commentary team of @J_Hartigan @Stapes @GriffinBenger for handling the situation at the table with clarity and professionalism, keeping the focus on the gameplay while responsibly addressing what occurred.
Early in the stream, this player repeatedly declined to place both of his cards in the RFID card reader box unless the hand went to a flop. Despite multiple polite requests from the dealer, this continued. I raised the issue because the rest of the table was being asked to reveal both cards, and he was the only one not doing so. Another player also joined in, and the floor was called. Aleksandr stated his reasoning was concern over delayed stream information being shared from the rail - a somewhat fair concern - but nonetheless, consistency in rule enforcement matters. After some back and forth, the floor ended up making a new ruling at the time, that phones were no longer allowed on the rail for the FT.
Moving on to the bust out hand - I am extremely confident that this was an angle that was done deliberately by this player. Prior to this taking place, the respect that I had for Aleksandr made me truly believe that he would not pull a move like this on such a big/prestigious stage, with hundreds of thousands of viewers, knowing that the entire FT is being recorded and that it would be extremely easy to look back at the stream and see exactly where he was looking, having no way of lying about not seeing me act. Unfortunately, I have since learned that just because I hold myself to the highest of ethical and moral standards, and have tremendous respect for my opponents and for the game of poker, does not necessarily mean that everyone else feels or acts the same way.
Aside from the very clear photo below where he can be seen staring directly at me as I am waiting to act, here are the three primary reasons (in no particular order) that I believe this was a deliberate angle:
1) I used up almost my entire shot clock (~15 seconds) before opening, and verbally announcing my raise and size. The dealer then also verbally announced my raise and size prior to the action coming to him.
2) This was the first time at this FT (of 6) where he verbally announced any raise or bet size in any hand that he was involved in.
3) As soon as the all in was taking place, Boris Angelov called him out for “fake misclicking” and then let us know that he did the exact same thing to his friend with 20 players left in this same event.
Oftentimes, if something like this is an honest mistake, you will see a person looking down on their phone and genuinely not paying attention. This has happened to most people at some point playing live poker. However, as we are not allowed electronic devices at the FT, he had no other distractions in sight, outside of the waitress who brought him his drink prior to the hand beginning, but she was out of the picture at this point.
For those who will say, “but you tried to take advantage of his mistake”: as @GriffinBenger said on the stream, the hand completely changes when this happens and the options come down to which strategic route I want to take, without being deceptive or trying to trick my opponent. There is a very big difference between adapting to an opponent’s mistake, and actively creating confusion to gain an edge while hiding your intent.
With all of this being said, I take full accountability for believing that he was not angling and for my decision to go all in. If I thought that the probability of him deliberately angling was higher, I most likely would’ve chosen to continue in this hand by calling. At the end of the day, what he did is within the rules of the game, and while most people, including myself, view this as an unethical act to gain an unfair advantage, he did not do something that is outside of the current set of rules and it can be fairly argued that he outsmarted me in this situation. Regardless, if he was willing to stop play to demand stricter fairness around phones on the rail, then he should be held to that same standard when it comes to protecting the integrity of the game itself.
Despite the situation that took place, I’d still like to congratulate Aleksandr on his victory, and to the rest of the players for a great final table performance. Sincere thanks to all of the hardworking @PokerStarsLIVE staff for running a world-class event as always, and for @PokerNews on their coverage of the event. Looking forward to being back next year and going for an even deeper run. - JW
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