The final table of the EPT Monte Carlo Main Event was rich in scandals.
First, the future winner Aleksandr Shevliakov forced the organizers to make changes to the rules right during the tournament.
The showdown was, as usual, broadcast with a 30-minute delay. Boris Angelov (he took 2nd place in this same tournament exactly a year ago, and in the summer he became 5th in the WSOP Main Event) and Mariusz Golinski regularly approached their fans during Day 5 to watch showdowns of previous hands.
Aleksandr didn't like it, and at the start of the final 6-max table he started putting only one of his cards on the sensors. The other players didn't like it, and soon the Ukrainian Khossein Kokhestani started doing the same.
Managers approached the table several times, and eventually they made a decision:
1. All players must place both cards on the sensors to avoid any broadcast degradation.
2. Spectators in the stands were prohibited from using any electronic devices or giving players any hints.
This decision eased the situation, but not for long.
Canadian Jamil Wakil was eliminated in 6th place. At the 60k/120k level, he announced a raise of 270k from the first position with . Aleksandr on SB raised to 360k. Floor was called to the table again, who obliged to raise the bet to the minimum allowed 420k. At the same time, Aleksandr claimed that he had not noticed Jamil's raise. After thinking about it, Wakil pushed and received an instant call from .
While packing his things, Wakil managed to exchange a few words with Angelov.
– Has he done this before?
– Yes, with my friend, when there were 20 people left.
The video of the hand was tweeted by Will Jaffe with the question "Fair play or dirty angle?"
"It's definitely not cheating, but it is," Jesse Martin says. "I would never do it myself, but I'm not sure it's that unethical."
“It was obviously done on purpose, but the opponent also had to be on guard,” agrees Martin Jacobson.
"This is one of the first tricks I teach in my seminars," wrote Matt Salsberg.
And Kevin Martin responded with an emoji:
A few Kurt Angle pictures were posted:
Overall, the reaction in the comments was unambiguous – Aleksandr did it on purpose.
– 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.
The comments also showed almost unanimous support for Jamil. Only Adam Owen tried to object:
– It's No Limit, you can bet what you want and there are multiple ways to legally signal a min bet including this one
I'd understand the angle talk more if he had AA
With AK it's kinda just a shit size and costs himself EV against many hands (including the one you hand normally)
– AKs is AA, esp 30bb deep 6 handed,” Alex Bolotin countered.
– You don't know what you're talking about. Maybe you do, but I'm pretty sure AA>AK when clicking out of position 30bb deep brother.
Aleksandr responded to all the accusations in English on Twitter, which he created specifically for this purpose:
– Hi, my name is Alexander Shevliakov, and this is my message regarding the AKs hand against Jamil Wakil.
I held off posting this immediately because I wanted to speak privately with Jamil first and give him the full version. Now that I’ve done that, I’m sharing it publicly so people can hear the other side.
I’ve already been labeled as an angle shooter, even though no one outside of the Russian-speaking poker community knows my full version of the events. I’d gladly give an interview, but my level of English likely wouldn’t allow me to express my position properly.
Let me start from the end of Day 4 of the Main Event. We were at the same table with Boris Angelov and Stoyan Obreshkov. Blinds were 15k/30k. I opened the button to 60k with K8s. Stoyan 3-bet from the small blind to 185k. We had around 50bb stacks. His sizing looked small to me, and I was deciding between a 4-bet and a call, eventually leaning toward the call. I put my chips out, and — shit — the dealer tells me to add another 100k. “How the hell did I mess this up?” flashes through my mind. A rookie mistake.
Flop comes K64 with no flush draw. I may be wrong, but I think Stoyan bet something like 100k — I call. Pot is about 730k. Turn is another king. I look at the board — as I often do during hands — and Stoyan says “four seventy-five.” With my hand, it feels like there’s no real option but to call. Sure, there’s a case for raising, but the sizing is large and SPR is low. I figure we’ll get it in on the river anyway. I remove a chip from a tower of 20 x 25k chips and push it forward. Then the dealer says it’s an invalid raise. “Damn,” I think — “you’ve messed up again in the same hand.”
Turns out, Stoyan had said and bet 275k, not 475k. Please note: two seventy-five and four seventy-five can sound very similar for a non-native speaker, especially after playing 8–12 hours a day for 5 days straight. They call the floor, explain the raise is invalid, and my action is ruled a call.
River is a low paired card — a 4 or 6. Stoyan checks, I jam around SPR 1. He folds, saying that if my turn action was a trick, he should quit poker. He also said that if I was calling 475k, it’s clear he had a strong range. Later on Day 5, we discussed the hand — he told me his actual holding and agreed the hand would’ve ended the same way anyway.
I don’t think Boris was fully paying attention to this hand, but it’s likely he saw the sizing confusion or at least noticed something odd. To me, it’s obvious this situation is completely different from the AKs hand on the final table.
Fast forward to Day 5. Boris and Mariusz were constantly communicating with their rail during the day, getting delayed stream information — around 30 minutes behind — without leaving the table. Phones and smartwatches were technically banned. I didn’t like the situation — it hurt my EV and the EV of everyone else who didn’t have people feeding them stream data — but it wasn’t against the rules, so I didn’t complain.
Day 6. At the start of the day, I started thinking about ways to hide my cards from the stream to prevent that kind of information from being relayed. I decided not to show one card. The dealer asked me several times to place the cards properly, and I said I didn’t want to — it wasn’t against the rules. Around that time, Jamil started objecting, saying I was hiding information and gaining an edge. I told him I would explain my reasoning later — I genuinely didn’t understand why he, who had no one feeding him stream info, was the one objecting.
Then Kokhestani joined in, saying if I don’t show, he won’t either. At that point, the floor came over and made what I believe was a perfect decision — devices were banned from the rail. From that moment, players could only get stream info during breaks — once every two hours. Perfectly fair.
I was fully satisfied and immediately began placing the cards correctly. Still, I was nervous — I had to explain my position to the tournament director (in bad English), had just clashed with the whole table, and kept replaying the situation in my head.
That happened around minute 41 of the stream. At minute 43, I check-folded pocket kings (a mistake), with more emotion on my face than when I later won the final hand — a sign that I was clearly not in the best mental state. At minute 45, I folded 53s and started talking to the waitress — she brought me tea, but I had no cash (our phones were taken). She spoke even worse English than I did. Kokhestani, seeing I was stuck, paid for my tea — that’s on video.
I sat there drinking tea, thinking about where to find €10 to pay him back, whether I misplayed the KK hand, whether the rail situation was fair, how I’d already been playing for 7 straight days, and oh yeah — I’m at the final table of the EPT Main Event and the money is massive.
Next hand — the AKs hand. Jamil was sitting on the far end of the table. Bright lights were in my face (should’ve brought sunglasses). I finally had my tea. Enrico folded. Mariusz folded. Boris folded. I looked at my cards — AKs — decided to open. I looked at the timer (I usually avoid snap-decisions to not give away timing tells). I grabbed chips and put them out. I announced the raise. About the verbal announcement — I haven’t reviewed the entire video, but I believe I did this in other hands as well. If this was the first time, I don’t know why I did it — maybe it’s a pattern, maybe a tell. Maybe it’s worth analyzing the previous day for comparison.
Then the dealer told me the sizing was wrong and pointed to Jamil’s raise. It was only at that moment that I realized Jamil had already raised. I hadn’t seen it or processed it — I was focused on my action, my tea, the timer, and avoiding mistakes. I didn’t understand what the ruling would be — raise or call — but I immediately realized how bad this would look if ruled a raise.
I had no idea what to do. And frankly, none of the possible options made any sense:
Folding would look absurd and be +EV suicide
Asking for a re-deal would be ridiculous and not allowed
Asking Jamil to fold to a 3-bet? Nonsense So I sat there, drank tea, and waited for the situation to resolve.
Jamil made a correct shove but ran into the top of my range. Before revealing my hand, I said “this wasn’t angle shooting” and apologized.
Boris made a comment — half-joking or not — that “this is starting to look like a pattern,” referring to Day 4. Jamil busted while hearing that. I stood up and tried to apologize and shake hands — he refused. I understand. From his side, with the info he had, it looked dirty.
One more thing about the angle shooting accusation in the AKs spot — If I were trying to angle shoot, the simpler and more effective way would’ve been to just say “raise” and put the chips out. Given everything that had happened leading up to that moment, and the stress I was under, it wasn’t even obvious to me within 10 seconds whether 360k would be ruled a raise or a call.
From my side — it was a stupid, unlucky sequence of events and inattentiveness brought on by cumulative EPT stress and the stress of that morning. And now I’ve been labeled an angle shooter.
I’m nearly unknown in the English-speaking poker world. But in the Russian-speaking community, I’ve had countless friends and colleagues — in both cash games and MTTs. My reputation has always been clean — no debts, no broken deals, no history of angle shooting.
Jamil let me know that he won’t be commenting on this, and I fully respect that. For my part, I’m also not planning to continue engaging in this discussion — unless someone directly involved (like Stoyan) publicly disputes key facts. Otherwise, this is the full story as I experienced it.
That’s how it really happened — no angles, no tricks, just an unfortunate sequence in a high-pressure spot. Thanks for taking the time to read it.
