There’s no way around it, 2022 was a great year for poker. Whether looking at the World Series of Poker’s (WSOP) seamless transition to a new venue or the World Poker Tour’s (WPT) record-breaking World Championship, poker had no shortage of success stories the past 12 months.
But there was a dark side to 2022 that included a handful of poker’s most prominent and successful players being accused of cheating. Those players later showed up to various poker stops, including the WSOP, as if nothing happened, prompting some poker brands to take action.
This year’s various poker scandals make for PokerNews’ third biggest story of 2022.
Ali, Jake & RTA
It all started with a tweet from Alex Foxen. On April 17, Foxen accused 2021 Global Poker Index Player of the Year Ali Imsirovic of cheating in online poker games using real-time assistance (RTA) and further claimed to have “witnessed numerous chip dumps to horses, and many suspicious changes in play from people known to be his horses when deep in online MTTs.”
“Ali is known as a cheater to almost all in the high roller community, however without much ironclad proof, most stay silent,” Foxen wrote.
Poker black-list can’t come soon enough. Ali is banned from GG for Multi-accounting and RTA. I have witnessed nume… https://t.co/dYz8YK45GJ
Foxen’s tweet prompted others to break their silence and back up the high-stakes pro’s allegations. Chance Kornuth wrote that he’s had “multiple sources” tell him there are hundreds of players on GGPoker’s banned list, “but the only two that I personally know for sure are Jake Schindler and Ali Imsirovic.”
The Chip Leader Coaching founder joined Foxen in calling for poker sites to blacklist those who are accused of cheating, while other big names like all-time money leader Justin Bonomo and WSOP Main Event champ Ryan Riess also weighed in.
Those who notably didn’t weigh in were Schindler and Imsirovic, who eight months later have yet to publicly address the momentous and reputation-tarring accusations against them.
Bryn Kenney’s Frog Cult
Just days after the explosive accusations against Schindler and Imsirovic, another prominent player was accused of online cheating. On April 21, Martin Zamani claimed Kenney, the then-all-time money leader, ran an online poker cheating operation on GGPoker that involved collusion in satellites, ghosting and RTA.
The accusations against Kenney delved into madness. Allegedly, Kenney required his horses to adhere to an alternative health lifestyle, notoriously reprimanding a player for eating Taco Bell and, more bizarrely, sending Zamani to a shaman who attempted to perform a ritual that involved placing frog poison on an open wound.
“She talks to me for a little, and she goes, ‘I was the warlord’s wife, I’m a killer, I’m a thief, I’m a liar, but I tell you these things straight to your face,” Zamani told Doug Polk during a podcast interview. “We talk about stuff and she goes, ‘I think you need to cleanse yourself. We’re gonna do the Kambo, it’s called Kambo, it cleanses you, it’s good for you, it’s a little violent. She takes incense to your skin and it blisters up. She then cuts off the blister with a knife so your pores are open and then she takes the poison from the frog and puts it on you.”
Unlike Schindler and Imsirovic, Kenney did address the cheating allegations against him. On April 26, Kenney joined PokerNews‘ Sarah Herring for a 70-minute interview where he denied cheating and downplayed Zamani’s credibility, calling him “a person that, through our conversations, has never been really happy in his life.”
Throughout the more than hour-long conversation, Kenney routinely dodged questions and many of his responses weren’t substantial to the cheating allegations. Much of the poker community was unsatisfied and unconvinced by Kenney’s answers and some listeners were critical of the interview itself.
PokerNews later obtained and verified Telegram text messages between Kenney and one of his horses, George Wolff, that indicate Kenney allegedly had knowledge, and at times encouraged, ghosting and multi-accounting amongst his stable.
In September, Kenney appeared on Joey Ingram’s Poker Life Podcast to address the allegations for a second time, and once again poker players and fans weren’t happy with Kenney’s dodges and denials.
Cheaters Prominent at WSOP
Those who thought being accused of cheating by their peers would’ve kept Kenney, Schindler and Imsirovic away from the WSOP were mistaken. It was business as usual for the trio as the summer rolled around and, to the ire of the poker community, they played a packed World Series schedule.
The three headphone-wearing elephants in the Bally’s ballroom became impossible to ignore. On June 8, Schindler took down Event #12: $50,000 High Roller for his first bracelet and $1.3 million and to jump to the front of the series leaderboard. Kenney ended Day 2d of the Main Event fifth in chips and Schindler and Imsirovic also made deep runs.
Aside from the occasional jab or combative comment at the table, the three accused cheaters went largely unaffected throughout the summer. Poker players became incensed; some criticized poker media for covering and giving attention to them, while others called on poker venues to initiate bans.
Poker Operators Take Action
As the cheating allegations came to light and pressure mounted on poker operators to take action, GGPoker, which previously banned dozens of accounts in an effort to combat RTA, formed a Poker Integrity Council (PIC) to further stop cheating.
The council includes GGPoker’s Jason Koon and Fedor Holz, as well as Andrew “LuckyChewy” Lichtenberger (LearnWPT), Seth Davies (Run it Once) and Nick Petrangelo (Upswing Poker).
Koon, who GGPoker hired in 2021 to serve as an integrity ambassador, called the council “another massive step in ensuring online poker is safe for all players.”
“Our long list of allies also means that the wider community will be better protected via the industry-wide blacklist; we’re sending a united message that there’s no place in this game for cheaters,” Koon said in July.
Two months later, PokerGO announced that Schindler and Imsirovic — the 2021 PokerGO Tour Player of the Year — had been suspended for the rest of the 2022 PGT season, “upon which time a review will take place.”
It is unclear whether PokerGO will extend the ban or if Imsirovic and Schindler will reemerge at live events in 2023.
Other Controversies
There were a few other controversies and scandals in the poker world in 2022 that deserve mentioning.
Ian O’Hara Accused Of Six-Figure Scam: In October, Kane Kalas and Jonathan Jaffee accused Ian O’Hara of scamming them out of six figures and pocketing thousands of dollars that was supposed to pay for tournament entries. Both players were staking O’Hara and discovered he had been “reporting losses that were later verified to be wins” and “fabricating data on the stake, in order to finance his lifestyle.” O’Hara did not deny the accusations and tweeted that he would “do everything in my power to rectify the situation as much as possible.”
Main Event Swap Dispute: Just a few weeks after he won the WSOP Main Event for $10 million, Espen Jorstad took to social media to preemptively address a swap dispute between himself and Alex “Pwndidi” Theologis, who claimed he had at some point exchanged 3% of the Main Event with the eventual champion. Jorstad said he had no memory of a swap taking place and went public after being threatened by someone “telling me to pay Alex his 3%.” The poker community overwhelmingly backed Jorstad in the dispute and Theologis accepted that Jorstad did not believe a swap took place.
Canceled Guarantees: California’s Hustler Casino drew fire in August when it abruptly canceled its $250,000 guaranteed Larry Flynt’s Grand Slam of Poker Memorial Tournament mid-event “due to unexpected circumstances.” Hustler later made things right by issuing a full refund for registered players and letting the Day 2 qualifiers play for a freeroll prize pool. A month later, the Venetian pulled the plug on $1.1 million in promised guarantees in the PokerGO Stairway to Millions series.
Of course, there was also the infamous jack-four hand on Hustler Casino Live that was arguably the biggest controversy of them all, but that’s a story that will have to wait for a later article.