Another weird situation happened when Ali Imsirovic was kicked out of another poker tournament. This time, he made it to the final 30 players of Day 1A of RunGood Poker Series (RGPS) $1,200 buy-in Main Event as a chip leader. The last time he tried to play a live tournament in Texas, he was unregistered and banned before he got to play a single hand. Why does this make the whole situation weird?
Let’s imagine you were in a situation where somebody who was not supposed to be playing the tournament knocked you out or took your chips. Later, he got banned, and you won’t get refunded. He doesn’t get refunded, and all the remaining 29 players just got rewarded since their percentage of the chips just increased as the chip leader was banned, and a big chunk of the chips are out of the game.
It seems like the tournament directors messed up and didn’t secure a fair playing field for all the players, and maybe Imsirovic’s late disqualification compromised the whole tournament event more. It is hard to believe that nobody recognized him for hours or saw his name on the list of players until he became the chip leader and the dinner break was on. There is also live reporting of the event, which makes things even more surprising.
Priority for Poker Directors
There was also an interesting take on the subject that was started by WPT Executive Tour Director Matt Savage, who raised the question of how long the banned players should be banned and reminded us that people who were accused/banned for multi-accounting back in the day were the most successful players we have today.
This is one of the things that should be a top priority for tournament directors to focus on solving, as it feels that some players who are connected to big poker brands and were accused of bigger things by other witnesses or participants might go unpunished. And if you are fighting for fairness in the game and only punishing certain players, you are making the game even more unfair in the big picture and in single examples like this one with Ali and RunGood Poker Series.
Ali was previously kicked out of Champion’s Club, one of the top poker rooms in Texas. Phil Hellmuth co-owns the poker room and is proud of it being a safe place to play poker despite the number of illegal poker rooms operating.
Reaction to Accusations
Ex-GPI Player of the Year winner Ali Imsirovic has previously admitted to multi-accounting but also denied some other cheating accusations, and added that there are many players who did the same or worse thing, but none of them got punished. Ali referred to accusations as “completely f*g ridiculous.” He also said that he paid his price and wanted to move on, as the allegations were hard on his family.
Imsirovic has won $18,769,713 in total live earnings, and his most significant win came after he finished second in £252,500 No Limit Hold’em—Super High Roller Bowl London event for $1,118,707 in 2019.
2021 was one of the best years of his career, as he won 14 high-rollers. However, soon after, in 2022, the number of live tournaments he played significantly dropped, as he and Jake Schindler were banned from GGPoker and all PokerGO Live events due to using illegal RTA tools online and colluding at live tournaments. Despite many complaints, they both attended the 2022 World Series of Poker, and Schindler even won his first-ever WSOP bracelet, but denied all post-win interview requests.
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