Did Poker Player An89,59,875gle Shoot at Tournament Final Table?

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Saturday's €5,300 PokerStars European Poker Tour (EPT) Monte-Carlo Main Event final table had a bit of controversy when allegations of angle shooting arose.

Jamil Wakil, a Canadian player, busted in sixth place out of 1,195 entrants for €199,750. His run could have been even deeper had he not found himself in an unfortunate situation against Aleksandr Shevliakov, whose actions were even questioned by the livestream commentators.

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Did Poker Player Angle Shoot?

Shevliakov, a Russian, entered the final session second in chips behind Boris Angelov, who finished fifth for $2.5 million in the 2024 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event. Angelov busted in third place for €439,200 on Saturday. But he witnessed an interesting hand prior to his elimination.

That hand involved Wakil, the under-the-gun player with Q♦J♦, raising it up to 270,000 from the 120,000 big blind. Action folded to Shevliakov, seated in the small blind with A♥K♥. He paused for a moment before nonchalantly tossing in 360,000, more chips than Wakil's raise but fewer than a legal three-bet size.

The floor manager was called over to rule on the situation, and she determined Shevliakov was obligated to make his raise to 420,000, the minimum raise size required.

The big blind folded, leaving Wakil with a tough decision being unaware if his opponent was angle shooting with a monster hand or if Shevliakov didn't catch the initial raise and thought he was in a blind-versus-blind situation. Wakil, the shorter stack with 3.6 million chips behind, had to choose between moving all in, calling, or less likely, folding.

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"Personally, I don't know exactly what I'd do here, because if you think you're up against 50-60 percent, maybe as much as 80 percent of the hands, this becomes a really easy shove." PokerStars ambassador Fintan Hand said of Wakil's situation. "But, oh man, this would mess with my head. I don't know what I would do."

Parker Talbot, a co-commentator, said "I would just call."

Wakil, however, decided to move all in, perhaps assuming Shevliakov had a wider range given he potentially raised on the assumption he only had the big blind behind him. Shevliakov snap-called and the board ran out 10♣7♠3♣6♣K♠, sending Wakil, who had just queen-high, home in sixth place.

Wakil congratulated the final five players on his way out, but before leaving the feature table, he asked Angelov, "he did it against someone else?" That was in reference to Shevliakov possibly angle shooting.

"Yeah, like 20th people," suggesting Shevliakov had a similar prior incident.

Shevliakov denied angle shooting to Wakil.

"If he didn't tell me you just did it to someone else, I mean," Wakil responded, suspicious that an angle shot occured.

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At the time of publishing, Shevliakov was heads-up for the title and €1,000,000 first place prize against Khossein Kokhestani. PokerNewsis live reporting the action, and PokerStars is handling the livestreaming duties.