Since beginning in 2008, the Partouche Poker Tour has been established as one of the most successful tournament series in the world. Their Main Event in Cannes, France has paid the winner at least €1,000,000 every year, and the organization has shown a strong potential for continued growth in the future. 

Unfortunately, all of this has come to a screeching halt amid an announcement by Patrick Partouche that his poker tournament organization will be shutting down. Let's continue discussing Partouche's statement along with why controversy has erupted.

A Non-Guaranteed Guarantee

In an effort to attract more pro players to their Season 5 opening event in the French Riviera, the Partouche Poker Tour offered a €5,000,000 guaranteed tournament. 557 players turned out for this €8,500 re-entry tourney, which is certainly a nice crowd. However, the players only managed to generate a €4.24 million prize pool, which left the PPT needing to cover a €736k overlay.

But rather than live up their guarantee, PPT officials claimed that the amount was never guaranteed and they wouldn't complete the €5 million. As PPT headman Maxime Masquelier said, "At no time did we say that €5m was secured when it is guaranteed in writing."

The reality is that the PPT did use the word "guaranteed" plenty on its website, and poker pro Justin Bonomo took snapshots of the web pages and shared them with his twitter followers. In the end, it looks like this tournament series simply didn't want - or didn't have the funds - to cover a big overlay.

End of an Era

Rather than apologize for his organization's actions, Patrick Partouche got angry over the prize pool complaints. He issued a long rant about the matter, which included this excerpt, "I’ve created this tournament by passion, I don’t have to be ashamed of it. Now if some young ego-driven players, craving for recognition, who aren’t even in final tables, allow themselves to say that we have cheated, that we have lied, I cannot accept it."

In closing, Partouche vowed to shut down his poker tournament series because he was tired of the insults being hurled his way. Perhaps the casino magnate will change his mind in the future, but if not, this would mark a very sad end to the Partouche Poker Tour.