Alex Foxen Accuses Ali Imsirovic of Systematic Cheating
Well known American high roller Alex Foxen has shaken up the poker world and accused Ali Imsirovic to be a cheater. According to Foxen he is known for cheating in the high roller community for a while now, but it seemed nobody was able to move forward by having enough proof to back-up the allegations. Ali recently was banned from GGPoker for multi-tabling and use of RTA (Real Time Assistant) according to Alex Foxen. We take a closer look at the allegations unfolding on twitter.
It all kicked off with Alex Foxen sending out a Tweet insinuating that Imsirovic has been banned from the GGPoker Network because he was guilty of multi-accounting and using Real Time Assistant (RTA). Foxen also accused Imsirovic of chimp dumping and ghosting accounts with suspicious behavior when running deep in tournaments. Assumptions and allegations are not facts, but here's an overview of the accusations made by Foxen:
Poker black-list can't come soon enough.
— Alex Foxen (@WAFoxen) April 18, 2022
Ali is banned from GG for Multi-accounting and RTA. I 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.
A specific detail of it all dates back to the Super High Roller Bowl which was organized in Cyprus in the beginning of this month. Imsirovic has been caught in the act looking at the hole cards of Paul Phua, a player who was also involved in organizing the whole event.
Video of the action :
For those wanting to watch it themselves pic.twitter.com/5Rm5mvv6fo
— Mqtt (@Mqtttw) April 18, 2022
Alex Foxen himself is not free of allegations in the poker world. He is engaged to fellow poker player Kirsten Bicknell and both have been accused of suspicious behavior when playing at the same table. Allegations were also raised in regards to their online poker activities, as they are sharing the same house, same internet, same room. But none of these allegations have been proven.
What is Real Time Assistance (RTA)?
Real-time Assistance is one of the hottest topics in the past couple years in the online poker world. GGpoker has been in the news for banning approximately 40 accounts for using real time assistance and confiscating 1.2 Million Dollars. Any software or tool that is being used to gain an advantage over other players is defined as real time assistance. It can vary from GTO solvers to push/fold charts for example. The use of any of these is considered as breach of the terms and conditions of many poker providers.
Even during live cashgames and tournaments real time assistance has been used in the past. Lately we had a poker phenomenon called ‘’Poker Bunny’’ sitting with a laptop on her lap which displayed push/fold charts :
What is Ghosting in Poker?
There is a ton of money going round in the poker industry. When there is money in the game, there is cheating, just like in sports where.
In poker several forms of cheating are unfortunately very common, especially in the online circuit. Many top regulars have their stables with "horses" playing poker for them. Those tables often offer great coaching courses and investors often spend a very decent amount of time coaching the players as well. They are investing into players who then often start playing events they usually could not afford themselves.
Ghosting is when someone else is taking control of another player's account to finish the final stage of the tournament to maximize the win rate. In case of the stables, what often happens is that when one of the "horses" is having a deep run in a tournament at some point the play style of the player changes drastically. Most likely another, much more experienced player has taken over their account. There have been hundreds of allegations of ghosting over the years, but just a few of them could be proven by the poker networks.
The accusations raised by Foxen against Imsirovic lead to hefty debates on Twitter and many players came forward and threw more mud into peoples faces. Jans ‘’graftekkel’’ Arends for example also mentions Jake Schindler, recent winner of the Super High Roller Bowl for roughly 3 million dollars. Coincidentally Jake and Ali are going far back when it comes to poker. Kale Burns also has his saying about it and mentions several more dodgy situations with the two of them. Whereas other poker players and poker insiders such as Rob Yong are trying to look it from a different angle. Specifically Young says he doesn’t necessarily agree with the idea of the poker world standing up against cheating in its whole. Kevin Macphee in return needles the man behind Dusk Till Dawn Poker and Party Poker:
Alex Foxen says on twitter, he can’t show the proof of Ali Imsirovic cheating, but he insists he possesses 100% proof against him. Thus it seems likely this story is going to continue.
