Jamil Wakil, the player who finished sixth in the EPT Monte Carlo Main Event on Saturday, has publicly accused the winner, Aleksandr Shevliakov, of angle shooting in his elimination hand.
Here’s how the hand played out. With six players remaining and blinds at 60K/120K, Wakil raised UTG to 270K with 
. Action folded to Shevliakov in the small blind, and he verbally declared a raise to 360K with 
— less than the minimum legal raise following Wakil's open. The floor was called, and it was ruled Shevliakov had to make it 420K.
Wakil assumed Shevliakov was making a standard 3x raise with only the big blind left to act behind him and moved all-in. Shevliakov quickly called, saying, “I really missed the action.” The look Wakil gave him at the time suggested he didn’t believe that was the case. The board ran out 
to eliminate Wakil in a pot worth 8,030,000.
On the stream, James Hartigan said, “Shevliakov has not announced any raise at the feature table in all the time he’s been there. This was the first time he verbally announced his raise before he put his chips in.”
Shevliakov went on to win the tournament for €1,000,000, while Wakil got €199,750 for sixth.
Wakil calls out Shevliakov in lengthy X post
In a subsequent interview on the livestream, Wakil claimed he thought it was an angle by Shevliakov. With more time to study the situation, Wakil has decided to go public with a lengthy post on X explaining why and giving what he sees as evidence to back his claim up.
Wakil started the post saying, “The reason for this post is strictly because I believe that it is important to protect the game that we all love and to point out the players who may willingly attempt to compromise the integrity of the incredible game of poker.”
The key part of Wakil’s post reads as follows: “Aside from the very clear photo below where he can be seen staring directly at me as I am waiting to act, here are the three primary reasons (in no particular order) [why] I believe this was a deliberate angle:
- I used up almost my entire shot clock (~15 seconds) before opening and verbally announcing my raise and size. The dealer then also verbally announced my raise and size prior to the action coming to him.
- This was the first time at this FT (of 6) where he verbally announced any raise or bet size in any hand that he was involved in.
- As soon as the all-in was taking place, Boris Angelov called him out for 'fake misclicking' and then let us know that he did the exact same thing to his friend with 20 players left in this same event.”
The image that Wakil references — and his full statement — can be seen in the embedded tweet below.
Wakil: Unethical but within the rules
Wakil went on to say that what Shevliakov did was within the rules of the game but still an “unethical act.” Despite this, he rounded out his post congratulating Shevliakov on his victory.
Many players reacted to Wakil's post, including Barny Boatman who said what he had written was, “Clear, classy, and completely correct.”
You can watch the entire final table livestream on the PokerStars YouTube channel. The controversial hand starts at the 46-minute mark. You can read our eyewitness account of the final table below.
