Match IPL lies about poker pros participation, forced to apologise

The Raj Kundra promoted Match Indian Poker League (Match IPL) is in the news and again for all the wrong reasons. Match IPL, which is promoted by Kundra’s Viaan Industries and Switzerland-based International Federation of Poker (now rechristened as International Federation of Match Poker) had made an erroneous and misleading statement on online news website Pokerguru about the participation of professional poker players like Faraz Jaka, Mustapha Kanit, Luke Schwartz, Vicky Coren, Marsha Waggoner and Kinichi Nakata in its poker league.

Alexandre ‘Alex’ Dreyfus, CEO of Global Poker League (GPL) pointed out Match IPL’s false statement on Twitter yesterday and said he had checked with at least two poker players, Faraz Jaka and Mustapha Kanit, who denied having any knowledge about Match IPL.

Jaka also took to Twitter to disavow any association with Match IPL. Jaka added that he did not even have any knowledge about such a poker league happening in India.

Once Match IPL’s lies and misrepresentation had been publicly called out, it had no option but to issue an apology on Twitter. However, the league tried to justify the misrepresentation by saying that it was done by mistake by an unnamed junior person handling communications. ‘The person who made this error has been pulled up. We are not about pro names we are about creating pro’s!’ added Match IPL’s tweet.