Sorel Mizzi does not have a sparkling clean history in poker.
He was part of a big scandal in 2007 where he bought an amateur player's account (Bluff Magazine's Chris Vaughn) very late in a big tournament, and took it over.
He was banned on Pokerstars (his account was "zangbezan24") in 2008 for multi-accounting: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29...-again-323183/
Shaun Deeb reported in 2011 that Mizzi supposedly cheated John Racener in Open Face Chinese, by "bottom dealing" cards.
Personally, I have also had a few dealings with Mizzi. Shortly before he got banned from Stars (around 2008), he kept hit-and-running Stars 200-400 limit games, then sit at a new table alone, but would only "let" certain people from the game sit at the new one with him. If others sat (such as me), he would sit out and refuse to play. Everyone else accepted this, but I refused. I didn't feel he should be allowed to choose his opponents in a ring game, especially after hit-and-running the same game a few minutes ago. I refused to leave, and Mizzi threatened to hit me next time we saw each other if I didn't get up from the table. I told him to F off and stayed, and eventually he just left the game.
We also prank called Sorel on radio on January 21, 2013: http://pokerfraudalert.com/forum/sho...artbreak-Hotel ... (Go to 1:39:02 mark to hear the prank call.) This prank call wasn't all comedy however. It involved a $3000 sorelmizzi.com website commissioned by Zac Hart (zekday0), where the work was done by SrslySirius, but he was never paid. In Sorel's defense, this was mostly Zac's fault. But I figure it's still worth mentioning.
Sorel Mizzi also joined Choice Center a few years ago (the cult-like self-help group championed by Negreanu and Esfandiari), and had supposedly turned his life around.
Now onto the more recent accusations:
A fake account was made on 2+2 (so the accuser could be anonymous), and some concerns were raised regarding both cheating and multi-accounting recently. Obviously Sorel has been a serial multi-accounter in the past, so immediately people became concerned.
The accusations were as follows:
- Sorel was playing Pokerstars on a VPN while in the US.
- Sorel multi-accounted during the most recent WCOOP Main Event there.
- One of Sorel's accounts made the final table of the WCOOP Main. Sorel noticed that one of his friends, Rory Brown (Mr Kingball) was also at the final table. Rory was unaware that Sorel was at the final table, and believed Sorel to only be an observer of the tournament. Sorel then had discussions with Rory regarding his final table strategy, which Rory freely explained, assuming that Mizzi was both his friend and not one of the participants at the table!
- Sorel asked if he could "ghost" Rory during the final table, and be told his hole cards, so he could be given advice on how to play each hand. This would have given Sorel full knowledge of Rory's hole cards at the final table, and Sorel would have crushed him! Fortunately, Rory declined to do this. Rory ended up finishing 6th.
- Live Boeree was supposedly aware of this whole thing. She did not report it to Pokerstars, despite being a sponsored pro there. When asked to explain her cavalier attitude regarding Sorel's cheating, she explained it as "post-burning-man schizophrenia", referring to the fact that Mizzi had attended the Burning Man festival, and wasn't in a right state of mind (LOL). The WCOOP took place in September 2015, and Burning Man took place at the very beginning of that month.
Please note that these were accusations from a third party and not verified, nor did the accuser identify himself.
Rory Brown then showed up on 2+2 and clarified a few things:
So Rory claims that the accuser's report contained "a number of factual errors", but did confirm that he was having some issues with Mizzi regarding that WCOOP. At the very least, there seems to be some merit to the claims. He also defended Liv, claiming that she didn't defend Mizzi against the allegations, but rather was just explaining had he was "going through something" since late October. However, this doesn't make much sense, as the WCOOP took place at the end of September.Originally Posted by Rory Brown
Mat Sklansky then locked the 2+2 thread, right after Rory's statement. Typical.
In a different thread, this accuser claimed that Antonio Esfandiari and other former friends of Mizzi have turned on him:
It is common knowledge in the high stakes community. You won't see him at any super high rollers, the guys who were buying pieces in him have completely written him off, he owed a lot of money and sold his place in Vegas to pay back all the debts he has from complete degeneracy. Antonio put the word out when he found out about this.
My read: Most of the accusations are true, and Mizzi is just a really shady guy.
Here is the full 2+2 thread, if you care: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29...again-1588532/
Here is a writeup on Highstakesdb about the situation: https://www.highstakesdb.com/6567-so...ng-again.aspx#