Sorel Mizzi Banned from PokerStars Again

7 years ago
Mizzi Banned from PokerStars Again
08:27
23 Aug

Italian poker player Sorel Mizzi, who plays under the username “Imper1um” on PokerStars, has revealed he has received a two year ban from PokerStars after yet another indiscretion where he has been found to have seriously broken the rules of the site. Mizzi has become notorious for both his disregard for rules, his willingness to break them with a view of giving himself an advantage at the tables and unfortunately for him, a particular skill at getting caught. His latest rule breach has resulted in a two-year ban from PokerStars, which is a severe punishment when he used a VPN whilst in the USA to play in the WCOOP 2015 series.



Mizzi first become embroiled with the long-arm of the poker law in 2007 when he received a life ban from then poker giant Full Tilt Poker when he took over/bought the account of a friend and their “tag teaming”, which is against the rules, saw them win an amazing double of the Full Tilt Poker $1 Million Guaranteed tournament and, the next weekend, the PokerStars Sunday $1 Million guaranteed event where Mizzi had negotiated a share of the winnings. They were not successful and eventually got nothing as the entire winnings on Full Tilt was confiscated then redistributed. Mizzi received a life ban from Full Tilt as a result of this rule breach.

For most people this would have been enough to repent and pledge to do better, but in 2008 he fell foul of the very vigilant poker community again when he was found to be multi-accounting. He was accused of letting a friend use his account when he said he had to leave for a flight and was deep in a tournament but there were other allegations too.

Limit Hold’em specialist and high stakes professional Todd “Dandruff” Witteles spoke of his own dealings with Mizzi on his Poker Fraud Alert forum and gave a hard-hitting and critical account of his personal dealings with Mizzi when he posted:

"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.”

Todd does not paint a good picture of Mizzi and there are many more similar accounts if you research him online. This latest indiscretion will do nothing to repair his image in the poker community.



Will Mizzi break the rules again? I hope he learns and plays within the rules in the future and this is the last time we report on anything other than his poker wins, which are plentiful. He is certainly a fine poker player with total live winnings of $11,209,348 and a best live cash win of over $2 million. This does not include his online poker winnings which will add many millions on top of that!

I always want to see the best in people but it is difficult to do so when there is so many accounts of someone trying to gain an unfair advantage and it does led me to speculate (and that is all it is, speculation) on how many other occasions Mizzi has done something that has not been caught and perhaps should have been. It is worth noting at this point that Mizzi is by no means the only well-known professional that has broken the rules but it is down to each player to respect the games and so far, on many occasions, he has not done so.

It is exasperating to see someone who is clearly exceptionally talented at poker break the rules on such a regular basis. He does not need to do it, but how many times have we seen ability in sports people come with real character flaws? Listening to Mizzi talk about his latest ban on the Life Poker Podcast where he said:

"I can’t play on PokerStars for a couple years. I was being sneaky and I got caught and it sucks.”

I wonder if there is any real remorse or whether he is simply sorry that on this occasion he was caught. I hope he gets himself sorted out and stops breaking the rules. It’s not too much to ask is it?


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Malcolm comes from Consett in the North East of England and is an avid poker player and writer.Read more

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