Over the last few days, I have talked personally to several of the people making allegations against Jason Ho and to Jason Ho directly. We promised a direct and transparent report to the StoxPoker community on this and this post is our fulfillment of that pledge.
I think the best starting point is a broad timeline of events surrounding Jason Ho as a Stoxpoker coach.
May 2008 – Jason contacted Stoxpoker via email about the possibility of being a Stox coach. In all other situations that I recall, we have either contacted the prospective coaches directly or the coach has been referred to us by one of our other coaches. A few days later, I set-up a conference call with Jason. I don’t recall the exact conversation from that long ago but a decision was made to allow Jason to do a guest NL video at small stakes. This video was the first video in a small stakes series that he had proposed.
July 2008 Jason releases his first video on StoxPoker and it was met with very high praise by the StoxPoker community (as were most of his videos). This was not a substitute for our lack of adequate vetting, but the reality of it had a natural tendency to lower our antennas slightly.
August 2008 Based largely on the popularity of his videos, Jason became an official coach on StoxPoker. Below is how Jason was introduced:
Jason "code 7654321" Ho
Jason "code7654321" Ho takes a game-theory-based approach to no-limit hold'em. He is a 6-max specialist who has played everything from $.50-1 to $25-50. Recently, he has also started developing his PLO game at the $5-10 and $10-20 level, and has done so successfully.
Jason's videos will focus on smaller-stakes 6-max games and will strongly emphasize using Hold'em Manager to develop your game. Jason plays poker full-time, and his excellent results largely derive from his strong work ethic, his previous experience in high-pressure working environments, and his background in professional gaming. His best skills include his keen hand-reading ability and his ability to manipulate his opponents psychologically.
Jason was never promoted by StoxPoker as a $1M winner. However, there were comments that he later made personally in forum posts, blogs and private email correspondence about his winnings in the past that referred to being a $1M winner, graphs of large winning days, and references to winning a large % of his sessions.
Through Aug of 2008 the following are obvious in hindsight and, more importantly, should have been obvious at the time:
• An unsolicited request to coach should have generated a significant amount of due diligence on our part. The approach of limiting Jason to a guest video at a small limit and letting the members vote Jason up or down was not adequate. Since late 2008, new coaches have been part of a Quality Assurance (“QA”) process where a team of reviewers independently evaluate the first video submission and a formal QA report is submitted to the management team. These reports are reviewed and evaluated before the first video is posted. As mentioned, Jason is an exception to the fact that all other coaches we have recruited have been personally referred by other coaches or we have known of personally and actively recruited them.
• The self-promotional language in the introduction should have been reserved until proven in his videos and teaching. Our direct knowledge or 3rd party references within StoxPoker have allowed us evaluate such introductions in coaches before and after but in this case it simply should have been removed.
Jason Ho Allegations Become Public I was approached privately about 10 days ago about a potential situation involving Jason Ho and parties that wanted to remain anonymous. The general nature of the claims was asserted by a 3rd party but there were no details, and even the 3rd party initially wanted to remain anonymous.
Even though I was unable to substantiate the claims, Jason’s two most recent videos had received much lower than normal ratings, so I preemptively told Jason that we would not be requesting any more videos from him.
After a few days of continued rumors as to a major issue and still no person to step forward and publicly acknowledge the situation, I created a thread on StoxPoker and was forthright in saying that I have heard certain rumors about matters involving Jason and please come forward to post the allegations publicly if doing so privately is not going to happen. Over the next 2 days, none of the crew came forward and the thread turned into one where Jason Ho was the apparent victim. I eventually decided to lock the thread since it appeared that reliable information was not forthcoming.
A few hours after locking the thread, the members of the crew made their individual posts in a newly created thread. At that point I began the process of talking to some of the members of the crew directly, and I also talked to Jason Ho directly.
On the evening of Jan 27th, after he used the StoxPoker forums to threaten some of the people making allegations against him, I banned Jason permanently from StoxPoker and had his videos and blogs removed from the site.
Below is a summary of the findings from my interviews with some of the members that originally posted allegations against Jason and my interviews with Jason himself.
The “Investment Fund” in early 2009 In early 2009, Jason convinced a group of his students to form a “crew” and contribute 33% of their winnings into a “crew fund”. That fund grew to around $11K by mid-2009. The fund was to be eventually used as an investment pool.
The "Staking Fund" in mid-2009, Jason told the crew that the fund was not performing as he had hoped and that the current plan was not worth his time and effort. He offered that he might be interested in allowing the crew to stake him. After raising a little less than $100,000 from the crew, an Omaha staking fund document was distributed to the crew on October 11th.
At some point in early January 2010, the crew confronted Jason about the status of the staking fund and Jason informed them that the fund was down 60% and that he has borrowed the other 40% for living expenses. A dispute arose as to whether Jason was authorized to play on the staking fund at that time, and there are also disputes as to how much Jason was authorized to borrow from the fund for living expenses. With the possible exception of a few thousand dollars, no money invested in the staking fund has been returned to the members of the crew.
As to whether Jason was authorized to play on the fund, the following is excerpted from the fund document of Oct 11th:
“(The fund currently has been passively started from Sept 2009 however the option to buy out Jason’s 50k of the fund will enable new shareholders to participate up until Jan 2010)
Fund Official Start Date: Jan 2010
Fund Maturity Date: Jan 2011”
Some of the crew members have acknowledged receipt of this email but have said they did not question the contents of the email at that time. Jason has taken the position that the words "passively started from Sept 2009" authorized him to play using fund money before Jan 1, 2010 and that he was not accountable to telling them when began playing. I would have personally interpreted matters just as the crew did but without regard to the internal settlement of this issue between Jason and the members of the crew, I have outlined in the Conclusion the reasons why StoxPoker is not responsible for the losses incurred by the crew in this staking arrangement.
It was also alleged that Jason at times made unauthorized transfers from the personal poker accounts of some crew members (he had access to these accounts). That total of claims that I am aware of for unreimbursed transfers out of a crew member’s poker account is approximately $7,500. Jason did not have access to the private poker accounts of all of the crew members.
The documentation provided to me by the crew members that I talked to was consistent with their discussions with me. I had the sense that each crew member that I talked to was very forthright and honest with me in their accounts of the evolution of events. Some of the crew members were interviewed by other representatives of StoxPoker and interviews are still ongoing.
Private coaching Jason had several private students from StoxPoker that were not part of the crew. They were charged in various ways and under various programs that Jason offered. This ranges from hourly coaching to charges for strategy charts and spreadsheets.
Some of the students expressed frustration with Jason’s private coaching, and others have recently written me privately or posted publicly that they were generally satisfied with the coaching. I am aware of more that were unsatisfied with the quality of the coaching and/or Jason’s commitment to them as a student than those that were satisfied.
The same can be stated about the training that some paid for in Macau. There was a combination of those that felt generally satisfied with the training and others that had requested that Jason refund the Macau training costs because they were not satisfied.
I am not aware of any complaint that StoxPoker management received from one of Jason’s private students until this week. However, I believe that is mostly attributable to a sense that the failed results were their fault and/or they were embarrassed to come forward. There was at least one forum posts in the coaching forum where an ex-student was dissatisfied but that isn’t uncommon when you are dealing with something like private poker coaching. There were also students that posted about very favorable experiences. (Noted that with all else that has come to light, the alarm bells now go off about shill positive endorsements in the forums).
Conclusion
We believe that StoxPoker has a responsibility to reimburse coaching fees for those that were introduced to Jason through StoxPoker and had a bad experience using him as a private coach.
I have been forthright in saying that:
• Jason was not vetted as other StoxPoker coaches have been. I let down the StoxPoker community and our other coaches in that regard. Coaches since Q4 of 2008 have all been subject to our formal QA process previously described before their first video is posted.
• StoxPoker could have acted as a 3rd party escrow agent for all funds involving coaching arrangements. That is already being implemented.
For the reasons previously mentioned in this statement, members that were introduced to Jason through StoxPoker and had a bad experience with private coaching from him will be reimbursed. However, there is shared accountability for those that continued to make payments to Jason for coaching. Therefore, we have taken this into consideration in policy.
We will reimburse for 100% of the first two payments for any coaching services with Jason and 50% of a 3rd. We will not reimburse for any payments after the 3rd.
We realize the proposed restitution could be debated endlessly, but we feel that as a person continues to pay for more services, they share more, and ultimately all, of the responsibility for their actions.
We have also determined that the staking fund issue is a separate matter that cannot be resolved by Stoxpoker, the conclusion for this issue must be found separately between Jason Ho and the investors. The reasons are:
(i) The staking fund was something that was not disclosed to StoxPoker by either the investors or Jason (we were aware that Jason was privately arranging coaching services). There is no implied acceptance on the part of StoxPoker to such an arrangement that was ever given.
(ii) The “crew” had been working with Jason directly for several months on various private coaching and failed joint crew bankroll schemes before they ever invested in the staking fund. A reasonable person exercising some reasonable level of caution would have at least mentioned the staking fund to us in advance of investing or would have simply passed on the investment based on the cumulative experiences with Jason over the previous several months.
(iii) StoxPoker has NEVER promoted staking as something that should be entered into by the StoxPoker community. This is the reason there is not a staking forum. Staking is a very high risk activity in the best of circumstances.
Stoxpoker will not reimburse members for money transferred out of their personal accounts by a 3rd party. It is an egregious lack of personal responsibility to give anyone else access to your personal accounts and that is not something that we feel responsible for.
In closing, I am sorry for the pain this entire situation has caused for those directly involved and the course of action we are undertaking is a demonstration of StoxPoker’s willingness to address this head-on and take financial responsibility where appropriate. We estimate that the reimbursements to members on the private coaching could be as high as $100,000.
To the StoxPoker community and all of our coaches, the actions we are taking will hopefully serve as a statement to our commitment to be open, honest and accountable to you.
The policies that have been in place since Q4 of 2008 on the Quality Assurance team reviews for new coaches and the new process for 3rd party administration for all private coaching are in place to protect our member and coaches from anything even remotely like this ever happening again.
Regards,
Jim
Last edited by Jim Varnon; 01-29-2010 at 07:44 PM.