That makes a little more sense. Sorry to question your integrity but everyone's BS sensors are on high alert right now!

+EV

Too much responsibility??? He was their employee. They friggin hired him and endorsed him. If they had've checked him out beforehand none of this would've happened. If you were a victim of fraud in any other business you would be compensated in full by the business that employed the fraudster. But stoxpoker and yourself seem to think that the onus was on the victims to figure out that Jason was a scammer. How the hell is some 100NL grinder supposed to figure out that the highstakes player that is coaching him is FoS? Who is he to argue with a guy that made $1 million in a year and is a stoxpoker endorsed coach? As boywonder says in his blog about this issue, it is very easy to sound like you are an expert at poker.

Because Stoxpoker never endorsed his private coaching and private coaching is really a situation of buyer beware. What about 2+2 then? Jason posted on here. Also I know other people who have been scammed for less from coaches they found on 2+2. Should 2+2 pay?

At the end of the day I believe people need to take more responsibility for checking people out on their own. Of course Jason was very convincing. I paid for 5 lessons at $100 an hour with him also but I don't expect and would never ask Stox to reimburse me even though I could very well do just that.

In the end the coaching was underwhelming but I got something out of it. Stoxpoker didn't guarantee I would get a certain amount of EV out of it and even if I got less than what I felt it was worth that is my issue not Stoxpoker's.

+EV

you are kidding, right?
2p2 isn't a poker training site. there aren't subscriptions. it is just a "semi"-open forum for the poker community. Cardrunners and Stox are not free. they are businesses with mission statements. this is from a post from Jim about their merger.

"Stoxpoker.com is dedicated to a single mission: to be the best poker training site in the world. Our world-class poker coaches, who won over $5,000,000 playing online in 2007, have a passion to teach the game of poker. We release an average of 10 videos a week. Their formats range from classroom-style, with interactive quizzes, to traditional sessions, with critical narration of key hands, decisions, and concepts. Whatever the method, the goal is always to have the highest possible teaching value.

Visit http://www.stoxpoker.com for our announcement and answers to frequently asked questions

CardRunners.com is the premier online learning community for poker education. CardRunners provides a wide variety and depth of exclusive educational resources, all with the single-minded focus of developing winning poker players. CardRunners' original, dynamic and interactive content comes from some of the world's best poker minds—self-made poker millionaires who regularly beat the toughest games and . Now with more than 10,000 paying subscribers and hundreds of instructional videos, CardRunners continues to cement its role as the first choice in poker education."

These companies claim huge winners and that their goal is education. As far as im concerned stox is responsible for it's employees in this manner. Also, since private coaching is endorsed and encouraged on their own forums they are definitely liable for those costs.

Read for a while through the first 100 posts, so don't know what #101-5xx say, but for a while, I considered getting some NL coaching, I was looking on Stoxpoker and saw this guy was highly recommended, or at least his forum area was really active. (This was probably 6-9 months ago) but I can specifically remember the whole training camp thing and his really goofy/weird pic on the forum, like a wizard's robe glamour shot or something.

Anyways, I played small-medium limit poker fairly successfully for about 2-4 years (2002-2006), and was a pretty competent NL cash and tourney player as well. However I wasn't as competent in the 6-max games and thought I might need some coaching.

After watching some of this guy's videos and seeing his writing style. I immediately thought, "Well I guess I don't need coaching, because this guy's edge on me is pretty insignificant, if any." He also seemed to have some extremely narcissistic characteristics.

Needless to say, I figured, well if this is one of the best coaches, I just won't get coaching, and decided to not start a grinding side-job.

So, in conclusion, if someone who isn't even that well-versed in NL, but is competent in poker/gaming overall, can tell that he isn't that good, solid reg's should have seen it as well.

i hope we will never hear from jason ho scamming anybody ever again.

Jason Ho is a scammer.

Kinda wish i hadn't asked this now, seeing as it seems to have cemented JH's departure from this thread...

Haha im 1 of the few who actually play those sort of games and have a life, funny thing about it is since it was a text based game, i could basically spend like an hour or 2 a day playing and 10hours a day AFK with auto programs running lol, i was flatting with a guy who played WOW 20hours everyday all we would ever see of him is when he would come out to make a feed, then we would just rip into him haha! Im hardcore into my sports and play tennis and golf a lot as well as kickin a footy round with my buds etc

I think Stoxpoker is definitely doing right in taking responsibility here since he was a Stoxpoker coach meaning that he represent Stoxpoker as a coach, winning player, mentor etc. The majority of the people who tolk lessons from him wouldn't do so if he wasn't a Stoxpoker coach and as a coach there Stoxpoker represented him as a good winning player, so I would definitely say that Stoxpoker has a lot of do with it.

And I think it's wrong that you compare him, a former Stoxpoker coach with a random coach who's advertising himself as 2p2 doesn't garantuee anything about the coaches here or are working for 2p2. People were paying to watch Jason Ho play on Stoxpoker because people thought he was a good winning player who could improve other players game and was represented by a training site who claimed that they're coaches were good players.

wait can i get a refund on my paid sessions with jason or i don't because i didnt give him loads of money or start sucking at poker? i have about 5 paid sessions with him, PM me for details! heck i was even referred to jason by stox coaches!

I can't believe he got away with all this though.

I believe that Stox guarantees that about his coaching in videos but is not guaranteeing if you give him $20K he will make you a nose bleeds winner. His vids are not terrible and I believe that that is as far as Stox should go in guaranteeing anything.

This is all just my opinion though. Stox obv feels more responsibility. BTW don't fool yourself if you think 2+2 forums is not a business that in some way banks off the results and information of its posters. They advertise, sell books, and say that they are the "best place for poker discussion on the net." But this does not then justify that every piece of advice should not be taken with a grain of salt.

2+2 in some way legitimizes the posts on here and monitors the content. But they can not monitor things beyond their scope and neither can Stox. I believe Jason's private coaching is beyond the scope of Stoxpoker's responsibility.

+EV

This is pretty remarkable to me as well. He could have continued to make $$ scamming small stakes players forever. His downfall was really in getting too greedy and ramping it up to a level that was unsustainable.

+EV

FYP

No. His downfall was introducing the people he was scamming to each other. Most people wouldn't come forward on their own for fear of not being believed, looking stupid or "maybe it's just me". In this case, he got all of his marks together, they started comparing notes and it became apparent what was going on and what needed to be done.

In the end, what you really have is a degenerate gambler who thinks he's a winning player that happens to run bad when playing high-stakes. Like the character from Owning Mahowny, "I don't have a gambling problem. I have a financial problem."

?

zenconcept -$16,164 over 7,633 hands
zen888 -$34,373 over 137,977 hands
jadebling -$6,399 over 28,997 hands
babiekwai -$33,240 over 47,748 hands
lilbebi -$13,031 over 299,232 hands
codenumber8 +$10,089 over 14,155 hands

Total Jason Ho known SNs: -$93,118

Sign me up!!!

Sidenote: I think StoxPoker has handled this situation very well. I realize that for some people, they will never feel happy about this situation, but I think StoxPoker has taken a very appropriate route in responding to it.

hey TT, had any time yet? also, I posed the question several days ago as to why the title of this thread is "Where did the Jason Ho thread get moved to?" As there is no response to this, one can only speculate. I can appreciate the Mods being sensitive as to how this matter first came to light, but that's by the by now in my opinion.

I think its somewhat clear Jason is a fantasist who has gone through his 'adult' life searching for that 'big score'. Thus I believe a combination of events spiralling out of control and an inherent ability to deal with the cold facts and mundane detail of the real world are at the root of his actions, rather than a predetermined desire to 'scam'. For one, there are numerous instances of Jason refunding money when requested. He did some bad things too, but stone cold 'scammers', as some of you are determined to paint him, don't ever do that.

However, with that said, despite the fact he will no doubt be moving onto the next 'big idea' having now butchered his poker 'career', i still believe its important the community at large should be aware of the issues brought up in this thread to help prevent any future occurrences.

And as embarrassing as this is for Stox, if they have faith in their response, and I believe they have reason to, then they should not be ashamed that this is given wider exposure. As I previously noted, it is better to lance a boil than leave it festering.

NO. They handled this situation exactly like I expected. Awful.

This situation really doesn't have a gray area like most in life. This is a business & people were scammed from an internal fraudulent source. Here is how a legitimate business handles this situation... They investigate the matter & decide whether or not they are responsible. They come clean and admit wrong doing if that is the case & pay back every penny lost to fraud. Then they proceed to use their lawyer to track down the person responsible for this entire mess and hold him responsible for the crime he committed. Through the court of law they will recoup their losses and the criminal responsible gets what he deserves.

In this case, they stopped about half way through the proper routine and offered a partial repayment out of their pockets and let the criminal go.

If you're going to admit responsibility then you repay EVERYTHING, not a portion. That is a simple cop out and the first thing that comes to my mind is that this is in fact NOT a legitimate business running on the up and up.

If I'm wrong, then I'm wrong, but I cant think of a single business that would let someone defraud them like this & just let them walk away while they pitch the bill for a "partial" refund to the victims. Its just insane.
Jason Ho belongs in jail.

If anyone can think of a situation where an employee of a company committed fraud from within, stealing upwards of 200k and walked away unscathed please post. Because I think Stox/CR stand alone on this.

IMO now its not just Jason that has questions to answer, Stox/CR not handling this situation in a court of law is a huge red flag.

They caused this problem, if anyone is going to lose money out of this it should be Stox/CR, NOT the customers/victims. They are entitled to every penny they put into that site & its STOX/CR job to figure out how to get it back. No legitimate business puts the weight of their **** up on their customers shoulders by shorting them on what they are owed. Its ridiculous.

But Stox endorsed/employed/recommended him as a coach wheras in the sticky at the top of the coach listing forum............

I think the simple fact is that he wouldn't have got the money/students he did if it were not for the Stox association.
(bad luck/circumstances on their part, it could have been any site, but they are the ones who dropped the ball in this particular case)

Also I think some of you overestimate the ability of some regs to recognise a personable coach giving bad advice as opposed to a miserable git who's advice is gold.

Cheat
I’ve been reading through the posts about this guy and being reminded of an eerily similar situation in my own life. Early on in my poker career I was scammed out of a large amount of money by a fellow poker player who turned out to be one of Britain’s biggest con-men. He was being watched by local authorities at the time I knew him for stealing on the order of 1.5 million pounds and is currently serving time for that offense (although he may be out by now).

Suckers
What the experience taught me was that I was only a poker player in that extremely confined environment of “the game” and that when it came to a point in which I really needed to detect deception, I had failed.

Think about it. You spend lots time thinking about how to make good bets and play cards, only to piss it away in another environment(whose consequences are equal) by not detecting a real life bluff and having strategies to protect yourself. The sooner you realize that you are suckers and stop trying to get your money back the better off you will be. You will be playing legal games or personal games, which if you think poker rake is high, wait till you try and get a lawyer or spend loads of time hassling someone to pay you back. The aggravation it will cause you will hurt your ability to play poker. You’re better off trying to move to the next stage as soon as you can. Which is to become…

Grudgers
Grudgers are people that have been cheated before but learn from the incident and craft life strategies that make the event less likely to happen in the future.

For instance I developed almost an extreme anti-social ness toward any type of interaction with any poker players whatsoever instead focused my social energy on having most of my friends come from non-poker places as well as becoming closer to my family. I am not going to argue that this is the best strategy but it was right for me at the time. Jason Ho actually pm’ed me 2 years ago after I wrote an article for the magazine wanting to pm and discuss strategies about games, and luckily for me I was in my full on anti social mode concerning anyone wanting to discuss poker and never pursued it.

You will all learn your own methods. For starters you will want to learn how to detect deception away from the poker table. The best book I have read on the subject is Dissecting Pinocchio by Christopher Dillingham. I knew it was the best book on the subject the moment I looked at it. It is everything that deceptive people are not: cheap, un-flashy, technical, and extremely useful in many environments.

I wish you all the best in moving on from your instance, and from looking at just of the replies to this thread it seems quite likely this guy is a scammer(although I would have to establish some sort of “normal” behavior for him before I could tell for sure). He has already exhibited two “tells” in his denial. In scientific studies concerning people making false denials liars show a 100% increased use of expanded contractions like saying
“I did not” vs “I didn’t”.
Another such slip of the tongue is when liars confuse past and present tense. Lets look at the ever important portion of any scam the denial.

Notice the confusion of past vs present in his statement “trialed”. Also notice a 75% usage of expanded contractions(“it is not fair”, “It is not fair”, “I am no”). I would have to know his normal patterns to be certain, but this is enough for me to not believe his denials and to start looking for other classic signs of deception.

It happens all the time, they are called bad businesses.

I'm not saying Stox did or did not drop the ball, I haven't read through this enough to formulate a decent opinion.

But this sort of thing happens often in business.

I recently dealt with a bank that got played by the owner of a 5.5m property. Instead of admitting fault and fixing problems, they continued to illegally move people into a building without informing them of major defects and building code violations (which is clearly against the law).

Now the tenants, the ones left with the ****ty conditions in their building, are forced to file a class action lawsuit.

Unfortunately it happens too much in the world of business, the small people are forced to band together to make **** happen. It may not be the case here, but what you're describing does happen everyday with completely legitimate businesses (the bank in question is a community bank and were explicitly told by a local city leader to stop doing what they are doing, as well as the head of the legal department in Chicago, and they have still ignored their warnings).

So yea, this isn't rare, if what you're saying is true.

has anyone investigated as to whether the "crew funds" were actually lost and not "dumped"?

IANAL so YMMV... however...

There are problems with the comparisons here. Stox / CR vouched for JH's credentials, so in that regard they have something to answer for. However when you employed JH as a coach he was not acting as an employee of Stox or an agent of Stox, you entered a direct business relationship with JH as an individual of which Stox was not a party. What you are suggesting is that Stox should accept full responsibility for all losses incurred in a business relationship they had no knowledge of. You keep saying Stox should take him to court - for what exactly are they going to take him to court? They cant get the money JH owes you because they were not a party to the contract in any way, shape or form - you have to understand JH was not acting as their employee or agent in any coaching or staking arrangement you had with him. You can't sue someone for money they owe someone else. In regards to coaching Stox did vouch for JH's credentials so they have to accept at least some responsibility. Where have they ever vouched for his staking credentials? Or his financial advice credentials? In that regard you are holding Stox accountable for JHs actions in a field they have never recommended him for. That would be like Stox vouching for JH's credentials as a poker coach then you getting him to perform open heart surgery on your mother and holding them accountable when it doesn't work as planned purely because they introduced him to you.