When he wins money he feels entitled to keep more than he agreed to, but if he had lost money he would fully expect you to honor your side of the agreement.

That's my take, he just suffers from a delusional point of view that since you didn't help him as much as he expected with cashouts, he just decides without any input from you or anyone else that he can keep your money.

And it seems 100% help in cashouts was his expectation, even though it's clear that's not what you two agreed on, nor would it be an appropriate punishment to keep all the money had you two agreed on that.

I mean, he could just trade the profit for a 10-15% vig in the very worst case (if you two had agreed that you would cashout for him always, which you didn't) and you'd eat the vig.

But yea, those AIMs from him are cringe worthy, reinforces the delusional aspect of things.

In reality, he should've ended the staking agreement if he wasn't happy, he was profiting, you were profiting, if he thinks there's no plus side to having you around he should've just ended it, sent you your share of his profit and moved on. Probably one of those "I make 10k a month and spend 15k, if I make 20k though I'll spend 30k!" types.

On a side note, more rooms should be open to allowing stakers to put restrictions on horses (buyin levels played, p2p transfers and cashouts). I know a few do, but many more should, at least in the event that both players agree to the stipulation beforehand.

It would take a lot of tail risk of the kind of crap we see in the OP out of staking and put more money into play for the poker room.

1. Can easily be abused
2. A lot of work for these poker rooms which are understaffed in security that don't have the time to review and process a lot of he said she said claims.

Depends upon the specifics of how it is implemented. It's working in some places without issues. You have to remember, a vast majority of stakes work without any issues, and many of the issues that do come up wouldn't come up if the horse knew he couldn't play higher nor steal money (he'd either not cashout the stake money nor be able to give into the temptation of playing outside the stake).

Also, it can just be implemented in a way to where only decent affiliates can do so (think of some of the affiliates in the affiliate forum here or Team Moshman working with a poker room), so the incentive and trust is there from the poker room --> backer point of view.

Anyways, I think your concerns are definitely real, but I also think they can be minimized beyond what would be required to make this worthwhile for poker rooms. In practice, this has been the case thus far (as far as I know).

Two observations, take them for what they're worth:

The stakee (Knapp) comes across as a petulant, entitled child with zero real world experiences. His defensiveness shows he has absolutely no business experience of any kind - nor has he ever exchanged emails in a professional environment.

Secondly, and I'm sorry to be judgmental - but both of you are terrible communicators when it comes to expressing yourselves via the written word. If you would have simply had these conversations over the phone, or skype, or face to face then there wouldn't be so much context getting lost in your conversation. He may not have become so defensive for no reason at all... You probably would have been able to more effectively explain your position.

I suspect you may have been able to avoid many of these problems by not exacerbating them through ineffective written online communication. (Forgive me if I'm ignoring any cultural or national barriers I may be unaware of - but that actually speaks to my point if so.)

That said, Knapp is clearly in the wrong here and he comes across as a guy with absolutely no social or interpersonal skills whatsoever. Good luck getting paid OP - hope it turns out well for you.

you used to be able to email cake and set buyin restrictions

I must admit that this is something that leapt out at me when I read the transcript. IMHO deals like this regarding 000s of dollars should be negotiated in a bit more of a "tidy" manner.

All the "I guess" and "I suppose" a) isn't clear and b) isn't really professional in what is effectively a business negotiation.

shouldnt be a negotiation.


dude owes him $$$, end of story

gl OP. Definitely move this to NVG, this is a bad place for awareness.

He always acted completely ridiculous and out of line when playing on FTP, sad that it is the same in this circumstance.

I acknowledge that the conversations weren't handled perfectly on my end. Regardless of his reputation and/or stakes played, I should have been more diligent on making sure all details were completely black and white. There should have been zero opportunity for anyone to claim the specifics were ambiguous at all.

In spite of that, is there really any room for debate as to whether or not he is in the wrong and owes me money?

I'm referring to the conversations before the wrongdoing.

This guy is obv delusional. I would've cut him immediately the first time he acted douchey in convo. Gl op

He owes you obviously mate. The only word that springs to mind is theft.

u should ask to see his HHs, have another 3 hr argument over that when he says no.

not exactly shocked by this having met him IRL, hope it gets resolved