For those who have said that money should be sent before the start of the tournament...

In almost any case, I would agree. However, right after the backer agrees to the deal the horse informs him that he is not yet sure he will even play (this can be seen in the screenshots) and after reading that the horse late regged, I believe this is sufficiently short notice to be unable to send the money immediately (seeing as the backer is currently in Las Vegas and was doing Bitcoin transactions (don't see the evidence of the Bitcoin transactions at the moment)).

The bitcoin transactions were confirmed in one of the FB group posts as a member posted evidence of my transactions with him during that time period.

It was confirmed in the thread as well..

I don't know any of the people involved here by name or reputation, and obv. don't know how well they know each other. But as a detached observer, I think you could easily say that this is how it went down:

• Backer agrees to stake Player, despite knowing that he is over his transfer limit and does not have funds readily available to pay for it.
• Tournament goes into second day and Backer never ponies up the dough, actually makes no effort to do so. Player continues to do well in tournament, passes money bubble.
• Backer assumes he no longer has to pay, pats self on back for freerolling tournament.

If you look at it that way, then saying, "everyone knows Backer is good for it and would have payed if he lost," doesn't quite cut it. The important part being that Backer knew he couldn't pay up, but never really communicated that to the player. In fact the response from Backer was "I'll get right on it," but he never paid and seemingly made no effort to do so. Instead he posts about bitcoin transactions taking all of his available cash as if that excuses him somehow, since they are obviously more important than fulfilling his obligation to some deadbeat grinder. And then he says he doesn't want a professional arbitrator, because despite all the training and experience somebody has to have to be one, they could never understand because poker... well, it's no wonder he wants somebody from the community to arbitrate. Only a poker player would think that the way this went down was fair.

I missed that, thank you for pointing it out. It seems to me that the following is sufficient reason for not sending the money before the start of the tournament:

-immediately after booking the bet, Nick mentions that he is not sure (at the time) if he is even going to play the event, and will let Eric know as soon as he is sure that he will be playing.
-the day of the event Nick informs Eric that he is making his way to the location of the event 33 minutes before late registration closes. This indicates to me that it is possible that Nick will not make it to the event in time.
-Eric receives confirmation that Nick is registered at the close of late registration

This particular post is simply addressing whether or not money should have been sent before the start of the tournament, once that has been established I will move on to the next pertinent issue.

I don't think anyone would say the agreement is off because he didn't send before the event started. I think the issue is that he never sent at all. It was the first time he backed this player. Why didn't he send the next morning? Who was really freerolling here? How is it that the guy who never paid up was freerolled, and not the guy who was never paid? I don't accept "My reputation proves that I would have paid if he lost," as a defense.

I'm going to go back through the original post later today/tonight to see if there's wording in the chat transcripts that clears up some of my earlier concerns, but in reading the recent responses, there's one I can't help but respond to now.

No world, which is why that isn't what I said. If you're going to condescend to someone over their understanding of language, it's usually best to make sure you have carefully read their post:

The two bolded wordings are completely different, which changes everything.

As I said before:

Note to mods: In all fairness, I think you should change the title of this thread. Call it a dispute instead. I think it's far from cut and dried that the player is a scammer in this situation. And I don't know how you can say that the guy who was never paid for the buy-in is the one who was freerolled.

Hi Nick,

But seriously he bagged a massive stack and was basically a lock to cash, Eric sent a text saying " I guess i don't have to send that 280 right away then ", Which got zero response. In fact he didn't reply at all until after he won it saying action was off.

I am confused at how people think this is not a clear scam/freeroll by the player.

There are already people posting "No money, no action", which is why I even bothered addressing that particular argument in the first place.

Im impartial and i do think its a clear scam/angle from the player.

Does seem the majority of posters in here are from that group and know Erik well enough to know he would never freeroll in this situation. Looking at it from a outside perspective who don't know either party surely you can see why there is some doubt casted on this by neutral parties.

Cliffs.

Player freerolls backer.
Backer makes it as easy as possible to be freerolled.
Backer has never made a business transaction with player.
Backer uses his own reputation instead of thinking of the players which he knows nothing about.


Question for backer if chris came to you asking to buy 50% of your high stakes tournament and never sent the funds would the action be booked? Seems the action is booked on this occasion because the backer has a good reputation. If the roles are reversed and the backer is unknown with the player a well known reg this action in the same situation is never booked and laughed at by the no money sent not booked crowd.

Just send the money next time its nearly always laziness that causes these situations.

As an outside observer, it looks to me that Backer agreed to buy half but never paid. If they were bosom buddies or had a longstanding arrangement that would be one thing. But since it was their first go around I think that was a little lax on the backers part. He agreed to back him without funds available to do so and made no effort to get him paid. Then he gets up the next morning, says "cool I just won money for nothing," and buys more bitcoin instead of paying. Meanwhile, Player, who's obviously broke if he's selling half of a $500, has to borrow $10 from his mom for cabfare and she won't give him another $10 for lunch, and he gets a nasty lecture about moving out of her basement before he's forty as he heads out the door. Or something. Who knows? He still should have paid.

As I said before, I don't accept "my reputation proves I would have paid if he lost," as being equal to actually paying. And "it looked like he was sure to cash so I didn't bother paying," is just a little bit lame IMO. He didn't pay and he really didn't make any effort to pay and yet he's the one who got freerolled? No wonder he doesn't want a professional arbitrator.

Anybody who knows Eric knows that Nick would never have any concern about getting freerolled in this situation. Eric has flawless reputation in the poker community and there is just absolutely no chance Eric had malice intentions here. Anybody who has bought/sold action in the poker community knows how beyond standard it is to settle up for small pieces afterwards. Nick abused this to create ambiguity that never existed.

I guess what I don't understand is that many here seem to believe that the "no money, no action," position has no merit, based simply on the Backer and others saying so. But I don't know the backer, so his reputation means nothing to me and I don't accept "my reputation proves that I would have paid if he lost," as a valid response to why he didn`t actually pay. He should have paid, but he didn`t have the funds, and then later he just didn`t bother, and yet somehow he is the one who got freerolled. Go figure. Only in Poker.

And I don't understand how people can think that a person who agrees to have a financial dispute arbitrated by an impartial third-party is a scammer. That's completely irrational.

In fact, if anyone appears to be a scammer (not saying he is by any means), it would be the backer who never sent any money, claims he is now owed 50% of the prize money, but refuses to present the facts of his case to an arbitrator so that the arbitrator can make the correct decision. If you all are 100% certain that the backer is in the right here, and that you can't even comprehend how anyone could think otherwise, then why not just allow the arbitrator to reach the same decision that you all are 100% convinced is obvious?

The wording I used is a quote from the OP texts. I assumed you would have read that before criticizing the OP, sorry about that.

I think Bobo already pointed out that the original post in this thread is an alternate facts version of events, based on the texts and the Backer`s post in the thread.

That part of my post wasn't criticizing the OP, it was responding to a post made by Eric. I didn't go back to the original post to read the slightly blurry texts and confirm whether he was using the same wording in his post or not, which is why I said "If all you said was that you couldn't send". It didn't seem logical for the person who sent the message to later rephrase it when making his point, but I guess that's what happened here.

Having gone back and read the text again and seeing the wording is the same as you posted, I'd agree with Eric's assessment on that part at least that it was indeed "further confirmation that the money was going to be sent late". Well, "later tonight", to be more precise.

....

Yeah, I swear when I looked at even the first one while I was making that post it was blurry, but when I went back and looked again, it seems much better. Something I was doing wrong, I assume.

Old people, sigh...whaddaya gunna do?

Really have other things to get to now, but I still intend to come back in and go through things more carefully later tonight; my first post was just based off some inconsistencies I observed immediately. But my initial take is that I agree with those that say this isn't nearly as clear cut as some make it out to be - mistakes were made on both sides here, IMO.

Edit to add:

You may have been the victim of my Ninja edit - I added "slightly" to "blurry" a few minutes after I posted, once it seemed clearer to me. Sorry if that was the case.

Eric and I will prob be Biased to some Extent, I've told Eric if the tables were turned in this spot and Eric sold 50% and didn't pay up I'd be super pissed and called him a Scammer (if it played out exactly the same way) or if he didn't pay Nick if Nick had not cashed.

I wrote on Reddit (Which i linked to this) that I feel Nick didn't have intentions to angle Eric at the start and he just wanted to play the MTT (They are very soft at Cash Casino) and I'm assuming if he Min cashed or had a reasonably small cash like 5th or 6th (Not sure what that Paid I'd have to look) he would of paid Eric.

The fact he was chip leading going into the final table (I think since they got into the money, not sure but FT for sure) he saw an opportunity and decided to take it.

Nick had however ignored the situation after his post and was hoping this would go away with time, but as both players are known in the Local community it exploded and got 1,000+ Posts and he was unsure of what to do at that point, it put him in a pretty ****ty spot IMO.

I'd personally feel my reputation is ruined at that point (Even though tons of people said if he does the right thing it will be forgotten) and I wouldn't be surprised if he thought that too, so he might as well avoid the thread and hope it dies down.

This is my personal two cents trying to not be Biased here.
But it seems like a logical explanation for how it went down to me...



But Yah might be old but still got Ninja Editing Skills, I saw the blurry part :P The second time I attached the same photo in another post it came out with a much smaller resolution and that was probably the reason for it.

Exactly when did he "ignore" the situation?

The tourney took place on Sat-Sun, June 17 & 18. The situation apparently simmered on Monday, and then Nick wrote a post explaining his position on Tuesday night, June 20, and posted it just after midnight. Eric wrote back early Wednesday morning at 3:27am, and then Nick wrote again on Thursday night, June 22nd, offering to have the financial dispute arbitrated by an impartial third-party. Your buddy Eric apparently rejected that out-of-hand (for no plausible reason), and then you took it upon yourself to give Nick an ultimatum with a deadline of June 25th. BTW, it makes no ****ing sense at all for you to issue an ultimatum in this matter rather than to let the two parties work this out themselves.

So I ask you once again, when exactly did Nick even have any time to "ignore" the matter, especially given your intrusion?

I'll also ask you once again why you believe that a professional arbitrator couldn't resolve this fairly simple matter that revolves around a difference of opinion?



You haven't written one word in this thread that wasn't completely 100% biased against Nick.

I'm sure it does. Especially when you write in your completely unbiased frame of mind that "Nick had tried to clear his name and pretend he has done nothing wrong".

You didn't write simply that Nick provided his explanation; or even write that Nick believes he did nothing wrong. No, you already reached your determination, and acting as judge and supreme arbiter of this matter, looked into his state of mind and concluded that he was pretending that he did nothing wrong.

And this is your idea of an unbiased logical explanation of how it went down, lol.

No wonder Nick wants this decided by an impartial arbitrator rather than you deep thinkers in your Alberta poker group.

You would think that a guy that supposedly has been burned numerous times in backing deals would be extra careful about making sure it is clear whether someone's action is live or not, rather than ignoring messages all day from a guy he sold 50% of himself to.

Looking at this thread again, and reading through the conversation multiple times, I'm starting to think I'm reading something different than a few of you are. I'm wondering if some of you just skimmed the conversation and combined that with the very biased summary in the OP to make assumptions that don't fit the facts.

I'm going to try to summarize the conversation, and I of course welcome any corrections:

- We start with an agreement for Eric to buy a 50% piece; looks like that was Friday night/Saturday morning.
- Then Nick falls asleep and is late for the event, but decides to late reg. Eric is fine with this. This was ~5:27 PM on Saturday.
- Nick says he got in on time and won his first hand, Eric replies about not being able to send right away. "Will have to send later tonight. Maxed out EMT limits for 24 hours lol." Eric replies "Haha ok".
- At 9:30 PM, Eric asks how things are going, and there's a few messages back and forth about Nick's hands so far.
- 12:05 AM, Nick updates that he made it to day 2, Eric replies with "Holy ****. Nice work buddy", and then "Guess I don't need to send that 280 right away then lol".
- No more messages either away until just over 24 hours later when Eric sends "Congrats on the win buddy! Happy for ya"

So I see some issues both ways here. If I'm Nick, I'm checking in when I haven't got any money on Sunday. He didn't even need to get in touch with Eric to know something's up - he has a message waiting that suggests Eric may not think he needs to send the funds any longer to be booked.

At the same time, I have no idea WTF Eric is thinking either. If you book action, you need to send the money unless you have a relationship with the player where your word is good enough, or the player has explicitly said he doesn't need you to send the money. Sending one message and then assuming that unless you hear otherwise you don't need to send the money is just asking for a problem like this. What if Nick loses his phone, the message doesn't come through for some reason, or any number of things? Why the **** wouldn't you just send the money? Not only that, but the message doesn't say "I guess I don't have to send" - it says "Guess I don't need to send that 280 right away then lol". The implication to me is that he plans to send it still, not that he wasn't going to send at all. But then after not hearing back, for some unknown reason, he doesn't. I get that it's simpler to only send the money if he doesn't cash, but when you're dealing with someone you don't regularly do business with, and your message suggesting you don't need to send right away goes unanswered - just send the damn money. If you think your reputation is strong enough that you only need to send if he loses, make that arrangement ahead of time.

And yeah, of course it's very possible that Nick saw the message in plenty of time and intentionally didn't contact Eric hoping to freeroll. It's also possible that he saw the message and assumed that meant Eric was sending it later that day, but then never did - in that case, Nick would've been smart to message Eric (and this might have been a convenient oversight), just like Eric would've been smart to do the same (also could have been a convenient oversight). And it's also possible that Nick didn't see the message until it was too late.

Really, both sides handled this poorly. If it sounds like I'm taking Nick's side in this, that's mostly because of the approach taken by Eric and OP, who are both very clearly too invested in this to see it objectively and have gone a few steps too far.

I think they should find a way to arbitrate this, and the thread should never have been started in this manner. I'm going to do a basic thread title edit for now; more may be in order in the future.

Which is one of many reasons why this thread was a horrible idea to post. At the time you posted, Nick was still being somewhat communicative and discussing options and offering arbitration. You (a third party with no stake in the game) have now put him in a spot where he has no incentive at all to pay up other than feeling good about himself. His name is already smeared, his reputation in the poker community is gone whether he pays or not now.

As I said, I read the original threads in 780 and they seemed very witch hunty to me given that Nick didn't appear to have any previous reputation for scamming, and the backing agreement was certainly handled poorly on both sides.

Nick's comments seemed somewhat fair to me at the time, and in his spot I might very well be a little unsure about whether or not I'd been freerolled and ask a few questions. Asking those questions and immediately being branded a scammer and being outed on 2+2 certainly wouldn't make me feel very much like giving him the benefit of the doubt.