If having two million dollars wrongly credited to your bank account, then just flat out keeping it, ignoring all requests to pay it back and somehow having no criminal charges brought against you while the whole time your famous friends are publicly supporting your actions and stance in the media until the whole thing just disappears is a disease then could somebody with this disease please sneeze in my face right now.

Twice, just to be sure.

And maybe spit in my open mouth too.

Thanks.

Addiction can turn a good person into a scummy person, and a scummy person into a super scummy person.

If Erik was a scummy person to begin with, then gambling addiction is no excuse, because he would be doing scummy things one way or the other.

But if he was a good person, and his gambling addiction was so strong that it caused him to start doing scummy things to support his habit, then I think if he's taking the steps to get better, he should be given some slack.

There's also a grey area; maybe he was kinda scummy to begin with (like most people are as far as I'm concerned), and his addiction just made it worse. In that case, he deserves very little slack.

haha. Problem is only "old school" gamblers can be inflicted. Moses can part the red sea, Jesus can make wine out of water, and Bosley can give Daniel hair back but us "new schoolers" just don't have the capacity to understand the accepted ways of the old schoolers.

uh, no.

Great post!! No wonder this idiot writer admires Lindgren. He pulled off one of the biggest robberies in gambling history and got away scot free.

Unfortunately, the type of person that has $2MM accidentally credited to their account and keeps it is also the type that would spend it all (and then some). He received in ONE click more than most people will make in their LIFETIME of earnings.

That's a good article by Lee imo. I don't agree with every one of his views but its an opinion piece so I'm not expecting it to be factual. He brings a different perspective to the issue and isn't afraid to both open up his own past and state what he knows will be an unpopular view about Erik, despite the consequences which made him hold off from writing it before:
Of course Lee doesn't respect Erik for his lying, cheating and stealing. Nevertheless, its perfectly valid to respect Erik for completing rehab and trying to get his **** together, to respect an addict who has seemingly overcome the challenge made doubly hard by the fact that his professional income derives from a form of gambling.

Lee also makes an excellent point that the person who knows and loves Erik best has stuck by him and that should tell us something about the man.

Where I disagree with the article is on the hypocrisy point because (a) most people don't welch/delay paying back even small debts; and (b) there is a meaningful difference in the scale, impact and behaviours exhibited by people like Erik and those who fail to pay on time on smaller day to day amounts. But I do take his point that the industry has more than its fair share of unreliable people and many of them might well act just the same as Lindgren given the opportunity.

I can appreciate the sentiment, but his wife sticking by him, doesn't say anything about him at all. There could be a number of reasons, which have nothing to do with believing he will change.

I personally don't believe that you can have gambling addiction therapy in order to be a better gambler, not sure where that treatment would start/finish or even be monitored. Maybe they have new methods, but seems contradictory to me. Time will tell.

Erick probably owes her money as well.

First and foremost being that she has a child with him.

It's a little harsh to be asking if DN has addressed the issue in your first sentence and then criticising him for not having done so in your last.

He has discussed his stance in his video blog here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNexOkMz_P0

I agree with you that free will is an illusion, the implications of which go well beyond the scope of this thread. And I also agree that punishment still has a key role in maintaining a functioning society.

But clearly we can have both punishment and compassion, no? Mistakes were made, clearly. I think the key now is what is he doing to right those wrongs. It goes past just remorse, although that is a first step. It's about taking specific actions to compensate his victims, and not just monetary actions (although that is very important, too).

I liked CvD's story, and agree with his conclusions. One detail from that story which I especially liked was that Erick stuck around after having busted to support his wife. Maybe this seems inconsequential, but to me it shows a guy who is not just thinking about himself anymore. Someone who perhaps has different values than before. Perhaps someone who has a partner who can help him turn it all around. Love is a powerful force, one we typically undervalue in our cynical age.

Who knows, time will tell. This will take a long time to fix, obviously. No quick wins or big scores here. Quite the opposite, actually.

And while we may not have free will, we all have the ability to draw our own conclusions from our past, to learn from our mistakes, to give meaning to our lives through that interpretation.

Whatever does not kill you makes you stronger, provided you draw the right conclusions from your actions.

--PP

I get the impression that the article was very personal for the writer. I think his own bias shows on some of the weaker points. I don't want to attack him or anything, but I thought the hypocrisy points were off base.

I also thought that the implication that people that went to 2p2 to complain about money owed to them were somehow inferior or made a worse decision than those who stayed silent (the writer) was also totally wrong. Often the very best way to help someone that has a problem borrowing and not repaying is to out them publicly. It's one way (often the first step of several) to help them hold themselves more accountable for their actions. Being silent and/or ignoring the problem is often just turning yourself into an enabler.


And unless Ike and DN were borrowing money they did not have, the situations are in no way comparable to someone who borrows a lot of money and doesn't pay it back. Hell, even if you were calling Ike and DN degens, they could either have the money to justify these buyins on a bankroll management/winrate type level, or they could be selling some action. But even if you assume they are being degens (a bold assumption, and not comparable to Lindgren, who has obviously borrowed far more than he could pay back), they aren't hurting others with their actions so there is really no justification to call it hypocritical that people are critical of Lindgren but not them.


There are some other points, but again, I think the author's own experience and misgivings are biasing him in some ways that make the overall article inaccurate for the most part. I think a more helpful and accurate angle would've been talking more about his own degeneracy, and making some points that a lot of things that addicts do are very difficult to overcome and that a real big step is having someone to support you. The article attacks people who criticize, when they shouldn't be attacked. It makes invalid comparisons to make those points, and that's where it really got weak for me.

Yeah, and he didn't just hang around waiting for her to finish. He was very much sweating her the whole time, and she would go to him every break and they discussed hands, strategies, etc. Day 3 of that tournament started with 14 of us left. It probably took 7-8 hours for us to get from 14 down to 10 and then another hour at least before Erica busted out in 10th. Erick was there the whole time. They both talked about their son quite a bit and showed me lots of pictures. You could tell that both of them genuinely enjoyed their somewhat newish role as parents.

I think a lot of people mistake what I said earlier about respecting the changes Erick seems to be making. That doesn't take away from what he did. What he did sucked and was an incredibly sh*tty and scummy thing to do. There is no doubt about that.

But, I know from my experience that people can and sometimes do change dramatically even after doing sh*tty and scummy things. And I really hope that this is true for Erick. Time will tell.

Yeah, one of the things that irritated me was the implication that Lindgren deserves credit because he stood up and asked for help.

Well, not really. Not until he'd been outed as somebody who had been welching continuously for years. And given that the goose that lays the golden eggs has been killed, he had nowhere else to go. Nobody was buying his bull**** any more, he had no way to pay back his debts. So why wouldn't he do what all Americans do when they get caught being *******s?

"I've got a disease. I'ma go to rehab."

And as long as he doesn't rob anyone else in a year or two, maybe people will wipe the slate clean.

I don't care who you are, as a human being, we've all made really REALLY bad judgements and decisions in life. Look at the man of peace Dalai Lama. He has done and said some pretty wild stuff. Yet he's still a great man of peace!

None of this excuses what any of us have done. We have to take responsibility for these actions and find a way to make them right as best we can by living as best we can each moment going forward.

The fact is he is paying people back slowly(as far as my unknown to him ass knows anyways). He is out there for all to see and not just hiding and praying it all goes away. This is a sign of a man that has a good heart.

Of course does any of this mean we shouldn't hold him accountable to a higher standard with regards to his debts and past habits. But so long as each day he continues to do the best he can to resolve these, he does deserve the right to play in the games.

If I was owed money by him, I would not be upset to see him playing in these games, in fact it be the opposite, because if he's not playing poker what's he earning? Where is his money coming into pay me off?

One cannot take away the fact he's got some great skill in the game of poker. Therefore the best way to get the money back is him playing poker. A bit of a double edged sword, because he's using money that some can argue needs to go to his debtors. But the man does need to eat and live too.

I think the guy is on a good path to get himself on the good side of the coin again. I for one will be rooting for him to do just that. Of course, if it comes out that he is/was/does screw people again....well....unfortunately for him that be for sure the end game. Fact is though, many people have found ways to make right serious wrongs without going back to said habits. As the fear of having to endure the storm one creates is often enough to keep em in check.

Just my two cents for free.

The question is does Erick still live a baller lifestyle in his sick crib with nice cars. Until he's in some 2 bedroom cheap apt. grinding out with his wife and kid I don't want to hear it.

I said this in another post. The poker media is beyond amateur hour. One way to improve the game is to improve the media. And there are plenty of reputable media members who could do that in a hurry.

Can we also add u to the list now?

If he had said that I would have had much less of an issue. But he said (correct me if I'm wrong God knows I'm not going back to read it again) that everyone in poker does act the same as Lindgren.

He may not actually believe it, in which case it's just a poor writer exaggerating to try to strengthen a weak point.

Was hanging out with a 2+2er ( he can post his name if he wants ) who Lindgren owed like 3 or 4k to from the golf course...he confronts Lindgren in the hallway and says "hey Erik you got any of my money from golfing"....and Erik replies with "that was from like 3 years ago that bet doesn't count anymore it's been too long"...lol

lolz

Erik citing section 4 code 1.7 of the bettor's code on statute of limitations. Well played.

Yes but the code only applies to the old school crowd. The young poker players must repay all their debts.

Agree

Naturally.