Thanks Crude:

I don't think I ever read that before.

Best wishes,
Mason

During the early part of the wsop i played with Mason a few times at the Aria. I wanted to give him the fan boy treatment but I declined. He's obviously made a lot of money but seemed like the same old Mason I remember from the Mirage about 14 years ago playing 20-40 hold em.

That Bluff thread is ridiculous.

I feel like I owe my entire gambling education to 2+2, especially the early books. I know several people that are multi millionaires from what they learned in Getting the Best of It and How To Make 100,000 blah blah blah. I'm sure there were plenty of other multi-millionaires minted from those 2 books. 2+2 Publishing changed gambling forever in my opinon and produced who knows how many advantage gamblers and expert poker players? Finding their books early changed my life forever.

I wonder where I would be today or how much money I would have had I never found those books 15 or so years ago.

How many millionaires has Bluff Magazine minted, other than their shareholders? They peddle the dream over there and whore themselves out to cheating websites like AP and their (allegedly) still present cheating owners.

If 2+2 took affiliate deals in the US there is no way bluff would be worth more imo. Also that guy can't spell.

**** them.

Hey, you would never see a thread like this one in the BLUFF forums. The BLUFFNatzi's would have it deleted and the author banned before someone could refresh the page. And I appreciate that 2p2 puts ethics above advertising dollars unlike some other sites that promote AP/UB.

You daman, Mason.

Except for deleting the posts with the screenshot of MM asking moderators to tone back the stickies to prevent lost book sales...

Q: Why is Mason Malmuth so hated in the poker industry?

A: Because he has better lawyers.

To this and the other issues brought up for Mason - honestly guys, if you have such mega central exposure like Mason (and other guys) has, every small misstep, without opportunity to clarify and so on is so much preexponated. It's like you have to be perfect on such spot 5 levels before you do or say something and such people doesn't exists.

A lot of famous people handle this by creating interesting scandals about them, so people get less interested when a more nasty scandal occurs. Mason doesn't do that - and for me that is to be appreciated. He did a lot of great work without much fanfair, and he let his work speak for him, he avoided a lot of things that a normal guy would one day or the other be inclined to do. Over time, business interests gets involved, you enter (no matter how much you want to avoid that, or whatever you do) conflicts with people here and there and so on, and this here and there surfaced. But regardless of that I think Mason didn't chanegd in still being a great guy that lets his work speaks for him - and that's to be appreciated.

Sklansky was churning out books much earlier...
Probably since the late 70s...
I have a cheap pink, circular bound "Winning Poker"...
In my hands which is dated 1987...
(Cost $30 which is about $75 in 2010 dollars)...
With no mention on MM anywhere.

These early books were available...
Only through Gamblers Book Club...
But were *** premium priced ***...
So they were always profitable.

whatever personal faults mason might have he is hugely responsible for one of the best forums on the internet. i can say that 2+2 has significantly altered the course of my life.

i sat in masons lounge at the 2p2 party and he kind of glared at me. He might have been glaring at the wall behind me though, so idk.

cliffs: wat?

amen to this! i was so surprised when i met him and plesantly surprised. it took a long time to learn that it is really hard to judge a person from what they write online.

Haha just came back to this thread and thought of the JJ vs AQ thread, classic. I'm sure it's been linked here (I think I made a reference to it also) but for anyone who hasn't read it, do it. Mason comes off terribly and it's just honestly quite funny

In 1989 David and I united all our books creating Two Plus Two Publishing and The Theory of Poker, which was being xeroxed (with the pink cover) at that time was part of this deal.

Best wishes,
Mason

I can't believe this got bumped! But since it did, let me just say that my original post got deleted by the 2+2 higher ups.

Which is why I am posting what I said earlier AGAIN!

Mason reminds me of the grumpy old man at the table complaining about every time someone raises preflop.

Mason and Sklansky obviously have not learned to adjust to their prehistoric thinking. I will spare why because it is a waste of my time and theirs.

Numbers guys like them are too easy to play against in a live setting.

Hope this doesn't get deleted AGAIN because I insulted the all mighty.

side note (el diablo completley owned Mason!)

have not ever taken this site seriously ever since. i like to read it just for NVG and BB4L.

Wow I'm sort of shocked that MM feels the need to defend himself in here. Seriously? That's giving people way too much credit.

That said A++, will read again.

That Bluff thread is hilarious. A load of mouthbreathers posting the sub-literate insults that they've personally posted or emailed to MM about how they'll never read 2+2 or buy any of his books, when it's totally obvious from their literacy levels that they'd struggle with anything more conceptually complex than a story about what nightclub Antonio Esfandiari hangs out at, or where Patrick Antonius is going for his vacation this year.

Pretty sure you could make a decent living from bumhunting if you hung out at those Bluff forums, learning the site names of the posters there.

FYP

par·o·dy (păr'ə-dē)
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Home > Library > Literature & Language > Dictionary
n., pl., -dies.
1.
a.A literary or artistic work that imitates the characteristic style of an author or a work for comic effect or ridicule. See synonyms at caricature.
b.The genre of literature comprising such works.
2.Something so bad as to be equivalent to intentional mockery; a travesty: The trial was a parody of justice.
3.Music. The practice of reworking an already established composition, especially the incorporation into the Mass of material borrowed from other works, such as motets or madrigals.
tr.v., -died, -dy·ing, -dies.
To make a parody of. See synonyms at imitate.


Go for it buddy!

the sklansky minute tilts the hell out of me, no problem with MM

mason is kinda a tool, at least sklansky can poke fun at himself.

major vomit while reading this thread also

maybe a little over the top but def true

Mason has addressed some of the reasons some in the "poker industry" may dislike him. He runs a publishing company that any poker writer would love to be associated with, both for the prestige and the increased sales and profits that would follow. Business decisions, and sometimes ethical decisions, have forced him to reject business propositions and manuscripts over the years. This no doubt did not sit well with many would-be business associates. He also has made some unpopular decisions regarding posting on 2+2 forums, sometimes barring popular posters for violating guidelines. This, also, did not sit well with both those barred and those who followed them. These were essentially business decisions.

Another decision, probably not done for purely business reasons, was to publish reviews of books written by other poker authors. He called them as he saw them, sometimes totally dismissing some books as utter nonsense. He even took on other noted authors. I'm sure this did not sit well with many authors, nor their publishers.

Speaking for myself, I'm glad I can trust material published from 2+2 to be top notch, that these forums are better than not only other poker sites, but better than any other forums about other fields of endeavors of which I am aware, and that I saved a lot of money over the years not buying books worth less than the paper on which they're printed (and being peddled bad advice).

All of this and I'm not aware of any instances where he didn't know what he was talking about, nor made unreasonable business decisions (giving him the latitude to which he's entitled to run his own business).

For the reasons expressed above, I have the utmost respect for the man. He certainly has earned it. If some hate him for those reasons, that's their problem.

Great! Those are my best qualities too! I like the guy already. I saw him at the twoplustwo gathering at Aria, and got a gist of his personality.

Put me in the "Not A Hater," column. Don't let the Aholes get to you, Mason!

I'll probably read the whole thread and then defend why MM and DS should be in the Hall of Fame for their contributions to poker theory and education. On the other hand, why bother? They both deserve it, and I have yet to
see a rational argument against it.

Only scanned the thread myself, but the times I've heard MM interviewed he came off very snarky, even when Mike and Adam interviewed him on the 2+2 pokercast. Lighten up a little, dude.

Sklansky seems a little full of himself, too.

There, I said it. Am I banned now?

any links to reviews he has written on non 2+2 poker books? which ones he was hard on etc?