He pretty clearly has the seeding numbers reversed. And in spite of those seedings, Mason will never make the Final Four.

Way back in the day, maybe 2003, my buddy and I were cajoling around in a 30/60 game. Mason sits downs. He is toting around a new red book, no one has seen yet. This is was when each new book was a big deal. It was actually a good one too, I think it was the tournament book that introduced the concept of "M". Anyway Mason is proofreading it or something and my friend asked to borrow it for a second. Mason obliges. My friend pretty much starts reading it cover to cover. About 10 mins in he leans over, "I'm just gonna see how long I can hold it before Mason blows his lid." By this point Mason is staring him down. Just stone silent folding and staring. Folding and staring. About 15 minutes later, Mason gets a table change and uses that as an excuse to get his book back. He was clearly seething though, but he never did blow his top. Well played Mason.

this is why he is and should be hated :

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/15...g-ppa-1028859/

Hi Folks,

bracketgeek is a site my partner (another poker player) and I created. We are in beta right now, and the seeding part doesnt work, so to address David's comment, the person who set up the bracket just hit randomize for the "seeds". I would not pay any attention to the seeds as of yet. We are still working on codes to change the option of having seeds.

David, you and Mason (and obviously all other users here) are free to use this site to create any brackets you wish.

D

Mason Malmuth is one of the most respected men in poker, for his strategy writing, and for his wildly successful, publishing company that has always been run with the highest integrity. The best thing about a giant of the industry like Mason is that I am here writing freely in about the only really free place to write. David Slansky and Mason Malmuth let the unwashed, the unknowledgeable, and the excreable attack them, and they fund it. What if folks on radio badmouth him because he won't do free advertising for the scads of radio shows? What is his competitors badmouth him? So what?

I have bragged to my former academic colleagues about TwoPlus Two, an open forum of free ideas. Mason allows me to write out my ideas, experiences, and research and get feedback from all over the world!


When I first started writing my old gambler tales on here, I was attacked very hard. This really helped me in the long run, because I have made poker and gambling history my hobby. I've loved writing about the Old West and Wyatt Earp, et. al. Mason chimed in and suggested Knights of the Green Cloth by Robert DeArment. It is an excellent, well-researched history book to which I compare facts found elsewhere. I have a thread going about all these books I ordered, and it has 120 comments. Two Plus Two is bigger than my local newspaper, most magazines, and the radio shows you mention. Hey, this is a party. Mason Malmuth is our host. I thank him, and envy his thick skin, and wisdom.

2nd plug for this podcast.

and he flip flopped on this. What does the average take away from this?

I don't think he's flip flopped as much as he's tried to explain/clarify, specifically after he listened the QJ interview and realized that what DN thought/understood was different from what he and PP believed DN understood after the first PM.

But you can take away from this whatever you choose.

getting rid of stickies srsly wow

No, it's just the opposite. This is why we at 2+2 are willing to make unpopular stands.

Unknown to you, the two top figures at the PPA had told us on several occasions that they would never use Annie Duke again for anything. (We first voiced our concerns to them went I met with D'Amato and Pappas in the summer of 2008 at the WSOP.) Yet they continued to use her, including her testimony before Congress. So when this went up, it was our way of saying to the PPA that we would not tolerate any more and that we meant business.

Fortunately, thanks to help from TheEngineer, the PPA quickly corrected this and we have been able to maintain a good working relationship with them, and TheEngineer, Skallagrim, PokerXanadu, and a couple of others have been important contributors to 2+2.

Mason

You and others keep bringing this up, yet it never happened and no adjustments to the stickies were ever made. But I suspect you already know that and why don't you point this out? Also, the post you cite went up on June 2 2008 which is over three years ago, yet you make it appear as if it was done recently.

One of the results of the problem that we were trying to address at this time is that our standard book contract had to be rewritten, at a significant cost to us, with additional restrictions placed upon our authors to make sure that the problem we were trying to address would not reoccur.

By the way, we're not happy with the additional restrictions that our current contract places on our authors, and are always willing, after the author signs the contract, to look at lifting any restriction that may be hindering a potential opportunity for them. But on the other hand, to stay viable as a publishing company, we sometimes have to look into making decisions that people like you will try to distort and take out of context.

In fact, that's why this post was made in our Moderator Forum to see what the reaction to this idea would be before any final decision was made. And our moderators quickly told us this was not a good idea.

Mason

This is how things actually worked out. I copied those posts from the mod forum and they now sit at the top of this thread.

I like you Mason but I think poker is dumb.

I would say having a single sticky in each forum which has links to important threads. That are have people pay for threads to be stickied.

Even without the book issue there are probably too many stickies.

Another idea is to have rotating book ads in the sticky threads perhaps before and after the first and last post and in the middle of every page.

I do agree that you should never get into a business deals that are associated to Annie Duke .

But you went on complete monkey tilt because of a raised fist picture which in your mind = communist russia ready to nuke america and take over the world Darth Vader style. Not because of Annie Duke.

If you made a thread that said : PPA, remove all connections to Annie Duke or we are terminating your forum.
That would be 100% ok due to her shadiness .


So your logic is as follows:

*Mason does not want to be associated with anything Annie Duke related
*PPA uses Annie Duke in their campaign
*Mason tells them to quit Annie
*PPA uses Annie again
*Mason does nothing
*PPA puts raised fist picture on their web
*Mason goes on monkey tilt

I just dont get the connection between Annie and a perfectly fine picture that represents "fight for your right"

And this response of yours even makes it look worse.
You were not satisfied with their business connection with Annie so you threaten them on an unrelated thing ????

DUCY ppl think you are weird/hate you ?

Its an ridiculous egotistical stand based on a perceived similarity between two symbols. Why do you think it is your place to decide what symbolism is appropriate for another organisation? Your myopic, uniformed understanding of political history should be kept to yourself not imposed upon others. Just because you were brainwashed into accepting unquestioning hatred of a spectral enemy doesn't mean the rest of us have such Pavlovian responses.

Why do you hate freedom so much?

About 50 million murdered victims of that enemy share his distaste, and qualifies as a pretty good reason.

What exactly is "why you at 2+2 are willing to make unpopular stands"???

Is it because they get more attention?

Sometimes you don't actually have to be unpopular to make a stand.

If you had issues with the PPA using Annie Duke, why wouldn't you start a thread about that? Given Annie Duke's reputation, that would of at least been a much more popular stance than the one you took against their logo (which most people in the thread found ridiculously trivial and absurd).

After all, if all you were trying to do was send a message to the PPA that you "meant business", wouldn't a thread regarding their use of Annie Duke have been more relevant, with the bonus of being less unpopular amongst this site's members?

the pro play would have been to put all the info that might cut into book sales in stickies, since nobody ever reads the stickies.

We've had many issues with the PPA since they were formed in 2005. However, we also believe they are currently playing an important role and strongly support the work of TheEngineer and Skallagrim.

But unfortunately all posts like yours do is damage the PPA. Is that what you want?

MM

Does everyone else but me pay a membership fee to use this forum because it seems people are very opinionated about something they can use for free.

So do you support the PPA or TE and Skalla?

A lot of mods let the "power" go to their heads. It's sort of to be expected. I mean, they have the ban hammer, right? Soooo tempting.

Mason seems alright to me. What I can't figure out though is why he is on here responding to all these comments. I mean I can see caring about feedback and making your product better. But why care to the point of feeling like you have to respond time & time again to defend yourself? Seems like he should have better things to do.

I agree with you but the problem is when miss-information is brought up time and time again, someone might actually believe it, so Mason makes the occasional post to refute.

ZG and Small,

Mason is saying that it was a shot across the bow -- one intended to get attention while doing no harm to the organization.

Thanks Mason. I appreciate the kind words and especially your mention of Patrick for his outstanding contributions to this fight over the years.

Aggo and everyone,

I appreciate the support for PPA, Patrick and me expressed ITT and elsewhere. It's humbling and it's greatly appreciated.

That being said, Mason has been a terrific supporter of my efforts and of PPA. Mason donated the PPA forum. He also donated many spots for PPA banner ads. He allowed me to promote the action plan extensively on 2+2. He promoted the action plan himself via the 2+2 Magazine and via positive posts in the Poker Daily Action Plan threads. He even gave the action plan a nice plug when he was on QuadJacks for an interview.

I've gotten to know Mason pretty well over the past few years. We meet in person once or twice a year and keep in regular communication the rest of the time. I appreciate his support and I hope everyone else will, too.

No, damaging the PPA is not what I want. I apologize to the PPA if my post has damaged them, it was certainly not my intention. Mason, I would genuinely appreciate if you would explain how my post and the like damage the PPA. By the way, I highly doubt a post from a relatively new member of 2+2 on a thread not directly related to the PPA could really damage them.

Was the thread you started regarding their logo (which many would argue publicly belittled their organisation) designed because you genuinely had issues with their logo, or to gain them attention? Or was there another reason?

Was it (as you previously suggested) to let them know that you meant business and your way of saying you wouldn't support them unless they got their act together? If it was simply this, my view is that there would be better ways to do this other than starting a thread which basically talks down to them, and as such, discredits them.