Nothing but respect for the man. Few years ago I was playing 5/10 at Bellagio. An older gentleman who was wearing a a dark purple two plus two shirt made a raise and his opponent folded. I was drunk, young, and belligerent at the time and made a smart ass comment, "watch out he's two plus two!" to which Mason replied to me "I own two plus two". Never before have I felt more shamed.
P.S. Is that the only shirt you own? I just saw u last week at Aria and u were wearing the same shirt two years later.

Surprised this hasn't come up yet but obviously the reason Gary Wise dispises Mason is this...

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/55...-2-2-a-174882/

And frankly i don't blame Gary i would feel the same way in his spot.

Sort of. I actually own a few thousand copies of the same shirt.

MM

Speaking generically, we have rules concerning posts here, and if violated, especially more than once, you do run the risk of being banned. But in this case we did lift the ban and there has been no further problem.

But there is a little bit more related to our Wise problem which no one outside of Two Plus Two has ever been informed about. It goes back to an email that I received from him almost exactly four years ago, before any of us had ever heard of him, which offered some sort of business deal to Two Plus Two that had a few problems. Since Wise is so complementary of me, perhaps he would like to comment on this publicly.

MM

I definitely do NOT hate Mr. M but I did hate having his face as my avatar last April Fools Day.

Your statement above is completely wrong. I'm quite active in the poker industry but prefer to work behind the scenes and also delegate authority to different members of our organization when we want to get things done. We feel that this is the best way for us to operate, and that it is also the best way to accomplish those things which are necessary for our industry.

Also, to show how silly your statement is, by your argument it's the players on PokerStars, FullTilt, (and any other pokersite for that matter), and not the leaders of those organizations (who have put in the hard work to make these entities what they are today) who count. Therefore, many of the people on your list should be eliminated.

MM

Mason, I've made multiple attempts in the past to engage in civil discourse when urged to do so by your people, only to find myself being subjected to hostility when you've entered the picture. If you have a sincere desire to discuss our past relationship privately, civilly, you know where to find me.

The list BJ referred to wasn't ours; we were only debating its merits.

edit to add: This will be my last post in this thread

Just want to chime in and correct BJ, if you only knew what 2+2 staff did behind the scenes you'd realize how they are the reason for many changes that other people will get credit for and that's why they are so valuable to the community.

As for rest of thread The times I've been around mason he's always been very good to everyone around him and is very well liked by those who spend the most time around him. Also, he won't come degen with me and tt in mixed games at aria yet we will get him to donate to us soon enough

qfshauneffindeeb

if you're not going to post here, how about mentioning why you despise MM on the next poker beat?

" Look, darling, Mason Malmuth. The deadliest poker player since Wild Bill, they say. What do you think, darling? Should I hate him?"


"You don't even know him. "


" Yes, but there's just something about him. Something around the eyes, I don't know, reminds me of... me. No. I'm sure of it, I hate him."

My policy has been to have nothing to do with you after your initial contact to us approximately four years ago when you proposed some sort of business arrangement with us that, as you put it:

It might be helpful that you come clean on this so that everyone on this site can see where we are coming from.

Also, you need to understand that actions can have consequences, and we chose not to embarrass you in the past by bringing up your initial contact to us. However, when you make nasty statements about me (and that implies Two Plus Two in general) on a competitive Internet podcast, you don't look too good when you post as you did above. You need to understand that Two Plus Two is a business and we need to make sure that everything on our end is run well and run right, or it could be damaging to us and everything we do. This includes our relationships with other people and other companies in our industry, who we choose to have relationships with, how these relationships are conducted, and how we react to initial contact from someone we have never heard of (four years ago), especially when they state (in their initial contact):

if we would make this deal with you.

MM

As someone pointed out in another post, I'm a little too old for this kind of stuff. But in my younger years...

Best wishes,
Mason

Mason, I don't understand. Gary made a business proposal to you offering to increase 2+2's exposure and you declined. Why the hate?

It looks as though Mason is suggesting Gary Wise was offering to sell 2+2 exposure through some kind of back door deal as a journalist?

If that is what he's suggesting, I'm guessing that, as a publisher himself, Mason would regard that as an unethical practice -- firstly because it's a breach of journalistic ethics to take money to influence your content, and secondly because it's the publisher's job to sell the advertising, and not for a journalist to cut some behind the scenes deal that deprives the publisher of revenue.

Also, I wouldn't be overly fond of people who go on air saying that they despise me either.

Payola, in the American music industry, is the illegal practice of payment or other inducement by record companies for the broadcast of recordings on music radio, in which the song is presented as being part of the normal day's broadcast. Under US law, 47 U.S.C. § 317, a radio station can play a specific song in exchange for money, but this must be disclosed on the air as being sponsored airtime, and that play of the song should not be counted as a "regular airplay." The term has come to refer to any secret payment made to cast a product in a positive light (such as obtaining positive reviews).

my italics and bolding

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payola

massive scandal in the '50's

All this stuff about Gary Wise allegedly being a spammer is mostly a smokescreen. It's clear from the thread linked to earlier and from the circumstances that the real reason Gary Wise was banned was because he invited Todd Witteles (aka Dan Druff) onto his show. This all happened during a period of time when Mason was on the warpath against NWP.

Here's Mat Sklansky writing in the thread linked to earlier:

Note how the particular alleged "spamming" by Gary Wise that supposedly led to his banning was a post by someone else entirely - jman - a respected poster, who publicly stated (later in the thread) that he made that post of his own accord.

This kind of pettiness, self-righteousness and inflated ego (as exhibited in the Gary Wise incident, the AQ vs. JJ thread etc.) is a big part of why some people dislike Mason. The dishonesty and dissembling about his real reasons for doing things (e.g., the Wise ban again) is another big part of it.

I would suggest that to take single lines that are very selective and possibly out of context with what you are suggesting is not the right way to do it. If you want to give NVG that side of the story at all then give us everything, not single sentences.

wilneedheart,

using bold and italics simultaneously to make your point contravenes all style guidelines. Pick one and stick with it.

it's ridiculous how the 2+2 society root against the 2+2 founder just because he doesn't have a likeable personality.

I don't think he was soliciting a bribe to write favorably about us. However, he was offering us a deal that we considered ridiculous. It showed that he was either totally unaware of the relative positions of our respected websites or was just trying to pull a fast one. Essentially, what he was asking for amounted to free advertising.

Normally we just reject these offers out of hand, but once in a while I'll go into more specific detail explaining how absurd we consider these solicitations, and that is what I did with Gary Wise. Evidently he took it personally. Meanwhile, our general policy is to avoid future contact with people when they make these type of offers.

Best wishes,
Mason

I can't resist:

Not sure about all this other stuff posted above....I just thought it was the company he kept

ahem