My name is Marc Klang. I’m not perfect. I am a 30 year old degenerate, 13 years of gambling, never won in poker. Previous known scum bag – I’ve borrowed and taken forever to repay, welched on sports bets, etc. Always gambling related. In the last 2-3 years I’ve started working corporate jobs with good salary and had a pretty stable time. Banned myself from the Hardrock here (no other place has table games) and forced to play in smaller card rooms. I have a positive track record and no problems over the last 2 years minimum playing in the biggest games that run locally. Also have built my credit up so well that the game is now willing to lend me up to 10k or so each game. We play Tuesdays and Fridays and every time I’ve been lent money the entire amount I paid back on the next session.


Villians: Paul (Zima421), John Racener, Justin Zaki, Fillip Khavin, and some local named Anthony “starfish”


So I have had exactly 2 winning poker session in the last year. I keep mentioning that I want to play blackjack but can’t because I’m banned from Hardrock. Paul backs 1 guy in our game, Filip . (it’s called private game, but played at the card room) it’s a 5/10/25 game, uncapped. They always jokingly reply “buddy whenever you want to play blackjack let me know, we can go and we can play.” Finally I get tired of hearing it, I ask if they’re for real they said yes. I order off amazon 12 decks of cards, a shoe, and the green blackjack felt.


This all starts back in August/September –


The first time we play I bring about 12k cash. Lose it all. Go Home.


After losing, i ask about getting some comps, he says sure so he says i can have some of his liquor. I take shots of Louis XIII and get random things at his house as comps. We schedule the next time to play. I go again, this time myself. I win about 10 of first 12 hands, make 10,500 and tell him I’m done. He drives me to the weekly game at derby lane. Tells the game they’re welcome, and I blast off all 10k in hours. On the drive to derby, Paul reveals that he had a partner chopping with him that’s out of town, so he doesn’t care that much that he lost – but won’t tell me who it was.


About a week later we schedule the next session. Paul, Justin and I go out for lunch before. At lunch, Justin ask Paul for 10% - Paul doesn’t care, so Justin has 10%. We go back to Pauls house. I have about 20k on me. We start playing and I’m losing, quickly. At this point, Fillip arrives – this guy is backed by Paul for all poker and I considered him a friend. Well, he’s cheering me on etc. I go broke. I borrow 1k from Justin, 1k from Fil and 4k from Paul. I take this 6k and start blasting and running it up. When I’m up about 20k, fil starts to lay on the couch. At this point I learn Fil also had 10%. Paul is live chatting to this “partner” on facebook or some other app on his ipad giving him the play by play but doesn’t tell me who it is, only that they’re chopping. Well I run it up huge, and stop when my chips get over 100k. After paying everyone back and getting my buyin back, I’m up 84,000.


Take Thursday off for Jewish Holiday


Friday – we agree to play. Paul texts me a random address in Tampa to go to , I stop at derby lane, leave my ipad, a jacket and a min buy, so if anyone walks by the guy running the game can say “crazy marc” is there. I go to the address, and John answers and goes “surprise” I’m the partner. Also, they tell me this guys Anthony “starfish” has a piece. I’m like whatever. We start playing. At first I’m losing, and losing fast. I had bought in for the entire 84k I was up at one point, and I had a large double down, where if I lost, I would be down to 1400. I win that and it starts to turn around. They are switching dealers, at some points the other guys started playing, jumping in and out etc – looks like they were trying to “change things up”. It doesn’t matter – no matter who sits where, who deals etc I keep winning. I am drinking and doing cocaine this entire timing, playing on repeat the song “ yayo” I hit a big hand, count chips, up another 100k and stop. I tell them I’m going to derby to see my friends , take a break etc finally they say ok, we’ll drive you there. SO we go down the road to derby, Paul stays at John’s house. While at derby for about an hour I’m prop betting w/ (and his friend zani) on flops and doing flips etc. I think I beat him out of another 15-20k, all on paper.


I tell them I don’t really want to play, they said no come on, so eventually i agree. So I had them go out, buy 2 bottles of vevue, some macallan 18, and $600 worth of sushi. We go back to his house. At this time my buddy Patrick is with us, paul , john, starfish, Justin comes too. John’s friend comes with a bottle of dom and goose. I start drinking. Still same song on repeat. I win another 107k, same antics as before with everyone jumping in and out, different dealers, on my left, right etc.


Everyone quits. They offer me a buy out of about 50% right now cash ( 135k I believe) and I go home. I tell them no, I don’t mind losing but I want all my money. So we relax, john and I start shooting basketballs for like 1-5k, beer pong for my 6k to john’s 5k. he beats me twice. So I think I knocked about 15k off the tab. I’m like, ok, want to play 1 last one. John texts everyone, because all that’s left is john me my buddy and his 2 buddies. Well one of his buddies Zani, an Albanian kid was like marc let me buy 10%. I wasn’t too happy about it, but wtf why not. Everyone agrees, we play again. I get down about 55k off the bat, but wind up coming all the way back and winning 207,000 this shoe. It finally happened, I win just under 500k.


I let them breathe Saturday and text them all Sunday. -crickets- Monday finally, they text me saying lets all meet at get a way, a restaurant near derby tomorrow to talk. I bring a big ass duffle bag and walk over to say hi and this guy I never see says “you cheated, you aren’t getting paid, turn around, go home and never talk to anyone again” I start screaming etc asking what’s going on – Paul says they know I cheated and they’re not paying me. And they all leave.


Anyway after a few days the whole poker gossip circle in town is talking about it, they call me 1 by 1, they apologize for how things have went. Said that they were listing to the wrong people. But they still believe I cheated using some crazy device. They said they need to order the device have an investigation etc, but as long as I didn’t cheat they would pay me. I told them they have 2 weeks to investigate, but I want all of my money or nothing, no ****ing buy outs or bull**** . i went to Jacksonville for the WPT and I wind up blowing my whole roll there playing 50/100/200 PLO thinking that I had over 500k coming my way. Up until this point I have considered all of these guys friends, I was on his rail when john final tabled and his friends stayed in my 3 comped Bellagio rooms durings the last day in July.


Time passes and they never order the device. I eventually squeeze out ~9k each from Fil and Justin, 20k from Paul and 4k from John.

Alright guys -- it's been a fun ride but it looks like this is all wrapped up. The situation is now considered closed in my eyes. There were mistakes made by both sides throughout this situation, but I'm glad it's over. I am not friends with any of the guys going forward but I believe it's been resolved amicably and have no ill will going forward. It was a crazy few nights back in 2016 that I'll never forget and the drama was fun as this thread served it's purpose. Thank you everyone that has supported me and hope to have drinks with as many of you in the future as possible. I appreciate everyone's help again and glad this is over. #YAYOGATE

Awaiting Zima to make a post ITT later today, then I'll be locking again and wrapping it up with an explanation of why the thread's been handled the way it has. I'd appreciate people holding off on questions until then, and if you still have pressing questions at that time, you can post them in the NVG moderation thread.

Hello

I have made some mistakes in all of this, and definitely haven’t handled everything anywhere close to optimal, but I am glad we have now resolved this situation and both sides can move on. There were many times I wanted to post and respond to peoples comments, but I just couldn’t due to a lawyers advice. There were many things in the story/following posts in the original thread that just weren’t true. None of that matters now though. Marc and I have agreed that this situation is over.

OK, time to wrap this thread up for once and for all.

Marc came to 2+2 mods a while ago and asked for this thread to be closed, as he was looking to come to an agreement with Zima on his part of the debt. We agreed to do so while they discussed the situation.

Because there were some inaccuracies in a number of things that were posted, they agreed that it would be best to clear the thread out completely and do some editing of the first post. This wasn’t my ideal solution, but I also didn’t want to stand in the way of a deal being made. My objectives were to:

1) Make sure the integrity of the thread remained – that the important details of the situation remained in place so anyone searching our forums for information about any of the involved parties would still be able to find it. It was extremely important to me that if anyone is looking to do business with anyone involved in this in the future, that the most relevant information remained.
2) Ensure that we didn’t get in the way of Marc recovering as much of the money owed him as possible, as long as it didn’t compromise the first objective.

I think I’ve done the most I could to strike the best possible balance between the two. I say “I’ve done” not because this was all my doing, but because I want it clear that the final decision on what was done with this thread was mine, and if people are frustrated with the decision, the buck stops here. Of course other mods had input, but it’s not like every mod involved agreed 100% with all that has happened, and some may even strongly disagree. And the agreement between Marc and Zima (as well as Marc and the other parties) was made completely between them; I didn’t have a hand in that at all. They came to an agreement, and then came to me with what they wanted done with the thread. They then had to agree to some compromises, as they didn’t get everything they wanted from me when it came to an edit of the thread – but I want to make it clear that they never requested the thread be deleted, as it was made clear very early on that this wouldn’t be happening.

I’m sure some have saved the OP or can find it elsewhere and see what was removed. I didn’t believe any of it was important enough to jeopardize this deal coming together. Since I wasn’t involved in the situation itself, of course I have no way of knowing this for sure, but I don’t find it hard to believe there were some inaccuracies in the original story – there usually are when you only get one side. And of course I’m sure that some of what was removed was done to protect those who owed the money, but I think what was most important still remains.

What I was most uncomfortable with was removing everyone’s replies, and I’m sorry to those who are unhappy about this. This step isn’t unprecedented on our forums, and I’m sure it won’t be the last time something like this happens. At least in this case, your posts were deleted for a good financial cause, and helped OP get a lot of his money back. I don’t think anyone outside of the situation brought any new evidence to light in those posts.

The thread itself - the more observant may have noticed that this is a new thread. This is the regrettable result of nothing more than a technical issue. Once I deleted all the replies, the thread became unreadable for mods. Mods see a “Post deleted” message for every post, and it seems like a few thousand of those on one page was too much for the software and/or server to handle; we just get an error message. For that reason, I copied the first post into this new thread, but kept the old one so that any links from elsewhere still go to a real thread. I’ve linked that thread over to this one so people will find the subsequent posts.

Finally, I’ll touch very briefly on the agreement itself. It’s not my place to say what Marc got, but I will say that it was significant. I was concerned that Marc had received very little of what he felt he was owed, but in fact he received the majority of it. Also, towards the end of the thread it was implied that one party owed something close to $300 K when in fact that person’s obligation was substantially less. Those who owed felt there were reasons they weren’t obligated to pay the entire balance, and whether we agree or not, they came to an agreement with Marc. None of us know the full true story; if Marc is satisfied, that’s good enough for me.

The future of this thread and discussion – the thread will remain closed, and I’m hoping all will move on. Mods will discuss Zima’s future on the forums, and I’ll probably provide an update on that, but with his obligation fulfilled to Marc’s satisfaction, I wouldn’t be surprised if he at least is permitted to have normal activity on the forums again – Marketplace and/or trading may be another story. If there’s legitimate cause for this situation to be brought up again in another thread, it’s not like the topic is forbidden. But we don’t need a new NVG thread to hash it out more, nor do we need anyone following Zima or anyone else around in other threads and derailing with this topic.

If anyone feels my decisions on this need public discussion, you’re welcome to post about it in the NVG moderation discussion thread, but I don’t want that to be derailed to another version of this thread. The parties have come to an agreement; time to move on from what happened between them.