Yeah there's nothing worse than some toolbag who thinks he has a right to be aggrieved when you steal money from him.

I remember robbing this old lady for heroin money, bitch had the nerve to call the cops on me! WTF, people these days are just unbelievable.

I find it extremely offensive that this guy has legit scammed A LOT of people in the poker community and has the nerve to show everyone he still has their money in his bank account and yet hasn't paid a single person back.

Errr....wait, he hasn't showed anyone, someone just "vouched" that he has enough to pay people back.

Next up is going to be the revolving scam where he tricks someone into paying old debts because his bank account is frozen or something. Then the old debts will be paid and new ones will be racked up and name will be clear for a second.

If you have over 120K in your account to pay these debts back, sure ONE person on this list could be paid by now. Not Monday, not Tuesday...NOW.

If a guy is addicted to something that is sad and I feel bad for him. But a guy who steals from other people to feed his addiction, many of them well-meaning friends / acquaintances, that is a different story, and I don't think you can let him off the hook just because of his "addiction." There are plenty of people who have much worse addictions and never resort to robbery.

To blame people for lending him $ is not cool, he was a well-respected player w/ many big scores, while lending $ is almost always -EV, when they gave him the $ most probably had absolutely no idea about his gambling problems + thought they were just doing a favor for a friend or a person in the same profession who was well-respected + who they w/ relatively good reason assumed was good for it.

I do give Max credit for coming in the thread and more-or-less being honest about what is going on rather than just disappearing. And it is a good sign he's taking accountability for + making the initial steps to pay back what he owes. But until he actually starts really chipping away at his debts, it's basically just lip service.

It also seems like more of a case "Ah crap, I got outed in a very public way, guess I gotta salvage what I can of my reputation by coming clean + trying my best to pay back people I borrowed from" rather than a case of genuine remorse, esp since he apparently was still trying to scam people after this thread got posted

Egypt law might say it's OK but where I come from welching on a loan is a bad thing to do. Addiction/illness is just an excuse for making bad, immoral choices. I have made bad decisions in sports betting and poker, I was not compelled to make those decisions by an addiction. A gambling problem IMO is nothing more than a label given to someone who has made a long series of bad choices, none of which were the person forced to make. There is nothing that takes away their free will at the time when each decision was made. Lending money to someone who is known to make a lot of bad decisions is probably not a good idea but those owed money have every right to be angry.

Obviously he didn't have money just chilling on his account. He either sold something like real estate, which takes plenty of time usually unless you are fine with getting terrible price or finally binked something, or took legit loan from bank to pay back people.

???

I was responding to people who thought he had plenty of money himself while also taking loans from people just for lols.

Probably waiting to see if he can bink the Sunday million

I wish there were more dumb tourney regs like Max that would jump in the cash games like he did.

Hoping everyone gets paid out asap!

I find it hilarious that the people who are calling me stupid are the ones that gave Max money without even knowing him well lol. Quite ironic...

And the person who compared a gambling addiction to child molestation? How are these two even related? An addiction and a fetish!?

And lastly, people like Max are not scamming or stealing in THEIR MINDS. That's where the vicious circle is... In his mind he is borrowing in hope to bink a tourney so he can pay back who he owes. That my friends, is a gambling addiction and it's really sad.

Anyway, good luck to both sides.

How are these comparable? The lenders gave him the money willingly. I don't see how this is a debate.

In general, and to put in simple terms, and I sincerely hope this point comes across: WE SHOULD STOP LENDING EACH OTHER MONEY IM THE POKER COMMUNITY BECAUSE IT SEEMS LIKE IT'S THE ROOT OF ALL PROBLEMS.

dont feed the troll

maybe he is addicted to lying to people about paying them back?

the addiction to the rush that your mark feels when you say its going to happen soon, and the sweet THRILL of saying "YOINK!, death in the fam, scame.."

every "oh thanks man, i knew you were cool" gets him more and more into a frenzy...

what does teh bible have to say about it? or ben franklin?

He said it in a dick way, but he's mostly correct.

I've been playing for a living since 2002. When you play for a living, it's all about managing money. If another pro needs to borrow money, then he's ****ing up his business plan somewhere. A **** up that will always have him broke/debt. Overspending, taking too big of shots, poor work ethic, lending too much money, drugs, whatever; it all means the same thing - broke.

I get that all these guys lent him money did so because they were friends and who wouldn't want to help a friend out? The problem with this is ultimately you are not helping him out; you are just postponing him in addressing the issue(s) that is causing him to need to borrow money in the first place.

Buy him groceries? Fine. Pay his rent? Fine. Pay his overdue bills? Fine. Lend a stake? Mistake. Lending a professional player thousands of dollars to get into a game is just delaying the inevitable, exacerbating his situation and creating a new one for yourself.

I mean, everyone probably remembers the online player that was borrowing 5 figures at a time. The guy got buried in so much debt he didn't have a single out in life. How does a guy pay 6-figures in debt? Borrow and gamble, LDO. The only problem with that is that is what led to the 6-figures of debt. Can a guy play his best with huge debt over his head with an hourly expectation that is laughable in comparison to the debt? He sure couldn't.

Eventually the well dries when you don't pay back, and now what is a guy with no education or job history in his 30's supposed to do to live and pay back that kind of debt? Better to put him on the streets with no debt that way he can always live off a Walmart cashier job with the self respect that he's not a pos deadbeat.

I hope all you guys get paid. GL.

there are plenty of times when its viable to loan money to people. you just have to be careful.

Well, the biggest red flag is a guy asking for money when he already owes someone else. I think most of the time you won't be privy to that information from the person asking for money.

Anyway, all you 20-somethings can call me a nit and "what's the big deal with lending a buddy 5 or $10K?" and I'll just defer to the axiom with age comes wisdom. There's no upside to lending a professional poker player money. I've lent plenty of money to people before, but none with the intention of gambling with it.

nope

no offense but I think your looking at this all kinda naively, I'm assuming you don't play online mtt's for a living. There are litterally dozens of reasons why it can be very useful to loan and borrow at short notice.

It's very easy for someone outside these games to say the phrase "negative freeroll" and think that they have won the arguement. The fact that you can get grimmed is clearly a very big downside to the loan borrow debate. Doesn't mean there aren't also a ton of good reasons for going ahead and doing it. More so in the mtt community than in any other area of the poker community.

Ok, since there are literally dozens of reasons, then list 12 reasons why it can be very useful to loan and borrow at short notice for online mtt's?

You are correct - when I was able to play on Stars I stuck to cash, and my only mtt experiences were playing the Sunday $215 2-3 times a month and wccop/scoop events, because I kind of detest mtt's, so I'm not deep into that community.

BTW, I'm not trying to win any argument. If you think lending money to broke professional players is wise, then to each their own. If it's someone close to you who is cash broke online, then that's a bit different, but this is coming from an American who had to keep a stockpile of cash on Stars because it was very difficult to wire 5 figure sums due to the UIGEA, so you needed to stay way over-rolled because depositing wasn't an option. I really don't see that being an issue for Euros, though.

As much as I'd love to sit here at 4:52am on my birthday and write out 12 reasons why I think loaning money is a good idea im not gonna bother. We can just agree to disagree. I know i'm right, you know your right. Bedtime for me, mod feel free to delete any of these posts as I think this might have got derailed quite abit (myself partially to blame)

Sorry to bother you on your birthday. Seriously, I was asking since you stated there are literally dozens of reasons for mtt players, and I can only logically think of one and that one shouldn't be a concern for non-Americans.

I have no issue with people wanting to loan money to other players. I just gave my ideology that has kept me burn free. I'm not saying I'm right or that you are wrong, but I know I'll never get burned nor did I fall victim to the guy with 6-figs debt I spoke about earlier because I said no.

Happy Birthday.

Land O Lakes speaks a lot of sense.

With the understanding that they would get it back, not that he would keep it. He stole their money.

I don't think any of the loaners knew or thought he is broke.

I don't play MTT-s, but I have often found myself on both ends aswell (mostly live, which I play once a month for fun). Just to give you few:

* when my cashout is pending and I need some cash right now
* when i'm in casino and my transfer limits are full (max you can get from card is like €5K and €20K swings can happen even in some crazy €5/€10 games in a single day)
* when I need some other currency in Skrill or somewhere similar and don't want to lose on transaction fees

And this is coming from someone who have no transfers on poker sites since the Estonian law. When I did, I had alot more reasons to loan both ways, easiest example is Stars low deposit limits.

I could exist just fine with not loaning and getting loans, but it would make my life much more uncomfortable. And it must be huge pain in the *** for high-stakes players who actually have to move tens or hundreds of thousands for games.

While I believe that you 100% had the right to make your OP, I think it may be a good idea for you to stop posting since you have already achieved probably close to 100% of what you were striving to accomplish (with the exception of getting your cash back) when you wrote the post.

I understand that it is very frustrating to do a good deed for someone and have that person not live up to/not fulfill their obligation(s) to you. When money is involved these feelings of anger and frustration are further exacerbated, and sometimes the party that has been wronged loses their perspective with respect to the entire situation along with their own culpability.

Before you start to make assumptions about me or my intentions, I'll disclose that I do, or did know Max pretty well. I have also played a decent amount of MTTs, so I can appreciate the need for loans or the exchange of funds between players. I'm not an apologist for Max, or any other guy who has borrowed money and not paid back their lenders. I'm also not prepared to say that Max should be forgiven because he has a "disease," although if he did it would be ironic given the screen name of his biggest lender.

I want to try to make my point without offending any of the creditors, especially Parts Unknown, who I know to be a super solid guy, whom I have a ton of respect for.

My issue with OP is that he is taking zero responsibilty for the situation in which he finds himself in. As poker players we constantly quantify things like equity, odds and expectation. When you loan another player money, it's kind of like calling for a chop. In other words, the loan can't have a postive EV unless you charge interest. Banks and other lenders use this interest to offset losses incurred when borrowers default on their loans.

I'm sure OP isn't naive enough to think that his expectation was to get back the entire amount of the loan, given the uncertainty that the future holds. I'm not a actuary but the small chance that a borrower can die (before he gets around to repaying the loan) slightly decreases your expectation. There are many other factors that can have a negative effect and decrease the value of the debt you own.

I appreciate the fact that OP made this post as I think that it has prompted a realization by Max that he needs to take action, not only to save his reputation, but more importantly, because it is the right thing to do.

I have been accused at times of having a laissez faire attitude in my approach to dealing with others, but the way I look at it if someone stiffs me, thats one less jerk that I have to deal with. Additionally, I probably won't have to go to any great effort to avoid this deadbeat since I will be the last person that they want to see. If it makes OP feel better, or has a cathartic effect, then by all means continue posting in this thread, but please realize that in doing so you may come across as entitled, unworldly and self-righteous.