Poker Master Publishing Ltd. has announced the release of a german translation of "The Mental Game Of Poker" by Jared Tendler. It is an austrian company, nevertheless they have a UK Ltd. , which is suspicious already. However the release was announced for the 19th of February. The book costs €49,95 (~$65 USD) and is already sold as preorder for several months. The release was actively promoted and a freeroll for the ones who preorders was promised. 1st price should be a free coaching by Jared.

There were a lot of voices in the last months who already stated this offer is very suspicious. Reason behind are rumors the translations isn´t official, isn´t finished or even close to be finished, the publishing company is bancrupt, etc. .

Jared Tendler himself addressed those rumors on 16th January 2013:

So far noone got the book. It isn´t available on Amazon or any other book store online or offline. The publisher isn´t responding to questions vila mail and e-mail.

A lot of well known members of the german poker community have publicly stated that it has turned into a scam from what they are knowing.

Poker Master Publishing Ltd. so far published only one book, "Easy Game" by Andrew Seidman. The translation quality is very poor and the book therefore was blamed in discussions in the german community.

Cliffs:

- Poker Master Publishing Ltd. has announced the release of the German translation of "The Mental Game Of Poker" for 19. February 2013
- Book was actively promoted by Jared Tendler
- A freeroll with free coaching by Jared as 1st price was announced for preordering
- The book isn´t published so far
- No statement by the author since mid of January
- No statement by the publisher
- Widely spread rumors about a scam for several months

Sources
http://pokermaster.at/shop/product/1...-of-poker.html
http://pokermaster.at/kontakt.html
http://de.pokerstrategy.com/forum/th...8#post12632298

Here are the prices listed on the website for the ebook:

"Kindle - $9.95
Kindle UK - £6.19
Kindle Germany - €7.24
Nook - $9.95
Apple iBookstore - $9.95
PDF - $14.95
ePub - $14.95
Kobo - $10.95"

A couple of other facts:

- According to their official twitteraccount @PokerMasterDE the book went into print on jan30 and they received a testprint on 5th of february. No other tweets before or after that.

- Their forums are spammed with links to porn and there are 0 real posts.

- According to whois.net the domain pokermaster.at is registered to
personname: Trzaska Wojciech
organization: iGamingPromotion-Wojciech Trzaska e.U.
street address: Gablenzgasse 99/19
postal code: 1150
city: Wien
country: Austria
phone: +436603424913
e-mail: trzaska@igamingpromotion.com

Their impressum however points to that limit corporation registered in london only.

I’m really sorry if this has turned out to be a scam. At the moment I am giving the publisher the benefit of the doubt. This is their Polish website where they have already translated three popular books successfully.

http://poker-master.eu/index.php/com..._premiera.html
http://www.poker-master.eu/index.php/ksiazkeczk.html

This is what leads me to believe they are reputable. I’ve already contacted the publisher and am insisting on a strong response from them today. They have informed me that less than 20 pre-order copies have sold to date (If that figure seems inaccurate based on the forum discussions, please let me know).

As you can appreciate not speaking German, I was unaware of any concerns voiced on poker forums, however one person contacted me late last week indicating there was a problem, which I immediately forward to the publishers at the time. I have a contract with them and they paid me an advance on future royalties, so in that respect it was intended to be an authorized translation, as opposed to someone translating it without my permission.

As a self-published author I'm afraid I am learning a lot of this stuff as I go along. I have no idea how long translations take but it is taking longer than I expected and I am aware that they promised delivery on February 19th. I still have every faith that the publisher is going to produce the book as planned, and I will keep you guys updated as soon as I have more information.

Are you aware of the point that your book costs $65 (USD) for preordering and twice as much for a regular order? - Additional $65 only for a copy of the ebook... May be that explains why there are only a few orders and it´s one of the points which makes it look scammy. Additional $65 for a copy of the ebook...

Thank you very much for your quick response!

I was aware the book is $65/50€ - from this page: http://pokermaster.at/shop/product/1...-of-poker.html and saw they were bundling my book with Easy Game for a slight discount. But, not aware of your other points though, can you post a link/translation to what you're referring to?

Pricing wasn't something that I had/have any control of. It's their call.

Jared, with all respect, I had a look at this website now. I understand that you don´t speak polish or german, I don´t speak polish too, but there´s a tiny new little tool called "GOOGLE TRANSLATOR"...

>>>CLICK ME<<<

Most of the comments on this website are by people complaining they didn´t got their books! There´s a guy claiming he´s waiting now for 2 years! Dusty´s book was announced to be released in July 2012 and from what I´ve seen in the comments and the forums it´s still not delivered! The website seems to be abandoned. The forums are spammed and no repsonse by the owner for months from what I´ve seen.

Reputable is something different for me, well you don´t spoke of a positive reputation!

May be we should ask Leatherass about his experience, but from my impression so far I highly doubt that anyone will get a book in the near future.

Jared, if the book is already translated and the layout stuff is done it shouldn´t be a problem to release at least the ebook so the people who already paid get at least something!

I´m looking forward in this and I trust in you that you will care about it. Thanks in advance!

edit: to answer your question about the source of the prices...

http://translate.google.com/translat...%2Faktion.html

there´s claimed that the preorder period is over, which isn´t as it´s still available in the shop and it shows the regular prices. something which is maybe a valid and legal marketing method in your country but not in austria in case the prices are intentionally given higher than they are.

Dear Players & Customers,

Please apologize for the current and for all of us very uncomfortable situation.

That we are fully respecting Jared Tendler as an great author and person and all of you as our customers and poker players.
We are very sorry also for the, at some point, missed adequate communication.

The delivery delays because of a production issue (on time delivery of the hard cover) and we are working very hard on solving this problem, that you can get your "The Mental Game Of Poker" copy as soon as we can.

We would like to assure you also that we are a still operating company, not bankrupt and as you can see on our Facebook Fan Page we already presented the book at LAC.

As reparation for your strained patience and trust, we would like to give you as a present a free copy of “The Mental Game Of Poker” eBook.

To get your free eBook please send us via e-mail to pokermaster@pokermaster.at your:

full first name and last name (no nicks please)
your order number.

After we received it, we will send you your personally eBook.

Once again, we are very sorry for occurred problem and if you have any other questions please do not hesitate to write us an e-mail.


Sincerely yours,
Poker Master Publishing Ltd.

No, it took weeks to get this answer and we are now here in public by your fault and this topic will stay in public until the issue is solved. You got your chance already for solving this issue via mail and you decided not to answer for weeks/months!

At this point can you please explain the problems you have with the books of our polish friends? - From what I´ve seen in your forums they´re delayed for almost 9 months now!

Why do you hide behind at least 3 addresses and half a douzen websites?

Why didn´t you become proactive and informed your customers of the delay?

Why don´t you answer to the comments on your websites, to the questions in your forums and to your e-mails?

Whose phone number is that in the whois entries of your website?

What about a refund?

Dear Count Plunkett,

as you have seen in our previous post, we already apologized for the absolutely uncomfortable situation for all of us.

But we would like to say also personally to you and all other players, if it’s necessary - we are really very sorry for that situation!

As you can see, our company data are public and we are not hiding anywhere.

Your are absolutely right – we should be more proactive it in this unfortunate case. We are young company and, like many people, we are also learning from our mistakes and did it right now for sure.

We tried to answer every customer’s e-mail, that we got. If we missed yours, very sorry for that. As you good know sometimes emails also getting lost.

The phone number on the webpage is our company phone number. The one in the "whois" entries belongs to your partner in Austria.

And very important:
Of course you and every other customer, can get his/hers money back!
We are for sure not thieves, but a young company, that just got some problem or makes a mistake and for sure learns from them!

If you wish get your money back, please just send us all of your data, your order conformation and Moneybookers, PayPal or bank account, that you paid with. We will transfer to you your paid amount immediately.


Best regards,
Poker Master Publishing Ltd.

Why are you calling yourselves PokerMasterDE (here as well as on twitter), when the homepage says PokerMaster.AT? Do you own PokerMaster.DE too?

What is the purpose of that ltd. and why didnt you form a gmbh/gesmbh?

Hello Divided By Zero,

"DE" is just a description for German language, not a domain.
No, we do not own the pokermaster.de domain.

"Ltd." because the company is based in London, UK.

Have a good night!

Thanks for the links! I'm happy to see that PokerMaster is responding in the thread. Since they're new to 2+2, I'll keep an eye on this thread and make sure they continue to reply to any additional questions or concerns.

FWIW, this company contacted me last year wanting to translate and sell my book. I declined. Unacceptable terms aside, their website and web presence (at least at the time) looked totally unprofessional to me and certainly not becoming of the major "publishing" company that they presented themselves to me (they claimed to have deals with 2+2 among others). I took the additional step of contacting the author (Ed Miller) of one of the few books that they listed as selling to inquire about his dealings with them and received no reply.

Please think also about the difficult gambling legal situation in many european countries.

I don't believe we at 2+2 have ever dealt with them. However, it's possible that when they dealt with Ed Miller they thought they were dealing with 2+2 which is not the case.

Mason

This is run by Adam Walczyk. He never notified me of publication of the book in Polish despite it coming out six months ago and has not paid royalties or given a royalty statement despite being six months overdo and promising that he would do so last week. It looks like a scam. I'm planning to file criminal charges against him for fraud.

Thankfully we had PremiumPokerPublishing do the German version. I believe 2+2 has also done German translation business with PPP. They have been first-rate.

And...just received a royalty payment from Walczyk.

Has anyone ever got this book? - Don´t have seen anyone reputable confirming that he got his book. On PokerStrategy all I found was people asking about the release but same over there... noone confirming.

This polish bussines mostlikely would run better if they would finally sell AND deliver some books... 8)

updates? i wanted buy the book right now, and found these thread.. someone got his book?

Yep. I've got it on amazon. very useful book.