Well sure, if you want to completely change the definition of scammer then I guess he isn't one.

No its not its nonsense. Theres huge reasons to be disillusioned with poker based mostly on the huge % of scumbags in the game which very much includes the professionals. This does not apply in other professions so not sure why people who are supposed to be good at math try that "scumbags in all walks of life" line. Poker is riddled with them.

Please make it your last post, fakelogic as already knocked you the funk out countless times, stay down.

Hopefully this sad episode will at least help create a real discussion as to how to prevent stuff like this from being so commonplace in our community :

Creating a poker reputation site?

Every post i see you make is saying how scummy poker and poker players are. WTF is your problem were u sexually abused as a child by a poker player or what? If you hate this game and everyone who plays it so much why don't you do us all a favour and **** off.

Or at least explain why you are active in a poker forum yet seem to hate everything about the game and the players.

My guess is you could win when poker was easy now people actually know what their doing its not so easy and suddenly the game and all its winning participants are scum in your eyes. Feel free to explain why im wrong.

that mentality is pervasive on this site and is 100% borne out of insecurity and projection caused by being unable to beat the game (anymore)

I went on a diet, stopped smoking dope, cut out the drinking and heavy eating, and in fourteen days I lost two weeks.

Yes, in fact, I do. Because a few of you saying it on here in one thread might just be representative of a larger problem of leniency in poker scams. What happened in the two biggest scandals of this past summer ($10K HU and NoelHayes)? Given that they were true, virtually nothing.

So it's not that someone at home thinks, "Oh I'm gonna do it" (which, come to think of it, you have confusingly argued is what most of us would do given the right scenario). It's that there isn't a strong fear of consequences when it comes to actions within the poker community.

I would relate your position and irresponsibility to that of anti-vaxxing movement. Sure a few of them think, "Well it's my personal choice to risk my child so leave me alone", but scientists will tell you there is something significant called "herd immunity". The poker community already has a very poor immune system (AB, FTP, Epic, countless MAs, scams, etc.) and your position only weakens it further.


Because there is basically nothing else. Please suggest another form a effective punishment or consequence other than shaming/shunning? Beyond that I can only think of physical threats (which btw I personally feel is inappropriate in almost any situation that doesn't risk your own bodily harm).

I'm not saying you disagreed that his ACT was unethical. I'm saying you disagreed when people were logically calling him an unethical person. The point of my post was to show there is/was a mountain of evidence of unethical behavior and yet your instant read was the opposite--without any evidence of your own (other than studies that generalize groups/populations and might not necessarily apply to this case).

I dont want to make this about me but if your gonna make it personal i will reply once.

Your an idiot let me count the ways. I post plenty on here and only some of it is anti doucebag pros. Not "all". I have NEVER said "poker" is scummy. that is ******ed. Its just a card game. You might want to get a clue and realise this forum isnt just about poker and anyway it was a big part of my life for a long time so obv i still have an interest in it, even though i dont play much.

Your last paragraph is wrong, poker pros are full of scumbags the evidence is there for all to see...it has nothing to with the fact I dont win anymore, thats because i dont PLAY anymore. Mostly thanks to doucebags like you who head so far up,their azzes they think "oh someone is anti scumminess! ? MUST BE A LOSING PLAYA AMIRITE"

love this. fakelogic (hi5)

QUOTE BY FAKELOGIC
Because there is basically nothing else. Please suggest another form a effective punishment or consequence other than shaming/shunning? Beyond that I can only think of physical threats (which btw I personally feel is inappropriate in almost any situation that doesn't risk your own bodily harm).

I say you have come too the very assuming conclusion [for witch you have absolutely no proof] that his actions where of malicious content, that he did what he did with calculated thoughts too deceive all these people where he got money from that was more then the 100% of the entry-fee and saying he entered a second time, and you have absolutely no proof or any grounds to come too that conclusion.
Seen that his reputation and his previous backing [and I have found no evidence or even rumors did you?] where all concluded with-out incident, so the more obvious conclusion of what we as the public know, is that it was a act of desperation and made there and then, and not a pre-calculated attempt to deceive and steal people's money, even so you could still be right, but his past and his reputation, say that it was more likely a desperate act, a decision taken there in las vegas.

QUOTE BY FAKELOGIC
I'm not saying you disagreed that his ACT was unethical. I'm saying you disagreed when people were logically calling him an unethical person. The point of my post was to show there is/was a mountain of evidence of unethical behavior and yet your instant read was the opposite--without any evidence of your own (other than studies that generalize groups/populations and might not necessarily apply to this case).[/QUOTE]

And the people that say he is a unethical person are making a big mistake by saying that a person that has as far as everybody knows has committed one crime that is un-ethical, a un-ethical person!.
Because for a person too be un-ethical he must have committed multiple un-ethical acts on numerous occasions over a long period off time, does anyone have info that ben has done that on ?, his reputation suggests more that he has not, then that he has, don't you agree?

No I think you and those people are very wrong for calling ben a unethical person based on this one incident, I agree that what he has done was un-ethical no doubt, but too say a person is! un-ethical, because he has done for as far as I know [do you?] no such thing in the past or anything close as bad as this, so it is in my eyes and in the light of the lack of evidence a very wrong and sad, and very un-fair too call ben a un-ethical person, for one un-ethical act he has committed.
And I for one think that it is a huge difference between being an un-ethical person, and a person that has a far as we know has committed ONE un-ethical crime/act.
It is the same as calling a man/woman that has 1 beer or glass of wine 1 or 2 times a week a alcoholic.

I have never definitively called him an unethical person. And if I did, I misspoke. But any apologists for him have most certainly called him an ETHICAL person. I am simply saying it's ridiculous to definitively say that. And there are very practical and obvious risks for your certainty on his ethical makeup.

If you wanted my true assessment on him, I would say I'm uncertain but logically leaning one way.

You're being naive by saying "He doesn't have history, so he's clean." as proof of his ethics. He definitely has history now (because he was caught!), so now it should make a rational person question the supposedly clean past. For example, his communication with me from EPT Monaco was quite inconsistent and I got lost at some point on which event he had or hadn't played. I looked it off before as time difference issues, laziness, etc. But now? I'm not so sure.

Hi petjax,

I think the point you are missing here is that it's really irrelevant whether Ben is "an unethical person"; the point is, he has no business being involved in the poker community anymore after the unethical act he committed (which you agree was indeed an unethical act). Higher-level debates about whether he qualifies under your definition as "an unethical person" are largely irrelevant at this point. Having a second chance in the poker community is not a natural right, it is a privelege, and a privelege that can/should be revoked when someone commits an act like this.

There is obviously no enforcement mechanism for issuing a lifetime ban like this from poker, so all we can do to deter future behavior of the same sort is to let as many people as possible know about this situation. He can also be banned from 2+2 marketplace, which is really all anyone has discussed; there will be no charges pressed against him, which is certainly what would happen if he had stolen an equivalent amount of money in a more mainstream profession.

You seem like a nice guy but your defense of Ben here is misguided IMO.

if you ban him for life from the mp, it just pushes his action to arenas which are even less regulated than the mp.

i think you could make the marketplace better if he were to get an undertitle and/or have to explicitly advertise this incident in all his mp threads. then the people in the marketplace would have this information and be able to make their decisions accordingly.

shaming/shunning is our only deterrent and way of prevention moving forward. think palinca/bparis/igor/fakelogic are onto a very good thing. putting morality and irrationality aside, i think we should try to look at things more from the perspective of EV. obviously ben thought this was a +ev move and i personally believe people behave rationally (even in these "delirious" circumstances.). this will become more and more commonplace(and already has) if we have no deterrent factor.

we should create a system in which EV of being caught > EV of crime itself

http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/20...t--posner.html

(an interesting and relevant read for those interested)

It has happened , he scammed some people , he has be named and shamed and rightly so. Not sure why people and going on and on about it now. Let him make good, his name has been dragged through the mud.

I don't know this Ben Warrington chap and i don't condone what he has done.

If i were in sheets position, i would carry on backing him under huge scrutiny, why should his backer lose potentially alot of money due to someones selfish actions. Then you drop him after he clears MU.

My definition of 'keyboard jockey' definitely includes people who throw out ludicrous bets on the internet

I'm sure people are just dying to lock up their money for 1-3 years for the chance to pit Ben (lol not like all eyes are on him right now or anything) against someone that you choose

people really need to stop trying to make bets in these scammer threads

If that active seller ended up scamming then they would also be a scammer, don't need a bet to see that.

Ben has not paid everyone back yet, but according to him he has paid alot of it back.

As for all of the arguments about ethics here, someone just give FakeLogic the trophy and close this thread already. He has owned it from the beginning, both in content and style.

I remember when I had the energy to convey my thoughts on matters such as this--back when I thought people cared lol.

Carry on.

I have not said you said he was a unethical person, I did say you where imo a bit harsh/premature in the shamming/shunning part of your post, and if I gave you that impression it is not intended that way[that why I say all the persons that have] and I have to be honest I have edited that when I read my post before posting, because I had misread you reaction in that post at first.

And for calling me naïve for calling him clean because he has no history, well that is your interpretation of my words, and that is ok, but I don't see where you get that from, as I see it I said that as long there is no proof for earlier stealing/scamming, so judging him or assuming he did as so is premature and un-fair imo, and that is my interpretation of my words, aldo It really does not bother me if you think so.

And it is not me defending ben, but more the assumptions/opinions and guesses that are nothing more then just that, and if i look at the cold facts of his reputation, the many people that have [and many are players themselves and played a lot of the same tourney's as him over the years] nothing negative too say about him before this situation, the absence of any rumors/accusations or anything like that, he never did anything close as bad as this, and that is not my believe or opinion, but the cold hard facts and evidence that is/are known.

So i say any rational person should give him the benefit of the doubt, and some?/many? people here don't do that, and that is what bothered me not ben Warrington being the subject of those naïve and logically/factual wrong people, and hey they all have a right to their opinion, but if the facts, logic, and the evidence show that he has not done anything like this before?[and i am not saying he did not, but that there is just no ground, proof that he did] .

Well i am sorry but then it is just judgmental, and wrong to say or imply that he did this before, and to be clear he may well have, i don't know, but thinking/believing he did is nothing else then a personal opinion.

pm me when you pay everyone back "ben" and i'll change the title

unlocked thread , some new information has come forward it seems

NO MORE prop bet posts regarding this situation...

Someone has pm'd me some new info regarding the situation, I don't want to betray his confidence tho so waiting for the green light to post

Hopefully he just posts it himself but if he wants to stay anonymous ill do it for him

Go ahead Paris. I'm giving you the go ahead to post said pm.