Nothing wrong with telling you what you should have done afterwards. That's the same as going over hand histories. There doesn't seem to be any point in arguing whether giving advice during the hand is OK. Either you believe this is ethical or you don't, and I'm clearly not going to change your mind.

Yes, I'm saying that. But I'm not in the least bit surprised by the "everybody else is doing it, so why can't we" school of thought.

I was going to say that it may have to do with the fact that I started out playing brick & mortar, so that kind of nonsense would not fly. But according to your story you played brick & mortar as well, so I'm struggling to understand why you think the concept of one player to a hand goes out the window just because people can't see someone coaching you. Once again, it really looks like a case of doing it simply because you can't get caught.

Me, too. Interesting that MJ is keeping silent , so far, He's usually not one to shy away from stating his opinion on a controversial issue or clarifying a misunderstanding if that's what it is.

Maybe he is being advised by FTP lawyers.

Or the lawyers have stepped in and are now sitting at his computer.

See, this is where it's turned from me giving my point of view on a situation, one which I doubt very few people that listen to the Pokercast would be able to give, to being flamed for doing something 'unethical'. Kinda to be expected in NVG, but this section feels more community-ey than that section of the forum.

I didn't do it because I didn't think I was going to get caught. I walked into a place with a bunch of people who had been playing online poker for a long time and B&M poker for that matter, and I was just some 19 year old kid. When someone who seemed like a genuine guy with a genuine group of people around him say this is how this thing works, I was too naive to sit there and say, No, this is wrong.

This is the same reason I didn't realise there was a problem with me opening a second PokerStars account because I saw a cool promotion that was for new players on a site. Only when Stars emailed me about closing my account did I think about the situation and realise why people wouldn't be allowed more than one account. If I really thought when I did it that it was unethical, I would hardly come on here and brag about what I did.

The point I was trying to make was that I don't think that the way it was portrayed is as bad as it is/was IN MY EXPERIENCE. Yes, there was some spots where people helped me with lines on the first time I went there, but it wasn't some place where people were basically playing for you, by the time people had learned there for a while, which they clearly encouraged by sending people to training sites and going through HUD stats and HH's, this didn't seem to be happening.

John, I still think yours is a completley different situation (so your experience I don't think applies here). But I do understand your points and appreciate you sharing!. When a player is 19 and put in a situation like you were, I would expect they would follow along with it.

But staying on point, and looking at the view towards a pro. We should all be able to agree that an experienced poker player with an unbelievalbe poker mind should never take over hands being played by other players in online poker. This is the issue. Especially in a pre-determined fashion with strict rules over a long period of time!!!

Yeah, it's weird because I've met a couple of people who spoke pretty highly of him as a person. That said, he was in a gross spot (from what I can tell from Neil on the podcast) where he'd gone broke a few times and got offered a deal to earn some decent money, grind again from the bottom and work his way up. I can see why he would take it without really thinking about the shady aspect of it all - not that I'm saying that's the right thing to do.

A bunch of people who are able to justify their actions.

I know the one drop has been, and I don't think anyone knows the answer so here goes.

Does anyone want to set a line on how much Haralabos paid for his one drop seat?

The guy who won his seat would be massively -EV, so that would make it cheaper. But the tournament was closed and full, so that might drive the price up. Any ideas?

Didn't really know where to post that, or if it needed a thread, (it didn't).

I always figured Haralabos paid between $500K and $700K cash +%, because if I owned the seat that's what I would have wanted.

But if the owner/lotto winner could be hustled, (and if no one else was bidding), it wouldn't surprise me if he got as little as $200K cash +%.

If what I heard about Hellmuth's deal is basically he free-rolled for 20% then he takes home just under $500K, while Mike Sexton's 50% is worth $500K+.

The person who sold the ticket wasn't hustled. He had some sharp people on his team.

Funny Story

Surely sexton only gets 50% of the profit rather than 50% of the winfigure. So his 50% will be give back the backer his million and split the 100K or so profit equally. It would be insane of the backer to split the whole 1.1M win 50-50. So probably worth only 50K not 500.

Hellmuth is probably in a better spot because aria freerolled the entry. He can probably walk away with whatever %age of the win money he had agreed on. Nice for him I suppose.

Interesting bubble situations arise here though. The bubble is worth only 50k to sexton, yet possible 250-300k to Hellmuth.

99% sure I have played with the transgender you mentioned during the ladies tournament. 'Her' name is Jessica, and plays 20/40 at Casino AZ quite frequently. I don't mind playing with 'her' except that 'she' wears a **** ton of perfume and it is very distracting. A very tight and unimaginative ABC player in my experience.

Very tall and wears a big hat and has a fan to cool 'herself' down because of all the stuff 'she' is wearing.