Henry Strudwick, a.k.a 'Strudman'
Location: Chessington, London (previously Nottingham)
Remaining makeup: £32,388.

Henry took actions to forcibly ended his staking agreement in order to skip his playing through his losses. He has taken on a new staking deal behind my back without informing his new backers of his existing makeup.

Alias
Pokerstars - strudman
GGNetwork - strudman
WPN - twitchTv_strudmann
Twitch - Strudmann

Socials
Skype - live:henrystrudwick
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/henrystrudwick
Twitter - https://twitter.com/strudders123
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/strudss/
LinkedIn - https://uk.linkedin.com/in/henry-strudwick-752392112



Background
Henry's staking came from 3 parties; myself, and two other pokerstars regulars; ThusPrider and Adzman300. We each provided 1/3 of the stake, and took part in mentoring, coaching, providing learning resources for Henry to improve and maintain his game, and arranged transfers to his Pokerstars account.

History
Henry initially won at $100 and $200 zoom. Results started to suffer from April 2020 onwards. Over time, Henry became resistant to advice, and his approach to the grind was increasingly unprofessional.
In October 2020, Henry subjected me to a barrage of verbal abuse in a group skype call, and attempted to forcibly drop me as one of his backers. He removed me from the staking group chats and blocked me from contacting him. ThusPrider/Adzman were able to talk Henry around to adding me back into the staking group chat, after a couple of weeks. Shortly thereafter, Henry had another losing session and required a top-up to continue playing. At this point in time, Adzman stated he no longer wanted to back Henry. Myself and ThusPrider expressed a desire to continue with the staking arrangement.

It was agreed that Henry would pause playing until a solution was found. Adzman had dropped Henry, but did nothing to seek out a replacement backer for his 1/3 of the stake. Myself and ThusPrider began a search, but suggestions of new stakers were consistently met with resistance from Henry. The potential sale of the entire stake to a stable was discussed, but Henry expressed he did not want to be part of any stable. Henry also rejected the idea being advertised to the poker market on forums in order to sell the stake.

The potential restart of the staking arrangement was brought up towards the end of 2020, with Adzman offering continued involvement, however, Henry stated that he had no motivation to play and would be working on his CV in order to get a job - something which I supported. Around the new year, without any warning or incident, Henry blocked on all social media.

In January, I noticed Henry playing $100 zoom, and his sharkscope results showed that he had played some MTTs. I messaged the staking group chat and informed Henry directly that he was breaking his staking contract if he'd taken a deal with another backer. His response, which came days later, was littered with lies and supposed misunderstandings about how staking contracts work. In further discussions, he had such a delusional version of events that I decided my only option was to find his new backers in order to resolve the matter. After speaking to his new backers, it was clear that he had not made them aware of his outstanding makeup. They did not wish to purchase it, and paused Henry's new deal while we worked on a resolution.

In an attempt to find a solution that worked for everyone, myself, ThusPrider, Adzman and Henry discussed selling the stake once again. Henry initially agreed to exploring this option. However, immediately after this group call, Henry wrote out a list of absurd demands about what any new backer had to stake him for. These included; 500 NL online, £1k NL live, and MTTs (something he does not even have enough volume for in order to be considered for staking). This was all in spite of the fact that the staking deal Henry had signed behind my back was just for $100 zoom initially. These demands were obviously impossible to meet, and by not backing down, Henry essentially blocked the sale of his makeup. He also seemed determined to avoid any form of repaying any of the debt, despite generous repayment plans suggested by myself and ThusPrider. When holding him to account, he attacked my character to his new backer's representative, suggesting I was 'abusive' - even after I'd repeatedly offered to help him in the process by writing off a portion of his makeup as part of any sale.

Current Status
ThusPrider is happy to put his portion of Henry's makeup on hiatus, he has stated that he doesn't have much time to work with Henry at this time but believes there may be opportunities in the future. He stated to me that he was unaware of Henry's actions in terms of seeking out a new staking deal without letting us know.

Adzman is happy to put Henry's makeup on hiatus. However, it is important to note that he was the person that dropped Henry and did nothing to help find a new backer in order for the stake continue. Having spoken to other professional stakers, it's evident that Adzman's portion of the makeup should have been transferred to myself and ThusPrider, or entirely wiped out. The reason he wasn't removed from the staking group after dropping Henry was that I believed Adzman to be acting in good faith at the time. It has come to light that he was in fact aware of what Henry was doing the entire time. Allowing this to happen behind the back of a business partner (or former business partner) is clearly out of line.

I have no confidence in Henry ever reopening a staking deal with over £30k of attached makeup, especially since he already went behind my back to secure himself a fresh new deal. As such, a hiatus is not something I am willing to accept. I am certain Henry was desperate to avoid playing through the makeup, as it exemplified by his attempts to write-off some of the makeup by dropping me as a backer.

Henry has admitted some fault in the matter, but only offered me £1500 to buy out the £10,796 debt that he owes to my 1/3 of the stake. After consulting other staking professionals about what would be a reasonable settlement, this seems to fall well below the mark. To avoid having to out Henry, I asked for an initial £3000 repayment, with a further £3000 within the calendar year from Henry's future profits. This would write off almost half of the debt. Nonetheless, Henry refused to negotiate, and told me he doesn't care if I out him. So here we are.

Henry owes me £10,796.

Henry's primary defence to his actions has been that I don't deserve my money back on account of being 'abusive.' Something that anyone who knows me remotely well would find laughable. Nonetheless, I attach below a voice clip of the event where Henry first attempted to skip his makeup by dropping me as a backer to give some insight into his true character, and who the abusive person was in this situation. Adzman (Maxwell) is present in the call, along with another player in the group who remains 'Anon'

https://youtu.be/iS3IQUkaB2M



Why is this information being released now instead of months ago?
Despite being grimmed numerous times in the 15 years I've been involved in the poker world, I've never outed anyone. I wanted to give Henry time to re-consider his position, and make sure I outed him at a time when the fallout wouldn't cause me distraction from important games. As such, I delayed this post until after SCOOP and other major events I've recently played.

Just had this response in a facebook group I shared the above post in. Looks like I'm not the only one Henry's been grimming..

Hello, I’m Adzman, one of the aforementioned backers in the above staking dispute between Guy Taylor and Henry Strudwick, I would like to offer my account of events to provide some clarity on the above situation.

Firstly I’m very disappointed Guy has decided to post this, especially considering the omission of important information regarding this dispute.

“Henry initially won at $100 and $200 zoom. Results started to suffer from April 2020 onwards. Over time, Henry became resistant to advice, and his approach to the grind was increasingly unprofessional.
In October 2020, Henry subjected me to a barrage of verbal abuse in a group skype call, and attempted to forcibly drop me as one of his backers. He removed me from the staking group chats and blocked me from contacting him. ThusPrider/Adzman were able to talk Henry around to adding me back into the staking group chat, after a couple of weeks. Shortly thereafter, Henry had another losing session and required a top-up to continue playing. At this point in time, Adzman stated he no longer wanted to back Henry. Myself and ThusPrider expressed a desire to continue with the staking arrangement.”

This recounting of events is sort of misleading, Guy and Henry had a big argument the night of 7th October 2020, which is when Guy was removed from the staking chats, and myself and ThusPrider managed the stake with both Guy and Henry for the next month until some of the issues between the two were resolved and Guy was re-added to the staking chat on the 6th November. Whilst not being an ideal situation between the two Guy was kept fully involved in the stake and no one was grimmed or anything of the sort.

Shortly after this I decided to discontinue my part of the stake sometime around the 21st November.

As a collective we agreed to hiatus the stake on the 26th November, citing that while we search for someone to purchase my portion of the stake or otherwise resolve the issue, which Guy and ThusPrider set out to do, whilst this was happening we agreed Henry was free to play games off his own back until then, and by the 13th December we had been unable to find any suitable buyers for my 1/3 of the stake, so we officially decided to put the stake on ‘hiatus’, meaning for the time being Henry was under no obligation to play for us in this time and all outstanding float/stake money was returned to the 3 of us. We were also aware that reopening the stake was unlikely to be viable for at least a reasonable period of time at this stage.

“In January, I noticed Henry playing $100 zoom, and his sharkscope results showed that he had played some MTTs. I messaged the staking group chat and informed Henry directly that he was breaking his staking contract if he'd taken a deal with another backer. After speaking to his new backers, it was clear that he had not made them aware of his outstanding makeup. They did not wish to purchase it, and paused Henry's new deal while we worked on a resolution.”

In an attempt to find a solution that worked for everyone, myself, ThusPrider, Adzman and Henry discussed selling the stake once again. Henry initially agreed to exploring this option.”

Due to the hiatus of Henry’s stake, both myself and ThusPrider had no issue with Henry playing $100 zoom in January, due to the inactivity of our stake and so I had told Henry I had no issue with him playing for another backer, as I perhaps naïvely did not anticipate the potential messiness of Henry playing for another backer whilst our stake was on hiatus, however his new backer was made aware of this outstanding stake, which they expressed concern about, and all parties (Myself, Guy, ThusPrider, Henry and his new backers) set out to resolve this so Henry had a stake moving forward, be it the original one or the new one. On the 25th February, the agreement we came to between all parties was that it was unfair to keep Henry’s stake in limbo, so we set a timeline for us either selling the stake, restarting it, or writing off his losses if we couldn’t find an appropriate solution by the 24th March and that after that point Henry was free to play for himself.

“However, immediately after this group call, Henry wrote out a list of absurd demands about what any new backer had to stake him for. These included; 500 NL online, £1k NL live, and MTTs (something he does not even have enough volume for in order to be considered for staking). This was all in spite of the fact that the staking deal Henry had signed behind my back was just for $100 zoom initially. These demands were obviously impossible to meet, and by not backing down, Henry essentially blocked the sale of his makeup.”

These demands Henry made were the stakes Henry had been playing at the time the stake was ended, his desire to keep playing the stakes he had whilst this makeup was accumulated isn’t an unreasonable request to make, especially given his previous success in all variants he had played for stake, and was merely a starting point for negotiating stakes with both ourselves and any future buyer; hardly an attempt to skip makeup as Guy claims. It’s also important to mention that at no point did we ever have a formal staking offer to buy any portion of the stake to present to Henry to discuss. I would also say whatever new staking deal he signed in the interim is completely irrelevant to the original stake as he’s not in £30k of makeup for a new backer, so him starting at a smaller stake for them is irrelevant.

“Adzman is happy to put Henry's makeup on hiatus. However, it is important to note that he was the person that dropped Henry and did nothing to help find a new backer in order for the stake continue. Having spoken to other professional stakers, it's evident that Adzman's portion of the makeup should have been transferred to myself and ThusPrider, or entirely wiped out. The reason he wasn't removed from the staking group after dropping Henry was that I believed Adzman to be acting in good faith at the time. It has come to light that he was in fact aware of what Henry was doing the entire time. Allowing this to happen behind the back of a business partner (or former business partner) is clearly out of line.”

I have never suggested that I was entitled to any portion of the makeup and if you two had decided to continue you would’ve inherited it for next to nothing. As for not acting in “good faith”, my awareness of events is not in my financial interest at all and I believed they were fair actions for Henry to take given my knowledge of the overall situation, if you feel I didn’t communicate this to you appropriately Guy I apologise for that, but to make out that I have some kind of ulterior motive or gain something from not selling the stake is untrue.

“I have no confidence in Henry ever reopening a staking deal with over £30k of attached makeup, especially since he already went behind my back to secure himself a fresh new deal. As such, a hiatus is not something I am willing to accept. I am certain Henry was desperate to avoid playing through the makeup, as it exemplified by his attempts to write-off some of the makeup by dropping me as a backer.”

As for this, Henry has on multiple occasions re-iterated to you he is/was happy to reopen the stake if he is provided funds, and the fact that the time period in which we agreed to resolve this in (by the 24th of March) has long expired, it is simply unfair to continue to bind Henry in a stake (for what is over 6 months now) with no funds to play, and also have the audacity to attempt to pin this as his fault and him attempting to grim and nothing to do with the stake’s lack of ability to administer the stake is very poor form on Guy’s part.

It’s also worth pointing out that out of the 3 parties involved in administering the stake, 2 out of the 3 parties feel there is no wrongdoing nor is Henry liable for his losses whilst on stake, and unfortunately the bad blood between the two has boiled over and Guy is now taking a swipe at Henry’s reputation as a result of the issues that arose during stake between the two, rather than the actual facts of the matter, which is that Henry is not liable for anything lost on stake.

I hope this helps clarify the situation a bit.

How is this clown down $30K on 100 & 200z and still finding a stake lol?

Maybe he unironically used the Preflop Bible ranges.

Sounds like a massive degenerate helmet who needs a good slap. Attitude on that Henry kid.

Poker doesn’t like you, Henry. But who cares right.

This will likely be the first and last statement I make regarding the allegations made by Guy Taylor.

I first met all three of the backers in Dusk Till Dawn Casino in Nottingham. We were at first friends who would go for dinners and drinks either side of poker sessions throughout Nottingham (though I knew ThusPrider the least well at the time).

Guy, Adzman and Thusprider approached me some time in late 2019 regarding a staking agreement they wished to setup whereby I would be staked and coached for MTTs and cash games alike both live and online. My understand was that Guy would lead the MTT part and the other two the cash game part.

I started out playing 50nl online and quickly moved up to 200zoom and 500zoom on occasions which became my main grind for the next few months although it should be noted my volume at 200z was far greater, though throughout my time playing cash I would regularly play full MTT sessions under Guy’s guidance.

Sometime around April of 2020 I played a full SCOOP for the first time ever, I was very excited. Unfortunately as things go in the MTT world sometimes I suffered quite a severe downswing and ended up between £17000 and £18000 in makeup.
At this time I was asked to move back to grinding cash games as profits had been far more consistent here and though I was frustrated by this given the size of the makeup I agreed. Unfortunately I then suffered a cash game downswing that went on several months.

During this time Guy’s relationship with myself suffered and arguments over hand history’s (even though he was the MTT coach) and everyday topics became more and more frequent. This unfortunately reached a head sometime late in 2020 where the posted voice recording is taken. That evening I took it upon myself to remove Guy from a Skype chat with myself and the other two backers. He remained removed from that chat for around 1 month although remained part of the staking agreement despite our falling out. I have since apologised to Guy for this.

Sometime in late November after I had bust what was a consistently low balance stars account and after a series of upswings and downswings Adzman announced that he would be leaving the stake.

Multiple days went by before anyone contacted me regarding topping up of the balance and it was suggested at that point that the stake should be sold. I reluctantly agreed to this and the four of us went about looking for potential buyers. Nothing was found.
Some months went by and no buyer was found. Things looked hopeless and I had stopped receiving funds completely at this point, despite wanting to play.

Around late January to early February I was offered a stake elsewhere to initially play 100z again. As my old stake was on hiatus I asked Adzman if I could play elsewhere so that I could make some money. He said I could, at this point money was tough to get on stars so I asked Thusprider for a transfer so that I could make a kind of ‘demonstration video’ for the new stake. He has since mentioned that he didn’t fully understand the ‘demonstration video’ was for a new stake at the time, and was under the impression it was an audition of sorts for a streaming position. He has however mentioned that he has no problem with me playing for a new stake given the state of the situation at hand.

2 weeks went by before Guy Taylor contacted my new stake and informed them that I was currently in makeup and should not be partaking in a new stake without his consent. Some conversations were had and it was decided that I should not play for the stake and that the group would continue to look for a buyer again (despite my willingness to play).

I set a date to find a buyer of a further month, bringing the total of unstaked time to roughly 4 months. In order to ensure I got a fair deal and basically wasn’t sent to grind out of £30000 of makeup at 100z I set expectations for what a buyer should include for me as part of a new staking agreement. These were simply the stakes (up to 500nl online and some 2/5 and 5/10 live) and formats of poker (cash game and MTTs) that had got me into makeup initially.

After sending this message some weeks followed before Guy Taylor announced that I was being unreasonable and was attempting to block the selling of the stake. This was simply untrue and I was in fact going out of my way to find potential buyers for the stake despite it not being my responsibility.

And so here we are. I have continued to play outside their staking agreement as there was nobody to buy the stake and the stake hasn’t continued to stake me. It’s been around 6 months since I was last staked by this group and Guy Taylor, despite a willingness to play. Guy last told me when I mentioned the idea of continuing the stake that he no longer thought I was suitable.

As for Thusprider and Adzman, they have both told me they are happy for me to move on and honestly I had always hoped the stake would reopen one day and they would have a chance to recoup some of their money.

Ultimately, it started out as four friends all in it together.

With regard to the recording, obviously it’s a horrific clip of me at my absolute worst. It’s many months ago now so tough to know what on earth I was really thinking. I made a horrible mistake that night and I’m fully to blame for that night in saying what I did and removing guy from the staking chat. I have since apologised to what was once a good friend, numerous times.

I have also seen that Guy has taken it upon himself to make another post showing a conversation between him and a ‘Hugo Ragnarsson’ claiming that I owe him 4.5k. I don’t really know where to begin with this, I’ve never been subjected to something quite as outlandish before.. I simply have never met, heard of, nor had any contact with anyone called ‘Hugo Ragnarsson’ in my life. Nor do I owe anyone 4.5k. I’m concerned either Guy has taken a message at face value from a random account seeking attention which I encourage him not to do at this time given the public nature of this post, or has either gone out of his way to create another false narrative about me. I can only hope it is the former.

I hope I have addressed most things and as mentioned this will be my only post, I won’t be engaging in any back-and-forth dialogue on the matter and honestly wish Guy and the others well.

What a mess..

The bigoted use of autism as a derogatory phrase in that video clip is quite gross. I hope Henry has learnt a lesson from listening back on that.

Protip: don't stake or be staked by your friends.

Would like to a see a response from Guy with regards to this.

I mean if they refused to reload you for four months despite you were willing to play the stake is over and there is no makeup.

Love that Guy Taylor used this thread to out himself as a lying scumbag.

im not taking either side on this dispute, I was asked by Guy Taylor to post here.

around mid december I was looking for horses to stake with my partner, facebook ads in groups were one part of seeking out horses, henry msged me and provided this graph



he introduced himself as a 200z /500z regular, I ultimately decided against staking him for personal reasons I dont wanna mention, nothing to do with his results

whether he left out the 10k downswing or not is not my business and this will most likely be the last post from me regarding this case, dont wanna get too involved.

It's coming. I have just been discussing things with one of the other staking partners - ThusPrider, regarding the situation.

Oh for sure man, any time now. We’re on the edge of our seats.

How is this scumbag not banned?

Response to Adam Maxwell and Henry Strudwick in regards to my original post

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/s...postcount=4878

Since this thread isn't designed for back and fourth between parties, I will only rebuttal Adzman and Strudman once, for want of this turning into it's own thread.

There are countless lies in their responses, which I will address below and back up with available evidence. Before responding to each point I will include some relevant information that I left off the previous post relating to Adam 'Adzman' Maxwell...

I did not 'out' Adam in the original post because he doesn't owe me money. Nonetheless, many observers of the post have asked why I wasn't making more of his poor conduct. After all, he does nothing about Henry abusing me, calling me "autistic", and bragging about how he's stealing my money in the voice clip attached to the original post. Adam would go on to enable Henry in lying about historical details relating to the staking deal in discussions with his newly acquired backers. In addition, at no point during the whole process does Adam hold Henry to account on any of his wrongdoings, either related to the staking contract or his personal conduct.

It is perhaps historically important to note that Henry was brought into the staking group by Adam. They were close personal friends and remain so. During the period over which Henry broke contract, Adam acted in the interests of his personal friendship with Henry, rather than showing any loyalty to his business partners. There could be numerous reasons for this, which I will let others decide upon.

While Adam's actions show a level of misconduct, I did not feel the need to bring this up in the original post. Would I work with him again? Absolutely not. Did I trust him at the time? Initially, yes. However, he began losing my trust after the event that the voice clip in my original post is taken from. Something didn't add up about Adam's demeanour from that point forward.
I've been grimmed in the past and not been able to prove it. So, in order to protect myself and the truth, I recorded most of my future correspondence that involved Adam and Henry so that historical facts could not be blurred by them in future should a situation like this arise. Since their responses in this thread contain so many historical inaccuracies, I am forced to use some of these recordings to debunk Adam and Henry's lies.

Crucially, Adam was the staking party who pulled out of the contract and initially refused to continue backing Henry in November 2020. Myself and the other staking partner, ThusPrider, made clear that we were happy to continue with the staking agreement. Adam did nothing to help find a replacement staker for his 1/3 of Henry's staking. He would later actively enabled Henry in attempting to avoid having his outstanding makeup of over £30k being sold onto an external staking party. Adam views his 1/3 of Henry's makeup as 'on hiatus,' and as such it holds some equity. However, since Adam dropped out, and did nothing to find a replacement backer, he shouldn't be entitled to this. This makeup should, in fact, have been absorbed by myself and ThusPrider to do with what we saw fit. A view shared by ThusPrider.

I came to realise over time that Adam was intentionally deceiving me about Henry's actions between December 2020 and February 2021. In hindsight, he should have been removed from staking group chats entirely after a set period of time once he pulled out of the staking arrangement without finding a replacement for his 1/3 towards backing Henry. Unfortunately, it wasn't until it was too late that I realised how far Adam was willing to screw over his business partners.

I've included a more clear timeline of events related to Henry's actions at the bottom of this post. But first I will respond to Adam and Henry. Importantly, in both of their replies in this thread, they talk as though they privately have the support of the third staking partner involved in this stake (ThusPrider). This is completely false. ThusPrider rejected Adam and Henry's requests to support Henry in this thread. Furthermore, ThusPrider has acknowledged that my post was factually correct and agrees that I have done everything to uphold my end of the staking agreement at all times. It is his choice to stay out of things here and I respect that he doesn't want to be involved in something that has now become somewhat messy. It is quite impudent for Henry and Adam to hint that he might be on what is now 'their side' in this matter. Particularly, since further evidence of Henry's wrongdoing has come to light since my original post in which ThusPrider has expressed severe disappointment.

Adzman seems to be skewing the direction of this event to suggest that myself and Henry were having some kind of equally sided argument. Perhaps his memory fails him. Here's what he said the following day about the incident in a group meeting.


https://youtu.be/YT4PSPJcLtI

Neither me or ThusPrider ever agreed to a type of hiatus that would allow Henry to sign new staking deals before resolving his outstanding makeup. In this response, Adzman has crucially left out the fact that Henry was offered funds and the chance to play for us again at the end of November, and that this offer was on the table throughout December while Henry claimed to not be interested in playing poker.

In response to Adam pulling out of the staking arrangement, the discussion of a hiatus was discussed in a voice call between the 3 backers in late November. It's made clear from ThusPrider that Henry taking a break from poker is not a bad thing, but if he wants to play again in the future he has to come to us first on account of his outstanding makeup. At such a time, Adam could decide whether or not he's back in...



This opportunity of re-opening the stake when Henry felt like playing poker again was never afforded to us. Instead, Henry deceitfully implied in group chats that he wasn't planning on playing much poker, but went about securing himself a new staking deal without mentioning his outstanding makeup to anyone. Meanwhile, Adam sat and watched this all unfold, without informing either me or ThusPrider of ongoing events, despite being in regular contact with us both during this period.

The hiatus was initially to allow time to find a replacement for Adzman, and started on November 24th. Before the end of November, Henry was offered the chance to play on GG Poker ($200 rush), but rejected this, citing a lack of motivation. I suggested a live private game I could get him into on December 10th, but Adzman rejected this idea. On December 12th, Henry blew up in the staking group chat about the delay in finding a replacement for Adzman, but when offered the opportunity to play $200 rush on GG again, he showed no interest in playing whatsoever. He was asked about this directly a further time on December 27th but stated he was not interested and made reference to "working on his CV."





It appeared as though Henry was not planning on playing poker during this period. As such, a hiatus of the stake seemed fine. The understanding of the arrangement was clearly that if Henry was ever ready to put in volume and play full-time again, that he would have to re-open the stake or resolve the makeup before doing so. However, rather than taking a break from poker, Henry was secretly applying for staking deals. And not just the one he eventually signed. After making my original post, I was contacted by backers that Henry had approached in late 2020 for staking.

Henry used a selective hand sample that excluded his large downswing in order to try to secure a new staking deal. See the response in this thread from Kanaxis. Link to post here: https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/s...postcount=4892

Crucially, Henry was applying for these new staking deals at the exact same time he was telling his backers in the group chat that he had no motivation to play, felt unwell, was working on a CV for a job, and was generally uninterested in poker. It is quite obvious that there is deception here.

You did not make me or ThusPrider aware that Henry was playing for another backer, or had a formal staking deal. It obviously would be normal practice to inform your business partners of such an important development, i.e. a break in contract. By this point, Adam was clearly not acting like a business partner.

Personally, I would have been fine with Henry occasionally playing 100z for himself while he was looking for a job, or working outside of poker. Safe in the knowledge that if he were to play full-time again we, as a group, we had first refusal of his action. However, I would not have accepted him playing on a new stake without resolving his outstanding makeup, and neither would ThusPrider. This is backed up in these voice clips from February in a meetings between myself, Adzman and ThusPrider, and later involving Henry as well, after it had been revealed that Adzman had sat back and allowed Henry to take a new deal without informing his business partners.


https://youtu.be/38zq-7NhN5U


https://youtu.be/hdc0eXOwpjw


https://youtu.be/1cuZyNiAfBg

This is a lie. When I tracked down who was backing Henry myself, after neither Adam or Henry would be honest about what was happening with me, they had no knowledge of Henry's staking deal or any outstanding/unresolved makeup.



nb. Notice here, I privately make clear to Wowter in our very first interaction that I don't want to out anyone. My goal has never been to ruin anyone's reputation. Despite Adam and Henry claiming this in their replies.

This is absolute nonsense and anyone in the staking world knows this. You can't go on a huge downswing at 200z and demand to play 500z in a new deal. In reality, it's really up to whoever buys the makeup what stakes Henry played, but we had agreed privately in voice calls that we would get him 100z as a minimum stake should the makeup be sold to another group.

Furthermore, Henry can't demand MTTs be included when he has no real volume, and the sample he has is losing. I should note, that Henry played a number of MTTs off-stake, and a number of them we allowed him to play with half of the buy-in on stake, allowing him to sell the other half to friends or have it for himself.

As for the demand that 1k NL live be included, this is laughable. Henry never played a live game higher than £2/£5 on stake. Live poker accounted for a miniscule amount of volume on Henry's staking deal at the very start of the year or so he was under contract. Most importantly, backing for live games requires a level of trust that would be built up over time, not as part of an initial staking deal.

For Adam to now suggest these demands were reasonable only goes to further prove that his stance is being influenced by his personal relationship with Henry. Particularly when he himself had lost faith in Henry playing such levels. As shown in the Skype conversation below from shortly before Adam pulled out of the staking arrangement.



By the point at which Adam took this stance regarding the terms of Henry's new deal, ThusPrider was in agreement with me that he was doing nothing but putting up roadblocks to Henry's makeup being sold.

Whether you set out to do this from the start, or had some type of agreement with Henry, or were simply pressured by him, is not something we're ever likely to know. What you cannot deny is that by your course of actions you have screwed over your business partners, who had always done everything correctly during the course of the staking contract.

As mentioned already, Henry was offered funds in November and again in December. Both times he showed no interest in playing and implied he was looking to work outside of poker.

By the time he had secured himself a new deal in early 2021, there was so much he had done to break mine and ThusPrider's trust, that there is clearly no way I could expected to send money to this person and expect them to play properly with it. A huge conflict of interest had been created. This is exactly why someone having two concurrent staking deals does not work. ThusPrider shared these concerns and addressed them to Adam in a voicecall in March.


https://youtu.be/JWMoUI4VZG0

This is a complete lie. You speak as though ThusPrider supports Henry. The fact is, Henry tried to bully ThusPrider into writing something in support of him, and this was rightfully rejected. ThusPrider has spoken numerous times about his disappointment with your taking a course of actions which have allowed Henry to take a staking deal without resolving his outstanding makeup. He is also disappointed with Henry, not just for signing a new staking deal behind his back, but for having been actively trying to find new deals when we were looking for alternative backers to come in and join the stake to replace your 1/3 of it.

I did everything I could to avoid it coming to this point. You can even see in my private conversation with Wowter above when I first found out Henry had gone behind my back that I made clear from the outset that I did not want to out anyone and would prefer to resolve things privately. In addition, I proposed multiple times to writing off a large portion of Henry's makeup to help him when we were discussing selling the stake to a third party.

When it was clear Henry was going to block any attempt to sell the stake, and he continued to be abusive and lie about my character and the staking situation, I offered him numerous buyout options which were within industry standards. The most I asked for was £3k up front, and £3k later. Henry only offered me £1500 for what is £10,796 worth of makeup. Considering his behaviour, it's an insult.

This isn't accurate, it was Adam that actually brought you into the stable. While I was available to you as an MTT coach, in terms of contact time, you never arranged any one-to-one coaching from me, despite the fact I always made it available.

You were also given access to a RunItOnce Elite membership account so could study MTT videos. I suggested a number of MTT videos to watch to help prepare for SCOOP 2020. You watched less than an hour of MTT content over the entire course of the staking deal.

500z was never your main grind and you were specifically asked not to play 500z in a meeting at one point due to your poor performance.

As can be seen from your Sharkscope graphs below, with the date range from the start of SCOOP 2020, you did not play many MTTs over this period. I am unsure of what guidance you refer to, but as I mention above, you did not allow me to ever formally coach you.





This isn't accurate. Referring again to your Sharkscope graphs above, with a date range from the start of SCOOP 2020 until the end of 2020, you were down less than £9000 in MTTs. As such, clearly your loses were accrued more so from cash games than MTTs. Your losses during SCOOP 2020 simply preceded you going on a further cash game downswing to land at a makeup figure of almost £33,000 by November 2020.

The makeup being sold was not the first suggestion. Finding a replacement backer for Adam's 1/3 of the stake was the task that was set initially, because you did not like the idea of the stake being sold to an external group. And to say "The four of us..." did this, is a lie. Adam did not approach anyone or do anything to resolve his portion of the makeup that was left in limbo after he dropped out. We never saw any evidence of you approaching anyone to resolve his 1/3 of stake either. The only approaches I've seen that you made to anyone regarding staking were the ones you did in secret to try and secure a new staking deal without mentioning your existing makeup.

Myself and ThusPrider approached several people who might be interested in replacing Adzman. I also attempted to find live backers for private games in London that might help with your motivation to play. Despite numerous suggestions, you were always quick to reject a number of new staking partners stating you did not want to work with certain people. You also rejected the idea of the stake being sold at this time on account that you did not wish to be advertised to the staking market. In reality, you blocked this to allow yourself the opportunity to secretly seek out a staking deal without disclosing your outstanding makeup to anyone in the poker community.

To summarise, nor you, or Adam, showed any effort in finding a new staking partner. You were happy with Adam doing nothing, because you wanted the stake and makeup to somehow disappear while you spent your time looking for new staking deals behind mine and ThusPrider's back.

To say "some months went by" is extremely misleading. It was less than 2 weeks on initial hiatus after Adzman dropped out (early December 2020) that you had a blow up in group chat about not being staked. However, during those 2 weeks, no urgency had been stressed about the situation and you had been seemingly happy to play live cash games for yourself in London without raising any issues.

"Despite wanting to play [for you]" is also a lie. I repeat what I posted above in response to Adzman here. You were explicitly offered the chance to play on stake again towards the end of 2020, but at all times made out you were unmotivated to play poker and looking for a job. Your responses to these offers are shown in the screenshots below.





The staking deal was still active at this point, but you had made it appear as though focussing elsewhere and were not planning on playing much poker. As such, a hiatus of the stake seemed fine. However, rather than taking a break from poker, you were secretly applying for staking deals. I refer again to the post from Kanaxis that shows you were applying for staking, using faked results, while simultaneously reporting no motivation to play to us in the staking group chat (https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/s...postcount=4892).

You had sought out this staking deal without mine or ThusPrider's consent. As such, it is a breach of contract. Furthermore, it is Adzman's obligation to inform his two business partners of such a situation - he did not fulfil this obligation. The fact you had quietly blocked me on all social media, and had not asked my permission to sign this alternative staking deal, or informed ThusPrider you were doing so, shows that you were aware your actions were out of line.


https://youtu.be/38zq-7NhN5U

It took me 2 weeks to find out who was staking you, because neither you or Adam wanted to tell me what was going on. You did not inform ThusPrider of your new deal and had implied to him you were playing poker simply as part of a marketing role.

As shown above, you had continually implied prior to starting your staking deal with BTS that you were not interested in playing on our stake or formally recommencing with poker full-time. By this point, you had clearly been acting deceitfully and were seemingly determined to avoid playing through your makeup. I had every right to demand the full sum of makeup from you, but gave you the opportunity for the stake to be resolved correctly by allowing it to be sold.

As for a "willingness to play" - you had purposefully created a scenario where you have conflict of interest over playing for an existing staking deal with almost £33,000 of makeup attached, when you could play on a new one that you had acquired starting from zero balance. This is acknowledged by ThusPrider in the voice clip below from March in a meeting with myself and Adam Maxwell.


https://youtu.be/D2zpOK7QhT8

You can't call it "unstaked time" when you had clearly made out that you were not motivated to play and would be 'working on your CV.'
As presented above, the majority of your makeup came from cash games, not MTTs.

Furthermore, to demand all those formats and stakes is completely absurd, and anyone involved in the staking industry understands this. You can't go on a huge downswing at 200z and demand to play 500z in a new deal. You can't demand MTTs be included when you don't have the required volume for your sample to be reliable, and/or have a losing sample.

As for the demand that 1k NL live be included, this is laughable. I don't ever recall you playing a live game higher than 2/5 on our staking deal. Furthermore, live poker accounted for a miniscule amount of your volume on the stake. Most importantly, backing for live games requires a level of trust that would be built up over time, not included as part of an initial staking deal in the vast majority of cases.

The ridiculous staking demands left us unable to even attempt selling the stake. During this time period, I sought advice from fellow staking professionals to confirm what course of action I should take. Furthermore, I was puzzled by the fact Adam thought these demands were reasonable, so wanted to discuss his conduct with ThusPrider, and others. You say you "went out of your way to find potential buyers" - there is no evidence of this anywhere. The only thing I've seen evidence of is that you went out of your way to find a new staking deal for yourself without the consent of your backers.

It took you less than two weeks after Adam dropped out, while myself and ThusPrider were clearly willing to continue, for you to start looking for new staking deals with other backers behind our backs. Your intentions all along are now very clear. You say "it's been around 6 months since I was last staked by this group" - but at no point did ever allow for this to happen. I have shown in this response that you rejected playing on two occasions shortly after the initial hiatus began. This rhetoric of "willingness to play" is a complete farce. By the time you had got yourself a new staking deal, which you had no right to pursue, you were essentially un-stakable because there is no way me and ThusPrider could trust you to play responsibly with another deal on the table waiting for you from your new employer.

I don't need to create a false narrative about you when you've already exposed yourself.

Will you now be claiming that Kanaxis is not a real person? Will you pretend as if you didn't secretly approach him, and others, for staking? Whilst telling your backers that you were not motivated to play poker?

After all, you were not only applying for other staking deals when you had no right to, but you were faking results in order to try and land one. It says it all really.


I feel as though I have addressed this above numerous times and provided ample evidence where needed. There was never a refusal to reload Henry. He refused to play, citing lack of motivation/other issues that it is clear now were simply a ploy to give him time to secure a new staking deal behind mine and ThusPrider's backs. Adzman provided the catalyst for this, and allowed this course of events take place.

I don't know who you are. And I very much doubt you know who I am given that your posts on this forum all seem to relate to live poker in the US. It's rather puzzling why you feel the need to respond here with such a poor take so I can only assume you're a friend of Henry's.

There isn't a single lie in my original post - this is accepted by the other staking partner - ThusPrider. I have backed up everything with evidence, whereas Adam and Henry's responses are simply hearsay. I have additional evidence I could also post, but won't do at this time unless Henry and Adzman wish to further by respond to this post.

I'm not banned because I have an outstanding reputation in the poker community and have completed thousands of transactions with hundreds of poker players over 15 years without incident.

I assure you I did. To his credit, ThusPrider always tried to find a resolution to the situation for all parties. However, it wasn't until after the initial post that we all learned about the lengths Henry was going to in order to try and get a new staking deal behind our backs before resolving his existing makeup. ThusPrider's stance on the situation has obviously swung somewhat since learning this, and while he's expressed increased disappointment in Henry, he has a lot of stuff on his plate, and this issue isn't his priority at this moment in time. I respect his decision to stay out of things.


With new evidence of Henry's breaking of contract coming to light since my original post, I now have a very accurate timeline of what happened with this stake. And how/why Henry and Adam's demeanours were so problematic at certain points in time.

October 2020

- Henry begins to intentionally try and create a staking environment where we might be forced to drop him.

- Henry's attitude towards playing poker appears to deteriorate and he becomes increasingly abusive towards me, his cash game coaches, and other associates of the staking group. It got to the point his own backers were scared to ask to review hands with him.



- Henry was bullying other poker players associated with the staking group, most likely to create a reaction that might result in him being dropped.



- In the same group meeting, ThusPrider shared my opinion that Henry was probably desperate to be dropped in order to avoid playing through his losses.



November 2020

- Adzman drops out of the stake, completely out of the blue, citing financial reasons. This doesn't make any sense to me or ThusPrider, as Adam was still continuing to stake other players.

- Myself and ThusPrider tell Henry we will continue to stake him, but he is free to play what he wants on his own dime in the meantime while we look for a new staking partner to fill Adzman's 1/3 role. No urgency is expressed from Henry about when he wants to start grinding on stake again.

December 2020

- Adzman makes things difficult by not providing clarity on his position, and does nothing to help find a new staking partner to take on his 1/3 of the stake.

- Henry is offered the opportunity to play on stake again on GGPoker to clear some of his makeup while we continue to search for a staking new partner. Henry refuses, reporting a lack of motivation to play and a preference to work on his CV to get a job.

- All 3 of us support Henry's decision to look for a job outside of poker and a hiatus is agreed upon until Henry is interested in grinding again. It is made clear to Henry he cannot sign staking agreements with anyone before coming to us.



- Henry plays some live poker in London, so appears to have access to funds to play for himself.

- Unbeknownst to me or ThusPrider, Henry is actively applying for new staking deals using faked results - see post from Kanaxis - https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/s...postcount=4892

January 2021

- Henry informs ThusPrider that he's got a marketing job with BluffTheSpot (BTS) and needs to borrow some money on Pokerstars to make a video.

- Unbeknownst to me or ThusPrider, Henry has actually secured a staking deal with BTS as part of his job role.

February 2021

- I notice Henry is playing a lot of volume on Pokerstars and tell him directly in the staking group chat that if he's playing on a new staking deal it's a breach of contract.

- Henry ignores the messages and refuses to divulge any details, so I go about finding out who Henry is staked by, and discover BTS are staking him.

- BTS state they were not aware of Henry's existing makeup or any active or prior staking deals. Henry repeatedly lies about historical events relating to the staking deal in group discussions with BTS and claims to them he was dropped by me and ThusPrider.

-Henry attempts to gaslight ThusPrider in voice calls to suggest that we collectively dropped him, when actually, Adam had pulled out, and myself and ThusPrider were looking to continue backing Henry.



- Henry agrees to allow the outstanding makeup to be sold to a third party should we find one within a month, but later that day, writes up an absurd list of demands that any new deal he signs must include, which are obviously impossible to meet.

- During this period, Adam enables Henry to put up these roadblocks to selling the stake, and does not correct him in any discussions with BTS when he lies about staking details. ThusPrider agrees that Adam is only causing problems by this point.

March 2021

- The situation has become untenable. Henry has secured himself a new staking deal with zero attached makeup. BTS are not interested in purchasing his existing makeup. Although BTS make Henry available to us again, myself and ThusPrider can no longer trust Henry to play responsibly if we recommence backing him. His motivation obviously now lies with the new deal he has with BTS and he's essentially made it impossible to sell his makeup to an external backer.



- Unconvinced that Henry will ever re-open the stake given his consistently deceptive behaviour, I demand paying out for my portion of the makeup. Henry offers me less than 15% of the makeup figure to buyout. I do not accept this and feel forced to out him publicly for his misconduct and appalling attitude. I give him several weeks to re-consider before going public.


Henry has had ample time to reconsider his position. And the option to pay his debt has always been on the table. The most I'd asked for up front as part of a payment plan was £3000. I would have been happy to respond in this thread stating that he'd accepted his wrongdoing and settled the matter. However, he has not approached me to rectify the situation, and nor has Adam. I am still open to resolving things, should Henry want to pay his debt, that still stands at £10,796.

Should Henry or Adam wish to defend their actions further, I might release more evidence against their version of events. But truly, I'd rather not.

I think it's safe to say that whatever the truth of the matter is, Guy is way past the obsessive level here. If you manage a stake the way you delved into your last post, I couldn't fathom playing for you. My advice? Let it go and try to find some peace instead of obsessing over this. Sounds like both sides are pretty firmly entrenched, so this clearly isn't going to be resolved.

This thread is a great example of the reasons why you should never stake nor be staked. Especially the latter.

Regardless whether the stakee wins or loses, the level of exploitation they suffer is massive. Even if they win the often face an endless repetitive grind for relatively sparse financial compensation. And if they get into any kind of makeup, their lot very quickly becomes that of an indentured servent.

The one saving grace for the stakee is that if they are dropped from the stake the makeup usually disappears. Otherwise, it's as if you fired a traveling salesman for non-performance and then expected him to refund you all of his expenses.

I'm going to be honest here and admit that I did not read all of that last lengthy rejoinder by OP. Just because he spent all day writing it does not mean I have to spend half an hour reading it.

Nonetheless, I think it is fair for me to say that if OP and his partners decided to stop funding Strudman's play, usually the would be expected to take the hit on the makeup, and he would be free to play on his own dime or find other backers.

They deny this and have posted evidence to support their claim. He refused multiple attempts to be reloaded, so the stake was put on hiatus.

Actually, according to one of the stakers he was willing to resume the stake but was refused funding.
Apparently OP wanted the stakee to grind away at $30k in makeup playing $100 zoom? That is where the indentured servant had an advantage over the staked player who is in makeup. The servant was free of his obligation in just a few short years. The stakee will be grinding forever.

Your interpretation is inaccurate on multiple counts, I encourage you to read the entire thread.

Why don't you just explain it to me, because the statements I bolded seem pretty clear, and I honestly don't care enough about this to read a turgid 5000 word post about it, since I am currently reading two very interesting books. Namely "Born to Run" by Christopher McDougal, and "The Killer Angeles" by Michael Shaara, and next up is "Last of the Mohicans."

Or if you must comment on it, maybe take the time to actually read the post rather than making uninformed statements and judgements and then asking for others to explain it to you.

Personally, I think it's safer to say that when a pair of snakes in the grass want to question my integrity then I become motivated to thoroughly quash their bullshit all in one fell swoop. Which I did.

And if I was obsessed then I might have checked the replies in this thread once in the past 4 months.

While I admire your literary taste I find it a rather odd take to comment somewhat vigorously on something that you don't want to take the time to understand. Perhaps your half-hearted interpretation is influenced by some cognitive bias.

There were multiple offers to reload Henry which he conveniently refused so that he had enough time to go behind my back and secure a secret deal with another stake. There were also multiple buy-out options afforded to Henry such that he would not have to repay his entire makeup amount should he accept his wrongdoing.

Wow. How has anyone read this thoroughly and not supporting Guy Taylor. Fwiw I know none of these guys, but Guy very clearly was acting in good faith and the 3rd staker who has stayed out of this is very clearly on the same page as Guy. Its also undeniable that Adam was not acting in good faith to the business. He dropped out bc he knew Henry wasn't going to win it back(perhaps knew Henry had been losing elsewhere, was going thru mental issues, picked up a habit, who knows). But he straight bounced on his partners then acted against their best interest and tried to lie to all of us about it. How is this not a bigger deal. He was caught clear as day attempting to deceive us(so was Henry, but thats expected given the spot) and thats pretty f'd up.

Pokerplayinggamble, c'mon bro would you send funds to this kid? Who cares if he was willing to play if hes going to play like crap and torch the funds. While at the same time being very unpleasant in their personal discourse. 2 of the stakers, the only remaining 2 for that matter as the one closest to Henry decided to gg the stake didnt trust Henry would play in good faith for them.

I dunno, I was shocked to see the first response was someone against Guy after this pretty thorough and damning rebuttal by Guy that shows how his original statement was definitely factual and that Adam acted without question unethically both to the business and in his response to us where he clearly lied. You hated on him for being thorough and recording conversations? The guy wants to protect his rep which would have been shredded had he not done this. Someone was even suggesting "why isnt this clown banned". Then Guy comes and teabags Henry/Adam and y'all somehow interpret that differently?