While it has been a while since I had to post here – sadly we have a few new rascals to discuss.
Name: Andreas Xenofondos
Pokerstars ID: andreas-xe
Location: Cyprus
Email:
andreas-xe@hotmail.com
Skype ID: andreas-xe
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/axenofondos?fref=nf
This was our annual “what were we thinking” mistake. While we usually like to get these out of the way early in the year, this time we waited until July.
We knew we would have some issues when backing him once we saw his HHs and the play was pretty chaotic. It ranged from bad to really bad to really, really bad. We debated if he knew what the cards meant at times, and our best weeks generally were the ones where he would vanish for 7-12 days and say he had to go to a hospital (apparently he has a lot of sick relatives/pets/other).
Anyway, we saw he was playing games he should not play, and surprisingly won some at it. Still, it is not a good sign when a player you sign is a donk and cannot even follow the agreed upon games, so when I asked him to explain it – what I was told was the following:
[7/20/2015 3:30:12 PM] andreas-xe: lol propably my neese when i was not there realy ??
[7/20/2015 3:31:26 PM] andreas-xe: i dont know propably she was sick and i was there to the hospital with here and i dont know if she attemp to play any of come on realy
[7/20/2015 3:31:29 PM] andreas-xe: ?
I realized right then that we should have been backing his “neese” the whole time – she was the only one that was able to win!
Sadly, our screw ups with this specimen did not end there. We soon discovered that he also was multi accounting on Stars, under the user name of mistwalker54. He did a good job sneaking past Stars and apparently us by changing a single letter in his last name. Who needs to be a criminal mastermind when at times simple can work
http://www.pocketfives.com/profiles/mistwalker54/
Anyway, we would not suggest anyone back this human – though we cannot necessarily say the same thing about his dying “neese”/niece/cousin/conjoined twin. He did vanish to hospitals unknown with several hundred of our dollars.
While the above was one of the normal examples of losing a bit of money to a slow witted criminal, and while it also was one where we can laugh at ourselves, the next two were more disappointing as they were players we did work with for a while.
Both of them did ok for a while, but as will happen with MTT players they ran into downswings, and the reality is that most players handle winning easily, but only the better ones can tolerate losing. Some simply do not have what it takes to handle the variance, and essentially both of the following quit while in makeup.
Are they petty criminals like the first donk? No, but these are ones that are much more frustrating in a way in that even if it was not their intent, they essentially used a stake as a freeroll, so other potential backers need to be aware of that, because a person who would do this once will easily do it again and again
Name: Lubos Dvorak
Pokerstars ID: lubos1980cz
Email:
dvorak.lubos1@seznam.cz
Skype ID: lubos19801
Name: Milen Karaivanov
Pokerstars ID: easy_son
Email:
newcardarg@gmail.com
Skype ID: easy_son
Lubos has been communicating to try to resolve the issue, and has agreed to pay back a portion of the makeup (he also took about $200 from the account at the end). The first few deadlines passed, and if he does as promised we will update the thread.
Communication with Milen was a bit different. I sent several skypes and emails to try to work out the situation once he proclaimed he was quitting, but he did not reply for a while until he sent the following:
What can we do otherwise man we have a agreement and now i loose 7k
[7/27/2015 3:10:30 PM] Milen Karaivanov - staked easy_son: i will give it back everyting i own to you.But if i continue to play for you its gonna be suicede for me. You dont give a **** do i have any money no suppport no nothing so yeah man
[7/27/2015 3:11:54 PM] Milen Karaivanov - staked easy_son: 7.5k is the make up I will give ev if i make money i will send it right away.But to continue playn for you its suicide for me no money no help no extra add it to make up just to cover expenses so you see its not very good to me to play for you.If you want send 100 emails and 2+2 forums i dont care man i will give everyting back.If i want to to take your money i was going to take it when i won Bigger 22 so yeah you make the math
Unfortunately he did not allow me to present my suggestions for a lower amount (well below $7,500) over time based on future play (ie: if he wins) that we have worked out with other long time players who lost their way. He removed me from skype after that last rant of his, so at this point I will update it in the very unlikely event that he wins and then also pays anything back.
That’s it – hope to not post in this thread until next year when we make another “what were we thinking” mistake!