Doug "Cybersquatter" Polk. Joey is naturally a cool guy and Doug has to read a book on how to be cool. Joey is at least slightly more honorable as a person than Polk imo.

He's a guy who cried on video at the right place and right time, his wife then posted it to Reddit then tweeted the video to pros, because who doesn't love these cliché videos. Then a couple pros responded and then all the pro's who own a training site and the poker apparel companies jumped onto the band wagon and offered their advice or coaching for free while of course plugging their product in the tweets.

What’s the ratio of legitimate satellite seats and seats pokerstars just gave away based on market data? Seems like the best way to get into this thing is to throw away your dignity on social media and beg like a dog. Seems like Stars preferentially throws passes to people who ***** a lot on social media.

Haha, tyyy.

I think the gift was taken to another level x10000 for each of them, hopefully, he says it that way.

Amazing clip


I've been only looking at things for the negative most of this year and it hasn't gotten me very far. I'll go with this route for a bit and see if it's any different. I think the event is an overall great opportunity for so many poker players out there and one of the bright lights in the poker world this year.

I'm interested to find out what they have in store for the online poker site but I'm also not as fearful of change as I once was w/ sites like Party and RIO becoming more of a viable option. Hopefully they aren't planning some massive rake hike in the very near future but I'm sure anything is still possible.


You can try the 2nd option.


lol, i'm not sure about that.

I think the poker world is negative a majority of the time, creating a positive moment out of something like this I think is really great for the poker world. I think it's nice to see the community come together and create a special moment on XMAS.

Cliffs on what happened:

-Wife posted video to reddit for first WSOP trip because they couldn't afford it in the past. His reaction seems super genuine and a very sweet video.
-I responded and said I would give them a proper WSOP tour, introduce them to some players & maybe help them get staked in an event. It isn't often we see stories like this, why not try to make it extra special for them.
-I posted the video on Twitter & many of the replies were I'll take a piece of him. I think we have enough action to buy him into a $100k
-I posted on Twitter that I would accept Stars offer of the plat pass for myself + Arlie if they also gave Jeremy a Plat Pass. His wife was responding on Twitter and she also seemed super genuine. We exchanged a few messages about getting me in touch with them prior. It's XMAS, why not make this a really special moment.
-Stars snap-calls and I realize I could have gotten much more value out of this.
-Poker community gets excited about something as a community.
-Randoms cry on 2p2 about it

+1


There is a very easy way to find out about this if you use your detective ability just a tiny bit.

The comparison made between papi_gto and Douglas K. Polk is the most insane thing i've read on 2p2 possibly ever.

it Was very nice thing for the guy, but there’s 100 thousand people out there with his same problem, lots of people can’t go to WSOP due to financial obligations. I just thought maybe all that attention should have gone to someone who has sacrificed more. Sorry for the negativity. Someone has to be the grinch around this time.

Now people will buy him into the main event as well all due to his reaction.

So..

Flight to Vegas and buy ins to the big 50 and main event

Free flight to the Bahamas and free entry in a 25k tourney.

Free private coaching from run it up pros.

Sick heater, good for him.

I used to be friends on Facebook with Joey and in his FB group up until the Brian Hastings scandal. From what I remember his attitude to what Brian had done was, meh, who cares. And and obviously his fan boys agreed. So selling his soul from what i guess is a couple of weeks wages to him is no surprise to me.

You know what i find funny is in situations where someone has to decide one way or another, if you have a difference in opinion, you are a troll and hater. You are called" some random" by Joey, because you think what he is doing is wrong. These"randoms" are what made you who you are today dude!

You also say "we'll see if theres any changes" What signs are there that there will be change? Just because they are hosting an epic event and being generous it doesnt mean they arent screwing people in the process.

You have said in pods before" i dont know how people can work for or represent X or X company" "i dont know why people shutup about issues that are wrong, jsut because they are benefiting from it"

Pokerstars so desperately wanted Joeys approval and they got it, big win for them. Im happy for Arlie and this Jeremy person who came out of nowhere, but for Papi? please bubble.

This is a joke right. More like they knew somehow he would accept, it just doesn't make sense for them to bet on it. Obviously it's his decision, but who cares what Joey Ingram does anyway...and lol negativity..is that how people on drugs devide up things in life, positive and negative..makes sense.

I initially thought this too, but thinking about it more, it was a no-lose situation for them. If Joey declined, they would have given Arlie the seat anyway and made Joey look like a terrible bad guy. Discrediting one of their harshest critics and saving the day in one swoop.

This angle didn't really occur to me at first because Arlie is basically a PokerStars employee. But everyone has been like "poor guy, just help him make his dream come true", so I guess Stars knew what they were doing.

Brilliant plan, I'm legitimately impressed.

Imagine going through life with this level of neckbeard edgelord cynicism. Wow. You must be a real blast to be around.

Maybe Screwed people in the past (SNE theft), but exactly who is Stars screwing in this process?



Do you really believe what Joey did equates to this?

Your last bunch of comments in here are some of the worst comments I've ever seen on a message board.

I tried replying seriously to one a few posts back.

I don't think it would have made me look like a bad guy, especially if he would have received the package anyway. I think most people would understand either way. The fact that people care so much one way or the other is fascinating all together.

I think they do want my approval, which isn't that unusual. I also don't think it matters if I accept or decline, they really aren't betting on anything. If I say no, I say no and who really cares. The event goes on, people enjoy themselves.

"Greatest moments in the history of poker" ?

Was "Testicles" a greek god ? That counter video required brass ones.

Take the pass .... enjoy yourself,

"the last independent person in poker" is excited .... good for you.

You're a good dude Joey, wp.

Giving some random guy a oackage to the 25k event doesn't give them amnesty for what they did in 2015...i think Joey didn't make that point very clear, he is actually sayin that they are well on the way to redeeming themselves completely.

Yes it does. This company carried out one of the largest scams in poker history and nobody cares anymore. The entire poker media and all the most influential players have fallen back in love with PokerStars. It's 2010 again.

It's really fascinating. There is a great lesson to be learned here.

I think Joey has made it clear that he's going to take a more communicative approach rather than adversarial towards poker operators -- at least for now -- and has thoroughly explained his reasons for doing so.

As far as granting "amnesty" to PokerStars goes, I'm assuming you mean from a professional online poker player's perspective?

Does it really matter either way if current, new, net-depositing players are pretty much in agreement with most "veteran" players that PokerStars to-date offers the highest quality, most secure, and most attractive real money online poker product for the majority of online poker players? Even if the realities of how that product must now function in a publicly-traded, highly-regulated environment overseen by government entities is viewed as being lower in quality than it may have been in an unregulated environment?

Given the current perception most real money online poker players have of PokerStars' branding, outreach, investment into the game, and existing product in relation to other sites -- do you believe it is in the best interests of the online poker playing community (many of whom still play on PokerStars) to encourage a personality such as Papi to be "retaliatory" or "communicative" towards such a company? Considering that PokerStars' competitors have now had three years to improve their respective products and justify a lot of the goodwill/outreach/marketing that they've enjoyed on forums, social media, and among high profile players due to the SN/SNE scam?

I say "communicative" as long as the site and its main execs/reps aren't spending the better part of a year marketing a long-established program geared towards high-volume players, and then engaging in an all-out mudslinging campaign against pro players to justify such a nefarious activity that smacks of everything from misleading advertising to outright theft.

PokerStars has put a halt to most of their own public bile afaik? And they're making a continued, years-long push to spread online poker to other markets in a licensed capacity? And the site is attracting new online poker players on a consistent basis, even if some of those newer poker players currently find casino-style poker formats/games more attractive than all the friction associated with competing in the traditional high-skill games?

"Communicative" seems like the best approach over "adversarial," even for sites other than PokerStars (since plenty of posters here play on those sites too). But obviously that's just an opinion and I can understand why some would disagree with it.

Joey makes 30k every two weeks?...wut?

Now all they need to do is lower the rake and have dnegs promote the change.

agreed, its really impressive the amount of **** people will take in life. im always interested at peoples " breaking points". i think as long as there is one thing to cling to people will keep taking hits in life. evolutionarily a quality that got us to where we are now but as of 2018 its made us very exploitable.

Not at all. I'm not saying they are well on the way to anything. I have no idea where they are on the way to outside of this event specifically. Last I checked, their online poker site wasn't meant to be for people trying to make money from poker. They want to eliminate players who cash out.



I felt this way when it actually took place, I expected more people to be vocal about it but then, they weren't. People brought a bit of energy for a short period of time but that went away for most. I can understand why, being the person yelling about the problems for months is a lonely existence and one where you feel like, what change will you really be able to influence.

The most influential players in the community are on Pokerstars and never fell out of public love with them in the first place. When I speak about what Stars did now, people tell me to stop crying and shut up but I still speak about it anyway. I would love to find some others who publically care about what happened still, point me to where they are and what content they've created to help the cause. I think I'm one of the only people who try to bring it up anytime an online poker discussion breaks out on my current content now.

Seriously, I see people making posts in here talking about it, point out something they've contributed to the ongoing fight or anger that people have outside of complaining in threads like this one. It isn't hard to do something in the poker world. People should get out there, put their face and voice to it, put their relationships w/ others on the line and make their views heard.

I think there are a bunch of lessons to be learned here. One of them is to have the most vocal influencers in a space sponsored by you and streaming on a consistent basis.


What would you have most people do in this situation?? What have you done??

I don't think I've made that clear enough to some people.

I'm about to talk to Phil Nagy. People will complain about that. I thank them for all the contributions they brought to the table w/ the fight against ACR. I'm going to try my strategy and others can try theirs.