jaakkang:

I asked him back at reply # 306

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...&postcount=306

to "be a man" and identify himself, but he conveniently ignored the request. He apparently prefers to hide behind the cloak of anonymity while nitpicking Haley's facts insisting that she will "look foolish" if she doesn't "calm down" and back off. Meanwhile it apparently hasn't dawned on him how he looks defending the likes of Ben Mezrich and those frat boys. If he indeed is "the banker" for those thiefs, they must have paid him a lot of money to be such a subservient tool.

I'm aware of a handful of bankers and lawyers who would really, really like for the AP stuff to go away and be buried next to Jimmy Hoffa somewhere. There are still plenty of money-laundering issues and such in various countries that could be brought up by authorities, and it's quite possible that this guy still has concerns for either his job or his freedom. Since he chooses to remain anonymous, we won't ever know, will we? :-)

If anyone is looking, I have a copy of this book (family bd gift, bleh) and read it in 2 nights. It's in mint condition. Only thing is, like all my books I take off the paper covers and toss them so only the actual book is available. No front cover work lol.

Pm me if interested

Mr. Mezrich did an interview last night on The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson.

There was no mention of cheating whatsoever.

He did mention one of the founders (not by name) was a fugitive in Antigua and the reason he (Mezrich) gave was that after they started the site "the US government decided poker was illegal".

This was his response when asked about his "fascination with these drop out internet billionaire types":

Mezrich: I was a nerdy guy and I was always kind of into the internet and computers and then when I see these guys who became cool using these things I guess I get into that story.

Ferguson: Do you wish you had done that yourself?

Mezrich: I'm incredibly jealous of all these people.

To be fair, Ferguson also briefly mentioned Accidental Billionaires and Mezrich may have been thinking about them when he was speaking. Or who knows, he might actually be jealous that he wasn't one of the frat boys.

You mean no photo of the author on the front cover ?

Indeed

Although if I remember correctly it was just a few cards with the title in it, with Ben's name in giant letters. I have a habit of being annoyed by those laminated covers of hard copy books and most always just rip them off.

Book is still available if anyone would like it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jV537q7Sdfw

Interesting interview.

I've known and have liked Becky for number of years. (I have no doubt she has visited the Del Rey in years past.)

With respect to Ben, I think he is more than a bit full of himself: i.e "Now 90% of the world" is aware of the cheating scandal on Absolute.

More interesting was his disclaimer that he was any sort of investigative journalist, and that he wrote this book at the request of "some of the founders", to tell their story ..... if anyone wants to subpoena him in any litigation, I think his admissions effectively waived any privilege.

There's no question that Mezrich really didn't care that much about the cheating scandal. He's much more interested in the rags to riches story in all of his books, including this one. The flaw in his thinking is that he thinks that it is better to sweep the cheating scandal under the carpet to get legal online poker in the US. This just reinforces the idea that all pro poker players are cheats and not to be trusted. Instead, the argument should be, "unlike banking and other industries, if there is cheating going on, we're going to publicly say so. We're going to give you the evidence. We're going to be the easiest industry to monitor you've ever had to manage." It is a bit egotistical to think that he's informed the world about cheating online. Most of the world either doesn't care, or wasn't surprised when his book was published.

FWIW, the book tries to make the case that the principals had no clue about running a business, thus putting the blame on those who deposited money on their site for trusting them. I suspect if Mezrick lost 5 figures on the site, he would not be so forgiving.

thebanker,


WTF? Basucally all you keep harping about is " stick to the facts that are on paper".

Really? When circumstantial evidence points to a conclusion, then why not make that conclusion. You don't need concrete proof to convict when there is so much other evidence.

Another conclusion, you are just a shill for BM and or AP.

I love the defense that Scott Tom did not cheat players, the one-armed man did it ( low level employee)

i can't recall if there was a newer thread about this topic or not... so i searched for mezrich and got this thread. he is doing an AMA on reddit on may 20th at 12pm (i think eastern)

Bumping my own thread because of the conversation I had at Powell's bookstore in Portland, Oregon:

ME: This book is used, correct?
CASHIER: [turns it over, sees the label] Yes, it is.
ME: And because it's used, purchasing it will not result in any further royalties to the author?
CASHIER: Uh... no. Wait, you DO or you do NOT want money going to the author?
ME: I don't want money going to the author.
CASHIER: It's used, so no more money is going to the author.
ME: Then sold.

Pretty sure it was one of her stranger moments in customer service.

Haven't actually sat down to read this thing, and – thanks to this thread and the "review" Ungarhunger wrote in his/her only post to date – I know it will be an infuriating read.

Anyway, if any of you was the one who sold yours to Powell's, I'm happy to say that I've kept my word of buying only a used copy.

Cliffs? Not necessarily about AP, but why the author is so despised. I read Bringing Down The House years ago and thought it was a fun, fast, yet ultimately forgettable, read.

I shopped for poker books at a used book store in Chicago in the early 1970s* , oddly enough at a store named Powell's; that moment you cite would not have been as unusual as one might think.

(*Poker in the early 1970s in Chicago consisted of 7 card, 5 card, 5 card draw, Chicago/Cincinnati, Anaconda, and boo-ray, some limit Holdem, but not really NL, which was barely emerging, and was 20+ years away from the internet as we know it.)