+1

The other huge indicator that people like that are not actually winning/full-time players and therefore do not understand is this... The argument that "oh if you knew what you were doing or were any good at poker or life you'd never keep THAT much of your roll online!" Any small-midstakes reg knows that this is next to impossible unless you live like a major nit. The reality of being a midstakes grinder is that a huge majority of your net worth must be tied up online in order to be viable.

Don't worry guys, we have it on the authority of several people that Howard feels really bad about this.

You missed my point. I do have sympathy for people in bad situations and I hope for everyone that is put into a tough spot that they figure it out. I also sympathize with those who have been careless and had more than they needed to have on FTP, it easily could have happened to myself.

Still, people are responsible for themselves. Anger and frustration doesn't lead to anything other than hurting yourself and I'm honestly annoyed by those who blame negative emotions and anything else on others.

No wonder. You had no money on full tilt poker or either withdraw most of it. If you had kept your roll there or if BF happened earlier, its pretty obvious those comments you made previously would never occurred.

Oh, I am a professional poker player and I do have about 35k locked up on FTP. I also did have to explain my parents why I would drop out of university to be a poker pro and travel the world.

I understand your point of view and his and I'm very well aware that this is how people in our society widely perceive life. It's a terrible concept though and it's the reason for a lot of destruction and despair for no reason. Yet this behavior is reinforced by the general belief that you're never responsible for anything that happens to you and consequently, that whatever you do is also really caused by others. I'm just annoyed by this insanity. ^_^

Jrry, you're a jerkoff. Please excuse yourself from the human race and join the rest of the jackals in the african sahara.


Full Tilt poker was a business that had a responsibility to honor debts to players, regardless of the balance they held or the proportions of their balances in their full tilt accounts compared to their checking/savings accounts.

You seem to want people to have superhuman X-ray vision into the future to predict not only collapses of businesses, but failures of those businesses in honoring their debts.

If I had a million dollars in my full tilt account and $1 in my checking account, its still full tilt's responsibility to honor the money in my full tilt account.


Edit: Maybe you've never heard of "too big to fail" , it exists because the major banking institutions in America were about to collapse and the debts they held to the American people would not have been honored due to their collapse. You'd probably blame people for putting their money in banks, and not stuffing their cash into matresses and under floorboards. As if fires / robberies never happen. Again, you are a jerkoff.

No, it's not a question of what actually happens but one of perspective. I honestly would've asked myself what to do next and try to figure that out. What else is there a sane person can do?

So I take it those who lost money in the Madoff ponzi scheme were also morons for having so much of their wealth tied up in one place am I right?

Well you are saying its his fault for having this ruin his marriage. Are you serious? How could this not have any affect on his marriage? You don't think a person who is working a job and then loses his job is going to have no marriage problems with the wife and everything will be good like normal?

Same. Real annoying too.


Players do take some of the blame in this. FTP's share of the blame is much larger and much more relevant though.

Of course, if you leave a bag with all your money at a hotel reception it's there responsibility to look out for it as well... I'm aware that there is a difference in theory.

Fwiw, I'm completely aware that teaching people self responsibility in regards to emotions and actions is rarely recognized cheerfully, that doesn't change the truth of it though.

There's no issue that those of us who had money in FTP are the victims of a crime. But comparing Full Tilt and other poker sites to American banks is a bit of a stretch.

We chose to engage in a practise that is heavily regulated in those few places where it isn't outright illegal. We chose to put our money in sites where we knew we would have no practical recourse if the owners turned out to be dishonest. Those of us who made money did so in an activity that generated nothing in terms of any intrinsic value to society as a whole; one could make a compelling argument that the contrary is the case.

Anyone who suggests that we deserve anything like the same (dollar for dollar) degree of sympathy as those people who lost their pensions after a lifetime of actual work is, in my view, out of their mind. Ten years from now, I suspect we'll be considered more analogous to those people who lost money in the various Nigerian scams or to the Bernie Madoff types than people who lost money in the banking collapse.

I'm in absolutely no position to judge why his marriage failed and if this inherently played a part of it or not. If at all I could speculate that the frustration he was feeling was a cause for him to act differently / worse and that this had a negative impact on his marriage. That obviously doesn't have to be the case but if it is, I had the feeling he would be likely to blame his worsened behavior on what happened to him, rather than take responsibility for his actions which I don't agree with.

I never flame people, but you posted what you did because you're a tool, there's nothing more to add.

If he wants to vent how the FT situation is making things difficult for him, why do you care?

I'm sorry but it just really tilts me when I come this forum to work out what my chances are of getting paid and I have to read this kind of bull****.

It's not a ponzi scheme.. geeez..

So? Why does this matter at all?


lol, no I don't think so...

You know why I trusted this site, FTP, which I knew I would have no recourse against if they decided to wrong me?

Because of all those trusted, well known, AMERICAN CITIZENS who allowed their names and faces to be slapped all over the sites / commercials / tv programs (like PAD) who chose to represent and market themselves and this site

and without my superhuman x-ray into the future abilities, I trusted THEM and their judgement and their involvement with Full Tilt Poker to mean that they were trustworthy if they were playing for hundreds of thousands on FTP. The idea that it was all a mirage / fake was always possible, but that would be quite the conspiracy (who knows though).


The fact remains, I, and the FTP playerbase, did not rob anyone. We were robbed. We were wronged, and we deserve what we are owed or we deserve justice of ALL those involved in robbery. You are not excused Team Full Tilt, I dont care how ignorant you were / are, you made money off a company that was actively screwing us.

If this whole affair has taught me anything its that if I ever get the opportunity to sell my name / image to a company, I will be sure their operation is clean and legit before I sign over my name/ image to them to use.


JCrowhurst: What do BMX bikers contribute to society? What do Football players contribute to society? What do artists contribute to society? Poets? Philosophers? Your statement is very, very short sighted.

Many more people and businesses / industries were affected by the loss of our livelihood / online poker than just the players themselves (who were playing for a living, or playing just for fun), software programmers, accountants, customer service reps, tech security folks, they all depended on ME (and millions of people like me) to provide THEM with a job, because without US playing online poker, they'd be out of work. Live poker has similar groups of people who depend on the players playing poker - floor people, cashier/cage workers, security staff, accountants, the guy who sells poker tables, the guy who vacuums the poker room, the waitresses, the dealers, the guy who sells hotdogs outside of the poker room, the buses which are paid by all those old folks to drive them into A.C. (or vegas, or other casinos) so they can enjoy their final days on this planet. SO many people depend on what you wrongly think is an "unnecessary" aspect of life because it doesn't produce something for society... in your opinion.

But hey, if you need to "provide something to society" to be worth while, lets just make everyone a farmer. After all, you only really need air which is free, water which falls out of the sky, and food which is grown out of the ground. Everything else isn't really necessary... right? We dont even need to build shelters, lets just dig holes in the ground and cover ourselves with leaves.

It really annoys me when I come to this thread and I have to read how people are mad and angry at FTP when there is no point to it. ^_^

Your reactions really show my point though. Why are you mad at what I say? Why would it possibly make you angry? It's a point of view someone you'll never know has on the internet. If you disagree, disagree. That's ok. But to respond with a negative emotion doesn't serve any purpose other than hurting yourself. That is not sane behavior, even though it is widely practiced. People don't seem to like this realization.


As a psychological experiment, everyone who did get mad at me and strongly disagrees will mostly likely test as a xxxJ on MBTI would be my guess.

You're still a tool.

Do you think this guy would be say now his marriage is messed up if BF never happened? Of course it contributed to it. You think he's just using that as a reason? He said BF screwed up everything for him, his income, his bankroll, his marriage and mortgage. You think he used that as an excuse for his marriage problems? Obviously this got the worst of him and that could make things between him and his wife not good.

I take a guess as you are either not married or don't have a G/f which is why you are making remarks like this.

I can't know any of this. My point still stands though, if he did let the situation get the better of him that might be understandable, surely, but it still would be him. Humans are not driven by outside reasons by nature, we have a choice.


Is that better or worse than being judgmental and emotionally unstable?

Edit: Gonna stop posting about this now, I would end up repeating myself. ^_^ If anyone felt judged by me, I apologize. It's really not about the person who posted about his life being ruined. I honestly hope he'll turn it around. It's just about the perspective, which I understand, but it's still being counterproductive. Say, if you're life is at the bottom, everything went wrong. How would you get back up on your feet? Surely not by looking for anything that caused the mess and being stuck inside your head. It's sure good to understand to make better judgements in the future, but if you put your focus on it emotionally you won't stand up but hurt your hands digging.

Yes you can't know none of this. But he pretty much told the truth and isn't trolling like some people do. Why do you think most of his words got asterisks on it because he was so upset. You think a person wouldn't be upset when he types cursing words on the message board to get his thoughts about?


I also take a guess you are not married or have no g/f i suspect so you have no idea what he is going through.

Yes. I'm ESFJ and agree with everything you've been saying ^_^.

To guys who are devastated about all this:

You obv are talented people, you can do it again and rebuild a big bankroll easily. You have done it once and will do another time.

Does that situation really suck and is BS? Sure! But who cares, it's the past now! stop worrying about the past, it's so useless. You feel bad? Go outside, smoke a spliff, have sex or drink alcohol (the cheapest one now that we're broke - lol)

You're totally broke? Fine, send your graphs to some guys on 2+2 who will happily stake you, and you'll just rebuild quietly.

Of course that sucks to play stakes ten times lower than what you are used to but see it as a test. the strongest will survive it and make in their life 6-7 figures playing stupid cards, and the weakest will "give up" stupidly.

Your lives are not ruined! I don't even understand how you can say that, I mean you don't just got infected by AIDS, money is just BS, don't worry about it, it comes and goes.
be cool with yourself.
Life is good even if people like Lederer and Bitar exist, that only proves life is not perfect

BTW, for those who REALLY have problem to pay bills, or keep their house etc, you guys did not cashout? I think at least 50% of lifetime profit should be cashouted, that seems normal, no? What would have happened if you were hacked or simply stopped winning? I think there was something wrong in "your plan" : the "rule" who says you must have at least one year of life expense at the bank to gamble profesionnally just proved being right I guess.

(that comes from someone losing 5 figures and about 25% of my "overall" money, so don't say I can't understand)

I noticed that he's upset. But being upset about something never gives you the right to treat another person badly in any kind of relationship.

This is really not about me, but this year I took a shot playing 50/100. I lost like 35k in a somewhat short session and then made a decision to play again after a break and lost another 40k. My biggest winning and losing days previously had been about 25k and I lost maybe a third of my BR within a day. My girlfriend was there and obviously concerned about me. What would be the point to getting upset? I made a conscious decision to play that high, it didn't work out. Of course it sucked but in no way would treating my girlfriend badly here be excused by losing. Or making myself feel bad for that matter. I didn't. I actually cheered her up saying that it's ok. We went for dinner while I thought about what to do next and it was fine.

Life can be a bitch and something can go wrong at every corner. It might be avoidable or not, that's not the point though. It just matters how we handle ourselves. People always have a choice how to act and feel and life can be way more positive if you don't try to look at how others ruin it for you.