Looks like HL outplayed Diamond Flush after the flop.

He promised her an interview after he did PN and 2+2 interviews knowing she would not let her knowledge of the affairs out of the bag otherwise PN or 2+2 would've asked those difficult questions that obviously he does not want to face.

Once he did the interviews he simply cancelled hers, never to face the music.

Mason goes out of his way to vigorously defend the guy who has done the most harm to poker over the last 5 years while attacking and criticizing the one person who has singlehandedly helped us the most.

What else is new?

I think that he is defending Lederer just because DN hates him

Mason, I have no issue with your opinion (although I don't agree with it because I believe anonymity and credibility can exist together as long as the latter is earned even more vigorously), but I am not sure such an important moment as this is a good time for the off topic debate about journalistic standards.

Cutting through all the crap, the reality is we all want to know if Howard knew a lot more than he is letting on about this train wreck. If he really was just an out of touch shareholder blindsided by this whole thing than he can only take on so much blame. But is that the true story? Hopefully we will find out soon.

what else do you guys want howard to say? any other interview at this point would just be repeating everything hes already said. i think alot of of you are just taking this opportunity to hate on him which might be warranted but the fact that he turned down a interview isnt really important or interesting so this thread being constantly bumped just seems like a waste of time.

ya +1.

It seems howard is trying to put the whole debacle at least a little bit behind him, but doing 1 more interview with diamond seems appropriate. I'm hoping he'll change his mind on this too; mainly because i think these 3 interviews are the ones howard 'should' do and that should help the full story come out.

It seems like diamond should out herself in this spot, but if theres a legitimate reason not to i think maybe she could tell someone like you mason- so that you could throw out there "ehh kindv complex situation i understand the anonymity." Because on paper it does seem warranted. This isnt at all taking away from all the work she did tho- thats super appreciated by i think everyone (at least me), but for principle interviews it does seem weird for the interviewer to have anonymity.

edit: also i think a solution could possibly be diamond agreeing to a shorter interview of only 30-45min or so? seems like most of the info's out there.

I don't think DiamondFLush should out her name as long as she isn't being accused of providing false information or false statements or whatever, obv as long as she isn't an active player in the poker industry under a different name, which I'm sure isn't the case. She is providing a service and writing high quality, professional, accurate articles. Don't know why a name is relevant in this case. She isn't throwing mud or writing stuff that is irrelevant to know to people who had money on FTP, for whom she is providing this service. We've all heard her voice and we have heard that it is a pretty distinct one. The fact that no one has recognised who she is should confirm that she is removed far away from poker in her day to day life.

I completely disagree. What does it matter if it's a credible alias or an unknown person in the real world. Either way, its the SAME PERSON THAT HAS BROUGHT US CREDIBLE INFO, ABOVE AND BEYOND ALL THE PEOPLE WITH 'REAL NAMES' GIVING US GARBAGE.

What advantages does outing yourself do exactly? Absolutely nothing. For this topic at hand, it doesn't matter if she's Diamond Flush or Connie Chung. She is the person that has given us info that is above and beyond all other ******ed sources in the media that have played us since day 1.

PokerNews 'exclusive' was half assed and didn't answer a single thing that had depth or was worthy of 'new info.' Of course his repetitive Fifth amendment answer was going to be 'I DUNNO' because they were not privy to info that might actually shed light on topics that matter (incriminating). The 2p2 pokercast interview, though leaps and bounds better, didn't dig deep enough. (BTW Mike and Adam, you guys still rule and I loved what you guys did)

Mason, turning a blind eye to something that has caused the POKER WORLD incredible hardship is disgusting and unfathomable. Worn out? Are you kidding me? 18 months of hell and 1 more and now he's worn out? Give me a break.

She once told us she was ugly and old.

Anyway, I believe she should identify herself now that she carries a lot of responsibility.
IMO that is an integral part of that responsibility.
Otherwise you get a similar situation as developped at Full Tilt.
DF would become the Ray Bitar of news reporters.

I can imagine HL bailing out for now.
Apparently he is negotiating new terms as we speak.
We'll find out this evening how that turned out.

''It's not who you are underneath, it's what you do that defines you''

You think the victims who had their money stolen didn't get stressed and worn out?? While HL was rewarding himself with stolen money, many victims have suffered great stress and hardship as a direct result.

Lederer was responsible for our money being stolen and then lying about whether it had been stolen. Until such time as all the victims have been properly compensated HL should give back every dollar he has received.

Diamond Flush didn't steal our money, she can choose if she wants to be anonymous or not. Frankly I don't care either way.

If HL had a moral conscience he should be doing EVERYTHING to compensate his victims. Ducking out of an interview because he is "worn out" can only be interpreted as trying to avoid difficult questions.

** I am sure DF would reschedule the interview if being worn out was the real reason for HL backing out. It's not..............

What is the legitimate reason to? Revealing her identity is more likely to hurt her credibility and reliability for us going forward, which is obvious if you think about it for even a second.

C'mon, kid.

More than Bitar? More than the UB s00per-users?

HL certainly dropped the ball as owner/director, arguably defrauded ROW players after Black Friday, and possibly participated in a Ponzi scheme, where he thought he would get away with it.

But the UB crowd REALLY defrauded players, and designed it into the site.

Bitar REALLY, PROVABLY participated in the Ponzi scheme.

HL is either a poor fool, or a criminal. He certainly hasn't done the most damage. Bite your tongue and leave out the hyperbole. It isn't needed here.

With respect, Diamond Flush is in the same place as Isildur was: her deeds speak for themselves. She's built an online identity through years of hard work.

If someone finds that a name is more important than a body of work, they're thinking in terms of pre-internet days. And there is a long and proud history of anonymous journalism: gossip columns, several of the Economist's columns (Bagehot, Lexington...), and newspaper leaders don't have a name attached.

It does little damage to their credibility.

Yeah this is the most incredulous part. That we should be understanding, sympathetic even, of Lederer being "tired" from answering questions about how his company destroyed lives by committing one of the largest thefts in human history.

Also, no one gets "worn out" from answering questions for a few hours unless they're trying to keep 2737 different stories straight in their head.

I do have one "kind of question".

I've generally felt that HL is trying to tell the truth, and been very careful to confine himself to info he knows. Pleading exhaustion is reasonable. He's in the centre of a storm, and it's likely that there has been a spike in threats to him and his family. His lawyer is probably telling him that he is running large risks doing the interviews, and if not, his wife is channeling concern from friends.

However, the story about the Pokercast interview was that he didn't think another interview would be necessary, but changed his mind on Monday based on the explosion of questions after the Lederer files went up.

I struggle to tally this with the apparent fact that the Diamond Flush interview was planned prior to the Pokernews one. Having agreed the interview, he should go through with it.

Really? You're going to nitpick as to whether Ray Bitar, Howard Lederer, or Scott Tom has been worse for poker? You're the one who wrote the bolded, and this was the company of which he was president. But I don't really care, let's just agree that they are all pretty ****ing evil.

Howard pulling out is disappointing but hardly surprising.

I don't think DF should be pressured to out her real self, the quality of her work is what matters and it has always been good. What does matter (at least imo) is that there continues to be a one-to-one relationship between the IRL-DF and the online-DF. It's not ok for someone else to take over that identity if DF one day decides she's had enough of poker journalism.

Ding Ding + 1

I think this is a key point that some people are missing. DF has gained a massive amount of respect and rightfully so, but no journalist should have "journalistic immunity" which is what anonymity could potentially provide. There have been very respectable journalists in the past who have committed serious offenses such as plagiarism,slander, libel (often unintentionally) and they need to be held responsible for those actions. Obviously DF has never committed any of these offenses but my point is that no journalist should be immune to the consequences if the offenses were to be committed (even accidentally).

Does this mean DF needs to out herself in public so everyone knows who she is? I don't think so. I think most of us can respect the fact that she has a separate life outside of the poker world and wants to keep them separate. Similar to what Durrrr suggested, if a select few people within the poker world (such as Mason) know her real identity then at least it would remove any potential issues in the future. Perhaps this is already the case and if so there is no reason why DF can't remain being anonymous to the masses.

who gives a ****, its all bs still, send him too do some time, everyone get their money back and move on, you really wanna see him talk more crao ?

Doesn't Noah know who she is? How could she have all these sources and be anonymous to them. I would be very surprised if nobody knows her identity. Either way she is the only person who kept us updated with facts through the whole ordeal and deserves huge amounts of respect for that. After all she has done she should be able to remain anonymous if she chooses.

No tactical advantage for Howard to give more interviews. He has convinced as many people as he can that he's a good Guy. Those that weren't convinced are not gong to be changed by another interview.

Look forward to DF's analysis. It will be good to see information from someone who isn't directly involved in the scandal.

If DF's goal is to become a journalist she will eventually have to give her real name. But that will be driven by her own time table and based on her success.

DF's blog is not a court of law and even if it were there are instances where witnesses are allowed to testify anonymously if their reasons for remaining anonymous are greater than the interests of the public to know who they are.

If DF tells the people she's talking to who she really is and would have told Lederer then she is giving them the right to "face their accuser". That's all that really matters. Knowing who she is might be beneficial to her and interesting for her readers but it doesn't really change anything unless she's

ITT I think Mason is defending the journalistic process, not defending Howard. There's still hope that we'll get this interview unless DF goes off the rails on Howard.

NoahSD knows who she is.