Wasn’t Doug complaining nandez used him to become more well known and stole customers ?

1. is jnandez a winning player?

2. is jnandez more well known in the poker community than prior to upswing affiliation?

3. who's side will joey ingram take in the beef?

1. Yes
2. Obviously
3. Joey is a v/good politician, so neither (or both, depending on how you look at it)

Yes and this is hardly debatable imo. This is obviously what Cheeky Nandos did.

1. Yes
2. Yes
3. Doug said Joey offered to jump in and make some vids (presumably pro bono). If Joey is ever going to take sides this would be a good time to shun Nandex.

Doug if you want someone to read over your contracts ... I'm not a lawyer but I can read! I'll alert you to any problems such as the absence of a non compete clause etc. I work cheap! Yelling out fold when I'm contemplating a call for my net worth would do it ....

An article written by Andrew Burnett, who is known as hedgecock here on 2+2
Or at least he was until he was banned today.

He's got form for having zero journalistic integrity.

https://www.pokertube.com/article/ma...-to-censorship

Could argue the only reason a big % of people know JScamnez is because of Joey and Doug. I for one had no idea who this dude was until he came on Joey's podcast a few years ago. That's the worst part of this, imo. You befriend people and use their platforms just to **** on them once you gain notoriety. I don't think anyone would say a word had he just honored his word and the contract he signed and toughed it out until the end, like a friend would do, but that clearly isn't what he was.

oh yes please, sign me up for Joey Ingram videos. A strategic mind like that comes around once in a generation.

And how much work did Doug do?

Look he put in the work already (becoming a great poker player and winning millions), but let's not act like hiring people is some arduous process that is as hard as the grind he initially went through.

I'm laughing at anyone who feels bad for millionaire Doug making tons of money on this, OH NO, his endless stream of income making is temporarily decreased (slightly), what a SCAMMER JNANDEZ IS, HOW DARE HE EXERCISE CONTRACT OPTIONS!!!!!

Catch more feels because what happens in the business world EVERY DAY happened to Doug and temporarily derailed him making 100s of gs off of putting his name on things which he has no part of.

All of this is especially more hilarious since a lot of Doug's fame comes from him gossiping and ****ting on people from his YT channel, but he is SUCH a victim of bad ethics by others!!! LOL

The Two Stories:

JNandez- says he needed more money for his team to take the Lab to the next level, because poker develops, and Doug refused to offer it. Solvers needs help. Loves his team so much he had to leave. Felt like making videos is going backwards, and even though it is what agreed on, wants his own site. Coaching and feedback from people is meaningful to him. Woe is JNandez because he was kicked out of the FB group after quitting. Admits that he originally got into videos, twitch, etc to create his own brand.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jn4d66I2JjY&t=504s

v.

Doug- says JNandez had no intentions to stay, did not negotiate staying in good faith and wanted too much money, rode Doug's publicity to gain fame and a following before breaking off before the contract expired, and tried to take the followers with him. JNandez only has to split pay back the refunds, but gets to keep the money for anyone that stays.
----------------------

JNandez definitely sounds the less believable in all this, Doug came across as the jilted party (even if he made business mistakes).

Doug also has legitimate points while JNandez just this moral ground over needing money for a team. JNandez basically said in his video he wants to lead his own team with his own brand as the reason leaving.

Plus it seemed like Doug and JNandez both agreed there was not much positive negotiation in having JNandez stay.

Without knowing hard numbers, there is no way to tell if at all who was acting in "good faith."

Depending on the profit split, it could've just been Nando realizing Doug wasn't doing anything and taking a good chunk of his change or maybe Doug was being very generous to Nando and Nando just being "greedy" and "****ing him over" just for a bit more dollars.

Ultimately it does come down to the numbers, for the people acting like Doug was doing Nando a massive favor, consider the fact that without Nando 100% of the money made disappears, so it was at best a mutual benefit relationship, there is no way that one person can be said to be leeching off of the other:

Without Nando Doug does not have a PLO lab and seeing as he is clueless about PLO, he does not make money on his own

Without Doug, Nando doesn't get nearly the following or support for his coaching

The bottom line is it comes down to the figures, it can be argued either way without them.

Were any of these people longtime friends before these various business arrangements were put in place? Were they childhood buddies or something?

Well, as someone who didn't see the original posts I can say Doug's PR statement doesn't really explain his side of the story much and all I'm left with is the Jnandez video he's put out, which kinda curbstomps over a blanket PR statement. Doug needs to actually fire back properly otherwise people that didn't see his original posts are just left with Jnandez side, meh.

Upswing made a lot of money on Jnandez.
Jnandez gained followers / brand recognition.
Jnandez followed the clause put into the contracts.

Talk about ethics is kind of laughable given context that these are hs poker players.

Hi 7OAD:

Over the years i’ve read numerous similar posts about myself. But I suspect that what you don’t understand is that for every successful business there’re a bunch of them that fail, and in the case of virtually all successful businesses a lot of work goes in behind the scenes as well as lots of expenses that someone like yourself never hears about. In addition, and this may be the most important aspect of a successful business, is that they have the ability to pull up others to a high level of success and that’s what makes our economy great and creates lots of disposable income so that excellent poker players can have good results.

Best wishes,
Mason

I want to comment on this because this is exactly the way capitalism works. Specifically it’s not a zero sum game. Both parties gain from the relationship. In fact, the purchaser of the product also gains because he benefits from the product in many positive ways.

Best wishes,
Mason

Jesus, Mason, you really have a firm hand on the tiller for this one, hey?

I agree with a lot of the commentary in this thread (including some of the negative). I think this move has backfired for JNandez somewhat as it's easy to see that it was self-serving and disrespectful to Upswing and its members.

Clearly if he was really unhappy and wanted to leave, he could discuss it with Upswing and agree the best way to make that happen for both parties. Instead, it had to happen immediately, cause disruption and just leave a sour taste for his employers. I'm really surprised by his attitude, because he comes across accommodating and chill in his videos etc. Incidentally, I know he has said he did try to negotiate the best way for him to leave and how they could refund members, but I don't really see it. You could stay on a bit longer and work with a new coach to keep the transition smooth -- but then of course that would make it less likely people would jump ship to your coaching site, right?

I do also think there's another element with this, which is that definitely JNandez's profile has been massively enhanced by association with Doug etc. Doug and the Joey have a huge social media and YouTube presence, not only because they produce good content but also because they're both interesting to listen to and charismatic. JNandez is likeable enough (usually) and makes good content, but he received a significant charisma injection by association. Without that association (which I view as fostering his development) he is a bit like a PLO version of Alec Torelli at times.

Certainly for me personally, I'm going to be less inclined now to seek out JNandez's stuff now, but my view of Doug and Upswing is completely unchanged.

Distribution is worth a tonne. It is definitely not as easy as "well x made the product and deserves all the money.

With this said, i still don't see what Fernando has done that is unethical. Especially given he 1) made them lots of money and 2) followed their stipulations.

The original thread also really advertised the good that can come from the PLO coaching too. Despite following both Doug and JNandez on youtube, I never once considered signing up for the PLO content.

But people were talking so glowingly about it, and just in general it came across as very very valuable material, seriously considering signing up for one or the other in the near future.

This has been said over and over between the last thread and this one. Just because he honored the contract doesn't mean what he did was ethical. He told Doug and Upswing that he'd be there for 12-18 months. He's not staying. That's not ethical. Again, well within his rights, but not ethical.

edit: let's not forget that JN was the one who asked to start a subscription based service after the success of PLOU and when asked what time frame he'd like for those subs, he said 6-months and/or one year. Doug didn't ask him to do it.

You can tell yourself whatever story you like and perhaps during past eras that was true, with proven aggregators of all sorts being out there (website creators, hiring agencies, forums that can filter through people by having accounts acting as social proof etc), the difficult work is already done for you.

Furthermore, if we're discussing Doug's business, it is built on his name and status, not just in poker, but from his youtube videos that he has made. While hard work goes into them I'm sure, it's hardly putting in 50+ hour weeks doing something really tough, Doug did that for years already in playing poker, now it's ez stuff.

I really don't know why you'd make it sound more difficult than it is, Doug is a great poker player and he happened to catch a wave at the right time, running his site isn't rocket science or some incredibly difficult and arduous work, specifically when it comes to having OTHERS putting out content for you and yes there is management and decision making involved, but it's not exactly running a massive corporation or worrying about what your opponents are doing as much as he is a market leader in what he does overall (poker personality) and now just riding the wave putting out product after product.

Not necessarily, all parties can lose as well, i.e someone starts a widget business, they are mediocre at it and waste their own time, their customers get mediocre service and the suppliers time is wasted dealing with a dead end business that is a hassle to work with and that takes away from the suppliers main business/focus.

Okay. You might be correct. I know with 2+2, even though we worked hard, a massive poker boom started in 2003 and we were lucky enough to be there.

And that’s the way capitalism works. There are winners and losers.

Best wishes,
Mason

There are a handful of things that stink.

1. The Upswing team didn't just hire JNandez, they befriended him. Although JNandez called it a big company, it's really not. I work for a big company and I can see that Upswing is a pretty small company with a handful of content creators and a community feel -- the strength of the community was what made JNandez want to pursue his own site.

Doug said in the original thread that he worked hard to give JNandez a platform and support him on social media. Of course that's good for Doug too, but I don't believe he was solely motivated by the positive light it would shine on the PLO Lab. He wanted to support JNandez with his own endeavors and believed that JNandez could manage those in tandem with his coaching responsibilities.

Now okay, you know there's a loophole in your contract and you can exploit, but do you do that if you know it will negatively affect people who call you a friend and who have only ever tried to support you on your various platforms?

2. It's one thing to decide your going to leave a company and set up a rival, but it's another to exploit your position in the company you're in to poach clients.

In his video, JNandez talks openly about how great the small community is and how it's a group effort. He says he wants to expand on that and develop it in ways that Upswing didn't allow.

He's not talking about leaving and trying to start a similar and better community, he's talking about lifting the best of the existing one. This is exactly why he was blocked from the FB group!

Poaching clients/members happens in a lot of industries to be fair, but it is generally considered unethical and a lot of companies will put a clause in the employment contract to prohibit this type of behavior.

3. In his video he talks about how he wants to ensure Upswing members are fully refunded and treated fairly blah blah. Of course he has to make it clear that he wants to look after members if he's going into this line of business himself -- he can't say I don't give a **** about members, I'm leaving.

The reality, though, is that people signed up to a course where he had shown a lot of commitment. Now he's bailing and even if you get a refund, you're still being messed around.

He could quite easily have worked closer with Upswing to manage the transition for the solid 12-18 months and then make sure members genuinely are not affected. However, I see that would be to his disadvantage for a few possible reasons: he was creating strategies (with Upswing members) he didn't want Upswing to have; and if Upswing refunds a bunch of members they're then free to sign up to the same course with JNandez using the same deposit.

So I see an exploitative side there, taking advantage of the Upswing members and the trouble he would make for Upswing, so that that he could promote his own site and start on a strong footing.

Poaching members is unethical for sure.

I don't think you can call such a key (and mostly, standard) stipulation a loophole. It could also have been used the other way if Fernando wasnt worth it. If anything, Upswing should carefully read the contracts they draft in order to protect their customers.