Zoomer, do you blame your lawyer for letting the case go to trial? You essentially won but were awarded $0, I would have been quite annoyed if my lawyer hadn't foreseen that the breaches could be viewed as non-material, or were you aware this might happen?

Given what you know now, if you had to go back and do it again what do you think would have been the best way to terminate the agreement from a moral and a financial perspective?

Transcripts cost money. Buy them and put them up.

I did not include deposition transcripts or other discovery materials in my write-up because those are not public record, per New Jersey Court Rules 1:38-2(b)(2) and 4:10-3.

Some of the discovery material was entered into evidence at trial (making it public record), some was not. By leaving discovery materials out entirely rather than including only those entered into evidence, I was trying to avoid being accused of selectivity.

We have nothing to hide. I will gladly post a link to any document upon receipt of written authorization. If there is interest in reading the trial transcripts, I'd be happy to order them.

Some other misinformation being dispensed here, I will quickly address it later. I want to thank and commend the Plaintiff for posting such a civil rebuttal, I do recognize that some of the opinions I expressed are not favorable towards her.

David Zeitlin

If your goal is to provide additional information and if you agree that nobody is going to go read a bunch of court documents, then please quit advising people to go read court documents and start providing real information instead of dancing around all of the real issues.

Right, the bottom line is $0.

Staking should be done via contracts especially given how much money flows through the player from the backer. What makes poker staking any different than a normal business deal? You are giving X$ for Y%.

As someone who has been involved in a lot of staking, I will say I have never had a problem. Not once.

Someone ITT said that staking is a form of investment, and that is true. It comes with certain risks but, as with any legitimate form of investment, those risks can be mitigated and the expectation of all parties can be maximized by doing due diligence. The backer in this case claimed to do due diligence, but there's no way that's true. You have to actually have a solid, up-to-date theoretical understanding of poker to be able to make sound poker investments, to even know what constitutes due diligence. I don't think the backer in this case does, and that's among the many problems.

Going back and reworking the wording of the contracts isn't going to solve this backer's problems. All it seems like to me is an attempt at more strongly codified manipulation of future horses, but that's not what makes you money as a staker. The absolute last thing I'd ever want in a horse is to have to micromanage him or her. The absolute last thing I'd ever want in a backer is to not have the utmost respect for his or her poker understanding and, in fact, I would not want to get involved in a staking arrangement with a backer who doesn't know poker at least as well as I do.

I think the lesson here is two-fold: (1) contracts are irrelevant and (2) if you want to be involved in a staking arrangement, you had better be sure everyone involved knows how to ****ing play.

Looks like variance isn't a sufficient cause of action. Whether admitted or not.

David, I'll check with my attorney about the depositions ... You may not have seen something on my fb page where I said I think any summary, including if I wrote one, would be selective; the case is complicated and involved lots of documents, many of which were requested during discovery. Moreover, all of us are human and therefore subject to selective memory. (For example, it is irrelevant to understanding the case, but contrary to what you say, I was in the courtroom on the last day until 1:20pm when I had to leave for the airport.) None of my comments have said either side has something to hide; merely that a complete understanding requires reading what actually went on ... If the other "misinformation" you refer to has to do with how the jury found one provision to be impossible and me to have waived rights on two provisions, those points are already somewhere in this thread (not posted by me) and were also posted elsewhere by me ... Finally, I appreciate your comment about me being civil in light of some of the things you have said. To reiterate, to me, this was a business matter, not a "personal" matter, and there has never been a reason not to be civil ... In any case, I am not going to invest any more time in this except to address questions posed directly to me.

How would poker contracts destroy the game? Its poker. Contracts worded properly like all business deals just provide a level of accountability for the horse & the staker

If you want to be with the 'we are not samurais' crowd, that's your choice, but extremely well-worded contracts are not and never will be what make for good staking arrangements. I think the ignorance of the staker in this case is evident in the first reaction to losing the case being rewording contracts and not thinking, "How could I have avoided a problem in the first place?" The answer to that question has nothing to do with contracts.

As to your question, I don't know if contracts 'destroy the game' or whatever. I do know that in my experience they are irrelevant to sound staking arrangements.

the last thing i want is to have a stupid backer sue me and cost me 10 or 20K in lawyer cost on some small technicalities

Interesting questions ... No, I don't blame my lawyer. The only people I see as responsible for it going to trial are Childs and myself, as we each rejected offers from the other. My lawyer did foresee the possibility, and I was aware of it. It was addressed in a pre-trial motion for summary judgment and, if I understand correctly (bearing in mind I am not a lawyer), the court ruled that there was not enough information submitted to determine materiality.

If I had to go back and do it again? From a moral perspective, I don't think I would do anything differently. All I wanted was to have a contract, which the court ruled was a legal document in the pre-trial stage, honored. As a successful market research executive and business owner for 30 years, I've been involved in hundreds of contracts, take them seriously, and never had a dispute ... I tried to settle in other ways (starting with alternatives presented in the termination letter), but was not successful ... I think there are moral / ethical issues surrounding this case, but please remember that I am not the one who has made this case public or opened it up to debate; Childs' camp did that starting in June 2013. The player responsibilities in the contract all concern what was necessary for me to easily manage the business. I have never been on a moral crusade and never had an issue with anyone else I've staked, nor have I ever had the desire to micro-manage a backing relationship. Perhaps I am missing something, but IMO the moral thing to do is to honor a contract, and when that doesn't happen, to attempt to enforce the contract. I do not believe it is unreasonable to expect a poker player to live up to his responsibilities under a written contract. Nor do I believe it is damaging to the poker world to treat staking as a business.

From a financial standpoint, I would have saved some money if I accepted Childs' offer. But at the time, and now, IMO it was not a reasonable offer. Nonetheless, if I could have seen into the future, and Childs agreed to putting the offer into a legally enforceable payment plan (because given violations of our staking contract, I would have needed some assurance that a payment plan would be honored), I would have accepted the larger of his two offers because it was (to me) meaningfully greater than zero.

We have a term for successful market research executives and business owners at the table. Just saying.

if that stuff was that important why did you wait such a long time to react, if it was such a big deal after he didnt provide you proper paperwork or any other minor offense to your contract why didnt you stop the relationship.
All your minor claims are worth a slap on the wrist and that s what he got in court.
anyone looking at the situation see someone trying to save 40 K in a very unethical way.

You talk about morale , let s talk about morale , in the poker world you did something very unethical by suing him on some lame basis

wtf does this comment have to do with anything. Why insult someone who is coming here and answering questions about an interesting topic, that hasn't done anything to you at all?

Stupid remarks like this kill what is an interesting debate.

It's an interesting debate because you say so? No. This is not an interesting debate to me, and if anything, I am being helpful to the backer by suggesting that knowledge of business does not translate to the ability to get positive expectation in poker as a player or a backer. If your response to defeat in court is to try to devise a more watertight contract, you're doing it wrong, and you should try to figure out a way to stay out of court in the first place. I guess I should be OK with that, because such backers will inevitably stake bad players to go up against the skilled samurais that I stake, but I can't help it if I'm a nice person and want to offer a helping hand on this one.

Trying to enforce payment of makeup when the backer was the one that ended the agreement for failing to perform "administrative tasks" is insane. Another backer that thinks his horses are ****ing slaves.

Looks like legal fees were considerably more than that.

A contract works both ways. If the backer doesnt meet the requirements the horse could then leave. The good thing about contracts is you can word them whichever wat you want and if you dont want to agree then dont agree.

Poker has a negative representation in the media because they always see for example Jamie gold welches on deal or player X owes player Y a large sum of $$.

Having backing be an underground industry is plain dumb. If a player steals money from me sure as hell i would like to report them to a credit agency/collections bureau and if the amount is large id love to have the option to sue.

If someone where to take the transcript of her cross and make an Xtranormal video they would be my hero.

Yeah because getting lawyers involved always helps everything. No thanks.

Lawyers would only be involved if the player or investor misuses funds.

If you want online poker regulated with transfers in the U.S there is going to have to be more staking regulation

Misuse is defined as steal or play outside of the agreed guidelines thats it

So what your saying in real world lingo is hey let me give you all this $$$ and you have full reigns to steal it without any real life consequences.

This doesnt change the integrity of the game the best hand will still be awarded the pot what it changrs is not allowing scum like chino rheem continue to play without paying back people you owe first

I don't want it regulated; I liked how it was pre-UIGEA just fine. That aside, it does not follow that regulation of online poker implies that bull**** legalese needs to be up in my grill if I want to stake a person. I have had no problems thus far and do not require any alterations to how I engage in staking arrangements.

All that a proliferation of contracts and more codified staking structure accomplishes is draining the poker economy of funds and transferring it to legal and corporate interests. Further, it serves primarily as a means of player disempowerment, because stakers from the business world will have far more resources at their disposal for litigation and contractual manipulation to ensure they maintain a position of authority.

Really, no thanks. Poker players don't need even more leeches sucking their lifeblood.