You keep talking about what is legally allowed. This, buying RIO website, not technically slandering Jnandez by legal definition.

Thats all BS. Just because its not technically illegal doesnt man its not shady and unethical. People are starting not to to trust you because of this. You should worry more about not being shady instead of whats technically legal.

Just own up to it like a man instead of hiding behind legal technicalities and maybe ppl will start to trust you again

I think Upswing buying a Run It Once resembling domain name was an error of judgement on their part, and most likely a lack of knowledge about the rules and laws regarding domain name ownership, plus maybe combined with being on such a business, poker and crypto high at the time that they felt an air of invincibility and that they were untouchable.

About 6 separate people ITT have given the same view that the domain purchase may well break the rules, so I'd be surprised if they don't rectify what may need rectifying, very soon.

Mason came out and said that 2+2 was knocked for the refunds on their affiliate payments in his long response in the other thread.

Why didn´t you say "hi" though. I´d instantly turn around and leave. Sociopath much?

Now i understand why Doug doesn't play so much online anymore . He is printing millions with his training site.

The video he put out is private (not doing it for clicks) and Joey's pod with Doug was announced at least last week before any of this mess.

Website protects advertisers is hardly some off-the-wall conspiracy theory.

You understand that it would be very stupid business wise to have a video public talking about his company scamming people. He made this one specifically private to prevent this not because he is a stand up guy not worried about clicks.

Trying to hurt runitonce poker before it even launched is good for game and community.

More pokerstars dominance is better.

Yes I understand that. I was addressing the comments saying that he was doing it for clicks.

If you own the domain then you have leverage to become an affiliate for the poker site (or training site). Or, you can sell the domain to RIO. I get that, and that seems smart business.

But, when you link the domain to Jmo's tweet, then it becomes a smear campaign against a competitor. Be above that.

Come on Doug...

First give the domain back to the RIO guys, that's not cool.

And then challenge JNandez to a HU match. Half no limit half plo.

Winner takes all the scarfs.

No this isn't true at all. Fernando makes 30% of Upswings share after affiliate commission but before internal expenses.

Over the last 3 months, we did not make very much money, this is because of several reasons

- We had to stop selling 6/12 month packages (which were the bulk of income)
- We had to stop allowing rebills on monthly subscriptions
- We had to pay back $75,000 to our customers

I am not sure how Fernando thinks that we made any money at all over this time period. The upside to revenue share is you can make a lot when things go well. The downside is should there be a major hiccup in sales you don't make money. It isn't my job to make sure Fernando makes money for his work when we are not taking in any revenue (Primarily I might add, because of Fernando's decisions).

This subject is fairly off topic, but let me explain some important information.

Believe it or not, I had never heard of BencB's course before we named our course the Tournament Masterclass. After I found out about the ordeal I checked their website. If I remember correctly, had something like 2-3k traffic a month. Generally speaking we don't do too much research into the small guys, because there are so many of them and its not a reasonable approach for us to take.

Once we named the course, I received a message from Bencb,where he made some very threatening remarks to me

- He was suing Upswing
- He was also going to sue me personally (Forget why he said that)

At that point, I decided to remove contact with Bencb. However, some discussions still took place with Matt Colletta and Bencb.

I could be wrong about this, but I want to say at one point we even offered to change the name slightly. But we had already put out many marketing materials for the course, so we needed to keep it similar in some regard. Agian, if I remember this correctly, we offered it because while we believed we were in the right, we wanted to make a small concession in good faith about the course.

From what I remember, we were told no, we have to change the entire thing or we would be sued. So we launched with the same name and gave them our attorneys contact information.

At this point they sent us a legal statement, our attorney looked into it and had some questions on some items from them that did not make any sense. My understanding is we never heard back from them.

So anyway in summary, it does suck that there was already a course out there on a much smaller site that had a similar name. But the term masterclass in itself is likely not trademarkable (Such as with the Negreanu) case.

I also am sure Bencb was just puffing up his chest to seem tough and to try to threaten me into what he wanted me to do, but in those spots I generally just tell them I guess ill see you in court because theres no reason to engage in such ridiculous behavior.

The confidentiality agreement is a 1 way street. It does not say that the Publisher (Upswing Poker) has to keep the agreement private. It only states the writer does.

I also think that regardless, after he has already spilled the beans so to speak, it changes things some. But you also could be right, I am not an attorney, it was a calculation of risk on my side to clear my name.

I don't want to get too far into the non compete arguments because im not an attorney, but my understanding is that he was not allowed to work on competing companies will under term with upswing given the language in the contract. (I also just want to say, I know that this doesnt matter too much, but on a personal level doing things like launching competing products in august of last year while being the Upswing PLO coach, seems highly unethical to me).

Djz, thanks for your take, I am aware this is not an ideal situation. However when someone goes onto youtube for an hour of story time, where they say anything negative they can possibly think of over the course of 1.5 years, its hard to imagine a good look.

More importantly, I am really sorry you had that experience with the educa course. I felt we put out a good course and educa is a good player. DM me your upswing email and I will make sure we take care of you, I'm sure people appreciate you warning them. Would appreciate some feedback on why you thought that so we can improve the course.

2+2 will always be a great place

Thanks zippyroo! Glad you are enjoying it.

Yes this is correct, but in that scenario Upswing also gets paid almost nothing.

This is a point that seems to be missed, the payment structure goes

- Affiliates receive 25% (If applicable[most sales do not have affiliates])
- Fernando receives 30% of that 75%
- Myself, Fees, and Matt cut the remaining money

If we gave 97% of our money to affiliates we would be making no money.

What Fernando never mentions at any point here, is that our incentives are almost completely aligned. We don't want affiliates to be paid needlessly, but we also understand their important to the overall success of individual courses.

Confirmed douche

Have you sent him the $1200 though?

Doug it's amazing to me how much time you've taken to defend yourself against the trolls of 2+2. It's no wonder you burnt out on poker.

Guys like Doug are great for the game. He's a major reason I started playing the game seriously about a year ago. So he's a big reason why my money entered the poker economy.

He has personality, is hilarious, educates the masses and isn't afraid to speak up when he sees shady or effed up stuff going on. People wonder why he's seemingly always part of the drama or controversy and I think a lot of the time it's because he's one of the only people (sometimes THE only person) willing to call people out on their BS.

Joey has also done things to make it clear he cares about the players and the game of poker.

I hope you both don't let the trolls get to you too much but at this point I'd guess you both have pretty thick skin.

The remaining money that is cut up (70% of the 75%-after affiliate commission) is responsible for all overhead and operating expenses, correct? In other words, Fernando is receiving a percentage of the gross revenue before any applicable operating and overhead expenses.

Some may argue that getting 70% of the cut of his work is steep, but that 70% is paying for all other expenses of the company, not just going straight into the owners pockets.

Thanks for this, much more clearly worded and likely correct.

Most of these stories I am choosing to be involved in, this one I felt my hands were tied to respond. Also keep in mind my video is private on youtube, I doubt that one will get many views compared to most of my content.

I dont understand what you think was the appropriate move when someone comes forward and says that you might owe them 100k. That is past views and drama, that is a serious allegation and I had to defend my character.

I feel like Joey, very unfairly, got raked across the coals here. We made a fair agreement with Joey and for whatever reason Fernando was particularly mad at him. Keep in mind this was our standard affiliate day with many of our partners.

It's a private video, but yeah, I felt the need to come through here.

Maybe Matt could chime in here to confirm this (Also have no idea about it)

At this point we have not sent him the $1,200. I cannot expand on why at this time.

Really kind words man I do appreciate that.

Sorry, I should have been a bit more clear in my post. Yes expenses are taken out after Fernando's share and before it is split amongst us.

I'm sorry, are you trying to say that it provokes a response when you make videos about players that are completely negative?

Because you would never make a video or publish an article about someone? Like out of all your videos maybe one or two are of you bashing people right? Can't be more than 10 right? Right?

Dear Mods, Why not merge the two "JNandez/Upswing poker threads? Having both sides pump their personal threads on the matter solves nothing. If you merge it it might become more of a conversation about what happened and less of two guys standing on their soapboxes complaining to us about each other.

There is a big difference between putting out a video where something negative happens, and falsely accusing someone of personally scamming you.

In previous thread there was accusations you did not watch educa course before making it available.

Can you confirm that you did watch course before release and was happy with product at that moment?

There were not accusations I did not watch the educa course before making it available, I publicly said I did not watch the entirety of the course.

We have hundreds and hundreds of hours of content at Upswing. It is not reasonable for me to watch all of it. I did watch part of the content, and I also produced part of the content with Educa.

I know it sounds good that owners should watch all of the content at their site, but at the end of the day its not a reasonable request for such large quantities of video.

We do have quality control checks in place and did subtitle that entire series for anyone who struggled with his accent.

This isn't relevant at all and hopefully it isn't another ridiculous straw-clutch that the blind pro-jnandez brigade uses to go along with the first meeting in Vegas.