Cheat on test.

+1 to all of buttsauce's posts itt. Also, his roi is definitely higher playing pai gow than poker tournaments these days.

I used to be a dealer. It is super gross when players pick on dealers. It tilts me to no end and they take advantage of the fact that dealers are trying to keep a job.

The floor is usually no help, and most of the other players at the table turn a blind eye.

big +1 to all your posts in the thread.

PSU MIKE THIS GUY HAS/IS GIVING YOU SOLID ADVICE FROM SOMEONE WHO SOUNDS LIKE HES HAD GAMBLING ADDICTIONS IN THE PAST. DONT TAKE IT AT YOUR PERIL

I don't know why anybody would think he wants to change. He's a con man, and he's good at it. He's had lots of practice, been doing it for years. I think he enjoys it, he gambles to give him an excuse to con people. One feeds on the other. How many hours a day does he 'work', a couple? Sociopaths don't mind telling their stories, they don't care what we think of them. When we see him in an airport conning someone now, we'll feel sorry for him and not blow the whistle. That's why he posted what he did.

Ooh! You can play Pai Gow on line for real money! Google it!

Where I live, I have applied for a job in the cage, hoping to eventually get to deal, and I didn't get an interview despite my degrees from both local colleges. But I am not Native American, so I have no chance. The story of me showing up to the rez wearing a suit to the job fair they were having is pretty comical. The guy in line ahead of me had one arm and smelled like Tequila, and he had a better chance than me.

That being said the "trying to keep a job" argument holds no air for me. But, I am nice to everbody, even the dealers I don't like. i think maybe once after a bad beat I have said, "How can you put that card on the river?" and later said of course I was joking ... but this was a particularly bad dealer, and for some reason, my instinct was to blame him, which of course is wrong. But this is where I play, in the town where I live. If I was outside my turf, and a dealer was being a jerk, I might be pretty vocal about it.

I haven't seen many players be perpetual jerks, they get tossed.

I agree with this. As of right now, it does seem to be in everyone's best interest including his own that he is locked away for a very long time. If he is unwilling to take ownership of his issues and make real changes then I just don't see a better alternative. That's not to say that the US penal system is a good option, but it may be the best option for him. Based on his stories, it seems that his quality of life would actually be improved in prison (especially considering where it appears he will be headed from here).

Over the past 10 years PSUmike has been a parasitic sponge on society, but for the most part his crimes have been relatively minor. He mainly scams people out of a few hundred or less. At one point he scammed some people out of a few thousand, and of course his one heavy hitter was the check scam but overall his negative impact on society is somewhat negligible.

However, who is to say what he will do next? I don't know PSUmike, but even I knew him and thought he was a great funny person whose company I really enjoy, would it shock me if he robbed a bank? No. Would it shock me if he murdered someone? Absolutely not. He is a man with a serious addiction that NEEDS money to gamble with. If he does not have money, who is to predict what he will resort to in order to get that money? He said it himself that scamming people at the airport is not within his character. The addiction help drive his actions.

OP, do you play the fortune bonus? If so, for what % of your bet amount?

PSUmike, do not listen to these haters that want you fail. Get your big score and walk away on top. 15 years at the grind and you are bound for a big score. Gogogogogogogogogogog

But he can't walk away. If he could, he never would have lost $150k in 40 minutes. I believe there is at least some truth to that story. Some poker players have two minds that grapple, compulsion (aka "feel") with logic. This guy, there is no logic. He's mastered compulsion though.

I want to hear about the supposed angle shoot, where Mike says "10" on the river after a check, and then tables 5 high after ace high mucks. That was an angle, and we know it, but I would like to see you admit to it. It would do you some good.

The other day, I saw a card as a player folded and I announced it to the table, dealer checked, I was right and the dealer showed it. Would you ever even think of doing something like that? Just for the sake of fairness?

Because you gotta start there man. You gotta be a person of integrity first, and the rest will fall into place.

Also, that is a great angle, been fooled by it once, never again. You got any more?

A guy I know just finished 5 years in a Calif. prison. He said that it's wasn't all that bad. Most people spent the day watching TV, reading, working out and...playing poker. Sounds like a ideal lifestyle choice for Mike.

Obviously wouldnt call every casino, but if he moves to Philly and proves he's willing to change his life, then I wouldn't mind spending a couple hours to help out. Banning wouldn't solve the problem, but it will make it more difficult to relapse

How did this not get more <3 ?

I will buy Mike a bus ticket to Philly if you agree to take him under your wing.

Because that definition was taken already by Chino'ed

I played with Mike in a Bike circuit event a couple years ago. He was the guy everyone loved to hate but sounds like he was a couple months removed from prison so I'll give him a break.

OP - your idea of binking a tourney for $500k may honestly be the dumbest thing you wrote in your very detailed thread. Go back and read you own writing, the story is simple:

I win $xxxx amount of money. I lose $xxxx amount of money degen'ing in pit.

$xxxx number changes, has grown over time, but the end is identical. If you blew $150k in 40 minutes, $500k will be gone in an afternoon.

I have a honest question / idea ---- is there anyway you could play exclusively poker and cut the pit games cold-turkey? I think you could beat soft small/mid-stakes live games and make enough to get on your feet. Try to turn your addiction problem into a crazy focus into beating poker games.

Mike, read/listen to some of the Merson interviews. He was real deep into drug addiction and he was able to beat it. You could do it too but it is not going to happen overnight.

I think he could jw, but not anytime soon. He needs to step away from the whole thing and get some perspective first.

IMO this thread would be a hell of a lot better if people would quit giving Mike advice. Its simply not wanted. He's a smart guy and knows what to do but won't. I want daily updates on the degens day to day living.

I have personaly lost someone I loved to suicide, based on massive financial problems. I know how hard it is on the family, and I know what it's like to feel like, "I wish he would have just called me, I would have talked him out of it. " and we could get him some help, and I think that's why I take these "spiraling out of control" situations very seriously.

He's like a guy having a bad acid trip ... we gotta talk him down, let it wear off. Once he can gain some perspective, there is hope we can wake up the rational side of his brain, which is totally failing in stopping him from making bad decisions.

PSA to everyone reading this:


As someone who works in law enforcement, in New York state, there is a lot of bull**** coming from PSUmike. First of all, in his earlier post about his charges in California, he's leaving something out, there's no way he caught a burglary chharge off of passing forged checks. Burglary is defined differently in every state of course, but I don't see how you can possibly be charged with a burglary for passing bad checks...

There is also no such charge in New York State as "Defrauding an inkeeper."

one awesome thing about Mikey B - in a world full of Beats by Dre, he still wears Walkman headphones

This is correct and someone like Archie Karas is testament to that. Money is clearly meaningless to someone in this situation. Everyone always wants more than they have regardless of their status.

I remember an old heavily addicted gambling degen friend of mine telling me once that he was never happy until he'd lost all his money. Not sure if that 's how all addicts feel but it's certainly stuck in my mind to this day.

It's obvious that Mike should go cold turkey but it seems he's so far gone at this stage that his wish to blow his last $5k at wsop feels like it hardly makes any difference either way.

Given the sums he's freely thrown around in the past $5k seems inconsequential but in reality it's a sum he could probably use as some sort of start if he was able to put his mind to it. If it was possible to remove gambling from his life a sum such as this would take on so much more meaning but this seems worlds away at this stage.

get a job