I don't like the use of the words "stormed off". To me it sounds like he was somehow wrong to have felt aggrieved or agitated from being subjected to your attempted scam.



Sent from my GT-I9507 using 2+2 Forums

This seems like really bad advice despite the articulate way in which it's communicated.

The guy has a destructive gambling problem and you're suggesting he plays poker but not Pai Gow?

Seriously?

4th step has everything to do with Gzesh. It has everything to do with every person who has every been in contact with Mike.

Let me get this straight. You actually believe it is likely that a man that has been homeless for the past 15+ years has been carrying his diploma around with him? SMH.

And who gives a crap about whether he has a degree or not? He isn't a little kid anymore. He is in his late 30s.

Meh, I realize you wrote this up more for comedic value (and it WAS good for that) but the analogy isn't quite right. It would be the other way around: e.g. the random woman walks up to Gzesh at a party and engages him in a conversation. No biggie, Gzesh would either welcome it (if he found her attractive) or simply humor her for a few minutes (if he didn't). He wouldn't whip out the phone and look anything up.

But if rando woman revealed something about herself that seemed unlikely -- she starred opposite Brad Pitt in a movie, she won the silver medal at the Olympics, she was in Will & Kate's wedding party -- Gzesh might later do a quick search of her name. That wouldn't be unreasonable and certainly not nitty.

That said, your version is funnier.

My dumb ass... it just clicked that the girl in my avatar pic also had a song called "Addicted To Love." But that doesn't play as well.

The only thing that matters is how PSU Mike maximizes his life journey. The honorable way to do this is to harm as few people/sentient beings as possible while doing so. Now, a few things are for certain. PSU Mike enjoys playing Pai Gow, and this is a huge problem. He enjoys it so much that he almost has to lose it all, or be at risk of losing it all, to get the rush that is needed. You can say he is addicted, but I actually think that he enjoys it, as well. It is pretty certain that PSU Mike is also a reasonably competent, if not profitable, poker player. Another problem is that where there is poker, there can often be found Pai Gow, but for sure where there is money, that money can always find Pai Gow, so he has a huge problem.

He has three or four felonies. He has an engineering degree from Penn State (I believe it was engineering, but it is for a sure a real degree). However, he already has gone down that road, and the jobs/career he had in that field bored him to death. But not only that, he would be a tough hire with multiple felonies and an Internet presence that practically guarantees that he won't be able to have any real career that involves building a reputation.

His life is going to play out no matter what. The only question is how it will play out. He is not at risk of doing drugs, he is not at risk of drinking. He is not at risk of a lot of things that everyday citizens are at risk for.

His best course of action is probably to go the TJ Cloutier route, and that is to find a way to limit the damage of Pai Gow poker. Sure, you can say that a grown man should be able to be responsible enough to manage his own life, but you would be surprised how many people in this world would be homeless if they really had to be responsible for their actions. The sons and daughters of billionaires, and even the billionaires themselves make decisions that put everything at risk.

Even though it wouldn't be the ideal life to someone who isn't in the gambling or poker world, if PSU Mike can do reasonably well in tournaments, limit his Pai Gow poker disasters, and stop begging and scamming, then that is really not a bad result going forward. Of course, he could quit everything cold turkey and be a walking time bomb for the rest of his life. When you are wired a certain way, it is tough to change who you are. It would be like trying to get Warren Buffett to be a Day Trader, or having him get a credit card and pay 20 percent interest on it. He would rather be dead. Yet people day trade very day, and people carry credit card balances every day. In theory, nobody should carry credit card balances. In theory everyone is perfect.

Limit the scamming. Limit the Pai Gow. And then hope that something clicks and you become financially responsible. These GA meetings would be great if PSU Mike wanted to quit, but he doesn't want to quit. He actually likes Pai Gow, and he likes playing poker. And I think he might even like the rush of asking people for money.

It is very tough to quit something that you like to do. Society may force you to quit, but not many people can extinguish a legitimate desire. NBA and NFL players risk everything by smoking weed and carrying around guns, and this happens almost weekly. That is who they are. They seem stupid to those who aren't involved. You cannot rationalize your way out of any true desire. You have to hope that society rewards your desires. If society punishes your desires then you have a big problem, and you will then have a fight on your hands if you try to quit, because deep down you don't want to quit. How can these pro players risk their careers by smoking marijuana? Well, people aren't as rational as you might think.

PSUmike, you actually have some pretty decent results at mtt poker. Strictly grinding mtt poker and Self-banning from California game section(pai gow) and Pai gow pit in Vegas seems like a much more realistic behavior/lifestyle modification than going cold turkey. If you could find someone or learn how to hold yourself accountable to not drift into the pits, I think you could make a decent lifestyle without having to resort to scamming. Is going cold-turkey realistic? How will you make money with felonies and huge time-lapse between jobs? Will you really be able to grind 9-5 entry level position for single digit/low double digit wages? These are all real questions that I'm sure have been bouncing around your head a lot over the past week. If you could strictly just grind poker, you may have a shot. Taking a break from gambling isn't a bad start though. Get your head clear, exercise some of your demons, and try to do the right thing by others. You might have a shot of putting all this behind you one day.

Your obsession with a "Dutch Boyd apology" is pretty funny, Dutch's was a concession whereas here there is no debate about PU Mike being in the wrong.

If I'd been gullible enough to get scammed by him (expecting he was going to pay me back) a refund would be all that mattered not some forced apology. I think a good rule of thumb would be to treat any money given to a stranger as gift rather than a loan and don't be surprised if they don't use it for gas, feeding their children or hotel rooms.

Thumbs up for outing this guy though.

Yours was not the first attempted "delayed flight, need money for hotel" scam I have been approached with.

You had a chance to get away clean, but you decided to wait to continue your scam after I told you I was going to check my luggage. Frankly, I was surprised you stood there and waited for me to finish check-in. Most scammers would have split, not doubled down and added in trackable identity info.

FWIW, after we talked a bit more, I flat out told you your story had holes in it. I then took back the business card you had asked me for and walked off to catch a plane. I knew you were running a scam, I just did not know whether your name, telephone number, address et cetera you insisted on giving me were genuinely yours..

Mike, for your sake, stop the scamming along with the gambling. You say you're glad you were caught in the act and got posted here. Live up to this chance.

Mike, moving back to somewhere near your parents is a smart move. Though they have cut you off financially, it seems the door is open to have them at least be there for you with emotional support.
In the podcast you expressed concerns about what happens to you after a program ends say in 30 days.
If I were in your shoes that would frighten me as well.
I would call Arnie Wexler and ask him that very question. You probably know the name, the man was a degenerate gambler who has spent many many years helping treat compulsive gamblers and educating the world about this problem.
If he can not help you personally, he certainly should be able to point you to the people and programs that can help you as well as answer the questions you have about how to find housing and a job to keep you on track.
Good luck

Terrible advice, his demons are already too strong to handle.

It occurs to me that something like The Choice Center that DNegs enthusiastically supports might work here. Daniel seems like a compassionate guy, and he's been on a roll lately. Maybe he'll see this and offer to help Mike get turned around?

maybe just some light cardio

Good Interview, wish you best of luck Mike.
And could the kicking of the person lying on the ground stop now?

Really disgusting

But he can't do that. He has a gambling addiction. The road you suggest is not open to him. You might as well say to every alcoholic that everything would be fine if they just drank an occasional beer. Perfectly rational, but their actions aren't based on logic and rational control. Get off your soapbox - your advice is terrible.

Ibid.

Sure. If you're the kind of guy who keeps your degree in a frame above your bed, it'd be easy peasy.

But I've got two -- a regular degree and a post grad degree. I'm pretty sure I never collected either after graduating. I completed my Masters in 1986, and nobody's ever asked me to see either certificate from that day to this.

No I think that is a reasonable thing for him to do - his name has been outed and he has professed to have a degree. Now prove it.

Well, as I said, I couldn't prove it. But I'm not sure why it matters. I'm guessing he wouldn't have gotten those first sales jobs without a degree, but it didn't help him keep them.

Still, if someone cared enough, I'm guessing they could look at the graduation roles for the chemical engineering courses at Duke for whatever year he graduated to prove him right or wrong.

If I was Mike though, I wouldn't feel under any obligation to dance for the peanut gallery at NVG. It isn't going to gain him anything. Nothing he posts will satisfy his critics, because even if he shows this to be true, they'll just fixate on another aspect of his story and demand satisfaction in respect of that.

If anything, I think Mike's reading and posting to 2+2 is another of those bad habits associated with his addiction that he'd be wise to drop. It's a bit like an alcoholic sitting in a pub, just drinking lemonade. One of the things that they say in AA is, 'If you go and sit in the barbers chair often enough, one day you're gonna get a hair cut' and for Mike, reading 2+2 is akin to sitting in the barbers chair.

LOL

Okay, Batman.

What does Mike showing his degree have anything to do with his recovery from gambling? He shows his degree then what? You would say he had it photo shopped. The only people demanding his degree are the trolls who want to see him fail in his recovery from gambling addiction. Quit derailing the thread.

It shows the level of trust that we can place in what he has been saying.

LOL! Because you trusted him so much before right? I guess if you really wanted to know all you had to do was Google "Michael Borovetz Penn State" and you would have found this:

http://www.che.psu.edu/ugrad/Honors/honorspast.htm

Under 1999 you will find his name. It looks as though Mike was an honor student at Penn State. Of course Mike probably made this page for his scamming as well right?

No that is all I need. Thank you.

As for your comment about why should I even care as I didn't trust him before, I did say "level of trust" after all

And why's that important? Unless you're planning on going into business with him, or having your daughter marry him?

Mike is little more than a puppet who is dancing here for our amusement and entertainment. Because he's a screw up and has been caught in the act, the poor sap feels under some obligation to account to a howling mob.

While I don't approve of Mike's begging/scamming in airports, and certainly believe he's morally obliged to make financial restitution to anyone who he's scammed, it seems to me that the person he's hurt the most by his lifetime of poor choices is himself.

So if I were Mike, I'd be politely telling everyone else to go **** themselves.