Mike Postle is no Billy Mitchell.......

Fwiw this thread made me look into Billy Mitchell and it appears his records were reinstated.

Or never intended to be served? Maybe just intended to get people to back off. They maybe can't take a chance on it being dismissed and having to pay attorney's fees for all the defendants. They can't have the defendants investigate and present evidence of truth.

Except that Postle is seeking monetary damages. Unclean Hands is an equitable defense, as the article points out.

Yeah, not quite sure how you think this equitable defense is applicable.

https://www.pokertube.com/article/to...le-accusations

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-rele...301156307.html

Stories about one defendant getting a lawyer.

Has anyone done this before, filed suit, but not served the defendants immediately or maybe at all? Is there any way to deal with that other than waiting?

If he can prove defamation then he has clean hands. So far as his money making ability, he can show how much he made in that time on video, does he have to prove he paid taxes? I Don't think so. And if he can play elsewhere he has no damages. If he can prove damages it means he was such a pariah he was not going to be able to win at the tables whether he was banned or people were just being hostile.

So in CA would Postle be considered a public figure? How many watched the stream? NO appearance fee, comps, rooms? I don't think the court finds he's a public figure. Lawyer must not think so either, otherwise this case makes no sense to me.

Getting people to back off? Weak motive for a strong move.

Damage control by Stones?

oh, and let's alls say hello to Postle's lawyers who are probably reading this forum.

Is it PR 101 to put bad news back in the paper? To side with a 'cheater' over your 'honest' customers?

Postle's real problem (now) is that he may be unemployable. Whether true or false, these cheating allegations have spread all over the internet and social media. Nowadays prospective employers check social media. Postle may have a difficult time getting a "real" (i.e. non poker) job with his name plastered all over the internet in association with a cheating scandal.

Filing a defamation suit makes perfect sense if the intent is to get his accusers to shut up.

Couldn't he change his name legally?

Also Postle doesn't strike me as somone who will ever be sat in an office doing TPS reports. Much more likely to be doing some scam or setting up a dodgy business.

Maybe Postle's firm agreed to take it on a contingency basis with the idea they would file it but not serve it. That does take them that much work, and it gets publicity for Lowe & Associates. It might not be practical to actually proceed with the suit for reasons discussed ITT. It could be Postle's way of getting back at everyone involved.

Not that I'm an expert in HR but I'd assume people who file lawsuits are pretty low on the 'hire him' list. Filing a lawsuit does not solve the problem you are describing, it makes it worse.

He has no reason to file this case unless he is confident he can win/settle. (people say he filed)

He has no reason to think he can win/settle unless he is innocent.

I understand the run of outcomes he made happen seem unusual to many of in the poker community and we can expect the debates, for now, to continue.

If he was rich, he could find a lawyer to take it on a cash payment basis. But what reasonable lawyer takes this if there will be any 'forensic surprises?'

Yes. Absolutely a limited-purpose public figure for the purpose of discussing his suspicious behavior and absurdly high win rate in a publicly-streamed live poker game.

As I said before, I knew who Postle was, had watched training videos featuring his play, months before the scandal broke, and I have never set foot in Stones.

Postle had very limited public recognition before the scandal broke.

He had some tournament success, but in small events that would not get much publicity.

He played on a streamed show that got few viewers.

Even now, outside the poker world people wont know who he is.

So he had very little public image to be damaged by the accusations.

My view is that he was cheating, but he knows that his cheating can't be proven, so he is attacking the people (correctly) accusing him of cheating.

In a way there was a sharklike feeding frenzy on him, everyone saying he was cheating, but nobody taking a step back to carefully get the evidence before making such suggestions.

So he may well win, people have said he cheated, they can't prove it, so he can say their accusations were unfair. A judge looking at this would conclude his streamed win rates are unbelievably high, but would have no evidence to prove that this was achieved dishonestly.

No evidence, no guilt proven.

Annoying, but the sad reality - Postle gets away with it.

yes but how does he get his lawyers to come along? Theres gotta be money from one of the defendants in order to get them on board

He is ignoring all the circumstantial evidence when the foolish troll said:

Bloody hell, what a convincing argument. That is the problem with trolls, they set out trying to make others look foolish, yet say such nonsense trying to do that they end up looking the biggest fools of all.

You think he did it, but you can see no proof. Like you are TOO BLOODY STUPID to look at the way he played HAND AFTER HAND. SESSION AFTER SESSION. Sorry, this will have gone WAAAAAAAAAY over your head.

Come on man, there's no proof. He could have ESP that allows him to read people's exact hands. That would explain everything without any wrongdoing. Of course for some reason the ESP only works on a Stones livestream table. Nothing suspicious there.

Lawyers don't really care about the rights and wrongs of a case, they just want to be paid to do a case, irrespective on their own personal views of the rights and wrongs. So the fact Postle has paid and brought a case is how he has got his lawyers to come along, and just shows there is a defence team who are happy to take a shot on this case, and if they lose, they'll just think, "hey ho, onto the next case and the next payday..." They clearly are not experts in this field, so it will not be a big problem if they were to lose, and a small upside if they win. As it seems impossible now to prove his guilt of cheating, he is likely to win twice over, once at the table from his poker wining, and again from damages against those who said he had cheated to get those winnings.

It is funny that with the burden shifting in the defamation lawsuit from the accusers to Postle, the troll now argues the opposite position he did when opining on the evidence from the initial litigation.

Lawyers may not have a personal stake, other than getting paid, but almost all will counsel their clients with an honest opinion of their likelihood of success. They're being paid for their counsel as well as their work. And if the client is honest about their culpability in a situation, the client will probably be advised not to pursue beyond a certain point if the truth of the matter needs to be hidden. Of course, if the client lies to his lawyers, he will get bad advice. But if he tells the truth and is culpable, the advice, in situations where reputations are involved, might be to file the papers anyway for the purpose of backing everyone off, with no intention of taking it any further.