I am not an enemy here. I am also, as you know, not a fan or friend or particularly not a fan, either. I do have questions:

If you think carefully about what you asked UB, did and were told and what info you got and didn't, after assessing all that objectively, do you believe that you have any ability to uncover anything more that people want to know about UB?

Do you believe that you have anything to gain but $ by continuing to represent them? Can you walk away from UB if you so desire without violating a contract? If you can't, would you if you could?

Do you think it's possible that if you could walk away and go back to playing poker full time your game would improve dramatically and you would benefit greatly from that?

One last thing: If it wasn't the family business, would you be inclined to play much poker? I am just asking what you'd like to be when you grow up, but not being snide, or anything, seriously.

Take care of yourself, Joe. I don't expect answers here, but I wish you'd answer the questions for yourself.

Lis~

We need some containment threads up in here.

In the process of moving the Haley & Mason posts to a new thread to stop the derailing.
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29...mason-1005126/

Let's be honest, half the views are just to hear the dirt on the girl. I keed, I keed.


Seriously though Joe, this has been blown at every step along the way. Being from Washington, I was really hoping Cereus would get their act somewhat together by the time the ban took place in my state.

UB is missing out on so many people that want to believe, but the continued bumbling of the PR is just too much. I'm stuck playing on Merge where it takes 20 minutes for a 10 man sitngo to fill up.

If you don't both to answer the tough questions, no one will take you/UB seriously.

name more

When I first signed with UB, I spoke with Paul on several occasions, as I needed to have his agreement with me that many mistakes were made, included not simply admitting the scandal when it happened. I believe that a good analogy is when a kid tells a lie about something they have done and that lie just continues to grow and grow and you have to keep telling lies in order to cover up the first one. This is what I think "New UB" was guilty of. Paul and I have talked about it and he agrees that these kind of mistakes were made.

Now, the true worst part of that equation comes into play, at least for me. These decisions were made initially, to try and keep things internal and deal with it before it got public. The company had just been purchased and now they realize it ends up being full of cheating holes. They wanted to "fix" that obviously, for their own reasons (tarnished reputation, business running, etc). A terrible byproduct of that was that indirectly the actual cheaters were benefiting because of this. While "New UB" was panicking about the situation and trying to control it, it also appeared that they were trying to cover up for the cheaters. I think this ends up being one of the single biggest mistakes, as both groups have then been grouped together and made to look the same. In my mind, this whole situation is living proof that honesty was the best policy here.

At any rate, this was something that was covered early on and that I stated was admitted to and was the reason I felt that I could come on board, to answer your question.

I have tried to keep up with the UB threads but they get so incredibly long and sometimes off-track that it's difficult. I was robbed of a minimum of $20,000 on UB and as much as $40,000 possibly. If UB does have any new round of reimbursements coming up would someone please let me know at davidm20202 @ yahoo ? That would be most helpful.

I played as lvadavid and then they changed my handle to DavidMattUBT. UB told me that I was never robbed and not eligible for reimbursement but I wonder if they only looked at the newer handle (or if they were just BSing me)? I am quite certain I was taken for around 30 dimes.

I remember getting called by two pair playing 80-160 Triple Draw and many other such weird situations. I just figured they were bad players.

Thanks,
David

Anyone that views multiple, intentional lies as "mistakes" needs to have their moral compass replaced.

How about all the haters that are giving Joe a hard time about the cheating at UB calling him everything under the sun and demanding answers actually go to the named cheats and do what u are doing to joe to them. Joe is a sponsored pro and had nothing to do with the scandal and only has limited resources to find out anything. We all know Joe made some big statements that he can't back up due to his position in the company and asking him for info he can't get hold of is getting old, like any team pro has access to nuts and bolts of any poker site.

The only reason u kids won't go hassle Russ Hamilton is because the pack of u obv don't have balls to collectively. If u were ripped off sue russ, if u want answers go demand them from russ after all he's 1 of the main cheaters and has all the answers but of course u won't cause u internet tough guys are as weak as piss in real life. If russ had scammed me, he wouldn't be as healthy as he is today.

So, Joe. You won't answer the one question about the sole item you actually had a role in?

Joe,

Can you please get for barry, haralbob, or someone else that has some 2p2 credibility their *complete* HHs (this includes all hands played on UB, including those not played against any superusers. (e.g. limit games, and tournaments in addition to any other NL games they might have played not against a superuser)

I understand there might be an issue with 10% of the HHs, and there may not that anyone can do to fix that, but I have not heard of anyone getting complete HHs.

People have received HHs from UB since you signed up, which I will give you a lot of credit for, but these have been limited to those hands which they played against the superusers.

People still have concerns on how the refunds were calculated, and if all the superusers were disclosed by UB. Getting the full hand histories out (with or without the 10% missing hands) would be a step forward in terms of transparency, and would bring UB closer to what has been the industry standard.

What color is the sky in your world?

The reason people don't go ask Russ questions is that he's not going to answer them. Joe has said he would.

Also lol at anyone being afraid to ask Russ questions because they are afraid of a frail old man.

Let me just say a couple more things here...

The reason I tell my story is twofold. 1) I still hold out hope that I will get paid back for the money that was stolen. 2) UB in no way shape or form reimbursed everyone that was robbed. I am proof of that.

Another thing is that no one really thinks that Russ is the sole responsible party here. I know Russ from the UBT tour although I haven't spoken to him in years. I don't know what role if any he may have had in the cheating, but while he's an easy target, I think it's not even scratching the surface.

The fact that UB and the Kahnawake Gaming Commission came out and singled him out for the 2+2 audience (as well as the 60 Minutes show) is reprehensible. The fact is that they don't want to tell the truth about what happened and Russ is a convenient scapegoat.

$30,000 probably seems like a small number to a lot of you, but it's not to me.

They have all the computer data. Believe me, they know.

why did JohnnyBax join then insta leave UB?

There has always been something I have not understood about this. Did no one have anything like poker tracker back in the day?

Also, did UB not put the HH's into a folder on your computer? That is how I have my hands....is UB not like that?

UB created their own HH format, deviating from the standard created by Party and pretty much adopted by Stars/FT. You had to have a seperate window open at all times and you needed to download a seperate piece of software called Ultimate History (and later GT+) to capture and save hands. UH often had times where software updates broke the grabber. Nonstandard HHs + plus no automatic saving process turns out to be the major cover and why the scandal remained hidden for so long. Once captured, Pokertracker did import the files.

There are two obvious places where large caches of UB hand histories were known to exist. Neither have been particularly helpful in assisting the poker community to know if refunds were correct. There are various theories why.

Joe, thanks for responding in the thread.

Kevmath, thanks for maintaining some semblance of control.

NVG trolls, please do us all a favor and go away.

That is all...

So did Eric "Rizen" Lynch, They realized quickly UB was only looking for players that had their integrity for sale since UB had Zero.

1. Those that keep insisting Joe leave UB today just are looking for more dramatic events in this story. 99% of you didn't give a dam about Joe Sebok before UB and 97% still don't. Although think how awesome the threads would be if he did leave UB tonight zomg epic threads everywhere.

2. Do people really think something spectacular is ever going to happen in this story? No one is getting anymore money back. You aren't going to sue anyone. At this point it's just something for people to cling onto because they love mystery novels. Haley and whoever is doing all of this....but for what? I applaud the efforts but I don't think anything will actually be achieved unless you're going to get accepted one day if someone says yes we cheated and here's how.....doesn't mean you get money back.

3. Doctor Love is kind of right...Russ played at MGM LV all the time. You got kids posting videos of him on youtube....wiiii so exciting. It wasn't a big secret. All these people that want to ask the hard questions and beat him up had a lot of time to confront him but it's not the way this stuff ever turns out. Joe don't have the information you're all craving.....he doesn't have your money.....the nonstop repetitive questions just keep this whole thing going in circles.

thanks man. i have always wondered why no one seems to have their own hands.

I would love to please hear the response from Leggett in regards to asking him to order all employees to stop shilling 2+2, or anywhere on the web for that matter, just some acknowledgement and confirmation from him would be great.

I would be surprised if this wasn't pretty standard practice. UB's just under more scrutiny.

FatalError is sensitive and looks like GeoHot. Joe made a bad decision, FE overreacted. Both said some stupid things. It's crazy how people who have no affiliation with either have reacted to this matter.

Also as far as shills go, it is standard practice. There isn't much difference between this and hot girls being paid to promote drinks in a night club. It's shady and I don't agree with it but it's part of the world. I'm sure other pokerrooms have done it here before it just might not have been as obvious.

Thanks for the reply, Joe. Please note that that's only one of several questions that I asked, and again, all of them are questions directed specifically to you about your own statements and actions, so there's no question that you can answer them.

I'm basically just asking you to expand on your own statements to help clarify what you mean. I think it would be quite helpful if you clarified further.

No. That is not a good analogy. Cereus is not a kid; it is a company. And, they did not start with a small lie that snowballed. They started with a lie that was meant to hide a multimillion dollar theft from the people who had been robbed.


So you were willing to work with the people who had actively covered up a multimillion dollar theft specifically because those people were willing to admit that fact to you after they had been caught and chastised publicly?


Anyway, about my original question, it sounds like when you said this:

what you meant was that even though they took actions that look exactly like "actively help[ing] the individuals who cheated to... get away with it" and "attempt[ing] to hide facts to pay less money out in refunds", you don't personally believe that those were their intentions? Is that right?

You certainly must believe that their intentions for the active coverup were nefarious, though, right? It's not like they were just confused and thought they were doing the right thing when they worked to actively hide a multimillion dollar theft from the victims of that theft.

I'm quite out of touch with the UB situation because it's incredibly complicated, and I just don't have the stamina to follow the constantly growing web of information. Can the peanut gallery clarify some things?

1) Have any of the official releases from UB or public statements by Paul Legett provided any information that was not already posted publicly on 2p2?

2) Is there any evidence at all that the current management at UB has made any effort at all to do more on this than they needed to to avoid being publicly outed as criminals?