I was watching a lot of the stream and could not believe the line Lee took. He said it wasn't so important what happened in 2013, it matters what happens in 2014. Wait, what?

I don't know Lee.

If I just took my opinion of him from his conduct in relation to this issue I would say he's your standard shady poker room dolt who thinks you can wave a PR wand of duckspeak as antidote to any PR poison.

I couldn't believe he said that. Maybe

- he has no idea of the severity of what he's talking about. For all his time around internet poker and for all his years he has no notion of what this is all about, how serious it is, or just how obviously shady the Arts Hotel management is. He kept saying "its a 5 star hotel" like that's a panacea. Holy ****, appeals to authority are such a logic fail. But this wasn't even an appeal to authority this was an appeal to the number of stars on a hotel as if that were some sort of indication of anything.

Like I have to believe all the logic gaps and fallacies and just plain numbskull crap he was talking are below him. From all other background we have he works hard and keeps abreast of things. That's sort of a nice way of saying I don't think he could be so stupid as to believe what he was saying.

or maybe

- he's been told by higher ups and he lost the battle to control the message otherwise. I can't really speculate beyond that.

Either way the entire thing was farcical. You could tell Joe and James were not satisfied with the two times they pressed him on it, but they didn't a third time. It all smells like someone above is handcuffing both, if not the three of them. And the argument that there are other hotels... where is Stars going to be putting people up, exactly?

The move was obviously to start with "A very serious thing happened, the potential compromise of an entire poker player's life, and this was aided and abetted by parties who appeared to have access to the hotel, we can't be sure of who at this time etc. We take this very seriously ..."

Who was the target audience of his remarks? HS players watching the feed deciding to stay at Arts? Doubt that. Just fans who have both read the thread and watch the feed and are PokerStars customers on a low level, who the message people think will swallow just the most porous PR tripe.

I really like a lot of other things I've seen Lee doing. His views on dress are tedious, but he's old, that's what old people do. It just dumbfounds me he came on with such aplomb to say what he did. Something is awry, hopefully we learn what.

It's just insane, considering how important this is for the poker community and what a big company Pokerstars is, that they wouldn't just take great distance from the hotel and move to another one. If they can host major poker tournaments, this should be a relatively easy job for them to accomplish.

For me the live scandal ****-up does not affect my opinion regarding the online integrity. Still love them.

Regrading that specific situation and those live guys and whoever is handling it from the corporate side, I was very surprised by such a ******ed way of delivering that statement. Extremely cowardly.

But all you being sad and angered here, you or the parties involved haven´t exactly done anything to corner them and that they would find the need to handle it better. Jens dropped it as well. Nobody has to care anymore.

It is nicely contained here, nobody is asking questions where it would make it hard for the m to PR-spin it. They can basically wait it out and then publish what they want or what is the safest/cheapest for them. That´s the point when you want to earn a profit.

Similar to the fight club insurance job description - if the settlement costs are potentially less than calling every car back then who cares if somebody dies.

If you want to make it interesting or worse for them, start asking questions (druff maybe, with your poker fraud alert image and angry posts in here or whoever):
Go to their facebook fan page and start posting comments with precise questions that has negative answers either way for them like:
* "Would you go over the head of Hotel Arts staff to make sure the police is involved immediately of something similar would happen again?" and add a link to this thread.
*If there would be a strong possibility of hotel worker´s involvement like during the lats incident in Hotel Arts Barcelona, would you report it to the police just in case to guarantee player´s and visitors´ safety?
*Will you terminate the contract with Arts finally this time, if something similar happens again.

Blast questions worded like this over all the posts on their facebook page where you can comment. they will notice straight away that it´s not contained here any more.

Timex tweeting today about how someone keeps calling and instantly hanging up on his hotel room this morning / everyone knows he is about to be getting prize money from pokerstars for the tournament.


Sounds eerily similar

https://twitter.com/MikeMcDonald89/s...97572458434560

"@MikeMcDonald89

Big thanks to head of @PokerStars security who informed me stars has everything short of snipers on rooftops to ensure my room isn't robbed"

Is this the same head of security that botched the Barcelona investigation and lied about the police being contacted? Yeah, if I were Timex I'd get my own people to keep watch...

I received a PM from Lee Jones today offering a $5.00 refund for my purchase of his book. So he's obviously reading this thread but choosing to not respond publicly.

Possibly a clever variation of the Nigerian Prince Scam.

Serious LOL, if true.

It's true, I asked him to send it to my Stars account. I'll let you know if he pays the $5.

awesome


please, post the screen from the Stars´ lobby as well when he does.

He might pull the doom switch on me as soon as he sends it.

Been said before and it must be clear now, this is not just EPT's, not just the Arts Barcelona, it's deep, there's so much this will maybe eclipse the UB scandal. Some big winners are not all the seem.

??????????????

where are the starz 'do good by players' folks now? dn? vanessa?


i know selbst saw thread, but, has dn commented? this seems right up his alley, except of course that his company is in the wrong.

You can't just post something like that and not elaborate. Either you're speculating and being an idiot, or you have some sort of proof in which case post it and it will be one of the most important posts of all time

Somewhat scary news re: timex, it seems like there's an organised group out there if it's the same people, which is a big if of course

If the same thing starts happening at Aussie Millions/Macau/WSOP...

It's speculation. Doesn't mean the person is an idiot. I will speculate as well. It is quite possible that there are other/some people playing high stakes HU online that are doing well/winning because sometimes they can see their opponent's cards via a Trojan. I speculate it is possible. It's been occurring on some level since 2004. Is it widespread? I have no idea.

Of course it's speculation, if i had proof (and I've had some weird hands playing mid stakes PLO, but probably nothing) I would be posting here and everywhere.

It's obvious to me though, trojans have been found (it's not hard to work out this can't be the first time) then the way money is stolen is by actually playing, therefore the scammers must have accounts and be playing against the people they target/have targeted, and we know Jeans is one of them. So it's not hard to work out that there must be known high stakes winners who are in on this.

Or have I missed something?

The sad thing is Stars could quite easily identify them and track them down, but it seems they are afraid of something. Either inside job or (more likely) shady criminals who Stars are afraid of or think the local police are afraid of and won't investigate.

This also fits to Jeans' stance of letting it rest, he also seems to fear some conflict if he presses further.

More speculation here, Pokerstars are in the Isle of Man, famous for the TT motorbike rally, anyone else joining the dots here?

Their silence is amazing, and yes I do have a interest, whilst at the UKIPT in Galway I went from a $8k winning player in PLO before the event, to hitting a $6k downswing, that started in the middle of the event and continued after. I don't have or use the same laptop i had there so guess I will never know, and ok PLO variance can explain it, but it's always bothered me as I haven't had that since and win the times I play.

I know of a few other who took big cash game hits after starting to attend live pokerstars events, rivermanl (PS) whatariver1 (FTP) to name just one..

Something just stinks and clearly isn't right..

If remember correctly other pros have said same thing with room phones ringing, room messed with, laptops moved, passwords gone off laptop at other ept stops.

Stars is just old school when it comes to event security.

Huh? Afraid I'm missing completely what you're getting at here (and I too am on the IoM).

As an aside, saying the TT is a "...motorbike rally..." is like saying Vegas has some night-life. Yes, the dictionary definition may enable you to loosely draw the connection, but it is so much more than that... It is (or was) "...for many years the most prestigious motorcycle race in the world and remains statistically the most dangerous race in the world." Source.

/derail.

Maybe the Swedish biker gang previously linked with robbing high stakes players. Who knows though..

Does Lee Jones and Stars seriously think this issue will just go away??! They couldn't possibly of handled it worse and haven't even really tried to limit the damage to their PR... which only goes to show how little they have grasped the seriousness of this incident. Since the UB/Absolute scandals, many poker players lost faith in the safety and integrity of online poker - this didnt necessarily mean they stopped playing online altogether, but in many cases did mean they dropped down in stakes or deposited in smaller amounts as a precautionary measure. The seed of doubt in their mind had been planted and as a result they were not willing to put so much money online.

Pokerstars were thought by some to be the exception to the rule - a site who self-regulated and cared about their customers. But even amongst their most loyal customers this confidence is fragile and after this incident to many is decimated.

It seems Stars took a decision to push this under the carpet as they believed the issue would be too damaging to their PR. This has backfired and Stars dreadful attempt to sweep it under the carpet/cover-up will mean it will remain a hot topic for discussion online and at live tables for years to come.

Stars would do better to take drastic action NOW to help any further potential victims. This would mean spending serious money on their Security department and attempting to determine who has been hacked and who has trojans embedded on their computers. It would be in their interest too as keeping money within the online poker economy where it generates rake and profit for Stars is far preferable to allowing the money to slowly drain away into the hands of criminal gangs!! Stars need to ask themselves: what is the OPPORTUNITY COST of allowing the money to ebb away?! The answer is obviously HUGE! It mean players (good and bad) who are cheated will (if they dont know they are being cheated) lose heart and faith in their abilities and also stop enjoying playing and consequently give up the game. And for those lucky enough to know they are being cheated will also likely give up playing online and tell their friends that the site isnt safe. Both scenarios are incredibly bad for both STARS and the poker playing community.

Stars - invest some serious money into security and show you give a damn!! Lee Jones/Isai Scheinberg - the ball is in your court.