Not all of us get to travel the world picking and choosing where we play.

Let's try to keep the really inflammatory and idiotic comparisons (it's like blaming rape victims! It's like the Nazis!) out of this thread, please.

Lock was always going to fail eventually. It's been completely obvious to anyone with half a brain for years.

If the Lock pros came out and said they signed up because they wanted the free money and didn't give a **** I'd have much more respect for them. Trying to defend their actions as anything other than greed just makes them look stupid.

I just want to clarify kind of where I was coming from before because I realize my post can be viewed as kind of high and mighty or whatever else, and that's not my intention at all. And I really am sorry for people who have money locked up, saying I have no sympathy was somewhat of hyperbole and I really didn't mean it. I am very sorry for people who are having issues now and I definitely understand it really sucks.

I guess I posted what I did because I am a little bit disillusioned with just how short-sighted and self-interested a lot of people can be. I often find myself in positions I'm calling people (or companies) out for unethical things, and it's a lonely place. Most people don't want to speak up for fear of personal repercussions, or because they are lazy, or whatever. I get really frustrated when people are content to let ****ty people get away with ****ty things because it doesn't affect them, but then get upset when it finally comes around to them. It's kind of like that poem "and then they came for me." Anyway, I've been trying to publicly get answers from Lock for a very long time, but no answers ever came, and it seems like the collective memory of the poker community tends to be very short.

So yeah I came off a little too angry and unsympathetic in my last post, I just wish more people would do the "right thing" before it was too late sometimes. Obviously I am in an extremely fortunate position so it's hard to know what I would do if that weren't true and I don't begrudge anyone trying to make a living, so sorry if it came off that way.

Threads like this don't accomplish anything. The Pro's will rarely if ever take any type of blame, let alone leave free money. Yes the pro's should be held accountable for directly representing a company that is ripping off players.
Then again I'm with Vanessa here. People that constantly put trust in these companies in the U.S. full well knowing online poker is banned officially in most states are knowingly taking a risk, and then when they get burned, they cry bloody murder.

I think its completely insane that you and other famous pros have said absolutely nothing about Lock for the entirety of its existence, at the very least to prevent recreational players from getting a terrible impression of poker, and now, AFTER all the facts slowly come in, you guys think its okay to just keep on ranting this sanctimonious holier than thou, "you guys are idiots for playing on Lock" type mentality. I never saw you once criticize Melanie or any of the other Lock Pros, such as Annette or Paul Volpe or Grinder or Chris Moorman or any of those people, but now its easy for you to come in and say these things. I never saw you criticize openly on 2p2 the administration here for allowing US facing sites to advertise here. (fwiw, I think the admins here do a fantastic job and the procedure for allowing them here seems completely fine, just listing it as something that by duck's ethical position and knowledge, she should criticize)

The vast majority of people who play on Euro sites that advertise themselves as being US facing aren't even professional players who grind 15 hours a day. They are just normal people with jobs irl who like poker either as a diversion or a means to build some secondary income and play 2-3 hrs a day at an absolute maximum. We were getting insane rakeback on Lock, and quite frankly most people who were smart about affiliates (and I will say this again, they were moderators on this very site) made a decent amount of money. If you were in touch with the IPoker forum, you got out of Lock like 6 months ago, and if you kept playing, its because you accepted the risk that something like this might happen, viewed it as funny money, or as a freeroll.

That being said, I really hope recreational players in the US don't get the wrong idea about playing online right now. It's honestly very easy to do and withdraw successfully, you just have to be very careful. Several name pros are playing on Intertops w 1 week cashout times, ACR/BCP has both debit and other cashout methods that are taking about the same time, and at the absolute worst, the site with the best software (Merge) has ****ty cashout issues now, but they have always been forward about getting people their money (in clear distinction to Lock/Shane) and people have started to receive checks now. Just do your HW and realize that none of the people you view as "heroes" as poker are really like that-- all they care about is their reputation and a quick buck.

and this.

This is like saying you supported Hitler because you lived in Germany.

-Karl.

She's been speaking out about Lock for years, since the Girah scandal, if not before then, and she's been a vocal critic in lots of Lock threads since.

when Lock left merge. you knew it was gg

idk lock pros who tweet , promote and go out of there way to help find new victims for there own gain seems wrong. looks bad for all pros and really brings down the value of other pros . at some point the sheeple will say look theres a poker pro I wonder what scam they are promoting now.then you will these same lock pros complain during wsop about players wanting there lock money and act like they cant figure out why.

Someone doesn't follow me on twitter

Vanessa and Talal Shakerchi are part of a very small group of people who have definitely done more than their fair share of sticking it to lock. The point that not enough pros did something is 100% true but should be directed elsewhere.

sent this via pm, but i guess worthy of posting here for consistency
I apologize then- I honestly didn't know that you were one of Lock's most vocal critics and appreciate the fact that you are being extremely sincere about this issue. It's just that I clumped you with Christian Harder, Dan O Brien, etc etc who only started tweeting about this recently and making this an issue now...at least you had the logical consistency like Jonathan Aguiar to say this from the beginning and I appreciate that, I apologize if I came off as rude or offensive, just a bit defensive after everything that is going down for the past 24-48 hrs.

The thing is Vanessa you only have to look at the Lock subforum to see that people have been speaking up about it and have been consistently pulling up shane for all the lies he has been telling us.

A week and a half ago Lock stopped allowing cashout for transfers. I had a max cashout in the queue since the 14th February and some people even had cashouts since before that time which were all cancelled. We were then all told that our money was not allowed to be cashed out because we were part of an evil plan. That money is now in limbo. Money won from it can't be cashed out either.

The situation has got to breaking point which is why Mason and Mat are now getting involved, you are seeing threads in NVG and some of the pros are getting challenged publicly. People had hoped it would get better even though most of us knew that it never would.

This was never a personal vendetta against one player. I actually used to like Melanie and had a tonne of respect for Moorman as he represents the UK so well. I have lost a tonne of respect for them now though as have a lot of people but we are at the point where they can decide how this plays out. If they continue to represent Lock then good luck to them because they are going to be like rats going down with a sinking ship. If they stop representing them, speak out and do the right thing then they will be hugely respected again probably even more so than before.

The fact remains that all the lock pros have avoided the situation until now and it took until Melanies future earning potential could be damaged by people hijacking her market place thread, for them to sit up and take notice. It's sad that it got to that stage before we heard from her.

I wonder if the other Lock reps are going to come out and support her and speak up or if we have to do this over and over again for each one.

hope the pros that actively promoted this POS scum site over the last months will have their rep tarnished big time. but as vanessa said, the collective memory of the poker community is indeed very shortsighted.

ya i didn't know all the specifics of recent stuff MMD. That's all really sucky and I hope you get your money back though obviously it doesn't seem too good :-/ I'm done hijacking the thread now, but gl to all of you.

Wow. Did not realize Talal was raidalot until just now...guy has ridiculous class along with Vanessa and you.

I guess there is some faith in the world if multi-millionaire(billionaire?) hedge fund managers are defending the rights of poker players o.O

.

I wonder if it will take the It Girls three months to get paid.

For the record, I have zero money on Lock, and yet I am still outraged that Lock Pros are continuing to promote a site which is at this point just plain theft. Not to mention some of these same Lock Pro's are 2p2 members who are seeking stakes from fellow members but not allowing Lock payments. Basically they are getting paid to play in the event they are selling action for by Lock to wear a patch. So effectively, they are selling pieces of the money Lock stole from everyone.

I see NDfan, MMD, and Callisto 5 are all online right now...as a rail bird of this thread, I am hoping the posts heat up here late on a friday evening.

It's 3:42am here in the UK.

It's also 3:42am in Portugal where they are having their luxury Lock retreat for a few days.

I'm off to bed though.