Phil is making a statement on a poker topic: (it's long though)


https://philgalfond.beehiiv.com/p/elephant-poker-room


While the issues mentioned are discussed in multiple NVG threads (and have been all the way back to the Jnandez scarf topic and Dnegs), this thread is not about the drama itself but more about the way Phil is thinking about all of it now.
Let's just say, I was deeply impressed by his general takes and that led me to the following questions for our poker community:

What’s your guys opinion of the way he argues about the bigger picture here?

Does Phil maybe have the highest EQ among all the current well-known poker players?

And if so, what could be done to highlight him more to the public? (esp. in contrast to recent behavior of some people on streams like self-crowned ‘kings’)


Add on: would be really interested what Mason’s take is if he would read that article above - maybe any regrets defending the main antagonist against all criticism like he has done for years here on 2+2, or nah…?

Twitter thread is here: https://twitter.com/PhilGalfond/stat...32639173107713

No, not really.

He still thinks its highly likely Robbi cheated so the answer is no.

Phil is a thoughtful, analytical guy - he is widely respected and viewed as reputable among the high stakes community.

The linked blog is way too long and most readers will fall off before getting to the best parts.. That's too bad - because it does take courage to call out Doug for his bad behavior. Though I do sympathize with Phil that it was a hard topic to write about, as is writing about morality in general.

In fact, the high stakes poker community frequently struggles to call out bad behavior , despite the massive damage it has caused to the poker world.

I have never been a fan of Doug Polk - while I appreciate that generating and/or covering controversy can be an effective business strategy, he routinely crosses the lines of acceptable behavior. And even more importantly - a lot of his poor behavior is driven by Malice, not carelessness.

He also comes off immature in many (the majority?) of video appearances.

Also somewhat important.

Phil doesn't properly characterize the Jnandez conflict.

Jnandez didn't think "he wasn't being properly compensated" (like the majority of employees everywhere) - he thought Doug willfully violated the contract and hid material information about the website operations to unlawfully, enrich himself. This viewpoint held up in court, and had to meet a very heavy burden of evidence.

When do we turn on Phil? It’s gonna be fun…

Never.

There's no reason to stoop as low as he did imo. Just forget everything, move on and make poker poker again.

Poker is poker. Was it ever good?

Just because you've been abused in the past doesn't make you some kind of expert on the topic. Just because you've found empathy for the person who abused you doesn't mean every victim of child abuse should do the same. The few conversations that Ive read of Charlie has led me to believe he is very dishonest and I just don't believe him about anything he talks about. Tweeting is a matter of public record that is self voluntary and if you write something disgusting you don't get a rewrite of what you said years later. It's also laughable that Galfond tries to paint this picture that Bonomo and Charlie's world views don't align 90% of the time and somehow because Bonomo is defending Charlie this reinforces that the person who publicly defended child molestation should be forgiven?

There is a reason why I avoid Twitter and think people who over use reddit and twitter are the bottom end of society mentally and this indirect garbage I accidentally read is a great reminder why.

@Galfond I am sure any day now you are going to talk about the millions of Christians being slaughtered around the world. It's very disingenuous to bring up really horrific events in human history amongst other terrible things and pull the ol' "even though I am mentioning these terrible things I am not directly relating them to Doug Polk even though this entire essay is about him" crap.
Doug is a bully. He is so good at it that he made a huge career partially because of it. American culture is full of this type of attitude winning championships and making billion dollar companies and Doug dunked on a bunch of internet dweebs to rise to the top. Now his success is even more in peoples faces with the Lodge and the live stream and just so coincidentally now you are brave enough to speak up. Maybe you should have went after the poker world like Doug did instead of being meek and jealous and having 2 of your projects at least partially fail.

Recently Jnandez released a yt video comparing Doug to Hitler and now this. When someone plays the Nazi card they lose all credibility with me. Another theme in Galfond's essay is bullying and how wrong it is but I am seeing a very coordinated attack from you and others right now. The poker crowd is smarter than the reddit crowd, publicly using these typical "SJW" tactics to go after someone may backfire in this environment. Just subbed to the Lodge yt channel. I was looking at RIO potentially for PLO coaching before this but you can **** off Galfond.

Debatable. But better than grown men talking about their feelings all day.

Maybe in a few years Galfond can call out everybody who said Micki Mase was FOS too. Some of those call-out videos might have accrued hundreds of thousands of views, that's very disruptive and upsetting!

Real Christian hours from Phil.

It's the internet; if you are an obvious bad person who is also a public figure like Charlie (or Doug), you will receive large-scale hate.

I'm gonna go molest somebody now due to lack of people "empathizing" with me....

That "nazi card" is an internet old meme meant to signify the downfall of a major entity and the panic that ensues, hence the movie name. In the context of this case it's upswing poker. What you wrote about credibility looks a bit silly given you failed to grasp that.

I am not talking about internet memes and have no idea what you are talking about. Two people with training sites just publicly, and at the same time, released new content comparing Doug Polk to Hitler. Im supposed to believe this is an accident?

This feels like a bunch of C level poker celebs trying to band together to topple Polk by using the typical internet cancel tactics. At least Doug had the balls to bully people solo.

Anyone who thinks Phil Galfond is the one coming across poorly in this whole thing just outs themselves as room temp IQ, or like AAJTo above, someone who unapologetically values ruthlessness above compassion and similar qualities.

Clearly one of the most intelligent and - for lack of a better word - wise people in the poker community.

Feel like Phil missed a point about having the power to put someone on blast. If someone makes fun of Charlie in this thread it's not really a big deal, Doug doing it on Youtube will have more consequences one with such power should be aware of (obviously he sometimes knows and uses it bluntly on purpose).

You really needed Phil to tell you the Overton window has shifted and it’s now finally acceptable to call Doug a douche? Talking about room temp IQ bro? Cmon.

Yeah he definitely came to the party late. Plus plugging his new newsletter. No one will remember those things, though.

And neither are huge deals

This is the important message we are all missing. In order to understand this you have to not have a room temp IQ and instead have to have very high EQ which only the likes of Phil Galfond can have.

I'm still confused on something...

Charlie said we should have empathy for child molesters right?

Doug said this was crazy talk

Now they are ganging up on Doug for saying what many of us think

Besides all the bully stuff, which i think Doug likes to do...i dont see why Doug should feel the need to apologize for having the same mindset most of the world has on child molesters. (this was what took up most of the twitter space recording.. yes doug should have said sorry for the pain he caused charlie and those videos...but i still dont see why its wrong to have that mindset when someone says we should have empathy for child molesters...what is Doug suppose to say oh yah totally charlie lets treat these child rapists with respect going forward...wtf???)

Doug's only mistake was backing down from these people and deleting the video. Twitter is full of pedo defenders that all defend each other and attack the ones brave enough to attack them.

whats weird is that they said he just doesn't "get it", the context of Charlie's twitter poll...it's nuance and that it requires "critical thinking"....bull****

sounds like they're just gaslighting Doug to me...

I want to hear about social topics from professional poker players in the same way I want estate planning advice from my proctologist.

I want to hear about internet fights amongst poker players in the same way I want to hear about dating problems the high school girl at the checkout of my local grocery store is having.

Dude, it's a well-known meme, about Upswing's lawsuit they lost in 2021.

The reason JNandez put out a statement and video was that Doug started tweeting misrepresentations about the lawsuit outcome on Twitter, Apr 18.

Doug could've just said the truth or nothing at all, like he had for the last 2 years, and would've been no need for JN to set the record straight.