mega pro borrowed money after decades of playing...i should delete PS now.

I lol'd. He borrowed, along with the other pros, not from a bank but from what is essentially players money which is highly unethical and THIS IS DONE ON A DAILY BASIS ALL OVER THE WORLD.

Perhaps Barry should have paid FTP back well before BF, but I think that longstanding, and possibly offsetting, loans between players (and a loan from FTP could easily be seen as a loan from its poker pro owners/managers) are a lot more common among high-stakes players than many realize. At the same time such a lax attitude toward debt obligations seems to be negatively reflected in the way FTP management (mis-)treated player funds.

Since I questioned Barry's analysis of the impact of withholding payment, I think it is only fair that I make clear that I have absolutely no problem with him refusing to pay out while the legal situation is unresolved, as long as he makes it clear that he will pay in full whoever is the legal owner of the debt as soon as the related legal matters are settled, no matter who that debt owner may be.

If all the pros who owe FTP money were to make such a commitment, I doubt GBT would find the matter reason to drop the deal.

Barry is fine, 80% of NVG really stupid.

Reading most of these responses really anger me.

If you disagree with Barry's decision to "wait and see" then this is an acceptable argument.

Personally, I agree with Barry.

Barry is a smart guy and he knows his refusal to pay the 400k will severely damage his reputation........and that is definitely worth more than 400k.....prob just in endorsements alone. So the question is what is the real reason he isn't paying?

Maybe he doesn't have 400k or access to a loan of 400k. Making excuses that some gullible suckers will believe is definitely better than admitting you are a broke degenerate gambler/poker player.

Or maybe he sees it as a -EV move, despite the damaged reputation, to pay it back. Maybe he realizes all the others listed are NEVER going to pay back those huge amounts so why should he. And if you don't think several million dollars is alot of money to those other players, you are kidding yourself. Some of those degens know the easy monies from FT are cut off forever, so you think they are gonna pony up six or seven figures so YOU can get your money back. Cause you might talk bad about them on a poker forum? Ha!

Degens gonna degen....we just made it too damned easy for them.

might i remind all the haters, please only reserve 2% of your hate towards barry greenstien for holding up the FTP deal. 98% of your hate should go towards ivey, david, and others. also give barry some bonus points for speaking up about the issue. ps: barry pay up, show an example for everyone else!

I respect Barry for putting this out in the open on here. I am sure he knew he would get flamed by a bunch of people on here, yet he did it anyways.

GL Barry

I must have missed the part where Barry mentioned that he had access to the FTP books when he borrowed the money. Whoops. /facepalm.

Lumping him in with FTP pros who may or may not have known the origins of the money they were borrowing is just stupid. Which again, is why I say Barry is being screwed here.

Barry I respect what your trying to do. But you need to make arraignments to repay.

Mostly "degens gonna degen" going on with the rest of the pros. Seriously, why would any of them care what the lol poker community thinks of them when they hold onto their millions.

Barry, I respect you being forthright. All the best to you.

BarryG is defnitely not getting screwed. The guy borrowed 380k. He has 380k in cash that ISNT HIS. How is that being screwed? You owe you pay. There shouldnt be any questions about it. Obvious Tapie doesnt get the money until he completes the deal. And half the money owed should go to the DOJ to pay the US players, since they are owed half the money.

I owe a company almost 400k, take a high paying endorsement from that company's main competitor. Ignore the debt I owe because I am not being "pressured" to repay. The fact that you owe them money, which comes from player' accounts/rake should be all the legitimate pressure you need. Slither around for several years hoping the debt disappears.

Keep that clean image as marketable as you can and save face. Daniel played the mixed games at FTP also, and I don't see him rolling around in the gutter over owed money. Stay classy my friend!

Even if Barry's money doesn't go directly towards our cause, it may be holding it up. Barry's a good dude, and he hasn't done anything wrong, but I'm low on patience. If Barry really wants to help out, I'd be grateful if he can get his end of things worked out as soon as possible.

to be fair to Barry though, whether it came from the player pool or FTP profits is largely irrelevant since it was effectively just one big pool of money.

When Barry borrowed $400k do you think he genuinely saw it as stealing from players? The company made huge profits, for all intents and purposes he was just borrowing from the company.....and whether he was required to pay it back or not is irrelevant too. It only becomes relevant now because of the events that took place since then.

We all know FTP should have had segregated accounts but If Black Friday didn't happen or FTP got shut down there would be no issue with cashflow and players ability to cashout.

The only thing Barry is really guilty of in my opinion is staying quiet about situation until he was exposed and now that he has been I can understand his stance to some degree.

He does however have the obligation to repay that amount and until he does he can reasonably be criticised. I do believe an escrow would be a noble way of dealing with the whole situation now, not just for Barry but for all the players that it appears GBT could potentially 'out'.

Whether or not all those players have the ability to pony up the amount of money they owe is another matter altogether though I would imagine.

Even if I can be thankful for the appraoch that Mr Greenstein has taken into this matter, the whole "moral entitlement to US players" can be very harmful.

This can be used by other people with lower moral standards as a savinf face statement by knowing that the deal is set and GBT is not the one who must dela with the US players debt.

I am more than happy to know the grade of interest of Mr. Greenstein about that amount of money to be used to repay players, but I humbly doubt that he refused in the day to collect a pot won to a German or British player or to play in a tournament filled with international players to whom he doesn't seem to be morally attached.

Please, don't give to some less interested individuals such a biased holding to not pay their debts.

What Barry did isn't noble, it's standard, but some more honesty/transparency could only help the situation.

Besides the money they owe, the only beneficial thing the pros can offer is information. Barry helps us get that information by providing us his personal details and embarrassing the other pros into following his lead. ****ting down his throat every time he tries to speak doesn't help anyone.

I have always held Barry Greenstein in high esteem and I still do even after today's news. Before black friday, when some smaller PokerStars pros were not having their deals renewed I remember posting that BG is the only PS pro that would ever make me question PS if he ended his relationship with them.

A lot of people are pissed at him right now. I don't expect to change many people's minds but I wanted to share why I'm not so it doesn't look like everyone wants to burn him at the stake.

It's understandable that people are angry that they've had their money tied up in limbo for so long and when it's discovered that someone has FTP money they're not giving up they're angry at him. Especially if it is claimed it might hinder their ability to get paid back but I think a disproportionate amount of anger is being directed towards BG just because he came here to talk about it while people with more responsibility have avoided contact.

Did he borrow 400k from FTP? Yes. Did he not pay it back? Yes.

We shouldn't be surprised. The reason FTP and the players that still had money there are in such a bad situation is because FTP just made such horrible decisions with their money.

Giving out loans and not pursuing them until the **** hit the fan is just another example of how badly FTP was run.

BG didn't steal the money.
BG indicated he doesn't want to keep the money and I can understand wanting to be careful of where it goes.
BG's loan isn't big enough to break the deal.
BG didn't cause anyone to deposit money on FTP.
BG didn't make decisions that caused FTP to go insolvent.

FTP made terrible decisions and BG got caught up in one of those decisions which is pretty small compared to all the bad decisions FTP made.

FTP turned out to be a giant wet turd that was plopped into the poker world that splattered on a lot of different people. Just because some people might stink a little doesn't mean they're to blame.

Barry's own post indicates that GBT didn't ask him to send a check for $382K, they asked him to agree to a payment plan which would clearly be void if the deal isn't consummated, and would be reduced proportionately to the amount US player remission falls short.

The commitment GBT asked him to make is less constrictive than setting up an escrow, and if Barry is unwilling to make that commitment, it gives all the others with much larger debts an excuse to follow his lead.

i agree but where should they take the money they owe ftp?

example layne flack: joke

example phil ivey: playing nosebleeds in macau, shiping the high roller for 2 million and acting like nothing happened

example mike matusow: guy is a joke and prolly blows our money on super bowl.

they all dont give a ****.

agreed, it sounds like Tapie made a reasonable offer, and BG has no reasons for refusing it. US players dont deserve all the money, and whatever he doesnt pay Tapie if US players are short he can put towards the US players fund.

The Candor is appreciated!!

I love how he mentions owing 3 million to casinos and repaying them, and people who owe him having money on FTP. The lengths this guy goes to show his moral superiority and implicitly put the blame on others is laughable. It is ironic that the only money he made from on line poker soo far came in the form of a nearly 400k handout from FTP and then a much bigger endorsement deal with Pokerstars. Such a shame he can't beat the tough games on line, but he beats the business by promoting his altruist image, +EV move all the way, GG.

it also gives the pros that owe money a huge incentive to ensure the GBT deal falls apart.

how is it transparent to not mention this until being publicly outed?

what new/useful information was given?

I would like to know why they lent him the money in the first place. Was he playing using his own name and therefore giving the site some cudos? No.

Were they using him to dump money to someone else?

Ask yourself how they would benefit from giving Barry 400K to play with anonymously on their site. It's not make-up owed so what is it?

He just must have been a conduit for funds to Ivey. Ivey then gives him a % .... Why else would you do this?

He's a hustler of the top drawer variety, always has been and always will be. A great face for PokerStars.