why would Ben even need an arbitrator, he knew he had lost the bet and took advantage of Berri being confused, should work on a moral code dream machine instead of poker

"a bear is running around my house" = i found a fish on another table

Winner!

at 21:51...(after DOug is trying to convince ben that hes the best HU player)

ben: "oh yeah? why dont you give me 15bb against Ike"
doug: "thats when I knew he wasnt my friend"

what does that mean?

is he betting vs doug that he cant beat Ike for 15bb/100? (sorry my post count and joindate dont actually dont correspond with poker knowledge )

but if so, (or something like that) doesnt that seem like another shady proposition? with him and Ike being friends and all. and ben having a very good idea how doug plays from the coaching he received

he got agressive and wanted doug to spot him 15bb/100 in a game vs ike. Doug vs Ike, and ben wanted xbook with 15bb/100 advantage since he said he beats ike for that and everyone else in his sample at that time.


basically doug was just telling him that he crushes everyone in his sample, and he was happy about it sorta, and that was his claim for being the best etc... which set ben off and went agressive for no reason when he couldve just disagreed or taken another beer. he wanted to pick a fight(esp since he raised his voice and started shouting instead of just snide remarks with a normal voice.."oh yeah, back it up, spot me 15") which wouldve been the smurky way to deal with it.

I don't think he meant it was that line in particular, just that it became apparent that Ben had secretly hated him.

I'm pretty sure Jungleman is just being KOY about what he knows so is Doug for that matter

#

WCG tiptoeing on that tightrope. This could end quite badly for dougie

thanks...and doest that seem a bit of shady proposition?

like at that point it seems likely he would convey to Ike the things he learned from dougs coaching session..since they are friends..

seems like a setup

Just stop. You and I both know that anyone playing in zoom pools and regular tables as low as 200pl and 200nl were getting fleeced by bot rings using real time in game assistance software. Pretty sure you've posted in the bot threads yourself so just stfu now

ben confirmed planned on losing a 15bb stake intentionally to ike haxton to make doug look like a fool, the drama train will never end ppl.

This thread... so large. Yet so absent of information or content.

WCGRider,

You have been asked by multiple posters in the thread if you had prior knowledge about the NDA between Ben and his partner. Why are you dodging this question after stating you'll answer any questions about this situation? Considering this is the key question, I am baffled you haven't addressed it despite reading this thread and responding to other stuff since then

Considering how offended you were with Ben sitting you under his name after talking cap strategy and after you admitted how weak you were in cap, how do you reconcile that outrage with you sitting Jungleman in HUNL after getting coaching from him?

I fully intended to let this run its course, however it has become bigger than I expected and I feel its best I respond now to ensure both sides of the situations are heard and to correct things that are misconstrued.

I’ll address the Berri Sweet situation first. Most importantly I want to fully accept my failure of communication and respect for Berris feelings during this dispute. I was relatively new to the crossbooking scene at this time and it shows in my lack of clear communication. I should’ve been more responsive over the course of the dispute. I was in a hurry as the match was about to start and I completely let both of us down on writing a clear description of the bet. After Berri came to me wanting to pay, I thought he was trying to pay me because he thought he had lost betting on Sauce. I thought the wording was ambiguous, and if I had won he could simply say he didn’t know which side he had. I was angry because I thought he went from not knowing what he bet on and trying to pay me to suggesting we should arbitrate and that I may owe him. As I considered it longer I realized this was reasonable and that arbitration was necessary.

The second big mistake I made was suggesting Ike as an arbitrator. He is my friend, and already knew about the dispute, and I should’ve realized that immediately voids him. I was thinking I respect his ability to objectively analyze a problem more than anyone else I’ve ever met and that he is the best arbitrator we could choose. I realize this was unacceptable and I’ll be careful to use clearly impartial people in the future. After realizing this mistake the primary thing I did poorly was communicate. I left Berri hanging and stressed out and I am sorry for not giving this the attention it deserved. In the end we agreed on an arbitrator, sent the full chat, and both wrote an email with our point of view. The arbitrator made his decision and we both agreed.

Now I’ll address the WCG issues.

I’d like to start by listing the sequence of events here because WCG is stating he’s had no choice and that I am making personal attacks first and forcing him to react. This is not true, WCG brought this up on a public forum in an unrelated thread. I responded by saying this isn’t a fair representation and isn’t the place for this. He followed up calling me a psychopath and a scumbag and implying everyone knew that. That is where the personal attacks started. While he did begin the name calling and provoked me, I regret getting involved in the personal attacks.

The coaching deal was not an official x hours for y hours or anything constructed in detail. It was both of us approaching the idea with good intentions. I made a big mistake by not asking my partner if it was ok to collaborate with WCG beforehand because it did not register on my mind as a potential hold up. I do believe I warned WCG that I needed the ok from my partner before proceeding. Honoring our privacy was always very important to me, but I’m not 100% sure that I did. I fully intended to work with WCG on PLO, and once my partner with who I spent hundreds of hours with, and who himself constructed a majority of the strategy I had to share, said no, I felt I had no choice but to tell WCG I couldn’t do it. I fully accept I handled this badly and it was never my intention. My partner was talking about leaving poker. He was not fully out and we agreed together to always protect our information. I decided of the two choices I had holding that up was what I had to do. There was no confrontation about this until we had a personal falling out. He didn’t ask for a solution or talk about how to rectify it. If he felt wronged I guess he wanted to keep buying pieces so he didn’t say anything. We we’re still hanging out and trying to do business together.

I believe WCG would’ve coached me in exchange for pieces independently of PLO coaching as he was already heavily in the business of training other people for pieces because he couldn’t get action and I was a good candidate. While the information discussed may be groundbreaking to some, it was a different situation than coaching a mid-stakes horse. We spent a couple of long nights where I helped prepare for a HU match WCG was having which I had a piece of. I had much to contribute with my history and we got a lot done together. It was more of a collaboration and action sharing deal than unilateral coaching. I have no memory of speaking about CAP. If we did it was minimal. I was already very strong at CAP at this point in time as I played HUCAP and 5k HUSNGs whenever they were available. I regularly studied NL versions of games and attempted to convert concepts to PLO.

At one point in business with WCG, after we’ve agreed to what games we have action on, he decides to sell me a piece outside of the terms of the deal without speaking to me. The fact that this was at all debatable in his mind was a big red flag for me. Thinking that you need to decide for someone if they want something that is outside of what they officially stated they want is alarming business behavior, and the notion that he should try making decisions for me on his own accord was startling.

As for the night, I regret letting alcohol, ego, and anger get the better of me and cause a scene. Alcohol is never a good excuse for acting out, but please keep in mind the context in which we’re 10 drinks in. I’m sure I decided to get stubborn about giving him a hard time for trying to talk about being the best. Ego’s went off and things got heated. After things started to settle, WCG divulged some sensitive information to me about why he acts/acted the way he did, and I did the same. He decided to share mine on youtube. We were clearing the air late at night and at the end I asked him if we are good and he said yes. When I woke up to the message about why we can’t be friends I decided that was ok for me. In this message he also unilaterally cut me out of another set-term deal I had invested in and returned my investment, while I was frustrated, it made it easier for me to confirm I’m content with eliminating my involvement with him.

WCG stated in this thread he couldn’t speak to me as a justification for having this fight in public. When he approached me in Vegas 6 months or a year later I offered to talk. I thought I would give it a chance to hash it out and go on our ways. He simply said “no I’m good”. This was a signal for me to completely let it go and that’s what I did.

Lastly, the horse story completely cracked me up. That is full blown creative writing. I’ve ridden a horse once in my life I was 10 years old on a soccer trip in Colorado. I don’t even like horses, I question if there are even horses in the Bahamas. Anyways, thanks for that, you made me laugh in an otherwise bummer of a thread for me. Also the urinal thing, glad to see the trolls are in there doing it.

This situation makes me sad.

Hearing Ben being called a "scumbag", completely blew my mind. I've known him for several years and his most impressive attribute to me has been his integrity.

This situation is murky, and I do believe that Doug has a right to feel slighted about the way the lesson situation went down. I specifically remember Ben being disappointed about receiving the news from his partner that he wouldn't allow their coaching partnership to exist. He never meant to get a few freebies from Doug and back out.

As for the night we were all drinking and went back to Doug's:
- I don't recall every word that went down, I had a few drinks and their argument was quite redundant.

- I do remember Doug talking about how he was the best player in the world and Ben did say "Give me Ike at 15bb!". You're talking two of the best players in the world being drunk and swinging their dicks around.

- I think Doug has a good heart and I consider him a friend of mine, but as we all know (including himself), he can be very outspoken about how confident he is in himself and how a lot of other respected players aren't that good. (a lot of the time he's right)

- Ben can be aggressive when he feels attacked or if he feels like someone is violating a code of respect.

- I think that Doug admired Ben and in his own way was just trying to get Ben to respect him more by talking about his poker prowess; He just didn't know that this was a huge peeve of Ben's. Combine that with being drunk and some words were gonna be said. I think if they would have dropped the egos, they both could have talked it out pretty quickly.

In my opinion, this situation should have been settled face to face. Ben isn't a vulture and he's not a scumbag. The public didn't need to be notified about this. The guy has taken over 8 figures from poker in a completely honest way, he's not looking to one-up people on coaching arrangements.

Life's too short for this ****. You guys are both absolute legends when it comes to a game. Drop the pride, check the ego and work this out like men.

This whole situation just stinks. Ben is a stand up guy, so is Doug... This is a case where some people made some poor decisions and the consequences finally caught up. The anger/resentment was too much and the "pressure cooker finally bursts". It's a shame that such high-profile poker players are questioning each others integrity --- I guess it happens quite often, all over the board/stakes.

The key to this whole discussion between WCG-Ben is the next: Nevertheless, Ben seems to always be kind of ambiguous and vague when he sees an opportunity to get a freeroll. He says "before proceeding" only, not as it should be, "I needed the ok of my partner to know if I coached Doug in PLO or not"
It gives me the feels that Ben takes advantage of vague and ambiguous sentences to benefit himself, he is "finding ways of exploiting ambiguous or weak areas of the rules in order to gain an advantage over other players." (http://www.poker.com/articles/angle-shooting.htm)

If Ben says or shows that he clearly stated to WCG that if X person didn´t agree to the coaching stuff, he wouldn´t continue with the PLO coaching.

If not, the only facts are:

- WCG coached Ben in NL
-Ben didn´t coach WCG in PLO

In other words, a scam.

so you admit you angled/scammed him? let him give you 4-5 NL coaching sessions with your notepad, then you thought it was time to ask your 'partner' if you can let doug in on the dream machine ? seems pretty scummy. considering how valuable both sets of partys information is.

un

Nice troll upswing

When can we expect;

"Upswing Presents The PLO LAB w/ Ben Tollerene"

Keep up the fine marketing Upswing!

Max summed it up quite well and Ben claims he doesn't remember if they talked Cap strat or not when he could just say I am 100% certain we did not talk Cap strategy. The way Doug seems to get emotional and recall talking strat with Ben while later having Ben sit him in that game just seems like it would be a completely insane scenario for Doug to just make up and talk about here. With all this said Ben is just coming off as shady here and makes me want to side with Doug about the conversation in Vegas never happening. Why would Ben dodge/ignore him for months online and then want to talk about it in Vegas? Just doesn't make sense.

bens paragraph on the berri sweet situation seems weird, but idk

He makes it sound like he was victim

LOL at asking someone who claims they win at 15bb/100 to spot you 15bb/100 so it's a theoretically breakeven bet and drunkenly ragging them when they don't accept.

I disagree strongly with proposing Ike as the arbitrator. It is not a matter if he is impartial or not, it is about Ben knowing Ike's opinions before the actual arbitration process. It is for sure the worst thing he is accused of in this thread.



very reasonable post. one of few in this ****fest of a thread.