Everything Ive said about Berkey is clear to anyone who has the ability to judge the worth of different poker products. And nice reddit tier pop psychology there at the end.

Thing is whenever someone comes with an appeal to authority argument like "you cant talk trash about Berkey because you dont have his credentials in poker" like you do its a statement that just says that you yourself think Berkey is some kind of person worth looking up to. Its like saying "I know I couldnt become as good as Berkey even if I tried". Appealing to authority when the "authority" is someone like Berkey who is completely mediocre at poker considering the amount of time he spends on poker is pretty funny and says a lot about your own poker ability.

I can see that Berkey is a charlatan and much worse at poker than he tries to present himself. Maybe I dont have his credentials in poker, sure, but thats because I have other things I focus on in life, like a career outside of poker. Im just a rec funplayer who takes the game seriously when I do play. If my life revolved around poker like Berkey's life does, I would have no problem crushing him HU, of that Im 100% certain. Its a completely dumb argument anyway. I live in Europe. I dont have "100k", or whatever you proposed to challenge Berkey even if I did think I could beat him. To think that its some kind of concession from me that takes anything away from my arguments if Im unwilling to challenge Berkey to HU. Im pretty sure any intelligent rec who is given 6 months to study with an actual good coach (not solve4why) and takes the task seriously, would beat Berkey. Berkey himself couldnt coach someone else who dedicates his entire life to poker to beat Bill Perkins for 4bb/100...

Thinking that Berkey is some kind of person whose poker acumen deserves so much respect as to absolve him of criticism is lol worthy.

Would it be fraud for a guy who made it to the NBA but was a bench player to offer basketball lessons?

Fraud to me is like sports betting touts who are losing players, selling losing picks, claiming they are winners.

AFAIK , which isn't very far, Berkey has made a lot of money at live poker, but is not one of the best players in the world. If that's true, I wouldn't say he's a fraud.

You’re making a strawman. Nobody is saying Berkey is a poker wizard.
The question, if there is one, is whether he should be offering training content. Which you can make new topic about in the poker schools/coaches discussion forum, if you like.

One thing I've learned in life is that gambling can bring out the worst in people. An addicted gambler at any game is a dangerous person. They will lie, cheat, steal or worse to get their hands on money! Check out Ernie Scherer online if you don't believe me. Zinno ran good for a long while, but it looks like he blew it all back over the last couple of years. He saw an opportunity to steal some loose money and went for it. He just blew his entire name/reputation in one shot! Good luck to him in the future. They should put him the Nevada casinos Black Book.

Several years back I picked up a little leather pouch by the curb at valet check-in at the Mirage. I took it up to my room and opened it. It was full of valuable jewelry, diamond encrusted gold rings and bracelets. Almost all of it had initials on it. Stupid me called security. Two beefy security guards in plain clothes were up to my room in a flash. They identified themselves and asked to see what I had found. They opened the bag and took a look for maybe 30 seconds. They told me they would take care of it. I asked for a receipt or something and they said I would be informed of the outcome. Of course I never heard from them or anyone else at the Mirage again. I know they stole that jewelry. I should have tried to find the rightful owner on my own. I did try to do the right thing so I have no guilt, just feel dumb for trusting hotel security.

If there is a lesson to this, beware of anyone working in a casino, not just the patrons. In this environment there are a lot of bad apples with no scruples. I'm glad I am who I am. I can live with myself in peace. I have on other occasions returned found items including money! But that's another story.

whenver I listen to berkey speak I write down the words I think he made up. I usually find a couple.

In your view, anyone outside of Linus or Jason Koon would be a charlatan. Berkey's target audience is mainly low stakes live players. He offers a free trial and offers lots of free content on Youtube that allows someone to evaluate the value proposition and make a decision. A charlatan would be much more incognito. His content is good for the target audience.

Not sure where the HU argument came from. Berkey has never claimed to be a HU expert, and in fact, said he has rarely studied anything when he was doing the match vs Airball. He saw a chance to get a fish to play him HU for 7 figures and took it.

You may not agree that his content is worth the price, and that's your prerogative, but calling him a charlatan or scammer is out of line.

Yea if I was gonna turn it into security id at least do it downstairs on the casino floor where there are cameras everywhere. They definitely stole that stuff from your room.

This is literally no one.

This is one of the more delusional posts I've read in a long time. I'm actually starting to wonder whether this is some kind of Kaufmanesque bit.

Apparently, the only thing preventing you from "crushing" Berkey in a heads up poker match is that, well, your life just doesn't "revolve around poker." You have a career, after all, so an extra $100k or whatever just isn't worth the work it would require. But if you wanted to, sure, you'd crush him. And, as it turns out, so would any other intelligent recreational player who studied for a mere six months with a coach other than Berkey.

For the record, my objections to your posts in this thread have nothing to do with caring one way or the other about your opinion of Berkey as a poker player or as a poker coach, though you're quite obviously not qualified to make these judgments. Rather, it's your repeated insistence that he is a "scumbag" and a "charlatan" for selling his coaching system. He is not a scumbag in any way. He's not cheating anyone out of anything. As others have noted, he offers a service, he extends a free trial so customers can decide for themselves whether his services are worthwhile, and he posts free content on YouTube to once again give people a sense of what they're signing up for. Some may think it's worthless, others may like it, but it's completely transparent. The fact that you have decided that it's not worth what he charges does not in any way make him a scumbag.

I mean I could understand why someone won't play someone they think sucks at poker for 100k bc 100k is a **** ton of money for most people.

But it's funny bc Berkey freely admits he sucks at HU. Meanwhile DN gets hustled into a million dollar HU match with Doug Polk and got obliterated. A match he only played bc of his fragile ego. Berkey hates Polk and would never play him HU bc why the hell would he gift someone he hates a pile of money.

Sorry for the derail, but has Zinno had any statement since this story came out?

I saw the victim’s statements on Twitter, and they are very direct and clear.

If I were innocent, and a relatively well-known character who’s reputation had value, I think I might’ve denied these allegations by now. Were I innocent, that is.

Even more amazing considering his recent (but after this incident) borgata score.

No. His lawyers told him not to.

It came from the other guy implying that If Im not willing to pony up 100k to challenge Berkey HU I shouldnt be criticizing him.

Again you are just showing that you yourself think Berkey is at some kind of unattainable level of poker skill for the average person. I literally do think that most intelligent people who focused on HU for any reasonable amount of time would beat Berkey. But spending 6 months for a chance to win 100k in a high variance game is a terrible proposition for anyone with a life outside of poker. Even though it would be isolated +EV which it certainly would be, the actual life EV for me to try to set up and complete something like this is certainly negative. Who would coach me? How much would I have to pay them? Its not certain that whatever +BB/100 edge I could attain would even outweigh coaching costs and lost income during a training period. And how would I even go ahead to set up something like this with Berkey? Does he accept random people's challenges for 100k HU matches? Its not like Im a known whale like Airball..

the whole argument is just laughable. Do you really think like this, that anyone who was challenged by some random (you) on the internet to play some other person HU, should seriously contemplate the proposition or lose face? lol, get out in the real world

Pretty sure Berkey would gladly accept your $100k challenge.

I am totally ambivalent about Berkey, but thinking you could replicate decades of learning in six months is a ridiculous notion. Poker is not rocket science, but most learning comes from volume / experience combined with study. Even if online experience was analogous to live play and you put in a large volume of hands online you would need significantly more time to match the experience of any winning current high stakes pro. And that assumes you have an aptitude for the game.

Although learning poker concepts is simpler than learning how to split the atom, I notice people think that anyone with above average intelligence can become a winning player by putting in the time and effort. Like any activity, some people will have a naturally easier time picking up the game. Otherwise the correlation between iq and being a winning player would be much higher.

Ok I agree somewhat, I shouldnt have said "average intelligent person" in my latest post. I meant average intelligent poker player/rec (like I said in my initial post) who already have some decent volume but isnt fully focused on poker as their main source of income.

Well known poker pro steals 20k and everyone just wants to talk about Berkey.

Yeah, I'm hoping this goofy thread-hijack is over.

This hijack was strange. But it was probably the only thing that kept the thread going. Like, what is there to talk about with respect to Zinno? It's not like anyone has any information beyond what was in the first few posts.

This was very funny. Well played. As one of the chief derailers in this thread, I apologize for my part in distracting from what is genuinely a very interesting story.

Each and every time you leave the table do you know exactly how much is in your stack? I think there is huge opportunity for chips to be stolen without the owner knowing it.


Right. It isn't close. Just not the way you understand. Most people do not know their exact stack size when they leave the table.

Ahh, I thought this was about losing a decent amount of chips i general. Not 20k exactly. You are correct about exactly 20k. You are 100% absolutely wrong about losing other amounts.

Your failure to understand does not make the comparison terrible.

Interesting that you ate admitting that you can be taken advantage of by clothing.