Epic Marketing Fail!

Posted by info on January 6th, 2009

Online poker player Jonas Danielsson created a poker scandal and embarrassed himself last year when here said his online screen name was named after Nebuchad who first took up issue with the “Jew Problem”. The poker world slowly for got about that and now hes back in the spotlight again with his hairy ass! He went through the time and pain to get his but tattooed
with the Ladbrokes poker logo, but didn’t take the time to wax his crack… Here goes:
Jonas Danielsson aka Nebuchad hairy ass

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Tiffany Michelle Scandal

Posted by info on November 5th, 2008

Tiffany Michelle has been the recipient of a lot of negative press lately due to her actions on recent ESPN World Series of Poker broadcasts. The recent backlash is just the latest in a nasty saga that started back at the beginning of the Main Event. Tiffany Michelle as many know was an on camera personality for Pokernews.com. For years she has been seen interviewing many of the worlds top poker stars. Tony G and Tiffany Michelle were friends and he thought that she had the potential to be a huge stars. As he noted in his blog, he invited her over to a celebration that he was having and talked about putting her into the $1,000 Rebuy Event at the 2008 WSOP.

At his meeting, Tiffany Michelle convinced Jeffrey Lisandro to try and talk Tony into putting her into the Main Event. Tony outright said that he didn’t feel like that she was skilled enough to be playing on such a large field. Finally, a compromise was reached between Jeff and Tony. Tony would put up $6,000 and Jeff would put up $4,000. Tony would retain any rights to market Tiffany Michelle and while she played, she was to represent PokerNews. It even stated such in her contract. Tony also said in his blog that Tiffany heard what he said and she knew what the agreement was.

As the Main Event progressed, Tiffany Michelle started showing up at the WSOP wearing UltimateBet gear. She had so much gear on that it obscured and even covered the PokerNews patches that she was wearing. This was relayed back to Tony G in Russia. Tony then contacted Tiffany Michelle, who basically told him at that time that all contact needed to go through her manager. She had hired Kathy Lymberopoulos to manage. Tony G was naturally furious. Later, after Tiffany Michelle had busted out the Main Event, PokerNews made a statement regarding the matter.

They stated that “without any consultation with PokerNews, Tiffany went ahead and signed a sponsorship deal with Ultimate Bet.” “We believe, that based on advice from her agent that the contract may have loopholes; she went and made a deal with an online gaming operator that completely contradicted the trust that we had put in her, both as an employee and as a sponsored player. As an organization we felt completely sabotaged by Tiffany, her agent and Ultimate Bet.” “We are currently seeking legal council on this entire situation and potential damages to PokerNews.”

Tiffany Michelle came out with her own statement and part of that said, “I have a written contract that has been reviewed by legal counsel – and it is very clearly a non-exclusive contract meaning that while I was expected to wear the Pokernews logo – I was in no way prevented from wearing any other logo. Furthermore Pokernews did not possess any power to make, advise or negotiate any kind of logo or sponsorship deal that came about via my playing the main event.” “I am a grown woman and I can decide for myself who I choose to associate myself with. That should not be Tony G’s decision.”

Here she is giving an interview:

In the end Tony G took the high road. He stated, “I have never sued anyone and I don’t like using my energy on negative things. The court would be the one that decided if she broke a contract with me but I don’t like using my energy on negative things. I believe that the time it would take for me to go after her and the hard feelings that would build because of it, that I would lose so much of my good energy that I am not going to prosecute her.”

Tiffany Michelle made a huge mistake in many people’s eyes. First, if she would have let Tony G represent her, right now she would be sponsored by PokerStars.com and would have an endorsement of no less than $1 Million in tournament buy-ins. Instead, she signed with UltimateBet.com. UltimateBet is going through a huge scandal involving superuser accounts and evidence of wrongdoing is pointing back to the founder of the company, Russ Hamilton.

Before the WSOP episodes on ESPN, Tiffany Michelle’s reputation had already been severely damaged. In poker, nothing is as important as your word. Once you have been pegged as a person that goes back on their word, it is hard to recover from that. Just look at Jamie Gold and all the sponsorship opportunities that he lost as a result of his decisions. Tiffany Michelle may have put herself in a bigger hole. Not only did she go back on her word with PokerNews, but she is associated with a site that is under investigation of cheating. This may be a near fatal combination for her poker career.

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Two Plus Two no longer free resource for quality strategy posts?

Posted by info on August 13th, 2008

I just got an email from an anonymous moderator with links to screen shots of a Mason Malmuth post in the mod forum on Two Plus Two. The post states basically that the content of Two Plus Two forum that Two Plus Two publishing owns is hurting their book sales, and urges mods to delete stickies. He is encouraging the moderators to make strategy discussion harder to find and harder to come by. His fear is that the posters on the forum know more than his authors and write better than his authors therefore the strategy discussion on the site could hurt his book sales.

Mason Malmuth Post in Moderator forum to limit and delete strategy articles to help ailing book sales.
Mason Malmuth Mod Scandal Post

“Having links to top quality posts may be serving as substitute for book purchases.”

Here is Ed Miller’s response to the alleged pressure he received from Mason Malmuth:

Ed Miller given ultimatum

Ed Miller apparently cornered into this new policy at TWO PLUS TWO by ultimatum given to him by Mason Malmuth to either delete and limit free content or close down the NPA Forums.

This is email from moderator exactly how it was received:
The following was posted today on two plus two but obvuiously it was quickly deleted.

Before it was deleted it was confirmed by other moderators as well as external evidence.

Apparently, Mason Malmuth made a post in the mod forum encouraging the moderators to make strategy discussion harder to find and harder to come by. His fear is that the posters on the forum know more than his authors and write better than his authors therefore the strategy discussion on the site could hurt his book sales.

Additionally, he apparently intimidated and coerced Ed Miller into taking free strategy content off of his own websiet because he believes that it would hurt book sales.

Mason Malmuth — actively going out of his way to sabatoge the quality of his own forum. Does that reall surprise anyone?

Links to a screen shot of Mason’s post as well as Ed Miller’s post in response.

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Dutch Boyd domain scandal

Posted by info on August 9th, 2008

There is new controversy concerning Dutch Boyd, after all his past issues with his failed poker room, “Pokerspot.com”, where he owed players thousands of dollars and never paid them back.
Image of “pokerspot.com” in year 2000

Pokerspot.com

Well now there is someone in a forum claiming Dutch owes him upwards of $31,000 (just 1 more thousand than the Steve Ware controversy). I have Pm’d the guy several times to get his side of the story and find out whether or not Russel Boyd AKA. Dutch Boyd has paid him for the $31,000 domain. Apparently this situation has been going on for weeks without resolution.
The German man has already contacted his lawyer to serve Dutch Boyd legal papers.

I will try to contact Dutch Boyd or his brother to see if this is true, or if it is maybe sort of mistake. Hopefully there was just an innocent mix up.

Steve Ware has at least come clean and admitted he is wrong. If this is true that Dutch Boyd ripped this guy of for 31k, it’s no laughing matter. It puts another black smear on poker players and poker affiliates. This just doesn’t happen in the poker or gambling world, it happens all over.
Dutch boyd domain scam

As I was finishing this article, I got this message from a person who was allegedly ripped off or had a domain not sell because Dutch Boyd bid on it, won, and did not pay:
Hello xxxxx,

I was in a manic episode and was committed to a mental hospital two days after making the bid for the domain name. I don’t even remember making the bid. I made several attempts at resolving this with Sedo. Bottom line is this… I don’t have $30k. Do what you want to do legally, but you can’t squeeze blood from a turnip and I don’t have it. I probably will in the future and if you’re looking for specific performance, I’d love to buy the domain when I have the money… but honestly, what legal damages can you really claim? I’m not afraid of a lawsuit. I do want this resolved and want you to walk away without hard feelings because I don’t need the bad karma. But I don’t have $30k. I don’t even have close to that. So what do you want to do?

-Dutch Boyd

The acts of great men are predicated by the acts of greater men.

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