[Mason Malmuth]

Hi Everyone:
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Two Plus Two speaking by his representative Mason was clear that Nat and the forum members do not represent Two Plus Two, and he did it in a very sharp way. And with obvious reasons, they were not appointed by Two Plus Two as representatives, period.


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We think that Nat is very capable and is a fine person. But Two Plus Two is a specific entity and only we can represent ourselves and only we can speak to our own policy and policy announcements. That was what my point was here, and yes Nat deserves special credit.

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But then his statement than "Two Plus Two and its forum members have been responsible for noticing, investigating, and ultimately alerting the world" is really horrible and unfair to the posters that were cut sharp when Nat sayed or implied that he was representing either Two Plus Two or the Two Plus Two community, Nat and the other did the noticing, investigation, and alerting job, not Two Plus Two. And in the same way that Two Plus Two can decide who represents them and who does not represent them, the posters also have the right to claim who did they represented when they did this. So, even if the posters would had accepted the representation, the representation was clearly rejected by Two Plus Two.

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Obviously many people worked on uncovering the scandal. But I believe it was the pressure that these forums through all the posters and their posts put on AP that made them come around to the degree that they did.

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And when he says Two Plus Two has been responsible, he is clearly saying Two Plus Two, he's a person who has a very clear concept of what is Two Plus Two and reads every post with that concept in his mind, and who is the Two Plus Two Community, so he can not get the benefit of the doubt when he confuses the two terms. But then, even if he meant the "Two Plus Two Community", meaning the people who post at 2+2, I'm pretty sure this is also totally incorrect, he can not say who represents the Community and who does not. I'm a member of this community, and to my knowledge this Community does not have formal representatives, also because it does not have a way to elect these representatives.


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There's also behind the scenes discussion that went on which you don't know about. And when I say Two Plus Two, I mean this community, our company and the announced policies that you are aware of, and the behind the scenes stuff which you were not aware of.

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All Two Plus Two did, was to provide the infrastructure and also the atmosphere for a group of posters of Two Plus Two to notice, investigate and alert.


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This is flat out wrong. What Two Plus Two has done over the past twenty years is to create an entity that must be taken seriously by everyone in the poker business. Also, we do have a very strong reputation for integrity. It is this framework which allows our posters to have the kind of influence they had in this situation. No other major entity in the industry, as far as I know, was able to step forward in the manner that we did and apply the kind of pressure that we did. Yes, you may argue that this was done by our posters and not by us. But it was done under our name which meant it needed to be taken very seriously and could not be sloughed off.

Best wishes,
Mason