Mason... Sir,

[crzylgs]

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I'm bringing it up again because we asked Mason for a 2+2 LLC comment for the UIGEA regs and he replied by telling PPA to change its board (and it was, IMO, impolite). I think he has a right to his opinion, but withholding commenting on the UIGEA regs hurts us, the players. I really hope to see 2+2 LLC's UIGEA regulation comment here soon.

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If this went down the way you say it went down here, I agree with this 100%. Whatever issues 2+2 has with the PPA have absolutely nothing to do with potential comments on the regs. It's just bad business not to comment, and I hope Mason et al don't let this ideological feud blind them to doing what is best for poker.

[Mason Malmuth]

Hi Everyone:

I had made it clear in prior private message communication that I would not have a conversation with John Pappas until we saw improvements in the PPA board. We feel that it is very important for the PPA to improve in a number of areas or else they run the risk of damaging the cause that we all want to see successful. The reason we pick on the board so much is that I believe this area is highly visible and (relatively) easy to address. (I also don't want to get into the other issues any more since we believe that this forum is now read by many entities, not all of who are friendly to the PPA and our cause in general. So it's not in our best interest to post specifics that can be used against us.) Hence, when I heard from John Pappas the other day, a response from me along the lines of my previous communication was sent. Also, it's hard to see how it was impolite since my response was almost word for word the exact same message he sent to me except with appropriate subjects changed.

For those who want to know, we do have a line of communication with the PPA, but it does not go through John Pappas. It will also remain confidential as to how that line of communication works.

We have also made it clear to the PPA through our communication and through this forum that their officials are free to post here unencumbered so long as they are identified as PPA officials and they follow the rules of this board. This includes John Pappas who does post here on occasion even though I will not, at this point in time, directly communicate with him.

As for Two Plus Two Publishing LLC commenting on the UIGEA Regs, I don't think it is appropriate for us to do so simply because I and the the other officials of Two Plus Two are not experts on Internet gambling law. We rely on our attorneys who are experts in this area for advice when we need it, and are confident because of how they advise us that we are making the right decisions from a company point of view in this area. We also feel that there are many posters here who are far more knowledgeable in this area than we are and rely on them to post their comments and opinions.

As for The Engineer, he needs to understand that posting here is a privledge and not a right. He cannot and it will not be tolerated for him to participate here in an un-respecful and non-professional manner. So to this end he now has been given a three day vacation. I know that some of you will be upset by this, but www.twoplustwo.com is our site and we will run it by the rules that we post and in which everyone, including myself, must abide by.

Best wishes,
Mason

[kailua]

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Thanks. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

I'm bringing it up again because we asked Mason for a 2+2 LLC comment for the UIGEA regs and he replied by telling PPA to change its board (and it was, IMO, impolite). I think he has a right to his opinion, but withholding commenting on the UIGEA regs hurts us, the players. I really hope to see 2+2 LLC's UIGEA regulation comment here soon.

PPA has done a lot of good on behalf of poker players. I'm committed to continuing this improvement, but it's time for PPA to lose the apologetic tone around here, IMO. When challenged, I think PPA needs to stand up for what it's doing for the poker community. PPA should admit what needs improvement, but should also stand up for what they're succeeding at.

Rich Muny
PPA Board Member

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Rich…I appreciate your sincerity and commitment to the PPA and the advancement of poker player’s rights, but from your tone it now appears quite justifiable that Mason insisted that you identify your affiliation with each post.

[DeadMoneyDad]

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D$D: Failure is inaccurate or way too harsh. They have done alot of good things, you sound like a scorned lover.

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Please take all my posts in their sum total. Picking a single post or a single part in any attempt to make a cute little comment is simply counter productive.

I am way beyond caring.

I have nothing to gain.

I offered first to volunteer, then applied for an advertised job, and offer my criticism; only because I have some experience in the fields of politics and grassroots organization and activism. My self proclaimed opinions are not based on some imagined self worth, but based on multiple demonstrated successes and comments by nationally recognized figures in the field.

I was fairly silent in my criticism until I got out behind my keyboard, spoke to a lot of people, followed up on many activities both most basic and more complex, that any organization with the PPA's stated goal and mission statement would be expected to do.

I have also both publicly and privately been one of the first to congratulate every success achieved to date.

Unlike a scorned lover, I continue to offer any assistance on a volunteer basis, regardless of any hiring done by the PPA. Shortly after Bryan's hiring was announced, I called him to give him as much advice as I could to help him get as much done as quickly as possible, simply as one man's historical perspective.

I have participated in every suggested activity, letter writing, calls to Hill and State offices, attended the Fly-in events, and have offered suggestions on the comment process on the proposed UIGEA regulations.

I offered suggestions to Randy in the MA effort. I have continued to as I have in the past done the grunt work to develop ideas for improvement in existing efforts and fund raising ideas using personal contacts forward those results to PPA HQ in more than one form or contact method.

Perhaps your scorned lovers continue to try to help you after you tell them to go to hell repeatedly. Sorry my experience in that regard is limited from having been with the same woman over 1/2 my life.

So nice try, perhaps if TE simply tries to pile on to your cheap shot, and that doesn't work, maybe his better defend the PPA against criticism deserves one of his self written skewed polls he loves.

I have nothing to defend but my ideas and the validity of the criticisms offered. John already called me "two-faced", that showed me the growing "bunker" mentality seemingly growing from TE digging up an old thread to pick a new fight on the crappy board issue.

Yes John is a hard worker, doing a tough job, but in such a position as the PPA is today, ignoring free resources beyond my personal involvement, because of some chip on his shoulder is insane IMO.

TE posting he rationale for a more vigorous defense of the PPA for a fly-in that in real numbers was average at best, even though it got a somewhat friendly hearing, as the political payoff, and excelling at his area of expertise PR, is not hitting on all cylinders as it is portrayed. I don't care how many people write posts that puff up his ego.

I posted a while back about the need for a balanced political table. Pointing to 1/2 of one leg and a very stout solid leg, is in no way proof of a table capable of the success necessary for the actions that will be required for "legal" poker anytime soon, if at all.

I will continue to offer to volunteer, do all that is asked of the membership even beyond what is required. I challenge anyone else to show they have done more, let alone someone subject to the public and private crap I have been subject to in the process.

So back up your comments or remove them.


D$D

[Tuff_Fish]

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I don't understand why you'd dig up a semi-dead thread.



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Also, I agree with the above statement.

It is clear that Mason has a lot of grief with the PPA board makeup. It is clear that he is unlikely to change his mind.

But, he has allowed the PPA a reasonable opportunity to come on here and post. The previous hubbub seemed to be settled mostly to everyone's satisfaction.

The PPA is who they are, Mason is who he is. Neither is likely to change soon.

I personally don't see the PPA board as being much of an issue. Of course they have an interest in some aspect of legalized online poker. Who else is going to go to any great effort to help us out? Especially, who is going to put out any significant amount of money?

Mason doesn't agree with that idea. Fine, let's agree to disagree and move on.

Tuff

[DeadMoneyDad]

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I don't understand why you'd dig up a semi-dead thread.



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Also, I agree with the above statement.

It is clear that Mason has a lot of grief with the PPA board makeup. It is clear that he is unlikely to change his mind.

But, he has allowed the PPA a reasonable opportunity to come on here and post. The previous hubbub seemed to be settled mostly to everyone's satisfaction.

The PPA is who they are, Mason is who he is. Neither is likely to change soon.

I personally don't see the PPA board as being much of an issue. Of course they have an interest in some aspect of legalized online poker. Who else is going to go to any great effort to help us out? Especially, who is going to put out any significant amount of money?

Mason doesn't agree with that idea. Fine, let's agree to disagree and move on.

Tuff

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Well the PPA hasn't shown any desire to allow further participation in the decision making processes. Suggestions are make in this forum, the PPA's forum, and to PPA officials; perhaps once in ten or less the reasoning for the decision is given, and too often the culture of "an inferiority complex" so infuses the official answer that any communication is lost.

I still have great hope for John and the PPA. I will no matter what, first offer any assistance requested or reasonably foreseen. I will not prostate my self nor silence my opinions on areas of improvement as a "price of admission."

This is no way to run a grassroots organization.


D$D<-- now using Firefox.. F! M$.

[chrisptp]

these threads, and others like them, strike me as a sad waste of time by intelligent people whose energy could be better spent promoting (in whatever way they see fit) the greater goal of legalized, regulated online poker.

i'd also like to know what rule TE broke.

[BluffTHIS!]

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Mason claims to be concerned about how the composition of the board will be perceived by the opponents of gaming

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"claims"? If you are implying he has some other motive then just come out and say it.


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What they pay attention to is infighting. Read the criticism section of the PPA Wikipedia article. There's nothing about the board. Rather, it's about Mason.

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Why the [censored] do you care what anonymous person put in a wiki article? Change it if you don't like it! I guess you do care a lot though and that is what has prompted you to bait Mason here.


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I invite Mason to make his case that the PPA board composition empowers our opponents in any way, because he hasn't yet. He's entitled to his opinion, of course. However, he states this as incontrovertible fact; he's very emphatic about it, but he has yet to prove it.

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I have discussed this aspect of the board composition before which Mason has agreed with, so refer to that. But I'll lay it out here again:

1) A board dominated by affiliate farm interests allows our enemies to paint the PPA as not an organization 600K strong or whatever representing average Joe players, but rather as the mouthpiece of a certain segment of the online poker industry.

2) Such affiliates are at the highest risk of prosecution under the IUGEA as they are facilitating the transfer of funds and deriving a profit that doesn't come from their own individual play. While others here have said in the past "great! let em try to prosecute!" so as to have a test case, the fact is that our enemies would then be able to point to the PPA as having individuals on its board under criminal indictment. Not something good for PR purposes IMO.

And I will say again that if it would in fact be such a great thing, then CP mag and Allyn Schulman and Linda Johnson should wage an "I dare you to prosecute us!" campaign and try to bring it about for the good of the goals of the PPA. And don't bring up CP's being willing to fight on the advertising from online cardrooms, because that is a separate issue.


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There is another issue concerning the board composition. Specifically, are we players adequately represented?

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And I've laid out this case as well before in detail. Many if not most of you seem to disagree. But that is primarily because of the pending legislation and judicial initiatives. If those fail this year, giving the PPA a 2 year track record of no legislative gains, then I suspect more posters here will question not only the board's composition, but its overall goals as well, as online poker in the form we have it now, is not the only form of poker most of us care about. Most of us have a wider range of goals, and some of them take a much longer timeframe to work on, which is why if they aren't worked on now, even while placing a priority on the pending legislation, that it will take longer yet to achieve them.

And let's note something else as well, which is that Mason's concerns about the PPA have not only to do with the board, but also transparency. So what about that???


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So, I'm at a loss. Pappas is working hard for your right to play. I'm working hard for your right to play. You all are working hard for your right to play. Mason, OTOH, hasn't even submitted the 2+2 LLC comments on the UIGEA regs yet. If 2+2 LLC had submitted their comments by now, perhaps it would have worked to encourage other businesses to submit theirs. Even the Chamber of Commerce has submitted comments that help us. I do know that if 2+2 LLC and its authors don't submit comments by Dec. 12th, it will be difficult for them to claim a right to an opinion on what the rest of us are doing.

I wonder what Mason does think we should all do about the current situation regarding online poker. He's not articulated an alternate vision by which we work without ulitizing PPA. I hope it at least involves commenting on the UIGEA regs before Dec. 12th.

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We all appreciate the efforts of Mr. Pappas and yourself. But now you aren't content with that and are demanding that 2+2 take certain specific steps. So it seems that despite the lack of substantive responses in the thread started by Berge to answer the question I put in a different thread, Does the PPA need 2+2? , that the answer is "yes the PPA does need 2+2 and in fact demands its help in the way it wishes apart from their allowing the use of this forum to help the efforts of the PPA".


And now I am going to restate something I have said before in that thread:

"I just want to note again that either the PPA doesn't need 2p2, in which case all this arguing and discussion is pointless, or they do need 2p2, in which case *even if the criticisms and demands of Mason and posters like myself are totally unreasonable* you who disagree will seek to remove the source of those criticisms by working for board change and better transparency. Of course believing that the PPA does need 2p2 but refusing for reasons of pride/ego/whatever not to meet critics half-way is also an option. Just don't keep bitching at those of us who refuse to accept the PPA as it is, even while we note that the PPA has made visible improvements of late."

[BluffTHIS!]

Engineer,

I want to add something and a question for you and perhaps others here as well. Which is that the other side of the coin is the question, "does the PPA desperately need the affiliate farm/CP board members, and if so why?". If you can't make the case why those board members are so critical for the success of the PPA, then you can't argue that they shouldn't resign for the good of the PPA to remove this bone of contention.

[Tuff_Fish]

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"does the PPA desperately need the affiliate farm/CP board members, and if so why?".

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I can only surmise that affiliate farm/CP board members were the ones that had the opportunity and the money to found the PPA. They would be loath to abandon their efforts because others didn't like them being on the board now.

You and Mason should found a separate organization to fight for our poker rights. If you could get even 10,000 active participants, you would be ahead of where are now. But I don't see any energy coming from either of you to do anything of this sort.

I am reasonably sure Mason is content with his place in the poker world and doesn't see any real reason to get in a big uproar. He will still sell books and have a forum. Sure, he would sell more if US based poker was available. But, and I am just surmising here, his attitude is, "if it happens, good, if it doesn't, ok too". Only the threat of an immediate and complete shutdown of 2+2 would he get concerned. Just my humble opinion. I don't know Mason at all.

Tuff