AP Visit: I'm going to Costa Rica

[bpc009]

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Ask to speak to the person who accidentally sent the file. Find out to the best of your ability how he has been treated in the last couple weeks, as well as his perspective on the matter.

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The person that accidentally sent the file has probably been fired and should have been fired. That email was dangerous for reasons that go beyond exposing AP's controversy.

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And how he was treated after the fact and by whom says a lot as well. If you were going down there, wouldn't you want to have a conversation with him?

[iron81]

Aye. If Nat needs information, he needs to speak to people who are willing to give us damaging information and not just the shills who are sugarcoating. If the guy is a whistleblower, that's great. Even if he's not, he might know something and be more willing to share because he doesn't work for them anymore.

[e_phemeral]

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Having said that,

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My ultimate goal is not to sink the company. I want them to pay for their mistakes. I also want them to be a good company going forward.


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The only way for the company to pay for its mistakes is for it to go down the tubes. And there is no such thing as a "good" company. Companies exist to make money for their shareholders. That is all.

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This is wrong and partly shortsighted. I'll be the first to admit I *do* have an interest in seeing online poker survive. Personally, I'd much rather just have it US-regulated, but in the absence of that as an option, I'd much rather have a market including a clean, reformed AP than a market with a dead AP and a horror story. This does not mean I'll pull punches, because a market with a corrupt AP is much worse than both of those things, and if I ran into a lie anywhere, we'd all just have a ticking timebomb on our hands anyway. But I do not particularly want the tree to die if the offending bug larvae's already gone.

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AP going down the tubes because of this scandal would be a good thing for online poker if it served as a shot across the bow of the other poker sites that they have to redouble/retriple their efforts to ensure the intergrity of the games that they offer. We are talking about unregulated offshore entities here whose only motivation is to make gobs of money. I am not advocating the downfall of online poker. Personally, I would prefer if it were legal in the US and regulated. I just don't see that any good can come from two of the principal people responsible for uncovering this entire mess being coopted in to help Absolute through these trying times. El Diablo's posts were spot on as to how this little trip to Costa Rica probably will unfold. Just remember that if it were up to Absolute, no one would know about any of this crap. It's only because of independent concerned players like Adanthar, this Nat guy and others spending lots of time and energy to figure it out and present it here on 2+2. Now AP is trying to bring them over to the AP side for PR purposes. That is what is happening here.

[carlgraham]

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, I am mainly going as a representative for 2p2,

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HI N 82 50 24:

I'm sorry but you do not represent Two Plus Two. That authorization can only from me.

Best wishes,
Mason

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Wow - rather than a PM, Mason expresses his disapproval publicly. I think it was obvious from the context that Nat meant the 2+2 community, not 2+2 publishing.

However, with Mason's posting, there's evidence he's reading the AP threads - he weighed in pretty swiftly on Nat's trip - how about a similar condemnation of the key underlying issue, which is AP's cheating?

Mason, you previously said you were waiting for AP's "official" statement before commenting on the issue. Now that we have it, do you have anything to say? Your opinion matters to a lot of people and your silence continues to be surprising - surely you don't condone AP's actions?

Cheers, Carl.

[adanthar]

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AP going down the tubes because of this scandal would be a good thing for online poker if it served as a shot across the bow of the other poker sites that they have to redouble/retriple their efforts to ensure the intergrity of the games that they offer.

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That shot's already been fired, dozens of ships have changed course, the fleet is going places and the sailors have taken battle stations. I wouldn't worry about it too much.

[Gullanian]

Is no one else worried about someone you don't know having access to all your personal information, including financial records (I'm taking your quote as access to 'everything' else literally). I'm sure you are legit and all, but it doesn't instill any more confidence in AP poker for me if they let people view my data who don't need to.

[adanthar]

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Is no one else worried about someone you don't know having access to all your personal information, including financial records (I'm taking your quote as access to 'everything' else literally). I'm sure you are legit and all, but it doesn't instill any more confidence in AP poker for me if they let people view my data who don't need to.

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Anyone who goes will be signing very legally binding NDA's about, among other things, anything to do with confidential account info (of people who haven't stolen lots of moneys). I think that part goes without saying.

[N 82 50 24]

Okay, I've discussed this with a lot of people on AIM at this point. These people include El Diablo, snagglepuss, Adanthar and tons of others that I trust. I've also talked to a bunch of people who have called me since I made this post.

I think I may need to re-evaluate how wise it is for me to do this. I am not calling it off, but I may need to speak to AP management again as well as redefine my goals.

1. I really really don't care about the money, but I also don't do things like this for free. So surely people can understand the difference between me saying "sure, Adanthar can go and receive whatever fee they pay him" and me saying "I'm not going down there and doing this work for free"

2. I am not really concerned about my personal safety and it actually tilts me more than anything else in this thread that so many people seem to think that I'm really taking that big a risk here re: safety. If someone wanted me hurt they could do it anywhere. Costa Rica might be easier or whatever, but I'm really not 100% safe wherever I go.

3. It might make more sense for someone like Adanthar to go. If everyone agrees that doing technical things that involve high-level text parsing (my programming specialty, if I have one) is going to be a waste of time, then why not have someone who's more versed in poker and is equally or more trusted on 2p2, etc?

So really, I'm going to re-think this. More likely than not I will still end up going, but I need to rethink this.

Thank you to everyone for your insight and please keep posting, I want to see what everyone has to say before this trip actually happens for someone (whether it is me or someone else).

[T-God]

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AP going down the tubes because of this scandal would be a good thing for online poker if it served as a shot across the bow of the other poker sites that they have to redouble/retriple their efforts to ensure the intergrity of the games that they offer.

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That shot's already been fired, dozens of ships have changed course, the fleet is going places and the sailors have taken battle stations. I wouldn't worry about it too much.

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Also one of the boats had termites in the mast but they fixed that.

FTP probably.

[gobbomom]

EXACTLY. so please delete these admonitions. Nat & Serge aren't stupid, but AP is.