Interview wtih london pro Michael Piper (Wazz)

[maryhadalamb]

The Camel is right ofc. Wazz has treated investors with an arrogant disregard, I chopped an mtt once upon a time and owed someone a good chunk. I felt embarrassed every day I'd not sent them their money as obviously it was my responsibility to do so. Piper could have sorted this much sooner. Any decent, moral person would be ashamed to have conducted themselves the way he has, it is only when his position becomes completely untenible that he relents.

[jackinbeat]

Reposted from another forum, a post from someone close to and talking to Mike, says it all really!


Ok so I'm good friends with Mike but I also feel a really strong affiliation with the community that has helped me grow as a poker player and a person; so I hope I can give as much of an unbiased opinion as possible. I feel I can add some things as I know a lot about things that haven't made this thread.

Firstly the things that Mike has done wrong;
-The massage: Although it's in the past now in terms of the actual argument, he and I had a very big debate/argument about the moral and ethical issues involved here. I told him in no uncertain terms that I think he was 100% in the wrong and theres no excusing it. He has since changed his opinion from 'I'm in the right' to 'I was in the wrong, but I feel given the circumstances and information available to me at the time I made the right choice'. Whatever, I don't really think that's correct but at least he has accepted responsibility for what he did and it's been sorted.

-The original banking problems; The reason why people outside of the UK didn't get paid to start with was because it would cost him a very high amount of money to get to people (I think it was something along the lines of 1300 to transfer 20k abroad (don't quote me on that, but it certainly was a big number). Obviously he should look for other ways to remedy this problem, which is what really makes me angry. Yesterday I was pretty much yelling at him with a conversation along the lines of these;

Me; Ok, so when you won the money did you contact stars support [to pay people online as many had requested] to explain that you'd just made a big score in a stars sponsered event and had investors to pay, perhaps asking them if you had make a very large withdrawal and transfers to some players?

Mike; No

Me; Did you walk in to your high street bank, sit down with your bank manager and ask him what your options were?

Mike; No

Me; WTF were you doing for 4 months?

I got really angry here because Mike makes out as if he's been trapped into a corner with the banking issues but he's done **** all to try and look for other options. He also said that he 'couldn't find anyone who knew enough about poker AND the UK banking system' to talk through his options with. Well mate, you've had 4 months to find that person and I'm sure they exist.

-The way he's handled this thread;
This is probably the most stupid of the lot. No matter what the drama has been, he's been annoyed that bystanders like Zima and Rupert have come in and 'assinated' his character. This is obviously really annoying, as Mike can't seem to understand that not only area there people waiting for money, but the Zima's and Rupert's of the world are (were) potentially his next investors. A good business decision would have been to make everything in this thread much more transparent and sound a hell of a lot more apologetic in every post he made.

What Mike isn't;
-He isn't shady
-He isn't a thief
-He isn't broke

I know there isn't much proof I can give you for these things (but luckily this isn't a trial). All I can say is that I'd vouch my reputation (which must be worth something by this point) that people will get paid (either by receiving cash or from his estate because i'll kill him if this ****ing thing goes on any longer). I know that if you've already made your minds up then this isn't going to help much, but it's the only assurance I can give.

One final thing. As far as I know all of the investors who are yet to be paid have accepted that they'll be getting their money at EPT london, as of right now there isn't a lot more Mike can pysically do to get the people their money. Not that I think that it should stop people letting their feelings known, but I do feel that that fact has been forgotten slightly over the last page or two.

Sorry for the random splurge of writing, I basically just threw it up straight onto my keyboard so there's not a lot of structure. If anyone wants anything clarified then I'll be happy to do so.

Cliffs;
Mike is a moron and this should have been sorted (or at least much more of an effort should have been made to get it sorted)
In my humble opinion he is neither shady or a thief; although I can certainly see why people in this thread may think that.

[DMorgan]

Met mike and played in that 2/2 PLO game with him at DTD. He always seemed ok to me, pretty quirky guy but fun to play with. A couple of friends know him very well and would certainly vouch for him being an honest guy (for what thats worth, some of you have made up your minds already) so I'd do the same.

He has obviously handled this badly but I think its important that people know how difficult it actually is to get these sort of sums overseas through high street banks. It really is ridiculous what they charge you for this sort of service. I agree that its unacceptable that its taken this long to get it sorted but nobody will be out of pocket after EPT london.

[The Camel]

Met mike and played in that 2/2 PLO game with him at DTD. He always seemed ok to me, pretty quirky guy but fun to play with. A couple of friends know him very well and would certainly vouch for him being an honest guy (for what thats worth, some of you have made up your minds already) so I'd do the same.

He has obviously handled this badly but I think its important that people know how difficult it actually is to get these sort of sums overseas through high street banks. It really is ridiculous what they charge you for this sort of service. I agree that its unacceptable that its taken this long to get it sorted but nobody will be out of pocket after EPT london.

A hypothetical question.

I owe someone in America 50k from a stake where I happened to cop.

He wants a CHAPS/SWIFT transfer or whatever it's called.

My bank charges my 1k for it.

Who should pay the 1k?

[sovietsong]

Met mike and played in that 2/2 PLO game with him at DTD. He always seemed ok to me, pretty quirky guy but fun to play with. A couple of friends know him very well and would certainly vouch for him being an honest guy (for what thats worth, some of you have made up your minds already) so I'd do the same.

He has obviously handled this badly but I think its important that people know how difficult it actually is to get these sort of sums overseas through high street banks. It really is ridiculous what they charge you for this sort of service. I agree that its unacceptable that its taken this long to get it sorted but nobody will be out of pocket after EPT london.

A hypothetical question.

I owe someone in America 50k from a stake where I happened to cop.

He wants a CHAPS/SWIFT transfer or whatever it's called.

My bank charges my 1k for it.

Who should pay the 1k?

he should pay it.

[ripple11]

US, Australia and Hong Kong, and more.

 HSBC offers fees free transfer to 41 countries, but you need its Premier bank account (which means you need £50k savings or a £250k mortgage with HSBC, or £75k salary going into an HSBC account), so it’s not worth it unless you make a lot of transfers.

[DMorgan]

A hypothetical question.

I owe someone in America 50k from a stake where I happened to cop.

He wants a CHAPS/SWIFT transfer or whatever it's called.

My bank charges my 1k for it.

Who should pay the 1k?

imo other transfer methods should be looked into. Paying that much vig when he could just mail a cheque or send online with stars' permission is ridiculous.

His best option would obviously have been to inform stars of the thread and they would have authorised a big deposit and some big transfers.

As for your question, it depends whether or not you think that costs of money movements are included in the stake. I'm not an experienced staker so I wouldn't know but I think that mike having to pay 100% of the fees out of his own pocket is unfair

[mondatoo]

LOL at the guy trying to defend someone who holds back someones payment for 4-5 months to make 4% vig,are you dumb or what ??

[Royal Flush]

Get it paid to stars account, xfer to backers stars accts.

Moorman was owed 850k by puffinmypurp took no time to pay that way.

[jackinbeat]

LOL at the guy trying to defend someone who holds back someones payment for 4-5 months to make 4% vig,are you dumb or what ??

If that's directed at me then fair enough, but I have my reasons, and Mike hasn't held back someone's payments for 4-5 months for 4% vig, and half true statements like this are part of the reason I got involved, you should really read something fully before you comment, and make retarded and inaccurate statements like the one above.

Mike has fooked up, but retards like you jumping on the hate bandwagon should realise you're actually so much lower than someone who made some honest mistakes it's ridiculous.

I won't defend Mike any more though, he really has to make some statement, at least to the forum he offered the stake to, prove he's paid in full, get the unpaid backers to make post they are happy with the agreed payment terms or risk losing his already battered reputation.

Personally I would defend someone again, if I thought they deserved it, and honestly I still think Mike deserves a chance, he won a lot of money, that can cause errors of judgement, and he's already admitted to making mistakes, what he doesn't need is forums full of random haters, for fooks sake he made a pile of cash for these people, and that is totally different from someone like 'Blatch' who made no money for anyone.

[gouty]

i can see the issue here

its old school poker v webtard poker

1.interweb pro cops live seat in online satty.
2. he sells himself to insure profit of satty.
3. he cops a bundle.
4. he is so web focussed he cant write a cheque or operate in the real world.
5. old school live players get the hump even tho its f all to do them ie.(me)
6. online players think is fine to mess people about

[lucky_scrote]

I dunno why he hasn't paid up yet. I'm not going to read the thread on 2+2.

I stayed with him in Vegas and he didn't seem the type to scam, I mean, he was quite generous with his money.

It is weird he hasn't paid his backers yet, I think it's because he's so lazy that he can't be bothered to send them the money.

Sorry, I posted this as a joke expecting to spit over there keyboard.

When I stayed with Mike in Vegas I had no problem getting on with him in a 1 to 1 situation, we played a fair bit of chess etc. Otherwise he is one of the most selfish people I have ever met, he cares about no-one but himself. By the end of the trip even our butler said he wanted to give him a nice knuckle sandwich.

He will read this thread and have no emotion.

[mondatoo]

LOL at the guy trying to defend someone who holds back someones payment for 4-5 months to make 4% vig,are you dumb or what ??

If that's directed at me then fair enough, but I have my reasons, and Mike hasn't held back someone's payments for 4-5 months for 4% vig, and half true statements like this are part of the reason I got involved, you should really read something fully before you comment, and make retarded and inaccurate statements like the one above.

Mike has fooked up, but retards like you jumping on the hate bandwagon should realise you're actually so much lower than someone who made some honest mistakes it's ridiculous.

I won't defend Mike any more though, he really has to make some statement, at least to the forum he offered the stake to, prove he's paid in full, get the unpaid backers to make post they are happy with the agreed payment terms or risk losing his already battered reputation.

Personally I would defend someone again, if I thought they deserved it, and honestly I still think Mike deserves a chance, he won a lot of money, that can cause errors of judgement, and he's already admitted to making mistakes, what he doesn't need is forums full of random haters, for fooks sake he made a pile of cash for these people, and that is totally different from someone like 'Blatch' who made no money for anyone.

Can you tell me which part of this direct quote from him on 2+2 am I misreading

"I dont have any banking issues right now. May as well reveal that my plan is and has been since vegas to sell the live money I have to people in london at a vig and to give my investors half the vig as its their money Im selling. If I dont sell enough money Ill send cheques out"

[RED-DOG]

I don't understand why decent, reasonable people, who happen to have differing opinions, have to call each other names.

[mondatoo]

I don't understand why decent, reasonable people, who happen to have differing opinions, have to call each other names.

I wouldn't have put dumb if I wasn't mortal when I posted but no excuse and I agree not neccesary.