Defining the terms of a bet

[millidonk]

si senor.

still think frankie will be back by saturday. if he isn't will pa.


#believe
#dontletthemwin
#bringfrankieback

No worries, fella. glgl

#frankiedeadinaditchbytheweekend

[sovietsong]

This all seems a bit strange.

What's the point of this post?

Do you have something useful to say?

No

[MANTIS01]

Hi Guys

Interesting thread.

With every event we run i plan the schedule months in advance and have a set marketing plan, with the Monte Carlo in December Rob asked me to include a 64 runner heads up which i intended to spread over the first 3 days of the main event with an initial Day 1 the day before, re entry would have been available if there were byes in the first round ( i saw this done in the Aviation a few years ago and it worked ) First 32 players play day 1a , the 16 that get knocked out can re enter into day 1b if there are spare seats, as the Monte Carlo progresses those not playing each day can play there second round matches and so on on a flexible basis.

Marketing release a pdf to all our previous £1000 + players 8 weeks in advance, i needed to know from Rob that we were still to include the heads up, he told me he wanted confirmation who was taking what as part of the £5000 bet and wanted the money up front. Only Keith could confirm he had a £1000 and was happy to pay it, Dan wrote on Alex thread that " there was a bit missing somehwere " so obviously this needed verifying , Rob spoke to a player who had been in Vegas on the night the bet was discussed as he thought he may have been the missing link but he said he wasn't so he asked him to speak to the others for confirmation and organising the money. As Cos points out £5000 isn't a lot to Rob but £1000 is a lot to him so the last thing Rob wants to be doing is chasing after the money when the bet has been won. After repeatedly asking Rob for confirmation for the PDF he told me he hadn't had replies from all concerned so i pulled the event from the schedule.

As Woodsey pointed out this is an easy bet for Rob to win, we get 300 players for the Monte Carlo of which i satellite approx 150, i would expect at least 20 direct buy ins and i would do 24 x 1 seat guaranteed satellites online and 2 x 10 seats guaranteed in the club, this is what i had in the PDF, there was never any doubt in my mind that Rob would win the bet but i can understand why he would want the cash up front.

A couple more points, saying he would ban everyone was obviously tongue in cheek and i assume Cos has Rob's permission to reproduce private emails on this thread as personally if he hasn't i think he his bang out of order and that is something i would ban him for but i'll see what Rob wants to do.

So confident am i that my satellite schedule would have worked i would like to prove it, if you guys or anyone wants to bet £5000 depsoited on account at the club by December 31st i will give you 2 - 1 that i can run a 64 runner event at our February Monte Carlo. All bet sizes and who have what action will be on this thread with confirmation they have paid.

Cheers

ACES

If you were confident your idea was going to work you should have run the event in spite of any bet. I don't know why the advance payment in some fun bet would dictate whether the management team run a successful event within your business. Considering the owner asked you to run it, you had the marketing ready, and you were confident your ideas would work then strange to cancel imo. I don't think it's good business to cut potentially popular events at your poker club because you can't contact some people on Blonde forum. Not to mention dissapointing lots of customers who were deffo gonna play and now can't, possibly hundreds of them.

[NigDawG]

I don't know why the advance payment in some fun bet would dictate whether the management team run a successful event within your business.

+1 lol

[Doobs]

I think you should stop moaning about girgy too.  All he needed to do was eat a lot less and he'd have won that bet easily.  I am sure he could have produced a viable plan for eating a lot less too. 

Perfectly reasonable for girgy to cancel in the circumstances.

 

[Girgy85]

I think you should stop moaning about girgy too.  All he needed to do was eat a lot less and he'd have won that bet easily.  I am sure he could have produced a viable plan for eating a lot less too. 

Perfectly reasonable for girgy to cancel in the circumstances.

 

Exactly

[Skippy]

I think you should stop moaning about girgy too.  All he needed to do was eat a lot less and he'd have won that bet easily.  I am sure he could have produced a viable plan for eating a lot less too. 

Perfectly reasonable for girgy to cancel in the circumstances.

 

Exactly

Plus Girgy had lost your number. If he wasn't sure he could contact you to get paid, why would he swerve the drive-through?

[robyong]

Hello,

This thread is a touch disappointing. Whatever has been written here, my integrity is being questioned by 3 poker players and a few other people on this thread. Without going over the same points, here are a few facts;

1. At the time of writing, I am owed £265,000 by poker players, most of this sum is made up of people owing me £1000 or below - ALL of whom claimed at the time that they could pay be back. This is admittedly my fault for either lending the money in the first place, or not chasing it up hard enough. However, this year, I have made a conscious effort to stop this sum growing, not just because of the money, but also because I don't want to jeopardise friendships by people feeling uncomfortable owing me money (ie. avoiding me). I now only operate a "cash on the table approach" and a non lending policy even when I play heads-up, the money has to there, including mine

2. £5k was the amount I said was the MINIMUM I would take this bet on for, like Dan admits, there was some of the £5k wager "missing" and he "thought" it was James Keys, but I asked James and he said it wasn't him, this was a £5k prop bet with a group of poker players that myself and Simon took out for meal in Vegas, with them "sharing" the action against me, so I don't expect to have to chase 5 different people up, I expect the £5k to be "on the table" and on 3 occasions, the players were contacted with only Cos replying that he did not want to take the bet if we allowed re-entry.

3. 2 Days after the deadline for the Monte Carlo marketing brochure had passed, which was the third and last deadline which I had given the players to come up with the £5k and find their "missing" backer, Cos and Dan were emailing me asking why the bet was now off, from silence to constant emailing me.  

4. Simon is actually wrong about me replying that if Dan sent one more email that they would all be banned, I did mean it, when I received the initial emails I was actually at the wake after my Grandmas funeral and Cos actually asked me to arrange a call with him to discuss the bet, so I may have overreacted because of where I was at the time, Cos and Dan were not to know where I was and I apologise for my tone.

5. Copying and pasting my private emails onto a public forum without even asking me is questionable tactics, compare this to my record of honouring GTE's and also paying out every bet that I have every made thus far in my life - immediately, I don't really see that how any level headed person is actually going to believe I would try and wriggle out of a £5k bet, what possible reason could I have to do this, its beyond rational thought, the only reason a sain person would say or write  this, is to fan the flames and try and tarnish my reputation, not because they actually believe it to be true.

Thats pretty much all I have to say on the matter,

Rob

[DMorgan]

Rob,

I think the crux of the matter is that we don't agree on these points:

1) Escrow / Money On Table

The bet was made over dinner between friends in Vegas and no escrow was mentioned. I think it would be fair to say that everyone rightly assumed that everyone else was good for the money and you were very keen to book the bet with no mention of an escrow or deposit. The first I heard of you wanting to have the money at DTD was in your email on November 4th.

2) Missing Money / Communication

You posted on Alex's Diary on September 10th confirming the amounts (post is quoted on page 3 of this thread) so this hasn't sprung up out of nowhere. Where exactly the final £1k of the bet was coming from was I admit a little confused but referring to my first point, you were in no danger of getting scammed for any of the £5k from our side and given the setting of the bet I think that much was pretty clear at the time sp I don't accept that cancelling for fear of non-payment it a valid reason to cancel the bet.

I asked James and he said it wasn't him

In light of this you still tried to use James as a go-between to pass on messages about the bet. As I've said previously I think this is wholly unfair on James and that he was right to stay out of it. I also reject any notion that I/we were tough to contact. You have all of our contact details at the club, you have us all on facebook, the list goes on and on.

I don't really see that how any level headed person is actually going to believe I would try and wriggle out of a £5k bet, what possible reason could I have to do this, its beyond rational thought, the only reason a sain person would say or write  this, is to fan the flames and try and tarnish my reputation, not because they actually believe it to be true.

Our thoughts are the same which is why we were all a bit taken aback by this turn of events, but when we raise our concerns and threats of being barred are what comes back the other way what else are we supposed to think?

I still don't believe that you're going to try and wriggle out of it, so when the dust settles and the deadline expires this bet like all of your others will be honoured and we can draw a line under this.

My condolences for the loss of your Grandmother

Dan 

[Simon Galloway]

From a completely neutral standpoint, and I'm probably going to regret writing, but here are my unsolicited observations fwiw, I'm sure no-one really wants me to arbitrate and/or sit in judgement but:

1)  Communication.  One area currently under dispute that should be solvable is the "3 attempts to contact with only Cos replying."  If that was 3 emails sent to each looking to clarify either the terms of the bet (including re-entry and/or escrow requirement and for avoidance of doubt, just who has what share of the £5k) and only Cos replied, (indicating he would be off the bet if it was re-entry) then I would find in favour of Rob and cancel  the bet.  The emails could have been sent by Rob or his appointed agent*, but not by asking someone to ask someone who doesn't want to know.  If "3 attempts" meant nudging James Keys 3 times who refused to get involved, then I would find in favour of the poker players.

* £5k might not be enough for Rob to want to chase up personally, but he could ask someone in his employ to do it.

2) Ethics.  Posting personal email isn't the best way to get a friendly solution and really shouldn't be done.  Either things have already broken down irretrievably at this point, or if not, posting the email should clinch it.  Likewise, always treat every email you write as "potentially appearing on the front page of The Times tomorrow" and you won't go wrong.  As for the terms of the bet, I think Rob satelliting in 63 players or even giving away entires in other promotions for example is totally reasonable and I'm sure the poker players were factoring in such possibilities when striking the bet.  Having previously paid out gtee's out of pocket rather than putting a few players in himself in the past shows Rob's honour and integrity is beyond any doubt. The re-entry situation is muddy, but had it been me striking a bet for ~ £1k and the re-entry discussion came up in plenty of time before the event needed to be announced, my thought process would have been: "it's still a fair bet, but we didn't hammer out definitions/conditions for re-entry at the time.  Given "at the time" was a night enjoying Rob's hospitality that is probably not far out from the EV of the bet, I'm more than happy to agree to cancel the bet, no harm done.

3) Escrow.  This should always be negotiated at the time the bet is struck if either party requires an escrow.  I don't for a second think anyone would ask Rob to escrow, no-one is questioning that he isn't "good for it."   As for Rob requiring the players to escrow, well this gets tied in to point 1 ^^.  If he asked several times for players to escrow and they didn't, this is further weight on the bet being off.  If however, Rob decided last-minute (4th Nov) to require an escrow as he suddenly noticed he is £265k out to bad debtors, then that is different and is not a valid reason to cancel imo.  Without knowing anything about the players' personal circumstance, I'd readily believe that they were in the top tier of players not requiring an escrow to be in place.  As for the £265k, well that is entirely Rob's private business, but I have no idea how you get to that point where most of it is <£1k at a time.  You have to be duped/nipped about 200 times and then decide that enough is enough on the very bet with Cos & co. £265k may still be peanuts, I have no idea. But again, I'm sure someone trusted in his business empire won't be adding more value to the balance sheet this year than they would if they stopped what they were doing and recovered a good part of that bad debt instead.

4) What happens next?  Well if I was Rob, i might just throw a portion of £64k at the wall and have a Christmas HU tourny and lock up the £5k prop just because I can.  If I was the players, I'd look into email history etc and see if any emails had been received and not replied to (in other words, did I contribute to the confusion.)  I'd also think about the circumstances of the bet (I'm guessing the night out wasn't cheap) and the fact that there was enough genuine doubt on Rob's side to not even attempt the event.  I'd factor in the fact that Rob is 0% on an angle. I'd put that all together and act with good grace and agree to cancel the bet (guess it is too late for that)

I suspect that neither will happen and there will be a fair amount of animosity en route to an ugly stalemate, which would be a real shame.

[LFmagic]

@Simon Galloway, not once did Rob try to make contact with me to confirm the bet, even though I have multiple members of the DTD staff and Rob himself at one point as fb friends iirc. Contact could have easily been made.

An escrow was never mentioned, the bet dialogue went something along the line of Rob confirming he could get 64 players to the club on the same day for a £1k buyin HU tournament before the end of '11 (even jokingly claiming he could fill that with just the contacts off his blackberry). I thought the bet was pretty well defined and would be honoured by those involved, all of whom are known faces within UK poker.

@Rob

I do not see the relevance of posting how much you've loaned people or whatever, and find it strange that you'd want that to be public knowledge in light of your reaction to Cos posting your email; which I'm glad was posted seems I did not receive such a message/it affects me directly. Likewise, how you always honour tournament guarantees etc within your business I find to be irrelevant also. Maybe your emotional state meant that you weren't fit to respond to the email at the time; but you only apologised for the tone, is the ban 'threat' heartfelt?!

As I said in my email to you though, I've always enjoyed playing at DTD, my horses play at the club on an almost weekly basis, and I've always thought you are a straight-up guy who has done a lot to help UK poker. Until you can acknowledge that the bet was as simple as detailed above and that there is no excuse as to why it could be called off, neither my stable or I will be playing at the club though.

Like Dan, I hope and believe you will honour the bet, which I still consider to be active.

[DMorgan]

I received none of these  "3 attempts to contact with only Cos replying" and neither did Luke. Keith sees Rob every week so he probably did and I'm sure Cos can let us know if he had any emails. Even so, it doesn't matter anyway because the terms were clearly defined when the bet was made.

The notion that because this bet was made at a dinner that Rob paid for should give him any extra leverage in this bet is ridiculous. Not that it matters but I wasn't expecting a free meal, it was just a meet up with friends from the club that were in Vegas for the series.

Escrow has already been cleared up, first mention of it was on November 4th, nothing mentioned on or around the time of the bet.

[skolsuper]

Sigh what a mess. As previously mentioned about 100 times I decided probably slightly too late that this was a dispute I really needed to stay out of and not get involved. Coincidentally I decided to give up posting on blonde after the 1000 posts milestone a week or so ago. However I feel my silence on this thread has damaged the reputation of both parties, especially Rob (although if there hadn't been a public thread about it and the issue had been dealt with in private that wouldn't have been a problem).

So I am posting now to clarify a few things but will still try to refrain from making any judgements/recommendations in favour of either side. I'm not trying to spin things either way here, just shed some light on certain events since some uninvolved outsiders are confused as to how this could happen and are now judging Rob/Dan+Luke+Cos based on incomplete information.

1. I never contacted Dan or Luke despite Rob asking me to. This is why Dan and Luke feel like this came out of the blue while Rob says he tried to contact them multiple times. This is obviously totally my fault and has precipitated the whole situation and made everybody look bad (although I maintain that nobody would look anything if this had been dealt with in private). What happened was:

During a cash game that Rob joined quite late one night, the subject of this bet came up, I think because Simon came over to ask about the flyers or whatever, and Rob then turned to the players in the game and said something along the lines of "ok who did I bet with?" and it really wasn't as clear as Dan has been making out in these posts. Rob accused me of having action, I accused mitch, nobody could remember how much Luke/Dan had (in Rob's phone it didn't say "Dan+Luke £3k", it said "Dan Morgan £1k+£1k+£1k", so it was assumed at the time that there must have been a 3rd person with £1k action, nobody could remember who it was and everyone was denying it was them). So Rob said (again roughly from memory) "Look I'm not gonna run this tournament and then come to collect on the bet and have everyone hold their hands up saying 'it wasn't me'", which is what was happening at the time. So Rob turned to me and asked me to chase up Cos, Dan and Luke and find out who the mystery extra £1k belonged to.

At the same time, Simon had asked Rob to clarify that it was going to be reentry. Keith, the only bettor present at the time, said something like "hold on, what's that about?", Rob said "there was nothing in the bet that said I couldn't do reentries. Either I can do reentries or the bet is off". Keith said he wasn't too sure about it but he would be ok with it if the others were, so Rob turned to me again and asked me to tell the others that either reentries were allowed or the bet was off.

So, sometime in the following week, I spoke to Cos on skype, got him to clarify that he had £1k of action and asked if he knew who had the rest (he couldn't say for sure). Then I told him about Rob's terms and that there were to be reentries allowed and Cos said "No way, tell Rob x, y and z" and it was at this point that I realised I really didn't want to be caught in the middle of this. However, since Cos had said in no uncertain terms that he wasn't going to include reentries I didn't see the point of chasing Dan and Luke separately. I then didn't see Rob for a week or so after this which adds to the problem because now Simon's deadline for the marketing brochure was very close. I told Rob that Cos had said "no reentries" and Rob said "well that's it then the bet is off". And that is where my involvement ends.

[LFmagic]

Much appreciated James, cleared a few things up already. Will respond later this evening.

[DMorgan]

Likewise James, thanks for clearing this up.

I told Rob that Cos had said "no reentries" and Rob said "well that's it then the bet is off".

This is what my maiin gripe is about - you can't just change the terms of the bet and call it off when the other side doesn't accept the change in terms. Everyone that was at that table when the bet was made (which is Myself, Rob, James, Luke, Cos, Mitch, Keith and Paul Grummit as far as I can remember) can attest that re-entries were at no point mentioned and neither was an escrow, which is why the bet should stand.

The communication thing is not a non-issue in my opinion because the heart of the matter is that Rob tried to change the terms and call it off when the change was not accepted. Even if there was no requested change in terms and the lone reason for cancellation was lack of communication from our side - that is still on Rob because he cant just expect an unrelated third party to send the messages back and forth and claim no liability when messages don't get through. I see no reason why myself, Cos, Keith or Luke should be penalised for this.