I assume that the point being made is that the Grinder at one point was sponsored by Absolute Poker, meaning he has some sort of inside knowledge about the superuser scandal.

please educate us with some factual, checkable details. how do we know you’re not just some scorned gay lover throwing out potentially libelous accusations?

But unlike some of my fellow Sox fans, I also like the Cubs. I dislike them 6 times a year, when they play the Sox. (no matter which one has a better record).

Ed, sorry about the financial loss. I don’t take the blame for that. Blame the Houston pitching staff. (or maybe someone was cheating, like using one of Sammy Sosa’s old corked bats)

Dan, this is a new era…we would find em…and video tape the beating so we could put it on youtube.

Oh and glad I got “in” when the jerseys (jersies?) were still available. This baby will be worth some money one day when you are in prison really rich and have a site as cool as Poker News.

I’ve got far too many t-shirts as it is, and I’m about to take another load of old clothes to Goodwill. I’ll just wait 12 years for the BJ Nemeth/Pokerati jersey.

For real though, I think our jersey makers are closing up shop, so not many new ones to be made — http://sadlerandcarterpoker.com — and for whatever reason, there aren’t any more BJ Nemeth Pokerati jerseys left on their clearance racks.

We do have t-shirts, however, and patches … and even a couple Wicked Chops Poker shirts to send.

If a problem existed that *did* affect the readers, then you should publicly tell them what the problem was, and how you handled it. Fro example, if someone from Atlanta (cough, cough) was editing readers’ comments to make them look like offensive idiots, then you should warn them of the problem, solve the problem, and then tell them how you solved the problem.

Now, what’s this about t-shirts? I asked for a Pokerati jersey, but have heard nothing but silence.

While it would only be a matter of time before Ed and Kevin Mathers found the criminal behavior and reported it to yours truly, do I need to put up a post informing the public of the shenanigans, or would it be fine and dandy if we just took care of any executions on our own, with the public being none the wiser that we had some internal problems, which now have most likely been fixed?

To me, how they handled the cheating scandal is the *primary* issue.

I don’t demand perfection from companies, but I do demand a certain level of trust. If UB/Absolute had discovered these problems on their own, and made immediate efforts to investigate and set things right, that would definitely have changed my perception of the situation. Instead, they denied everything as long as they could, and none of their efforts since have given the informed poker public much confidence.

Mistakes happen. Scandals happen. Assholes happen. It’s how a company handles those things that sets them apart (either for better or for worse).

This is a great point, too. How different would people feel about UB/AP if their representatives were aggressively seeking to prosecute the offenders, instead of protect them? What if Annie Duke were out there not just saying Russ Hamilton is no longer part of the company (is she even saying that?) but was riding his ass hard about criminal activities, even though current law may or may not cover that?

***my 1919 White Sox***
your 1919 White Sox, Uncle Ray? Can you really say that when your parents weren’t even born yet in 1919? It also makes me kinda wonder … had it been a 1919 Cubs scandal, would you be more likely to be a Wrigley Field kinda guy?

Now I get it — in most of these cases, the “beneficiaries” are outside the gameplay. Fair point. You’ve definitely encouraged me to rework it using actual cheating-to-win scandals. (But that might have to wait until next Monday.)

I was also going to point out that with the exception of my 1919 White Sox, everybody still played to win, just not by as much as they were expected to.

I look forward to a discussion of the cheaters, because their actions are more closely like those who cheat in poker games, at the expense of other players, and as you point out, with the complicity of their organizations, teams and fellow players.