Bond18 – Around the World in 90 Days: Day 96

Posted by Bond18 | Filed under Bond18

“So you either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”

–Harvey Dent

When I think about the entry I wrote last night I think it’s important to elaborate on a few things, especially the continuing to unfold Cornell Fiji story.

I failed to mention that Steve had a considerable hand in creating the TJ Cookier comic (though it was addressed in the post.) I originally wrote the script while relaxing in Macau then sent it off to Steve to get his input, additions, and editing. This was roughly a week before the drama began to unfold. When the thread went up and began exploding with views Steve sent me (as well as his backers) a private message doing his best to explain himself and everything that happened. I agreed not to share the exact contents of that message, though a considerable bit of it was made public with his approval.

The long and short of it was that Steve was up a small amount for his collective of backers after the WSOP. He’d returned the money to all of them but two, whose money he still had on him at the Bellagio. He then took it to the Bellagio poker room and began playing a mix of no limit and limit games for which he was under rolled. Poker led to house games which led to the sports book, which is where the bulk of the money was lost. At some point during the spree (I’m not entirely sure whether it was before, during, or after) Steve requested respected 2+2 poster Admo do a $30,000 transfer with him. Admo agreed to send the $30,000 online in exchange for an equal amount deposited in his bank account. After having lost the money at the Bellagio Steve took the money online and began playing fairly high stakes no limit hold’em online and apparently lost the majority of the money to another 2+2 poster.

After this Steve sent a message to Admo explaining what had happened and that he would begin liquidating assets in order to pay back the debt. Three weeks later and Admo hadn’t received a dime, resulting in his making the whole thing public.

The last time this sort of thing happened I was directly involved and very much the fire starter for the public portion of it. This time around I seem to be the only person close to Steve who isn’t involved. Now being outside looking in and there’s none of the anger but still plenty of disappointment.

I talked to Steve today after he sent me a PM asking to sign on. I asked him if he had anyone left ‘on his side’ so to say, the answer was no. I told him I sincerely hope he makes the whole situation right and does his best to recover everything that’s been lost. The dangerous thing about a thread like the one that’s up about Steve now is that it creates a hole so deep and crippling it becomes difficult to get out of. On top of the stress of everyone who knew you as a good guy now calling you scum, there’s the problem that if Steve attempts to get a while collar job and they run a Google search on him a thread about him stealing $50,000 will be one of the first things that comes up. The thread has totally ruined any drive he had to play poker, and grinding out a $50,000 debt starting from nothing is near impossible.

I don’t mean to write any of this as some method to defend Steve’s actions, or say that he’s getting it worse than he should. I’m not a judge and I wouldn’t pretend for a second to know what the right form of retribution or revenge is in a situation like this. Conversely, I questioned whether I should even write about the situation at all, since I don’t want to just drive more negative attention onto the situation.

A month ago Steve was practically a hero online. He’d done as much as anyone to uncover and pursue the UB scandal, resulting in millions of stolen money being repaid (there’s even been one person who says if he receives his full refund from UB he’ll pay Steve’s debt of $50,000 for him, God knows if it’s true.) When Chief Norton shot back with his lawyers Steve made a retraction statement that made Norton look downright foolish. He’d spent months in small and high stakes MTT forums responding to posters questions with detailed and polite replies.

Today Steve is as notorious and hated as anyone within the community. His months of work are all but forgotten and his name is now the butt of an endless string of jokes. It makes you think about just how careful you need to be with your reputation and actions in poker.

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