Mancikaa's live tourney blog - Concord Million Subjektiv

I don't know Ash personally nor even talked to him at all. If this is the reason he was permanently banned, then I think PS should seriously look into doing something about it for him. I've owned many businesses in my lifetime and I know I would NEVER treat any of my employees in this manner. Nobody deserves to be treated like this. I've even had employees stealing inventory from me and I've simply pulled them aside and given them a second chance instead of firing the person immediately.

This isn't just some small company where they release X person and no one knows about it. I think other coaches/judges should be concerned as well. I mean if I worked for someone and saw a fellow co-worker get dismissed immediately without some sort of warning for something that was very minor, I'd be worried about working for this employer.

Everyone makes mistakes. Talk to him. Tell him what his mistake was. And allow him to continue his time as a PS member/coach and if he does make the same mistake again, then boot him!

Originally posted by BrokesoBroke
I don't know Ash personally nor even talked to him at all. If this is the reason he was permanently banned, then I think PS should seriously look into doing something about it for him. I've owned many businesses in my lifetime and I know I would NEVER treat any of my employees in this manner. Nobody deserves to be treated like this. I've even had employees stealing inventory from me and I've simply pulled them aside and given them a second chance instead of firing the person immediately.

This isn't just some small company where they release X person and no one knows about it. I think other coaches/judges should be concerned as well. I mean if I worked for someone and saw a fellow co-worker get dismissed immediately without some sort of warning for something that was very minor, I'd be worried about working for this employer.

Everyone makes mistakes. Talk to him. Tell him what his mistake was. And allow him to continue his time as a PS member/coach and if he does make the same mistake again, then boot him!

Thanks for what you write, we appreciate it really. This is what I think also, that it could be arranged differently also: try to talk to the person and clear the thing. It was not like that he would have violated the rules so big time, that PS cant tell him something like this: hey man, you made something what we do not like, can you please stop it? If you weren't aweare of that you violate the rules than we tell you now, and we want to show you respect for the work you make for us so we dont global you insta without even notifying...

Originally posted by BrokesoBroke
I don't know Ash personally nor even talked to him at all. If this is the reason he was permanently banned, then I think PS should seriously look into doing something about it for him. I've owned many businesses in my lifetime and I know I would NEVER treat any of my employees in this manner. Nobody deserves to be treated like this. I've even had employees stealing inventory from me and I've simply pulled them aside and given them a second chance instead of firing the person immediately.

This isn't just some small company where they release X person and no one knows about it. I think other coaches/judges should be concerned as well. I mean if I worked for someone and saw a fellow co-worker get dismissed immediately without some sort of warning for something that was very minor, I'd be worried about working for this employer.

Everyone makes mistakes. Talk to him. Tell him what his mistake was. And allow him to continue his time as a PS member/coach and if he does make the same mistake again, then boot him!

I doubt Korn banned him. Maybe he doesn't even know or doesn't even care. The decission was made by an employee not the CEO.

About the guy:

1, if he is a member since 2006 he should know the rules (why didn't he contact the guy via PM) ?

2, When it comes to job and getting paid. 99% humans of the population have to GO AND ASK FOR THE FOQIN JOB. NOBODY WILL COME TO YOU AND ASK YOU IF YOU WANT TO WORK FOR THEM. Unless you are Usain Bolt or jungleman and few others. So i deffitenily think if this is what preturbates u mancikaa or perturbates Ash he should have just asked for the money and he would get a clear answer.

This is just my opinion regarding this issue. (i would still say the same if it's all about someone who i don't know or about my best friend).

Originally posted by BOBOsvk
2, When it comes to job and getting paid. 99% humans of the population have to GO AND ASK FOR THE FOQIN JOB. NOBODY WILL COME TO YOU AND ASK YOU IF YOU WANT TO WORK FOR THEM. Unless you are Usain Bolt or jungleman and few others. So i deffitenily think if this is what preturbates u mancikaa or perturbates Ash he should have just asked for the money and he would get a clear answer.

What the heck are you talking about? Im not involved in this in any way, but who's talking about jobs and getting paid?

Such a competent voluntary handjudge should be better taken care of

If you violate/break the rules no matter who you are IMO

You couldn't have missed the point more even if you tried

I would like to react Bobo, but I cant find the way to make it sophisticated enough, so think how you want.

Originally posted by mancikaa
I would like to react Bobo, but I cant find the way to make it sophisticated enough, so think how you want.

You can still write it and send it to me via PM so nobody else sees your opinion on me/or what i just posted. You won't be ashamed and hated for your opinion. I promise i won't show anyone.

Have a nice day.

Hello again guys,

I apologize for the delayed response here. Before I go into Ash's case, I would like to just take a minute and reflect on one thing I'm very sad to read about.

It seem to me that you guys think we're banning people from left to right. I really would like to stress out that this is not the case. At least not under my watch. Something we are working very hard on is to have a happy, healthy community and we're not power thirsty blue avatars who wakes up everyday and waits to chop heads off or needs to show off who's the boss.

This is not anybody's fault though, but you guys don't really see behind the curtains and couldn't even know for example, that a moderator hasn't got access to ban or set to RO users. They can move/copy/edit/merge on the forum and that's about it. They are also the ones who spot users on the forum and then report it to the respective Community Manager (If a user belongs to the English Community, then it would be me) and it will be looked into. Most cases we educate and there are situations where its more straight forward and permanently ban a user who violates our T&C's. And as far as I'm concerned I don't have any 18 years old moderator with such superpowers

I also can't speak on behalf of the coaching/hand judges situation because meanwhile I'm responsible for the overall Community, I don't have direct responsibility over the Education department. If there is an issue or some of you feel that you've been mistreated, please contact my colleagues because we're here to listen and improve if it needs to be. We're friendly and open minded. And we are working very hard to keep everyone happy. Regarding our education material, we do not hire new coaches to cause trouble but to appeal to our users, that seem to be one of the topic you guys mentioned earlier. Sad for me to read, you think we caused more negative feelings than positive. one thing is for sure, at least its out now and you're welcome to give us feedback anytime about any of our product/coaching material as this is something we like to take care of.

******

Now about Ash's case. I've never spoke to him before even though he seems to be a very well known member here. I of course heard about him too, but because he is currently inactive and working for one of our competitors I've never had a situation to get a closer contact, although I speak to most of his friends on a daily basis. Small world, yeah?

The unfortunate situation happened on the German Community yesterday late evening when Ash's account was disabled. This is normally a quick procedure to protect ourselves from the potential damage because most of the time this is irreversible. This is nothing personal against him. You need to imagine that we're over 270 employees and not all of my colleagues knows who Ash05 is. As an outsider, to any of my colleague he is a bronze member and posted on an illegal rakeback deal thread advising a Black Member to add him on Skype if he would like to get more information. This was not one of Ash's thread neither his blog where he was asked but a random PLO discussion thread where user asks and you have a choice to post or to not to post. It's true, he did not post a link or an offer in the actual thread but his post was suggesting that he knew this is not allowed on our forums and it will look bad obv when an employee sees this who's job is to take care of it immediately.

Looking into his case furthermore, I can see that his a voluntary hand judge and active on both the English and German forum. Very popular and knowledgeable when it comes to poker. I can also see that his working for another affiliate company as a coach.

I would like to highlight though, that our delayed contact with him regarding his globalized status was a mistake by us. I deeply apologize for this on behalf of all my colleagues.

If this would have happened on my forum, I would have probably speak to Ash myself and educate, and tell him not to ever do this again. But only because I know his history with PokerStrategy.com and I know many of my community users are friends with him/learned from him. However, This dream scenario happens 2% of the time. Most of the time our users are active on multiple communities and we're not always alarmed or asked to give opinion. In that case I would need a day to be 72h instead of 24h.

So, I could ask (what would you guys have done if this was your company and you were hired to monitor the forum and make sure that we're not harmed?) but really it doesn't matter anymore, right? The incident happened yesterday evening and today its all over the place creating all kinds of mixed feelings and discussed by everyone who doesn't have all the facts. Understandably, this is what mostly happens on the forum. discussing and sharing opinions. I tried to give you guys a full overview but I don't necessarily want to get into more details because it's a discussion which should be between the company and Ash.

I am now trying to get in touch with Ash to speak to him for the first time and see if we can come to terms and look at future options.

This is really a little bit over reacted now and my wall of text is TL,DR.

Any feedback is appreciated and you can also add me on Skype.
Ingrid

Thank you Ingrid that you had a look on the case, I think its clear booth side mistaked things, but in general it could have been solved nicer also. And than this flame dont gets on fire.

Your answer was way more professional than what your VIP support guy was giving on skype. If i was relating to some moderators than he is deffo the one.

One thing from what you wrote related to Ash05:

"posted on an illegal rakeback deal thread advising a Black Member to add him on Skype if he would like to get more information."

In the thread people were asking for help to find a sutiable site, it was just a general discussion, where mostly thoose post who are new to PLO and wants to find out where to start, and he wanted to talk to this member anyways so it was a good opportunity for him to get in touch. Yes, we know you guys started to make this service to help new players choose a room, what i dont undderstand is than if the thread was illegal, than the dear moderator/com. manager why not closed it down earlier and stop letting people post there...

But yeah, the rest i think you can talk through on skype.

I just thought I should write something since Boris (that's Bobosvk) has done his usual thing where he piles in and makes everyone think he's crazy. Some of the things that he points out in his inimitable way seem to me to be true. If you break the rules, you have to expect some comeback from whoever's enforcing them. I think it's a shame that there's some extreme reactions in this thread, and some side issues that are irrelevant (like how much hand judging somebody has done, which is ofc admirable, but beside the point). PokerStrategy is now a large, sprawling organization, and in any such organization there is scope for things to go wrong. We have to give them a reasonable chance to sort things out, and with Ingrid on the case, I'm confident that the outcome will be fair and sensible.

I want to react here for something which came from me, and you Ingrid answered.

Originally posted by IngridN
Regarding our education material, we do not hire new coaches to cause trouble but to appeal to our users, that seem to be one of the topic you guys mentioned earlier. Sad for me to read, you think we caused more negative feelings than positive. one thing is for sure, at least its out now and you're welcome to give us feedback anytime about any of our product/coaching material as this is something we like to take care of.

I personally have a lot of problem latetly with the content which goes out. First at all, I really think so that its pretty useless to post every day about Miss Pasalic. Not that i have problem with her, its just really boring to open up every day the page and this comes in the face. Could be anyone else name also. The localisation is a bit slow, or at least in my mother forum (Hungarian). Thats why back than i dedided to come to the english forum. (Damn, i will get pretty hated for this i guess that it write it down. ) Have no idea why is it slow, the german forum seems to update sometimes even earlier than the english. And than till to us comes, its like 1-2-3 day delay. I like to browse the new section because PS is really fast when it comes to post the latest/hottest things-you guys are the one who post most of the news first, Pokernews or other sites need a half day to make the same- so i would always come here to read. But when i have to scroll through a lot of useless thing, than i feel a bit tricked. I think the site could also finally make the live reporting good. I know news is not the most important on this website for PS.

Than beside it, it is very nice that you try to get some big names as a coach. But it would be way better if you would spend this money on some promotion. Or on developing the website. Like a new design, or something. I think PS worked pretty good when there wasnt any really big name here as a "video producer". But yeah, i dont know, if I would be a diamond member (which im not) who's video would attrackt me. Maybe Jungleman...

The sad thing that one of the first "big names" was Girah, who turned out to be a cheater kinda fast. Than i asked myself: these guys at PS dont read other forums, or they dont check it out who they hire? They kick out everyone from the forum who says something what you can missunderstand, but they pay for cheaters...and than really, after Girah comes Jungleman. I dont give this guy any credit, especially when he was involved with Girah kinda clearly. And with his personality I also have kinda much problem, because I think he cant show a good example for the poker players. (But yeah, i should just shut up with critisising other poker players who earned really big money since im just a bronze member here...) But one thing seems to be: he didnt really helped this site immo.

It seems a bit wierd when one thinks over how much money could go to these people for basiclly nothing. Or, lets call it marketing purpose-this is the well known "business" word. There are so many awesome coaches on this forum, I think Thomas is one of them who added the best videos, and if i want to watch something for sure i browse his stuff first. But other names i could also come up with. No need for hiring shady names. Bring a Galfond, and than the whole poker community will sign up here. But i think there are really just a very few names who would attrackt so many people. Till you get Galfond, maybe the renomé of PS should not be destroyed.

These are all just my opinion. I know im harsh sometimes, im sorry for it, i dont want to hurt anyone who works for PS because still you guys make it possible that this site is alive-respect for it ♠_thumbsup:

I tought i can troll in my own blog, noone ever reads it anyways

Originally posted by jbpatzer
I think it's a shame that there's some extreme reactions in this thread, and some side issues that are irrelevant (like how much hand judging somebody has done, which is ofc admirable, but beside the point). We have to give them a reasonable chance to sort things out, and with Ingrid on the case, I'm confident that the outcome will be fair and sensible.

Yep, i agree, the point on what i ride is that how we understand the "rules violation". Because in this case this is not so clear immo. And if its not so clear, than me -as another member of this forum- has the right to give her oppinion in her blog why it dont seems to be right. And me and Ash05 also didnt like the way this was handeld and i just wanted to tell it. Im really happy that Ingrid is so cool that she tries to help. Than maybe they also had a discussion over there and see that this just wants maybe right like this. At least not good for the viral marketing...

Originally posted by mancikaa
I tought i can troll in my own blog, noone ever reads it anyways

I have done it

Hey mancikaa, thanks for your feedback. However, I don't agree with everything you posted. Let me give it a try to try and explain it to you.

Originally posted by mancikaa
I personally have a lot of problem latetly with the content which goes out. First at all, I really think so that its pretty useless to post every day about Miss Pasalic. Not that i have problem with her, its just really boring to open up every day the page and this comes in the face.

What Ingrid meant was our educational content. As PokerStrategy.com, we are a pokerschool and we try to get everyone the best poker education we can. On top of this, we indeed have news coverage and sometimes live coverage for tournaments, however this is not what our main focus is.

Feedback here is always welcome though, and will of course be taken into consideration.

Than beside it, it is very nice that you try to get some big names as a coach. But it would be way better if you would spend this money on some promotion. Or on developing the website. Like a new design, or something. I think PS worked pretty good when there wasnt any really big name here as a "video producer".

We do already spend a lot of money on promotions and even another website is currently being developed, these things are not suffering from our spending on Poker education, where once again our main focus is.

The sad thing that one of the first "big names" was Girah, who turned out to be a cheater kinda fast. Than i asked myself: these guys at PS dont read other forums, or they dont check it out who they hire?

Unfortunately, at the time we hired Girah, it wasn't known that he was a scammer. At the time, he was just a poker protegee and a potential good video producer/coach for our website. It's sad how things went, but when the scandal was revealed we immediately let him go.

Bring a Galfond, and than the whole poker community will sign up here. But i think there are really just a very few names who would attrackt so many people. Till you get Galfond, maybe the renomé of PS should not be destroyed.

We would love to work with Galfond as well :). However, our current coaches (among which your favorite coach TwiceT) are also doing a good job and are providing excellent content that most of our members are very happy about.

These are all just my opinion. I know im harsh sometimes, im sorry for it, i dont want to hurt anyone who works for PS because still you guys make it possible that this site is alive-respect for it ♠_thumbsup:

I tought i can troll in my own blog, noone ever reads it anyways

I think it's great that you give your opinion, it's very important that we know what you think! I'll ask the guys from our news department if they can put some other pictures in their news items in the future! Any personal preferences? ♦

I happened to get to know a bit abt this incident and i think the reaction from both sides seems a bit inappropriate. I dont think there is a need for that much emotional integration. I would even define this whole thing a mere misstep or lack of conversation, but let's start w a bit of history:

I deeply respect both: pokerstrategy.com : it gave me the starting capital of 50$ and learned me how to get to beat from micros to the midstakes. The community here is by far the friendliest and wellblended imo among all of the pokerworld, i personally found many longlasting friendships which started on the forum.

and Ash, mainly as a friend who i have been in personal contact for almost ~3y now (1 of the 1st friends i got to know from pokerstrategy) and also as a very good player and ambassador of a game of poker (to my knowledge, he was the first who started to play poker among his friends and then brought TwiceT and other of his friends to play poker, not to mention all the other time he devoted to help build up a nice community on poker forums and esp here on ps) With Ash it's always a pleasure to talk to, he is 1 of the most positively-minded ppl i know of and not once have I refound the energy for poker or life after having him on skype.

From the above description u can get how surprised and dissapointed I was to hear of the collision and its aftermath.
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what i think happened (from the limited information i have):

Ash broke 1 of the main pokerstrategy.com forum rules by indirectly offering a non-pokerstrategy affiliation deal to its member. I strongly believe he was of very limited awareness of what this action might bring about, even tho that does not excuse his action. This is clearly a violation of their policy and he should not have in any manner have done this.

Pokerstrategy reacted by banning his account with very little to no delay without any notice. This certainly lacked any personal level of dealing the matter and from what i know, in the chat afterwards where Ash tried to get a more detailed explanation, he was dealt again same way: unprofessionaly, perhaps even coldly.
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This is weird. I think pokerstrategy has climbed the ladder on the poker market by mainly a very good customer service. They offer the 50$ free to everyone (this is huge when we think abt no. of all of the members) and further continue to have extremely friendly environment with unrivalled forum contents and very good educational materials which are specifically orientated to the growing level of play of the user (srsly- nowhere else u get this afaik). From my experience: what rly helped me bigtime in my microstakes-highstakes transfer over a very short period of time w help of pokerstrategy was mainly the community - 2 at the time very active and the most friendly eng cms- SoyCD and Vhallee and then ppl like TwiceT, Ash or Opal. Tbh, the content for midstakes+ NL 3years ago on pokerstrategy was rather poor compared to other educational sites (which luckily changed now -props to ps for doing a great job), so i always got the impression that what mainly distinguished pokerstrategy from other communities was the special customers care and the value of its unique community. I understand pokerstrategy is a way bigger company now that years ago and effectivity should be among its highest priorities, but I hope it is not starting to let go of its other respected assets that made it the brand it is now.

My personal wish is that both of the sides learn their certain lesson from this and shortly re-find the mutual respect for each other, perhaps by means of an improved personal debate, and that they can both continue to spread the love and passion in the circles of the game we all like so much.

thanks

For the record: Ash and Ingrid had a talk today and they seemd to find a solution for this thing. Thanks to everyone who give his opinion about it and who tried to help, thank for TwiceT to talk to Ingrid, thanks to Ingrid for the time and energy she invested, and thanks for you guys for the supportive lines.

I take of course the terrible Miss Bitch role who messed around here because she dont likes if somone with who she is involved gets hurt unfair.

And now, a threadsaver

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ok, here is a real one

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Thank you for your post Gina You're always welcome to give feedback, no matter what bugs you. Keep doing it.

and lol at the pics ♦ must be a joke

Very funny thing happend on saturday, typical stuff what you just get in live poker, online it would barely happen i guess.

Was playing 10k GTD freeroll live (made for ppl who play regulary in the same club), like a 120 ppl field was there. Kinda nice money in the pot, first gets like 2k, what a payday. Problem is just, that the structure is such a huge crapshoot that you have to luckbox a lot to get to the final table. On blinds 2000/4000 w ante 500 average stack is like 28k ♦

So, the tourney started at 3 in the afternoon, but at 7 the next tourney also starts. So, its like 5 minutes before 7 oclock, still 24 ppl left, 18 in the money, when someone brings up the topic to make a chop. After some argueing between the 24 ppl they came to a conclusion that its really the best for everyone to chop now, because like this everyone gets 420 euro, which would be the 5th place payout. So 24 ppl choped. Never tought it will happen ♦