if this blog has something todo with ram playing golf with phil and ram losing 900k during Aussie millions at capital golf course.
I talked with Ram that evening after it happened ~ it was the same day (jan 13th) that erik won a 400k pot with AQ in the side game.

Ram's issue is that Phil's partner was/is a semi pro.

marc goodwin wrote an article on his side of the story a couple of months ago on blondepoker.com

on the blondepoker home page scroll down and go to news archives his article is on page 9 under the heading "ivey the hustler?"

http://www.blondepoker.com/index.php?q=node/7225

there is the link.

there is a little more to it then what is being reported !

i talked to Ram maybe 5 hours after golfing with Phil and lets just say it doesnt look good on phil

Of course Ram's side doesn't make Phil look good. As I'm sure Phil's side of the story doesn't make Ram look good.

I forget all the details of this and don't feel like rereading things but if I remember correctly most if not all the participants were upset after the front nine but still continued on or came back later and played the back nine at the same stakes.

If they felt they were being hustled than why play the back nine? Why not leave? It sounds like the were upset but were to stuborn and felt they could "get even". If you are being hustled and feel strongly as though this is the case you stop the competition right there, you don't continue on with the intent to either get lucky or refuse to settle your debt.

So, it appears that all of the players are Phil Ivey, his partner (any guesses?) vs Ram Vaswani (Mar Wasvani) and (Clark Badmin). My guess for Clark's real name is Ross Boatman. This makes sense since both Ross and Ram are both Hendon Mob & Full Tilt guys. Pretty pathetic that they haven't paid. If you agree to make a bet and lose you have nobody to blame but yourself even if you were hustled. Use it as a lesson to never let it happen again. Back in Doyle's earlier days those two would be pushing up daisy's by now. I hope the gambling community ostracizes them from future bets until they settle up.

Clark Badmin is Marc Goodwin.

Well this is clearly an issue where none of us, and I mean NON, can really tell who's right or wrong, we weren't there and no one except the guys on the course will probably know exactly what happened.

Yeah that makes way too much sense now that I look at it. My educated guess was pretty bad except for maybe the Hendon Mob connection.

lol well i did say heres "marc goodwins" responce

Ok, so they claim they shouldn't have given Phil 10 shots, but they lost 14 holes.

So does this mean, being men of honour, they have paid up for the 4 holes they feel they should have lost by and are just haggling over the rest?

In my experience Phil was asking for trouble gambling with a Double glazing salesman from the West Midlands.....

from what i know ram and marc have been mates with phil for yrs - playing golf all over the world together for big money. wasnt just a one off where he bimped into a an ex double glazing salesman on the course and they had a round

You got me again Daniel. I thought to myself I had know idea Daniel could become such a douchebag welching on a bet he agreed on. Those guys should have walked off the course as soon as they got to the point where they couldnt afford to pay instead of burying themselves deeper. In gambling your word is your credit and these guys are bankrupt. Even if they pay a portion of what they owe they should never be trusted again.

I agree, and I think this why we'll see them either make the full payment or nothing (I'd bet on nothing). Although I'd think 1.8M is the type of money 'someone' might consider sending a collector over.

these guys have money both are multi millionaires made from poker and sports betting. they have the money they just chose not to pay it for resons stated in the article that marc goowin wrote. although id say theres abit more too it than both sides have said. everything will be settled one way or another when they all meet up for the $25k tourney at the bellagio this month

I think based on what Goodwin wrote in that article, anyone who claims they owe Ivey ANYTHING is being ridiculous. Lying about your handicap destroys any previous agreements they had, and the fact that they chose to continue the game despite losing badly (probably to gain even) is not a reason for them to pay. They were under the impression at the time that something was fishy but they still didnt know the Lindgren doesn't give any shots to Ivey.

Seeing as Goodwin is the only real part involved in this incident to speak out and share their version of events, I think he is the one we should believe now and that him and Vaswani owe Ivey nothing.

There's a difference between hustling or angleshooting and actually LYING. Ivey crossed the line assuming Goodwin's account is accurate.

That was not his issue.

There is a huge difference between sandbagging and being a sandbagger. One is completely acceptable in the poker world the other is completely frowned upon in the golfing world.
I doubt that Ivey would stoop that low on the golf course but hey I don't know the guy and have to rely on all the incredibly positive things other pro's say about him. If he was being a sandbagger then I wouldn't pay him either BUT....

1) People can have 'the round of their life" on any given day
2) If they are used to playing him and saw that he was playing better than normal, why keep playing and betting?

If #2 is accurate then I still say they don't have a case against not paying off the bet.

Its funny, because i don't ever see Phil or more importantly Erik, making any public comments about this situation. So i'm thinking this is just gonna go in circles until it dies.

thing is, even DN has posted that Ivey's game has improved a ton. by not telling them his real handicap to gain an edge is pretty low class.

If you spend 3 months practicing and recieving the finest coaching - BUT DO NOT PLAY AN ACTUAL ROUND OF GOLF - your handicap remains the same. His "real" handicap would have been his handicap BEFORE he improved, with absolutely no way to get a new one without logging many more rounds. He only has the handicap, or the "strokes given" from any matches played previus to his improvement.

If you agree to a bet, even if you decide better of it later BUT keep playing, you only have yourself to blame for not speaking up sooner. And it's on you to make good or risk permanent reputation damage.

Gonna be interesting to see how this one plays out

Even if Ivey lied, which is not the case at all, you could call him a scumbag, call him a hustler, call him whatever... but you'd still owe the money. Plain and simple. Ivey didn't lie though, not at all. At the time they played their match Lindgren did give him 10 shots. After that match, Ivey improved so much that he beat Erick repeatedly, so Ivey "threw him a bone" and played him a round even. This was AFTER the match with those two!

One other thing: Phil told me they played terrible, well below their average. They didn't make even one 10 foot putt, and Phil was winning holes with 6's and 7's. When you play worse than your average and the other guy putts like a machine, you are supposed to lose.

A response may be coming

http://www.thehendonmob.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13816

this is really about the difference between gambling on games of pure skill and games that involve luck.

the reason that gus hansen can't make a living gambling on backgammon, tiger woods can't make a living gambling on golf, michael jordan can't make a living gambling on basketball, kasparov can't make a living gambling on chess, efrin reyes can't make a living gambling on pool, is that in games of pure skill it is so obvious when somone is better than you that they either have to lie about their strength or deliberately play badly in order to get a game. (the only exception to this is if your opponent is so rich they don't mind losing the money [read: Jerry Buss] or such a degenerate gambler that they can't help themselves).

In my view, if Ivey said that Lindgren gives him 10 strokes when he actually gets 0 his actions are unfair and it is totally reasonable to cancel the debt.

In poker, as in other games involving a significant amount of luck, the advantage that you have is that your strength is wildly masked: you can play a much weaker opponent and he may win multiple sessions for huge sums of money, and he doesn't realize that in the long run he has almost no chance of winning.

This is what the pros did to Andy Beal before he recognized his relative incompetence.

Wow another week more controversy.....seems like some people never quite make it out of high school.

Honestly DN...what the FU.CK are you doing getting involved in this? Why expose a feud which doesn't even involve you? I've stated it before: you desparately need a publicist. Phil is a big boy and can handle himself.

what I find funny is this was beat to death on 2+2 a few months ago.

btw, note to Daniel:

I'm surprised you wrote about this in your blog for a couple of reasons:

1) this is a private matter

2) you were not there

3) you don't have all the facts

4) you are an ambassador for the game, and as such I'm sure you realize that the worst thing for poker at this point is to connect poker with immoral, disreputable, or unfair actions. given the state of online poker and the public perception of televised poker, it is really bad for professional players to be perceived as "hustlers" or "thiefs".

as per the comment above daniel, if you want to contact me about working as your publicist send me a PM

I have some good ideas about how to manage your public persona

these are the terms I propose for fiscal year 2007:

$40k salary + 1% of your tournament winnings for the year

this is a proposal, so i am open to negotiating the terms

#1 - Delete blog.

What the FU CK are you doing commenting on him commenting on something that you have nothing to do with? This is verly likely an issue that had been discussed over dinner the other night thus making it something on his mnd and an interesting commentary. Its not like he is outing an issue that was unknown. This is has been written about countless times online.

I wrote about this in defense of Ivey's who's name has been dragged through the mud in a blog written by Goodwin. Also, there's been lots of negative things posted about Ivey in relation to this stuff, and it's completely unfair. Ivey knew I was writing the blog and was in favor of it. Ivey doesn't post on the internet, but heard all of the negative stuff being said about him, and gave me the ok to tell his side of the story.

It ceased to be a private matter when Goodwin went public with it. I wasn't there, but have had detailed conversations with Ivey about it and he gave me his side of the story.

It would make sense that if Ivey TRULY cared, he would've called up his web-techies and put up his response. Why would he ask you to do it on your site? I very much see this as you wanted to do this from the start...so you called up Phil and told him...he said "sure"

It's funny how people never change. Junior highers-adults. Posting complaints on the web through other friends...i mean seriously...this is LAUGHABLE. My respect for all parties involved is dropping like a mother freaker. Why can't these "men" just call each other directly and settle this?

If it wasn't a hustle, they owe the money. If they don't pay, I'm pretty sure that, that reputation will black ball them from any other friendly wagers.

DN, no more controversy.....lets go make some beer!

Hope ya had a good Easter too

Irony Meter = 98%

Ivey has tried calling them to no avail. He even went to Europe to discuss it in person. As for me doing this for Ivey, he specifically asked me to. He was upset that people were writing lies about him and asked me to blog it since he knows my blog has a wide audience.

What cracks sometimes is the rude tone of some of you critics. Right or wrong, controversial or not, intelligent or absurd....IT'S DANIELS BLOG. If you don't like it or are so offended by it ... don't read it.

Debate, discuss, dissagree, what ever. It's all good suff imo. But the tone above Irish...man dude.

Would you have the stones to say that to Daniels face?

Does anyone just not picture Ivey doing anything like this? I just don't think he is that type of person. Since I was not there and don't know all the stories, there is no way of knowing the complete truth, but if I was just guessing, I would say that Ivey wouldn't do something like this and these guys are just trying to cover their asses because of the large amount of money owed.

It will be interesting to see what happens.

Can we please go one blog discussion without a DN-Hater posting retarded comments.

Just once, is all I ask

I guess thats a no on making beer.

Even you have to concede a little on this one Iowa, so far i've only seen posts from friends of those involved. If this situation is so inflammatory, maybe those involved should settle it. In DN's blog however, I dont recall names being mentioned. So i'm not condemning his blog by any means, its just now that its snowballed into friends posting for friends when it seems to me a resolution is a lot easier than sparring via forums. They gotta know each others phone numbers. Pick up the phones (those involved) and get it settled, thats option one. Or, you can type dissertations on forums and look more and more childish.

I find this whole thread utterly stupid. Nothing good is going to come from any of this unless we get statements directly from the parties involved. Nobody here knows the whole facts, including DN. He only knows what Phil has told him, and while I'm not calling Phil a liar, everyone embellishes the story a little bit when seeking sympathy from a friend. I just think that any resolve must come between the parties involved, and not through word of mouth.

If phil has tried to contact them and they will not talk to him about it, then shame on them, but asking someone else to post a blog about it, is just a waste of time, as it will accomplish nothing, but cause more rumors.

QFT

Gotta give DN credit tho, he really knows how to light a fire with an innocent blog that i'm pretty sure made no mention of names....I'm kinda wondering where the name drop came from. Its a firestorm now tho.

EDIT: I stand corrected, I guess I overlooked the names since they didn't mean anything to me...and I spose coulda assumed he was talking about P I as well since it had to do with golf, in the end I don't really care. It effects my life |-| <---that much.

Lol yes DN has a way of causing some heated debates with a simple blog.

anyways, hopefully they (parties involved) use the groundbreaking technology afforded to us human beings (a phone) and settle this matter.

As for me, time to go destroy some UB micros!

I'll assume you're joking... a 4 year old could have worked out who he was talking about.

Mar Wasvani and Clark Badmin


not to hard to figure out. high schoolish at best, more like middle school.

Is that true? If so, could you explain a little more please? Because it seems to me if the terms of the arrangement were fraudulent that would nullify the "contract".

I think they should just come to some kind of middle ground. Maybe only pay half of the amount owed(or some other reasonable amount), or agree to nullify the whole thing.

However, in Ivey's case and it was true that they took 300k from him and now refuse to pay him his winnings, I could see where the problem lies. Whole situation seems fishy. Someone is being dishonest about what happened.

Hope we see some kind of conclusion though.