Host can't pay out everyone, what to do? (38 Viewers)

[Rhodeman77]

I will provide some more context as to why the OP was made.

I made the OP to get feedback from others about how to handle the situation, to see what the hive may have thought. The details were changed somewhat to keep it from being obvious to those in the know already. I didn't include any names to keep bias out and to get honest responses for a situation none of us had been in before.

Getting a reply from Ken like he made now, earlier would have been awesome! The post was also to serve as a warning for people that may end up in a game run on good faith when all they had been used to was cash. And I think that was accomplished.

To give context to their mindset and how David & Jay run games I will share this. When Covid shut everything down David's local home game group was playing on the pokerrrrr2 app and I was invited to play in their private club, a rake free game. We kept track of the wins/losses and had to settle up once per week. This worked fine for a little while until one of the group members couldn’t pay. I was a winner that week and messaged David to see why I hadn’t received a payment yet. He filled me in on what was going on. He and a few of the core players all pitched in and paid the winners. That player was obviously removed from the group and to make sure it didn’t happen again the group was moved to a Mavens server, and we all had to deposit money to play. So, David has been in almost the same circumstance and felt it was his obligation to make sure I, as the outsider to their regular group was paid quickly. While that game was not as big, it was still a week’s worth of $1/2 PLO/BigO losses, so it was a decent chunk of money.

I think Jay and David both realize they should have asked a lot more questions about how the game was run and especially how payouts would work. They came from a game of all cash and made assumptions based on that. Goldfish should have also communicated better how the game was run especially to new people coming from out of town to play in what they thought was a smaller home game than he normally runs. Hopefully they and everyone reading this thread will get something positive from it. I never intended this as an attack at Goldfish and am sorry it came across that way.

 

[elemeno]

I will provide some more context as to why the OP was made.

I made the OP to get feedback from others about how to handle the situation, to see what the hive may have thought. The details were changed somewhat to keep it from being obvious to those in the know already. I didn't include any names to keep bias out and to get honest responses for a situation none of us had been in before.

Getting a reply from Ken like he made now, earlier would have been awesome! The post was also to serve as a warning for people that may end up in a game run on good faith when all they had been used to was cash. And I think that was accomplished.

To give context to their mindset and how David & Jay run games I will share this. When Covid shut everything down David's local home game group was playing on the pokerrrrr2 app and I was invited to play in their private club, a rake free game. We kept track of the wins/losses and had to settle up once per week. This worked fine for a little while until one of the group members couldn’t pay. I was a winner that week and messaged David to see why I hadn’t received a payment yet. He filled me in on what was going on. He and a few of the core players all pitched in and paid the winners. That player was obviously removed from the group and to make sure it didn’t happen again the group was moved to a Mavens server, and we all had to deposit money to play. So, David has been in almost the same circumstance and felt it was his obligation to make sure I, as the outsider to their regular group was paid quickly. While that game was not as big, it was still a week’s worth of $1/2 PLO/BigO losses, so it was a decent chunk of money.

I think Jay and David both realize they should have asked a lot more questions about how the game was run and especially how payouts would work. They came from a game of all cash and made assumptions based on that. Goldfish should have also communicated better how the game was run especially to new people coming from out of town to play in what they thought was a smaller home game than he normally runs. Hopefully they and everyone reading this thread will get something positive from it. I never intended this as an attack at Goldfish and am sorry it came across that way.

Have a few questions to a few people that made good posts.

@Rhodeman77 why did you decide to reveal the parties involved?

@Goldfish @kk405 like others, I switched from host should bear the burden to winners/everyone absorb delinquencies pro rata. That said, do out-of-towners or special one-time guests get different treatment? For example, if some Hollywood producer attends a high stakes private NY game, wins, but a NY regular doesn’t pay, what would/should happen?

 

[Rhodeman77]

Have a few questions to a few people that made good posts.

@Rhodeman77 why did you decide to reveal the parties involved?

@Goldfish @kk405 like others, I switched from host should bear the burden to winners/everyone absorb delinquencies pro rata. That said, do out-of-towners or special one-time guests get different treatment? For example, if some Hollywood producer attends a high stakes private NY game, wins, but a NY regular doesn’t pay, what would/should happen?

Because there are some other players on this forum that play in pretty significant sized games like @doublebooyah85 that I know had been invited to also play at Goldfish’s game. I also know he normally plays with cash in/ cash out and didn’t want to chance someone else having a similar experience without having all of the information available to them.

 

[doublebooyah85]

What can I say, I get invited to games!

 

[kk405]

Have a few questions to a few people that made good posts.

@Rhodeman77 why did you decide to reveal the parties involved?

@Goldfish @kk405 like others, I switched from host should bear the burden to winners/everyone absorb delinquencies pro rata. That said, do out-of-towners or special one-time guests get different treatment? For example, if some Hollywood producer attends a high stakes private NY game, wins, but a NY regular doesn’t pay, what would/should happen?

No one gets a special treatment in my game. A non-paying dead beat is a non-paying dead beat, whether it’s his first time playing or been playing for 10 years. The only difference might be that I would give a benefit of a doubt to someone I’ve known for a long time and has always been paying … and try to collect for a much longer period of time … a newbie who decides not to pay after one game isn’t likely to pay, and it’s very likely I would declare the debt non-collectible earlier. Honestly, given the stakes involved, there are lots of nuances. One size does not fit all and not all games are managed the same way.

 

[kk405]

I used to host low stakes. Now I host medium stakes. The only difference is that most players buy in with $100 bills instead of $20s.

Same amount of paper. Same security precautions.

Where I live the people who might theoretically rob me would think a $900 was a big score. Making it $9,000 doesn't really change anything. Such criminals are desperate (typically heroin addicts) and (typically) very stupid.

In other words... If I thought armed robbery were a real concern, I wouldn't host any stakes of any size.

But I have a difficult-to-find and forbidding location; lots of cameras; players who could handle themselves in a tense situation; a trooper barracks not far away; and a game whose time, place and very existence are only known to a few people whose contacts are in my address book.

Realistically I'm more likely to get mugged in a parking lot than at my home. Sure, anything could happen. But in the universe of risks I tolerate, my game getting robbed is very low on the list.

Every time I get in my car (which is roughly 20+ times a week) I have a real chance of dying, given the idiotic ways other people drive. We can drive defensively but this is still by far the most dangerous thing most of us do. Hosting 20 games a year does not come close, risk-wise.

That’s great and it works for certain size games. But based on my experience, not in games that are 10x bigger and run twice a week for 50 weeks a year, or games that are 100x bigger, run once a week for 40 weeks a year. Dynamics of those games are just very very different.

 

[Rhodeman77]

No one gets a special treatment in my game. A non-paying dead beat is a non-paying dead beat, whether it’s his first time playing or been playing for 10 years. The only difference might be that I would give a benefit of a doubt to someone I’ve known for a long time and has always been paying … and try to collect for a much longer period of time … a newbie who decides not to pay after one game isn’t likely to pay, and it’s very likely I would declare the debt non-collectible earlier. Honestly, given the stakes involved, there are lots of nuances. One size does not fit all and not all games are managed the same way.

He meant the other way around, a one timer/out of towner shows up and wins big and the regular doesn’t pay. Are they treated the same way as the rest of the regulars, expected to eat a % of the deadbeat debt.