Cash Game Am I wrong to ask a player to pay for their referral who didn't pay up? (2 Viewers)

just find a semi professional alcoholic in Dallas to hold $40k for a group of internet poker friends.

Hey @CraigT78, know anyone like that?
Semiprofessional alcoholic? That doesn't ring any bells.

Now if you are looking for a full blown alcoholic with a shiny new whip, with WCPR license plates - yeah, I know a guy.
 
It always the host or the banker who deal with the chip that hold responsible for any shortfall of money, it will happen once in awhile when u inv public to join your home game, this is ultimately a game that involve money. Paying upfront for chip is a good practice that everyone should do.

ps usually in game where shortfall happen the winner will help to chip in abit to cover the shortfall, and also if any public first joiner is super eager to leave after the first one to cash out it is a red flag close the door and make sure all is tally before releasing that guy I learn the lesson the hard way first time round
 
Over time, members of our club have also started playing in other clubs. One club in particular is a full blown, 600 person club with raked games running a variety of stakes. One of our members reached out to John, who is known to play in other clubs like these, and said something to the tune of "Hey -- our game is getting more difficult to run regularly bc players have started dropping, are there any players in the other club that would be GREAT for the game?" In other words, who are the biggest fish with the deepest pockets?

John then said he knew the perfect person, and asked Fish to play with us one night. We didn't question John about Fish, and trusted that he would only refer someone he was confident was trustworthy and financially stable.

I haven't read the other replies yet.

Based on what you've said here, it doesn't sound to me like you asked John to vouch for Fish financially or to backstop his unpaid losses, and it doesn't sound like you expressed to him that you expected him to do so.

If there was never anything explicitly stated about it, then no, I would not expect John to cover Fish. If you had asked me to find new players because your game was drying up, and did not explicitly discuss with me that I would be on the hook to cover them, then like John I would not cover them. My view would be - you asked me to find new players, I found you new players; I did what you asked me to, and the rest is on you.

I'm sorry that there's been a rift in your game over this miscommunication. Perhaps it can be repaired. Best of luck to you all.
 
I agree with the consensus. John should not be on the hook. Out in the "real world" the U.S. Constitution expressly prohibits the making of ex post facto laws. In the poker room you should adopt the same stance. You can make a new rule that going forward the inviting member will be on the hook--but it's just not ethical to enforce that retroactively.

I would go even one step further. I think you owe John an apology. He did you all a solid by bringing in this fish.
 
So we start the chain with:
“TL;DR: I host a 1/2 NL online game on pokerrr2 and, recently, a player, let's call him Fish, lost $800 and refused to pay at the end of the night on the grounds that he felt "players were cheating" (in reality, he was just the worst player I've ever seen). He was invited to the game by an existing member, let's call him John. Should John be required to pay the $800?”

My thought at this point is that John has no liability beyond possibly the first buy-in, buts thats being charitable to @rjdev7. However, @rjdev7 running the game has an obligation to mitigate his damages, and cannot keep expending credit to fish and expect anyone, including John, to back their potential loss to bad credit. Nothing seems right about that.

Then I read forty posts in: “One last point of evidence, that I neglected to share. Fish played once in the past, lost $700 and DID pay up. This is why I ultimately thought he was good for it when John brought them back.

Lesson learned though, I will collect payment for each buy in for new players moving forward. Thanks all!”

This changes everything, and if included up front might have generated more support for John. You played with Fish before, and based on you prior experience decided to extend credit. This has nothing to do with John. This has everything to do with the host making bad decisions.

It reminds me of a situation I had in third grade:
Me, to my teacher: Thomas just hit me
Teacher: Why did he hit you?
Me: I knee’d him in the nuts
Teacher: Seems like you got what you deserved

I don’t feel charitable to the host in this situation, and if I were John, I wouldn’t play at host’s game again.
 
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This story keeps evolving...
One of our members reached out to John, who is known to play in other clubs like these, and said something to the tune of "Hey -- our game is getting more difficult to run regularly bc players have started dropping, are there any players in the other club that would be GREAT for the game? In other words, who are the biggest fish with the deepest pockets?

John then said he knew the perfect person, and asked Fish to play with us one night. We didn't question John about Fish, and trusted that he would only refer someone he was confident was trustworthy and financially stable. ... We didn't question John about Fish, and trusted that he would only refer someone he was confident was trustworthy and financially stable.
I should have mentioned this. I did start by asking John if he could work with Fish to get payment, and he agreed. But then Fish basically told John to f*ck off (hence where we learned he felt we were all cheating).
One last point of evidence, that I neglected to share. Fish played once in the past, lost $700 and DID pay up. This is why I ultimately thought he was good for it when John brought them back.
So somebody (apparently not you) asked John to bring you a fish. John obliged. You didn't question John about the fish, not because you trusted John to fully vet the guy first, but BECAUSE YOU ALREADY KNEW THE FISH!!!!

You didn't say to John "Hey John, thanks for the fish, but if it turns out the fish is rotten, you are on the hook" (sorry for the fish pun).

No, YOU made the decision to lend the fish a bunch of money to gamble with (what could possibly go wrong?), presumably because YOU ALREADY KNEW THE FISH, and then kept lending him more BECAUSE YOU SAW THE FISH PAY UP PREVIOUSLY.

You asked John to try to get the fish to pay up, and John seems to have made an effort to do so.

Then you had the chutzpah to expect John to cover the fish's debt, because (at the request of one of your players) he asked the fish WHO ALREADY PLAYED IN YOUR GAME to come and play again.

Why don't you ask the player who asked John to find a fish to pay up instead? Seems to make about as much sense.

I suppose if John had gone down to a homeless shelter, and brought back some random homeless dude, then maybe (MAYBE) you might have a point. But no, all he did (at the request of your group) was contact a player WHO YOU ALREADY KNEW and invited him back for more.

This is probably judgemental, and maybe there is more to the story (important details seem to keep being added on at random intervals), but it seems that there are two douche-bags in this story, and sorry but John isn't one of them.

(You know the story - bring a man a fish, you feed him for a day, unless the man chokes on the fish, in which case you are on the hook for the man's hospital bills and lost income..)
 
I sure would not invite this guy back.... someone who comes to a game bets over $800 of money he doesn't even put down and walks away on the debt from was using that "play front money" to theoretically try to win large sums of your real money. How much of your real money would he have walked away with? Why not go all-in with a pair of 4's when your playing for free. Drunk or not that player is an absolute jerk and I'd be having a serious chat with the person who brought them as to whether they were involved in trying to scheme something or had they just made a mistake with a tool. Don't even get me started on the bring a friend and them seemingly battling it out all night to drive up the pots and statistically earn money on players folding, later splitting the earning on an unraked game. Be alert to those that can be wise to a game as a means to gain money over social fun and use discretion on who is invited to your home games.

As a rule though, no cash no chips....Period. No loans no credit from the house. I like the rule physical cash as well....I don't want 10+ paypal/EMT transactions to deal with nor do I want to be responsible for service fee's etc...


As to whether your "friend" owes the debt of his friend.......well..... Is he a friend of yours or is he a friend of his..... If he is a friend of his then its his problem....
problems and solutions can be found in this educational documentary as seen in preview here.
 
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I feel very sorry for poor John
Not sure if you’re kidding, but John’s mistake was inviting a fish who already owed John $300. John knew that and if the debt was the result of poker, likely knew how Fish’s night was going to end, so I’m not sure what outcome John was expecting or hoping for.

If Fish’s debt to John was outside of poker, John might have hoped that Fish would win enough to pay his original debt.

either way though, the system is broken and that’s not on John.

Molly had the same issue in her game, but it was more pleasant to watch than this thread...
 
Was thinking this exact thing. Player that lost is responsible for his own debt but should be pissed as hell that he was invited to what sounds like a bunch of guys that probably play soft against each other and prey on the new guy.
I can assure you won't don't play soft against each other. It's a 1/2 game and we see 5-6k on the table each game over 5-6 hours.
 
John then said he knew the perfect person, and asked Fish to play with us one night. We didn't question John about Fish, and trusted that he would only refer someone he was confident was trustworthy and financially stable.

One last point of evidence, that I neglected to share. Fish played once in the past, lost $700 and DID pay up. This is why I ultimately thought he was good for it when John brought them back.
No one else finds this strange? That's a really odd detail to leave out of the OP.
 
Sorry, I don’t understand the question in the context of this thread.
ah sorry my post didn't capture the response above.... poster aluded to the OP playing with Fish.......

rjdev7 said:
John then said he knew the perfect person, and asked Fish to play with us one night. We didn't question John about Fish, and trusted that he would only refer someone he was confident was trustworthy and financially stable.

rjdev7 said:
One last point of evidence, that I neglected to share. Fish played once in the past, lost $700 and DID pay up. This is why I ultimately thought he was good for it when John brought them back.
No one else finds this strange? That's a really odd detail to leave out of the OP.
 
Not sure if you’re kidding, but John’s mistake was inviting a fish who already owed John $300. John knew that and if the debt was the result of poker, likely knew how Fish’s night was going to end, so I’m not sure what outcome John was expecting or hoping for.

If Fish’s debt to John was outside of poker, John might have hoped that Fish would win enough to pay his original debt.

either way though, the system is broken and that’s not on John.

Molly had the same issue in her game, but it was more pleasant to watch than this thread...
Not kidding at all. John wasn't looking for a player. He was asked if he knew anyone and said yes. Plus they guy had already played before.

Moral of the story seems to be that if anyone asks you for a favour, don't help them out because you might be on the hook.
 
@hjdev7 You’re focusing on short term $800 problem. Has anyone considered the consequences of the “fish” (or John for that matter) dropping a dime on the game? Regular game settling illegal gambling debts (maybe large amounts of money over time?). I know that COVID necessity has driven games to this technology, but realize that there are other things you are also trusting folks to do in this circumstance.
My question is that once COVID is past, does anyone keep doing this online stuff?
 
Fish is definitely a dead-beat...but the loose rules enabled him to reload over and over.
As soon as Fish realized he could keep reloading with no commitment, he just kept at it.
I’ll bet he wouldn’t have run it up anything close to $800 if he had to pay up front.
 
I’ll bet he wouldn’t have run it up anything close to $800 if he had to pay up front.
That’s an interesting point. I wonder if that is part of the reason why that policy was in place. Assuming people actually pay up, it’s a pretty hood deal for the game, getting maximum money on the table. It’s almost predatory though.
 
The juice should be running on that $800 . Think back to 80 boxes of ziti on Sopranos. Never played in a game where you dont put the money up to get chips. This must be a millennial thing right ?
 
Nobody pays in advance in online games between “friends” (ie. Non-raked games), that’s just not realistic. Always a mechanism for settling up. As has been said, the organizer(s) needed stronger/clear rules for HOW this settling up process will take place (it’s basically the single most important thing to clarify & agree on in this context).
 
Nobody pays in advance in online games between “friends” (ie. Non-raked games), that’s just not realistic. Always a mechanism for settling up. As has been said, the organizer(s) needed stronger/clear rules for HOW this settling up process will take place (it’s basically the single most important thing to clarify & agree on in this context).
Welp, I play fairly regularly on a site where the guy maintains accounts, so yes, everybody plays in advance.
I’ve played online tournaments with four other groups this year, and with each one, people were expected to pay before, or in the early stages of the tournament.

So I, for one, have never played online where the cash is all settled up later.
 
Welp, I play fairly regularly on a site where the guy maintains accounts, so yes, everybody plays in advance.
I’ve played online tournaments with four other groups this year, and with each one, people were expected to pay before, or in the early stages of the tournament.

So I, for one, have never played online where the cash is all settled up later.
 

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