Sklansky arrested and charged with domestic battery
that spoiler image is seemingly from a Swedish poker magazine. never seen that before! strange. does anyone know in which publication it was printed?
That image had nothing to do with the unfortunate "penis on back" story. BTW, Captain Tom was a gigantic creep, and I can only imagine the skeletons in that guy's closet.
Anyway, I can't say 100% because it's been 20 years, but I believe that Full Tilt pastie image was from the Bellagio tournament where Brandi ran deep in 2006. Since she was the chipleader throughout much of the early event, she got a ton of immediate attention, and I believe she took that picture during one of the breaks.
Here's a bonus Captain Tom story, since we're strolling down memory lane.
The WSOP actually had events in August at one point. I bet most of you don't realize that. For whatever reason, the 2006 WSOP was scheduled later in the summer, thus pushing the later events well into August.
A few of the later events began after the Main. I played one of them -- a $1500 NL holdem freezeout -- and ran semi-deep. Among others still in the field were Doyle Brunson, Phil Hellmuth, and Maureen Feduniak (remember her?), who finished 2nd. Maureen was very sweet, and I hope she's still alive. She last cashed a poker tournament in December 2023.
Anyway, one other notable name at the time still in the event was "Captain" Tom Franklin. He was in his mid-50s at the time, and definitely didn't look a day younger than that. On the rail, my then-girlfriend Miri was watching me, and she ended up next to a young woman who was also railing someone. Miri asked the girl, "Are you also here watching your boyfriend play?", and the girl responded, "Oh, no, I'm watching my dad." Miri asked the girl which one was her dad, and she pointed to Captain Tom, who was at my table (which was why she and Miri were standing at the same spot on the rail).
As you guys probably know, railing the middle-late stages of a poker tournament is quite boring, so Miri started making conversation with the girl. She seemed very nervous and quiet, but she stated that she was 22 years old, and sometimes would accompany her dad to his poker tournaments. She said that she didn't play poker herself.
During one of the breaks, Miri briefly introduced me to the girl before Tom came over and the two of them walked off together. Miri said to me, "That girl is Tom's daughter. It's so nice that she comes on these trips to support him like that."
I was very short stacked at the time, busted shortly after break, and Miri and I left. The girl was still on the rail watching Tom.
I came to learn later on that this girl was not his daughter. Tom apparently had just told her to say that, in order to avoid scrutiny regarding the huge age difference, and to avoid speculation as to what was going on.
So weird.
^^That is really weird.
Also weird is this clip of Amanda DNegs interviewing Brandi. How different does Amanda look now lol. Weird though is Brandi actually states she’s working with Sklansky (2:30 mark) as like a poker coach. Obviously things soured and got fugly, for which I’ll easily blame the ~60 year-old (at the time) dirtbag.
Broken YouTube LinkAnyway, I can't say 100% because it's been 20 years, but I believe that Full Tilt pastie image was from the Bellagio tournament where Brandi ran deep in 2006. Since she was the chipleader throughout much of the early event, she got a ton of immediate [media?] attention, and I believe she took that picture during one of the breaks.
This article seems to confirm this:
. It shows the pastie shot beside this copy:
"Six months later she entered the $10,000 WPT Festa Al Lago V Championship Event at Bellagio in Las Vegas (October 16-20, 2006).
"She finished Day 2 of the star-studded event as chip leader, sending the poker industry into a frenzy.
"The fresh-faced amateur ultimately finished in 36th place, good for $20,875. A playful pic of poker’s vivacious new star holding a FullTilt patch over her breast went viral on poker forums and news sites[,] skyrocketing the 24-year-old to overnight fame."
^^That is really weird.Also weird is this clip of Amanda DNegs interviewing Brandi. How different does Amanda look now lol. Weird though is Brandi actually states she’s working with Sklansky (2:30 mark) as like a poker coach. Obviously things soured and got fugly, for which I’ll easily blame the ~60 year-old (at the time) dirtbag.
Well, Amanda was 22 in that interview, so of course she looks different. It was 19 years ago! I look different than I did in 2006, and I'm sure everyone here does. Amanda still looks good today.
It is sad watching those old interviews and knowing how everything was going to turn out.
That email was extreme and I'm not excusing it, but might you consider what behavior might have precipitated such a response and the pressure put on David to write that?
He threatened to have men throw acid on her and encouraged a young woman with prolonged mental illness to commit suicide. I suppose that is a little extreme now that you mention it. But who can blame him, right? I mean, you’re not excusing threatening extreme violence and promising it would all go away if she killed herself, but, I mean, she forced him into it with all the pressure she was putting on him, right? He was just an average guy forced to take extraordinary actions by Brandi’ behavior. Women, amirite?
Your weasley, lawyerly responses are disgusting and wholly unconvincing. “I have no idea what he looks like IN PERSON. I’ve seen a picture of him but I DOUBT I’d recognize him in person. I have no MEMORY of what you’re talking about.” And you’re saying all of these things to a person who is clearly still traumatized by horrific events set in motion by a friend and business associate of yours whose despicable actions you can’t quite seem to bring yourself to condemn. “I haven’t DEFENDED anyone? Can you show me posts where I have?”
I wish I’d known more about the kind of person you are prior to spending money on your book about running card rooms.
I got into the writing publishing business over 40 years ago, and right from the beginning people were giving me advice and telling me I was doing everything wrong, and it has never stopped.
same thing in my biz, critics line up around the block while most never do or accomplishing much of anything, thankfully I never listened to them
“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”
"Do to others as you would have them do to you"
OMG, that is so audacious!!
What kind of world would we be forced to live in if humans, in mass, actually endeavored to do this?
I wish I’d known more about the kind of person you are prior to spending money on your book about running card rooms.
I've given away at least a couple of hundred copies of Cardrooms: Everything Bad and How to Make Them Better: An Analysis of Those Areas Where Poker Rooms Need Improvement and many of them were printed books which I don't get for free.
I suspect you found the information in it worthwhile. And for those interested, here's the Amazon page:
https://www.amazon.com/Cardrooms-Everyth...
Also, when our book The Professional Poker Dealer's Handbook: Expanded Edition first came out I gave away hundred of copies of this book as well:
https://www.amazon.com/Professional-Poke...
And one last thing, I paid our authors royalties at a much higher rate than industry standards, and, in general, our authors made approximately five times the amount they would have made with most other publishers.
one can always count on Mason turning anything and everything into an advertisement! i think you may have missed the point there, Mason... or you didn't and just kept on lawyering. wild!
The reason I'm back on here is because the site was sold. Mason let me back on in 2017, but then oddly banned me again about 2 years later, because he got angry when I trolled him back when he started up with me.
Weren't you banned four times?
one can always count on Mason turning anything and everything into an advertisement! i think you may have missed the point there, Mason... or you didn't and just kept on lawyering. wild!
+
Of course Mason is lawyering. The alternative to that is taking accountability for his monstrous cowardice and complicity in what happened.
None of this was an accident. The owners of this site didn’t just fail to moderate; they actively engineered a cash register that rang every time a user harassed or abused a vulnerable young woman. David and Mason watched on the sidelines while cruelty turned to clicks and clicks turned to revenue, and they intentionally decided that was an acceptable business model. That’s not negligence. It’s ****ing exploitation.
When brutalizing Brandi became “a feature instead of bug,” as David likes to say, they chose profit over responsibility. They knowingly hosted abuse that predictably escalated, the harm was foreseeable, but they didn’t care because the money kept coming and a beautiful woman’s misery attracted a lot of converts. Maybe even sold some of their shitty books.
Mason was NOT some neutral platform steward. He was a beneficiary. He outsourced the dirty work to mods, and kept his hands clean enough to deny intent while continuing to cash those checks.
You don’t get to build the arena, invite the mob, sell the tickets, and then look away and feign innocence when somebody gets really ****ing hurt.
The axe forgets but the tree remembers, and I don’t forgive any of it. I will never, ever let any of this go.
In that video, Brandi said Sklansky was "mentoring" her and giving her lessons almost every day. It certainly sounds like they were involved, and might be even creepier if they weren't.
Of course Mason is lawyering. The alternative to that is taking accountability for his monstrous cowardice and complicity in what happened.None of this was an accident. The owners of this site didn’t just fail to moderate; they actively engineered a cash register that rang every time a user harassed or abused a vulnerable young woman. David and Mason watched on the sidelines wh
First, the $50,000 estimate is ridiculous. David wasn't involved with the running of this site. His purpose was to do some posting and we would also use his name to promote twoplustwo.com.
Second, as for moderation, at our peak we had approximately 150 volunteer moderators, I did very little moderation. and the authority for the moderation was handled by others.
Third, my time was mostly devoted to writing and publishing books. This included things like reviewing manuscripts (and I rejected far more manuscripts than we actually published), providing authors with detailed comments, editing, typesetting, proofreading, cover design, spending numerous hours doing press checks (and a lot of this was done in California), book packing, shipping books out, etc. And things like writing (for my own books), editing, and proof reading were often done by me out of town where I could be by myself and work non-stop with no interruptions -- places I would go to were Bishop CA, Mesquite NV, and St. George UT, and for the Harrington books I spent a lot of time in Santa Monica with Dan and Bill Robertie going over comments and exactly how we wanted the books presented.
You have very little understanding or knowledge of what I did and how I went about it.
Yes, I understand you're upset about what happened to Brandi. But again she is someone I never met. Also, you've brought up things in this thread that I don't believe ever happened, and for which no one, as far as I know, ever mentioned anything to me.
I played against that miserable, irritable Mason Malmuth at the Bellagio in a $30/$60 stud game a few times. He’s a know it all about policies & procedures, correcting the dealers and players on non-impactful and minor infractions, and disrupting the game to his benefit. He’s grumpy and unfriendly, but to his credit, lost every single time I played.
What happened at the book stand is exactly how I said. I was there to get a book signed, Micon approached the stand to introduce himself, and you exploded into a rage. You stood up and charged him, roared in his face and got chest to chest, unintentionally shoving several people in the process, including me.
It was frightening, you are a large man and I didn’t know how violent you would become. You were infuriated, and you could have hurt someone.
I still have the book with your signature from that event.
I played against that miserable, irritable Mason Malmuth at the Bellagio in a $30/$60 stud game a few times. He's a know it all about policies & procedures, correcting the dealers and players on non-impactful and minor infractions, and disrupting the game to his benefit. He's grumpy and unfriendly, but to his credit, lost every single time I played.
Amazing. The Bellagio hardly ever spread a $30-$60 stud game.
I do get annoyed at dealers who talk non-stop and pay little attention to the game. This is emphasized in both The Professional Poker Dealers Handbook: Expanded Edition and in my Cardrooms book.
Amazing. The Bellagio hardly ever spread a $30-$60 stud game.
I do get annoyed at dealers who talk non-stop and pay ittle attention to the game. This is emphasized in both The Professional Poker Dealers Handbook: Expanded Edition and in my Cardrooms book.
you forgot to include the books' amazon links.
If you would like a free copy of the Cardrooms book just send me an email to send it as a file attachment to.
