ABR Special Report - French Press Conference

[Get_A_Grip]

I don't understand why everybody thinks the contract favored French so much. Would you finance a pool players expenses 100% travel, rooms, tourney fees & gambling money and expect less than that? If I back a player in a match & win I get 50% of the take & if I lose I lose 100%..... & you think I'm stealing for wanting my 50%? The only people who can afford to become backers are people with better math skills then that.

I agree with you about 50% not being necessarily bad.

It's just that the contract doesn't demand that French pay anything.

The fact that French appears to be paying above and beyond what's 'fair' means this is only a contract issue, and not a concern right now with French doing his part.

 

[iusedtoberich]

I listened to the Dennis interview when it aired, and now the French interview.

I saw French with my own eyes at the derby. He seemed very annoying, and I got the impression no one liked him. He was like a "super fan" with money. But, although I could tell he was annoying, it was stemming from his super passion for the game.

After listening to Dennis' interview, I was sure Dennis was 100% truthful.

Now, however, after listening to French's interview, I actually believe French 100%. I still think he's annoying, but I think he is truthful. His version of the events makes a lot of sense to me.

I have the impression now that Dennis was lying in his interview. Maybe not complete lies, but enough half-truths, that the whole thing stinks.

A few other comments:
1. I am actually surprised French paid each player 10k appearance fee. I guess this is common now?

2. I am very surprised how much the in-person gate makes. French said he was going to pay Dennis and Shane 5K each from the gate. So the gate makes 10K (or more?).

3. I am very surprised how much the stream makes. French said he was hoping to break even from the stream money, so that the stream money would cover the 10K each he gave to both players. He had collected 7500 cash from the stream, as of now (he just refunded that money). I thought streams were lucky to have 100 paid viewers. I guess my estimate was quite low on that.

4. French said Dennis is only the "money king" when its free money. That reminds me of the reputation Efren always had. That he was never a gambler. Freddie and Grady talked about that extensively throughout the years. It also reminded me of the Efren vs Shane match from DCC 5 or 6 years ago. I believe Justin said that Mars paid efren 1K for the match, to play, as an appearance fee. So, I guess this is common practice?

5. This whole situation stinks. I think even if the Shane Dennis match went down, as planned (with none of this drama), its still rotten. And I suspect all the ppv's are rotten now. This is because of the 100K the match was "supposed to be for", both Shane and Dennis were to be given 10K + 5K each from French, via the stream and the gate. So, 30K of the 100K was money from the fans. I think that makes the whole thing rotten, and misleading to the fans, of what they are playing for. I'm glad this came out, and this was all exposed.

6. All that said, I think Accu-Stats' make it happen, and TAR's later matches, are the way to do it with integrity. Have the producer pay each player X for winning, and Y for losing. And the producer keeps all the money from the gate/stream/dvd, etc. Yes, the players are not "gambling", but it looks like they don't gamble anyway. At least doing it this way is fooking honest!

 

[dawgcpa]

French

I think DO has escaped once again leaving someone holding the bag...

He just got caught on this big match with his pants down.

Hope people have learned what you are dealing with getting into business with him.

 

[abbassi]

I don't understand why everybody thinks the contract favored French so much. Would you finance a pool players expenses 100% travel, rooms, tourney fees & gambling money and expect less than that? If I back a player in a match & win I get 50% of the take & if I lose I lose 100%..... & you think I'm stealing for wanting my 50%? The only people who can afford to become backers are people with better math skills then that.

It is a losing partnership except if it made money for him on the streaming, maybe he could break even if he lost the bet.
It seems French had nothing to do with the Ko match and wound up being hustled for $2500. The only one who made some money is Dennis. $2500 plus 40% of the stream which could have been 10K to 30K. Seems Dennis knew exactly what he was doing. I doubt he could do that in the Phillipines.

 

[GoldenFlash]

I do not believe gurus, everyone is in it for the money.

"It is very difficult to free fools from the chains they revere"

 

[iusedtoberich]

I don't understand why everybody thinks the contract favored French so much. Would you finance a pool players expenses 100% travel, rooms, tourney fees & gambling money and expect less than that? If I back a player in a match & win I get 50% of the take & if I lose I lose 100%..... & you think I'm stealing for wanting my 50%? The only people who can afford to become backers are people with better math skills then that.

After listening to the interview, I think the contract was very fair. It just did not explicitly state that French was paying 100% of Dennis' traveling expenses, food, hotel, table time, pocket money, etc. If that was written on the contract, the contract would be very fair for a top 10 world level player. For anyone under a top 10 world level player, I think that same contract should state 65% goes to the backer, instead of 50%.

Why that was not written, is strange to me. But if it was done that way in their actual transactions, then it was a fair contract imo.

 

[PoolBum]

I don't understand why everybody thinks the contract favored French so much. Would you finance a pool players expenses 100% travel, rooms, tourney fees & gambling money and expect less than that?

Where does the contract say that French is paying for 100% of Dennis' expenses, travel, rooms, tourney fees, and gambling money?

If the contract doesn't say that, then it's not part of the contract.

 

[HawaiianEye]

After listening to the interview, I think the contract was very fair. It just did not explicitly state that French was paying 100% of Dennis' traveling expenses, food, hotel, table time, pocket money, etc. If that was written on the contract, the contract would be very fair for a top 10 world level player. For anyone under a top 10 world level player, I think that same contract should state 65% goes to the backer, instead of 50%.

Why that was not written, is strange to me. But if it was done that way in their actual transactions, then it was a fair contract imo.

Maybe they wanted to keep some of the stuff under the table for tax/legal/illegal purposes.

 

[abbassi]

I actually applaud ABR for doing this interview and blowing this whole scam up. I did not pounce on French like other people cause I wanted to hear his side. Been around pool too long. I may not buy another stream for a long time after this.

 

[iusedtoberich]

I actually applaud ABR for doing this interview and blowing this whole scam up. I did not pounce on French like other people cause I wanted to hear his side. Been around pool too long. I may not buy another stream for a long time after this.

I feel the same way! this whole game is rotten to the core! I think I'm never going to buy a ppv or bet a match again! What a disgrace!

 

[TATE]

I feel the same way! this whole game is rotten to the core! I think I'm never going to buy a ppv or bet a match again! What a disgrace!

I just refunded the small money I won on the Ko/Orcullo match. If there was really 20K at stake the match may have been a lot different.

 

[GideonF]

I don't understand why everybody thinks the contract favored French so much. Would you finance a pool players expenses 100% travel, rooms, tourney fees & gambling money and expect less than that? If I back a player in a match & win I get 50% of the take & if I lose I lose 100%..... & you think I'm stealing for wanting my 50%? The only people who can afford to become backers are people with better math skills then that.

Read the contract.

Please show me where it requires French to finance anything? Or do anything at all other than "advise" Dennis?

Gideon

 

[EL'nino]

I hate to bring this up again but Dennis really needs to learn how to shake hands after the match

 

[Get_A_Grip]

I just refunded the small money I won on the Ko/Orcullo match. If there was really 20K at stake the match may have been a lot different.

Wow. Kudos to you!

I took a small part of Jay's bet on this match and I took Ko. When Jay wouldn't disclose all of his reasons for liking DO, alarm bells were going off in my head, but I figured the bet was small enough that I would take a chance.

 

[TATE]

After listening to the interview, I think the contract was very fair. It just did not explicitly state that French was paying 100% of Dennis' traveling expenses, food, hotel, table time, pocket money, etc. If that was written on the contract, the contract would be very fair for a top 10 world level player. For anyone under a top 10 world level player, I think that same contract should state 65% goes to the backer, instead of 50%.

Why that was not written, is strange to me. But if it was done that way in their actual transactions, then it was a fair contract imo.

This is what happens when one party has a lawyer and the other one doesn't. Why obligate your client if you don't have to?

It brings to me the question of; Did Dennis ever intend on honoring the agreement, or did he just sign the ridiculous contract to get the $6500 Derby City payout and 10K advance on the Shane match? He's not dumb. It's very difficult to sue and collect on someone who doesn't reside here, has no wages to garnish, property to lein or bank accounts to seize. Maybe he's smarter than all of them.

 

[Get_A_Grip]

This is what happens when one party has a lawyer and the other one doesn't. Why obligate your client if you don't have to?

It brings to me the question of; Did Dennis ever intend on honoring the agreement, or did he just sign the ridiculous contract to get the $6500 Derby City payout and 10K advance on the Shane match? He's not dumb. It's very difficult to sue and collect on someone who doesn't reside here, has no wages to garnish, property to lein or bank accounts to seize. Maybe he's smarter than all of them.

And more slimy.

 

[iusedtoberich]

Maybe they wanted to keep some of the stuff under the table for tax/legal/illegal purposes.

I doubt it. I think if a streamer did taxes 100% honestly, they could come up with enough legitimate expenses with equipment, travel, software, streaming bandwidth cost, etc, to have a yearly net loss on their tax form. This is IMO

 

[abbassi]

This is what happens when one party has a lawyer and the other one doesn't. Why obligate your client if you don't have to?

It brings to me the question of; Did Dennis ever intend on honoring the agreement, or did he just sign the ridiculous contract to get the $6500 Derby City payout and 10K advance on the Shane match? He's not dumb. It's very difficult to sue and collect on someone who doesn't reside here, has no wages to garnish, property to lein or bank accounts to seize. Maybe he's smarter than all of them.

It seems to me Dennis was not going to honor anything. He needed a long time contract showing that he is employed to get the green card. He must have had someone to advise him on this matter because he insisted on a 10 yr. contract. French wanted a 3 yr. contract.

 

[TATE]

If there's one thing we can take away from this, it's a reminder to reserve judgment until both sides of the story are heard.

 

[GideonF]

It is rare that someone tells all lies or all the truth in these types of situations.

I think you have to evaluate each element separately and decide what is believable or likely and what is not. With that in mind, here is my take:

1. The Contract

JF says that Dennis understood the contract, that he (Dennis) had people look at it and that the contract doesn't include French's obligations to Dennis because JF took it for granted that he had to do his part. He says DO wanted it to be 10 years so it would help with his green card. He also says he had a lawyer involved.

This sounds implausible.

Are we really to believe that DO, DO's friends, JF and JF's lawyer all forgot to include all of JF's obligations but did include all of DO's? If DO and/or his friends had understood what was written, they would have said "you've left out all of your obligations". I t strains credulity to think JF's lawyer "forgot" to write down his client's obligations, or (even if no one told him what those were) to ask JF what he was doing for his 50 percent.

Further, I can't believe anyone would think this contract as written would help DO with immigration. If the contract actually guaranteed DO's expenses and overhead etc, then maybe it would help, but all this contract shows is that DO now makes 1/2 of what he made before.

So I find JF's story here difficult to believe. It is possible that DO did understand the broader deal that isn't written down (so DO may not be entirely truthful either), but clearly there are problems with JF's version.

2. The DO/Ko Match

JF says he didn't organize the match or put up the money. Given what DO has said, this sounds right. He has not explained why he let everyone think he did. I listened to the stream and, while I don't have a copy of it or notes, I am pretty sure Al said many things in French's presence about this that turned out to be untrue and JF failed to correct him. His story that he thought DO had explained it doesn't ring true. Maybe he just likes the attention, but it doesn't help his claim that he is a straight shooter.

JF also says that Ko could only come up with $2,500 and DO still wanted to play and didn't want to tell everyone on the stream because he was getting a cut of the stream money. That is plausible to me. I would really like to hear what Manny has to say.

I am less convinced by JF's claim that he told DO that he had to make full disclose. First, again my memory of the stream is that the $20,000 figure was mentioned many times when JF was in the booth and he said nothing (I could be wrong, of course). Second, JF seemed to have no problem with advertising the SVB match as $50k each, when he now makes it clear that it was really $35k each and they were betting $15k of gate and stream sales. There is nothing wrong with such a bet, but it is not fully disclosed as advertised.

3. The Reason the SVB didn't go ahead

JF says that DO was supposed to put up $25k of his own money, and in fairness he said that on the Ko stream. He didn't say on the Ko stream that $15k of that was stream/gate.

In any event, JF says the match fell apart when Do wouldn't put up the remaining $10k of his own money. I don't know why this surprises anyone (that Dennis wouldn't do so). What did DO win at DCC? Then divide that in half (to give JF his cut) and does DO even have $10k left over to bet? Even if he felt he was a slight favourite over SVB (and the consensus is he isn't) would you risk that kind of money on essentially a coin flip?

So it is possible that DO did tell JF that, but the fact that it is so unlikely that DO would actually bet it makes me wonder.

4. DO was not honest with JF about $6,500

This is entirely possible. I haven't heard DO's side of it, but nothing about JF's version seems that implausible to me.

All of this is, of course, but my uninformed opinion. I could be wrong about everything.

Gideon