"The Checks are in the mail." Oh Dear...

[ironman]

OK, Jay, the benefit of the doubt exists because I know there were changes in payouts that I know probably caused havoc with their intended promises. No matter what tour you run, changes happen that are different from your initial intent. I know first-hand that some are inevitable.

The better part of valor for the IPT is maybe not give out any information beforehand and then they don't crush anyone's expectations. I am not denying that some players are in a pickle due to delayed payments.

As far as everyone paid the day of a tournament, I get a check from the BCA Regionals and Nationals as well as our NW regional tour. Most all other tournaments pay cash, but I don't think that is really professional because there needs to be an accounting of payouts and without issuing checks, there can be shadier deals happening that what you are thinking. Any tour with a running succession of tournaments needs to keep a tight handle on accounting.

Regarding your late payments, I have not brought up the other side of things and neither did the IPT, but it was not all one-sided. It wasn't even for what you won, but what a player of yours won and I am not privy to all the details, but being a second tier for payment probably delayed things initially.

I thought this was all in the past, Jay. You even apologized publicly. So you needn't berate me, especially on my birthday, lol. I would like to know what the official line is before I go getting upset...therefore, I am giving them the BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT.

Well, Happy Birthday Linda!!
Have you gotten your spanking yet????

 

[jay helfert]

If I'm not mistaken, the 2006 WSOP main event 1st prize was $12 million....and I read somewhere that it was being held back by the casino because there is a lawsuit pending by somebody who was supposed to get 1/2 of the money from a prior agreement with the winner.....

Jamie Gold got paid six million. The other half is in dispute because of a suit from a former live in girlfriend claiming to be a common law wife. This is the story on the Poker grapevine.
Now I am told, the suit is by another poker player who was promised half.

 

[Island Drive]

I look at this situation as just "poor communication" on the part of the IPT, with so many things needed to get it all up and running I would say don't shoot the messenger yet. Did TH get paid, Matlock in the last event? I have never seen a business not have problems, especially in the beginning and like all businesses that go through their evolution they get better, maybe we had better look at the pool communities attitude that is so quick to judge. Think about all the times you have convicted your child for what you thought was a huge mistake on their part but when they told you the logic behind their decision it all made sense. When I looked at all those 400 some pictures of the event, every poster, billboard, media whatever one has to realize soooooooooooo much effort went into making it happen, don't cheapen this event by shortsighted accusations. Give it a chance, pool has never had a chance like this before why do all this BS after all that has been given to us so far. If we're gonna get screwed, wait and get screwed, don't say were screwed when we're not in bed yet. The ill feelings this post has made saddens me and makes me realize why its so difficult for allot of business owners to get a license to open up a room, above comments only justify city councils actions even more. Good night

 

[jay helfert]

OK, Jay, the benefit of the doubt exists because I know there were changes in payouts that I know probably caused havoc with their intended promises. No matter what tour you run, changes happen that are different from your initial intent. I know first-hand that some are inevitable.

The better part of valor for the IPT is maybe not give out any information beforehand and then they don't crush anyone's expectations. I am not denying that some players are in a pickle due to delayed payments.

As far as everyone paid the day of a tournament, I get a check from the BCA Regionals and Nationals as well as our NW regional tour. Most all other tournaments pay cash, but I don't think that is really professional because there needs to be an accounting of payouts and without issuing checks, there can be shadier deals happening that what you are thinking. Any tour with a running succession of tournaments needs to keep a tight handle on accounting.

Regarding your late payments, I have not brought up the other side of things and neither did the IPT, but it was not all one-sided. It wasn't even for what you won, but what a player of yours won and I am not privy to all the details, but being a second tier for payment probably delayed things initially.

I thought this was all in the past, Jay. You even apologized publicly. So you needn't berate me, especially on my birthday, lol. I would like to know what the official line is before I go getting upset...therefore, I am giving them the BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT.

Happy Birthday Linda. You can give them all the benefits you want. I will call a Spade a Spade every time. And this one ain't Clubs.

You brought something up once again so I will respond to your innuendos. What other side of things are you referring too? I would like to hear their explanation for lying to me several times about the overdue payment. Let's see, first I heard the check is going out this week (the beginning of March). Then I was told there are some delays due to accounting procedures (mid March). Finally I got the check is in the mail story, and the mail is slow out of Chicago (late March). When the check did come, it was sent overnite by Deno. He claimed the original must have been lost in the mail. I know I never got it. Maybe I should give them the benefit of the doubt too.

By the way, I supplied them with all the information on payments immediately after Cliff won the money. They knew I was his sponsor and I would make payment to him. Which I did right away. This was no "second tier" payment. In fact it is quite similar to the deal Mark Trainer has made with so many players. I was left holding the bag for weeks.

I'd like to know if you or Mike has been paid, or when you do get paid. Linda, you can defend them till you are blue in the face. It will not change the experience I had in any way.

 

[wahcheck]

yessiree

I look at this situation as just "poor communication" on the part of the IPT, with so many things needed to get it all up and running I would say don't shoot the messenger yet. Did TH get paid, Matlock in the last event? I have never seen a business not have problems, especially in the beginning and like all businesses that go through their evolution they get better, maybe we had better look at the pool communities attitude that is so quick to judge. Think about all the times you have convicted your child for what you thought was a huge mistake on their part but when they told you the logic behind their decision it all made sense. When I looked at all those 400 some pictures of the event, every poster, billboard, media whatever one has to realize soooooooooooo much effort went into making it happen, don't cheapen this event by shortsighted accusations. Give it a chance, pool has never had a chance like this before why do all this BS after all that has been given to us so far. If we're gonna get screwed, wait and get screwed, don't say were screwed when we're not in bed yet. The ill feelings this post has made saddens me and makes me realize why its so difficult for allot of business owners to get a license to open up a room, above comments only justify city councils actions even more. Good night

Tap Tap Tap........well said.......as we can all see, the naysayers are still lurking about, waiting for the chance to spout the negativities......and a good night to you too...............

 

[JG-in-KY]

Jamie Gold got paid six million. The other half is in dispute because of a suit from a former live in girlfriend claiming to be a common law wife. This is the story on the Poker grapevine.

Hey jay here's the scoop on the WSOP: http://www.cardplayer.com/poker_news/news_story/1307?class=PokerNews

 

[jimmyg]

One of the very worst things any business can do, even more so for a new, upstart business, is fail to meet their payment obligations to their employees or refund overpayments to customers. The disrespect and lack of integrity it displays is sometimes unrepairable, and promotes disloyalty and mistrust from both groups.

I'm not about to predict whether or not the players will eventually be paid, actually I believe they will, but I think it depends entirely on whether the IPT plans on holding the next tournament. When they no longer plan on a next tournament, the players probably will not get paid. I imagine that the "float" on the payments for a week or so is worth more to KT than the integrity of keeping one's word.

 

[9balllvr]

IF paying the players was planned to be through a mailed check, why (as a courtesy) didn't Deno or Kevin address this at the players meeting, or prior to the tournament?

As I read this thread, that was my first question - if this was to be the case, it should have been announced at the beginning of the event. It is unacceptable for the players to stay onsite with the assumption of payment only to be told "it is in the mail" There are been too many issues with payment of players in the past for this to not be resolved prior to play and with the amounts in question. Just my two cents.

 

[BallBuster]

what are you guys eating... this is the 3rd Tournament.. did you ask the guys if they get paid on the first two IPT tour???? oh i see.. this forum will not be fun with the bashers..

 

[straybullet]

Blaming it on Accounting? 200 players, referees and staff - at the most 250-300 people and its going to take him a week to sort it all out? Puhleeeeeze! In the year 2006 this is unacceptable. There is software available that could have managed all of his payroll and payouts in less than an hour. I could have completed it accurately in less than a half an hour because this event had been planned months in advance. It sounds like he wants to give everybody this silly picture of accountants working around the clock in a basement somewhere doing all the math on an abacus. He's holding the checks because the money hasn't hit the account yet. It doesn't mean the money is not there, it just means that he's got it somewhere else - for a reason. I wonder why. hmmmm lol

(accountants will know what I am getting at)

 

[memikey]

...........(accountants will know what I am getting at)

Meanwhile the rest of us mortal pea brained non-accountants will spend sleepless nights jealously wishing that we could ever master the unimaginable intricacies of adding and subtraction or hopelessly dreaming that we could ever understand the devilishly complicated concept of someone holding multiple bank accouts

 

[rackmsuckr]

Meanwhile the rest of us mortal pea brained non-accountants will spend sleepless nights jealously wishing that we could ever master the unimaginable intricacies of adding and subtraction or hopelessly dreaming that we could ever understand the devilishly complicated concept of someone holding multiple bank accouts

My guess is she is referring to the interest on $3M for a week? Other than that, I am a mortal pea-brain, lol.

 

[watchez]

Jay...you brought up 'kiting'. Just so everyone is clear, that is an illegal banking practice.

JAM hasn't seemed to be around but I do recall her stating that in Vegas, Keith go two checks. One for his being at a qualifier for challenge matches and one for his placing in the Vegas tournament. Now in Reno, no checks??? Not even for the lowest level payouts?

And with Holmann, I am confused. Someone stated in this thread that his check was sent to his home in Germany, not Florida. Didn't I see a picture of him after he won with a briefcase full of money? Was that fake?

So let's see.....Real Pool, Real Rules, Real Money. Seems like in Reno there was a rules issue with players getting up on the table. And now a money issue with players not getting paid timely.

Linda, please keep us informed on when/if you get your checks.

 

[memikey]

My guess is she is referring to the interest on $3M for a week? Other than that, I am a mortal pea-brain, lol.

Well,from one mortal pea brain to another .......................

Even if she was referring to that,the interest on US$3,000,000/- for a full week is less than US$ 3,000/- (assuming 5% annual interest),not exactly worth any bad feeling/publicity over is it?

 

[SlimShafty]

The only thing I see as a problem is how KT talked and talked and talked about how players will be paid at the tournament and how important this was to him.

But, outside of that, there are lots of reasons why payment was not made at the tournament. First, the new payouts may have made problems, it's not like KT himself does his accounting or makes all decisions. If his accountants said they needed to make adjustments, or wait on other money, thats that, of course he may be upset by this or not, but accountants love to over complicate things, it's their job to make things more complicated Trust me KT's accountants most likely make his books the most complicated mess you would ever see, this is done on purpose in many corporations so "certain" people have a difficult time figuring it all out if ever questioned.

Also, I can tell you for a fact he is doing all this in such a way as to limit any losses and protecting his other business ventures and personal wealth. All this can be used as a loss against other gains, so money has to come from certain accounts, in certain ways. He's not just taking money from any old place.

And no way in the world would he drag in more of his money if he knew a check for the TV contract or Vonage was to arrive this week or next that would take care of any funding. Rich people never want to use their own money if they can help it. Of course it could be as simple as not having the right people at the event to handle the payouts, you not just getting anyone to hand out 3 million in checks.

Players will get paid, but considering how new and bold this is, things will not always be smooth, and especially not a smooth as KT talks. He is great at making things happen, but nothing is going to run 100% to the mark, and I'm actually amazed at how smooth it's gone.

KT just needs to relax on the hype machine when it comes to such a critical area, he needs to give himself more breathing room for glitches like this to happen without having to eat his words or apologize. This is the only thing I see as a problem, he sets a standard he sometime might have trouble meeting. But he certainly has delivered far more then anyone else could have ever dreamed.

 

[Island Drive]

The only thing I see as a problem is how KT talked and talked and talked about how players will be paid at the tournament and how important this was to him.

But, outside of that, there are lots of reasons why payment was not made at the tournament. First, the new payouts may have made problems, it's not like KT himself does his accounting or makes all decisions. If his accountants said they needed to make adjustments, or wait on other money, thats that, of course he may be upset by this or not, but accountants love to over complicate things, it's their job to make things more complicated Trust me KT's accountants most likely make his books the most complicated mess you would ever see, this is done on purpose in many corporations so "certain" people have a difficult time figuring it all out if ever questioned.

Also, I can tell you for a fact he is doing all this in such a way as to limit any losses and protecting his other business ventures and personal wealth. All this can be used as a loss against other gains, so money has to come from certain accounts, in certain ways. He's not just taking money from any old place.

And no way in the world would he drag in more of his money if he knew a check for the TV contract or Vonage was to arrive this week or next that would take care of any funding. Rich people never want to use their own money if they can help it. Of course it could be as simple as not having the right people at the event to handle the payouts, you not just getting anyone to hand out 3 million in checks.

Players will get paid, but considering how new and bold this is, things will not always be smooth, and especially not a smooth as KT talks. He is great at making things happen, but nothing is going to run 100% to the mark, and I'm actually amazed at how smooth it's gone.

KT just needs to relax on the hype machine when it comes to such a critical area, he needs to give himself more breathing room for glitches like this to happen without having to eat his words or apologize. This is the only thing I see as a problem, he sets a standard he sometime might have trouble meeting. But he certainly has delivered far more then anyone else could have ever dreamed.

Bingooooooooooooooooooooo. good post.

 

[fred_in_hoboken]

Blaming it on Accounting? 200 players, referees and staff - at the most 250-300 people and its going to take him a week to sort it all out? Puhleeeeeze! In the year 2006 this is unacceptable. There is software available that could have managed all of his payroll and payouts in less than an hour. I could have completed it accurately in less than a half an hour because this event had been planned months in advance. It sounds like he wants to give everybody this silly picture of accountants working around the clock in a basement somewhere doing all the math on an abacus. He's holding the checks because the money hasn't hit the account yet. It doesn't mean the money is not there, it just means that he's got it somewhere else - for a reason. I wonder why. hmmmm lol

(accountants will know what I am getting at)

If you can handle payouts, fully conforming to IRS and PATRIOT act requirements, for several hundred people from dozens of countries when the payouts aren't known until the day the checks are cut, bearing in mind that there are "sponsors" who also need reimbursement, without any inaccuracy in half an hour, please send me your resume.

That said, I do agree that they should have been able to get this done over the weekend, and had checks for the players before they left.

However, it seems unlikely that

1) the money was held to generate interest. as memikey says, the risk/reward is out of wack. That seems unlikely.

2) Kiting also seems unlikely- KT's not depositing many checks right now. Strictly speaking kiting (aka hanging paper) is done by depositing fraudulent checks, and pulling the funds out before the bad checks are discovered.

I think the most likely problem was related to accounting: system not in place, couldn't reconcile the accounts, broke the check printer, etc. But if one looks for impropriety, my bet is that there simply isn't enough money to draw on, and I imagine KT and the IPT do not have a large line of credit to use. I would certainly not extend much credit to them. If that's the case, holding the checks might be to *avoid* a federal crime.

How was the IPT funded? How is it structured? I can't imagine there's much revenue - certainly not enough to cover the costs. I just don't see much opportunity for fraud here. As I understand it KT is fronting a lot of the cash. If he's laundering money, this seems really inefficient (not to mention brazenly public).

Regardless, it seems the answer is bad accounting: either in processing payments, or in budgeting.

 

[memikey]

.......And with Holmann, I am confused. Someone stated in this thread that his check was sent to his home in Germany, not Florida. Didn't I see a picture of him after he won with a briefcase full of money? Was that fake?

Anyone who thinks that the payment of 1st place prize money boiled down to Hohmann snapping shut a briefcase full of cash,saying thanks and waving bye bye is not really thinking very clearly.

The question "Was that fake?" is in itself not entirely clear,but here goes with a humble attempt at an answer of sorts..............

The actual dollar notes may or may not have been "fake",for security purposes.That is probably irrelevant anyway.

The ceremony of handing over the money could be reasonably described as "fake" in that the main participants,including Hohmann,would have known in advance that it was a staged scene mainly carried out for dramatic effect and for publicity value but also for Hohmann to be rightly given the opportunity to be publicly congratulated and to bask in his achievement.

Cooperating in good publicity for the organisers of a tournament which is offering huge prizes is surely the least that any winning professional pool player should be reasonably expected to do.

There is nothing essentially wrong with staging such a "fake" scene and in fact it would be astonishing if anyone other than believers in the tooth fairy and the terminally gullible would have thought that the ceremony was anything other than that

Following up and paying Hohmann in an appropriate manner and timescale is quite another matter.So far there is absolutely nothing to reliably suggest that Hohmann did not receive timely and proper payment,other than the hearsay content of the first post in this thread.......and it might even be the case that "Danny" is possibly none too pleased with the poster for making a post of that nature

 

[Roy Steffensen]

And during this week there are 10 Qualifiers with maybe 10 players each paying 2 000 $ Maybe they get their checks after that!

Seriously, I think the IPT has a good reason for the choice they have made, and that all players will get paid. However, it is not good if they have promised payout at end of tournament, and it does not happen.

But the most important thing; I haven't heard any players that are complaining, so I guess everything is ok.

 

[Purdman]

Pool players have been burnt so much in the past, there is no trust, what are yo all gonna say when there is a logical answer and you all get paid?

Let me see here. Uh, I am going to pay all of you at the end of the tournament! You must stay all week to collect when the tournament is over. Uh, the check is in the mail.
Seems pretty cut and dry, the guy lied, period!! What do you not understand? Now he is having the site reworked hopeing everybody forgets the broken promises. Sheesh guys! What's it gonna take to open your eyes. Good luck to you all.
Purdman