Regarding Alan and the expected treatment of him here

[Dan Druff]

Recently we have had some controversy regarding user Alan Mendelson, and some nasty posts made in his direction.

In that thread, I stated that, while Alan is a user like everyone else and is allowed to be criticized and challenged, I wanted to see a certain level of respect shown to him.

I will explain this further for those who may not understand.

This forum originated as "Alan Best Buys", in 2010. It did not start out as a gambling-related forum. Alan started it as an extension to his "Alan's Best Buys" television program.

However, that aspect of it never really caught on. What did catch on was the gambling discussion -- which was mostly led by Alan himself, an admitted recreational gambler.

I found this forum a few years later when searching for information on the Seven Stars program.

However, after a relatively short time here, I noticed that the forum was inundated with spam, and was running on a lousy third-party hosting service. Given that I already run a forum (pokerfraudalert.com) and have a technical background, I offered Alan to become administrator here and clean things up. He accepted, and I did exactly what I said. I moved the forum to my (much faster and more reliable) server, stopped the spam, and all of the technical issues previously dogging the Alan Best Buys Forum were solved.

At that point, I did not own this forum, nor was I making admin decisions. I was simply the tech guy, and Alan was still the one in charge.

However, in February 2016, Alan decided he had enough of running the forum, and was about to shut it down permanently. I offered to take over. At that point, he fully transferred the content and rights to the forum to me. It was mine at that point, and Alan no longer had any ownership in it. The only caveat was that I would change the URL, change the forum name, and disassociate the forum from Alan Best Buys. This was done, and vegascasinotalk.com was born.

While some of it was reorganized, 100% of the old Alan Best Buys content was retained, and all accounts were left intact. In addition, Alan decided to stay on as a regular poster (though he was no longer an admin or owner), and in fact has been the most active poster on vegascasinotalk, even more active than me.

So here we are. This forum has existed in is present state for 18 months now.

This brings us to the interesting question: Should Alan be treated as a regular user, or should he have some kind of special status because he was the founder, operator, and bill payer)of this place until I took over in early 2016?

I decided that, for the most part, everyone here is fairly equal, including me. As some of you have probably noticed, users on this forum have insulted and bashed me at times, and I have not deleted their messages nor banned their accounts.

However, I think there does need to be at least a basic level of respect shown to both the present owner (me) and former owner (Alan).

Obviously Alan gets very involved in the threads here, and sometimes makes controversial statements. It would be ridiculous for me to shield Alan from criticism or mild insults, simply because he once owned this forum. If you can't take the heat, you need to stay out of the kitchen.

At the same time, really nasty posts meant to sully Alan's reputation shouldn't be taking place here. Remember that this place wouldn't exist if Alan hadn't started it, or if he chose to just shut it down last year instead of transfer it to me.

I want to make it very clear that I am NOT asking people to stop arguing with Alan, criticizing him, or giving him a hard time when you disagree with him. That is all fair game on a forum like this.

However, even if you don't like him, I would like to ask that you tone down the personal attacks, unless has personally attacked you first.

I am trying to achieve a balance here of free speech and a semblance of order. Thank you.

[redietz]

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

George Orwell

[blackhole]

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

George Orwell

[mickeycrimm]

Okay, I'll lay off of Alan. I can take anything he can dish at me. It was his appalling treatment of a new member, a top flight AP, branding him a liar, with lines like "How does it feel to be caught wrong" and "You could have just said your partner gave you the count" that led to the things I wrote. I gained immeasurable insight into what card counters do, but Alan, per the usual, saw something else.

PS: Mr. V, I got the idea for the thread title from the book. Mainly because of the similarity of what is going on in this forum and Jonathan Swift's statement. You may remember that the author of the book, John Kennedy Toole, committed suicide in 1969, due to depression over publishing company's refusing to publish the work. Several years later his mother gave the manuscript to a noted writer, the book was published and won the pulitzer prize in 1981.

[Alan Mendelson]

Okay, I'll lay off of Alan. I can take anything he can dish at me. It was his appalling treatment of a new member, a top flight AP, branding him a liar, with lines like "How does it feel to be caught wrong" and "You could have just said your partner gave you the count" that led to the things I wrote.

This is what I wrote:

Had you simply said your partner scouted another table and signaled you to move over you wouldn't have been caught.

How did he get caught? He said pick any casino on the west side of the Strip. So I picked the Mirage. And I found that the distance of the tables would prevent viewing the cards in action at any nearby table unless someone had super vision or xray vision in case another human being got in the way. The tables are too far apart. Also, the cards are not necessarily placed side by side giving anyone not sitting at that table a clear view of what the two cards are. I've seen how blackjack cards are dealt. The two cards for blackjack players are not displayed as you see them on the World Poker Tour where they are neatly side by side so that the camera under the table can view them.

I asked repeatedly for kewlj to tell me which casino I should visit. He would not name a casino. If he cares to name a casino now where the tables are close enough so that a player could monitor the action at two tables I will visit that casino, take photos and report back.

Name the casino. Name the casino.

[mickeycrimm]

Alan, you haven't answered a simple question like how many feet away do you have to be so that you can't tell whether a card is facecard or not.

[kewlJ]

Alan, see this picture of the clock on the wall in my den? It is taken from 8 feet way. In the picture you can barely make out the numbers on the clock and can not make out much in the smaller humidity and temperature gauges. But when I am standing 8 feet away, I can clearly see all of the numbers in the smaller gauges. And it is NOT because I have super vision. It is because a camera shot is NOT representative of the vision from the human eye. You proved nothing with your little stunt!

Did you read Mickey's link to blackjackinfo? that thread was January 2007. I wasn't even familiar with that thread, but Sonny, a long-time well known professional blackjack player described tracking two tables and his description was very similar to what I described. This isn't anything new! It is a natural progression after you have played for many years. The counting becomes so automatic, that it occurs within a fraction of a second via the cancelation method, which your brain does automatically. A fraction of a second....that's all you need.

Just because YOU can't comprehend it doesn't mean it can't be done. You, sir, obviously don't know everything and it appears you know very little about card counting.

[coach belly]

a camera shot is NOT representative of the vision from the human eye.

Now you're just being argumentative and silly.

Your camera shot is not representative of Alan's camera shot.

I can zoom in and out with my camera phone...how about you?

You sure are making a big fuss for someone who doesn't care what others believe.

You, at least, need to be consistent to have any credibility...

I am out.

[redietz]

a camera shot is NOT representative of the vision from the human eye.

Now you're just being argumentative and silly.

Your camera shot is not representative of Alan's camera shot.

I can zoom in and out with my camera phone...how about you?

You sure are making a big fuss for someone who doesn't care what others believe.

You, at least, need to be consistent to have any credibility...

I am out.

That's a subjective opinion vis-a-vis credibility. Rob never had his number of Winnebagos straight (or whether he actually owns a Hellcat), but some people give him credence. The only thing that matters is whether people can see well enough from table to table to distinguish the sixes and less from 10s and face cards.

Now, the next time I'm in Las Vegas, I'll be traipsing around with my handy dandy tape measure and actually measuring the distance from the middle seat of one blackjack table to the middle seat of the next. I'll also precisely measure the size of my shoes so if I get told to not tape measure the distances, I can just walk them off. Then I'll sit and try to see the cards at other tables. My eyes are pretty bad, so that may not be a fair assessment, but if I can see them, anyone can. Finally, I'll take my tape measured results and ask an optometrist if most people could discern different cards from the specified distances.

Until people actually do those things, I don't understand how anyone can say this is true or that isn't.

[Alan Mendelson]

Alan, you haven't answered a simple question like how many feet away do you have to be so that you can't tell whether a card is facecard or not.

I don't know. It also depends if another human is in the way.

[Alan Mendelson]

Redietz has the right idea. He's going to measure the distance.

I have brought tape measures into different casinos to take measurements of craps tables: height, width, depth of the bowl, width of the rails, etc for a friend who makes craps tables. I've gotten strange looks but no one ever stopped me.

[Rob.Singer]

Dan's post makes sense. Alan will continue to be the subject of vulgarity by mickey because Mickey is an alcoholic and he by definition cannot help himself, and he finds his courage after pouring down the beer for hours--which he does daily.

The problem with this kew phony revolves around how Alan simply told the truth about his wild claims and how he chose a logical casino to test because the kew refused to name a casino where what he asserted was possible, could in fact be accomplished. Obviously, kew had a problem with anything associated with the facts, just as he learned from posting for years on WoV. He has done nothing here but seek attention by bloviating about his bs, and once he was caught in an obvious "load of crap" lie, he turned into a quivering fool. Then he dug his hole deeper by posting a stupid, irrelevant picture of some clock, with no one in-between, no one in the pit or the sky caring one way or the other, and only one point of reference (the dumb clock) instead of 5 or 6 to be concerned about. So moronic to say the least.

[RS__]

There is as much respect given to Alan as he gives to everyone else. Many of Alan's posts aren't just controversial, but flat out wrong. It's as if he's saying 2,7 off suit is stronger than AA in NLH -- that's not controversial, it's purely wrong.

[Alan Mendelson]

There is as much respect given to Alan as he gives to everyone else. Many of Alan's posts aren't just controversial, but flat out wrong. It's as if he's saying 2,7 off suit is stronger than AA in NLH -- that's not controversial, it's purely wrong.

Come up with something else. I never said that. LOL

[Dan Druff]

There is as much respect given to Alan as he gives to everyone else. Many of Alan's posts aren't just controversial, but flat out wrong. It's as if he's saying 2,7 off suit is stronger than AA in NLH -- that's not controversial, it's purely wrong.

I understand that, and I disagree with a lot of his gambling-related posts here. As you've seen, I haven't been shy about arguing with him here.

And that's fine. Nobody has to respect his ideas/posts. You're welcome to criticize them, correct them, call them stupid, etc.

I just don't want to see really nasty personal attacks in his direction, since he doesn't engage in that here. It's not like I'm asking people to tone down the rhetoric against someone like Rob Singer. Rob is purposely inflammatory and deserves any nasty responses he gets. Alan may post odd things, but he isn't engaging in personal attacks.

[RS__]

There is as much respect given to Alan as he gives to everyone else. Many of Alan's posts aren't just controversial, but flat out wrong. It's as if he's saying 2,7 off suit is stronger than AA in NLH -- that's not controversial, it's purely wrong.

Come up with something else. I never said that. LOL

Alan, stop trolling. Re-read the post, particularly the newly bolded part I quoted.

[Alan Mendelson]

If I have a different answer than you have, is that trolling, RS__?

Can't you come up with better, more adult terminology to explain a difference of opinion instead of the elementary "trolling"?

[RS__]

If I have a different answer than you have, is that trolling, RS__?

Can't you come up with better, more adult terminology to explain a difference of opinion instead of the elementary "trolling"?

You deliberately misinterpreted my post. I made an analogy to your logic. You said you never said that. I never said you did.

That's trolling....and you're pretty good at it. Sad.

[Alan Mendelson]

Call it what you want, RS__. For someone who says they used to deal craps in Vegas and who is a current Seven Stars player, you have missed a few things.

[redietz]

I thought the RS analogy was pretty good. On occasion, with odds that can be figured depending on whether it's pre-flop and so on, 2/7 can beat AA. It's a solved game, like video poker, so all the same arguments and obfuscations of probability apply. The fact 2/7 sometimes wins vs. AA is directly analogous to people winning for 10,000 hands versus 98% vp. You can claim stopping when ahead after your 2/7 beats the AA is the key to winning, for example. Well, that's true enough, unless you go back to the poker table and try to do it again. It's all probability. There isn't one probability for poker and another for video poker.