Originally Posted by kewlJ View Post
Originally Posted by The Boz View Post

He absolutely lied and feigned ignorance at times for one main reason. He needed the attention and said outrageous things to get it. Fighting about free play was one of his favorites.

In many ways Alan near the end was very much like Tasha, without shitting on the floor I assume. He was near broke from gambling, lost his business and was barely existing, owed family money he couldn’t pay back, etc. But he stayed in the game some, gambling at small stakes trying to turn things around and when he couldn’t, he came here and made up bullshit to needle people.
You have grown harsh, Boz. Must have been that move to Florida.

Alan was harmless. Some of what you say is true, especially about wanting attention. But can't you say that about any of us that post regularly on an internet forum?

I don't believe Alan was lying about seeing 18 y.o. in a row. he saw something he thought was pretty unusual. Selective memory becomes part of that process. and then he may have exaggerated what he thought he saw. I don't have a problem with any of that. The problem for me occurred when Shackleford and others did the math and told him in no uncertain terms, that what he was claiming was all but impossible, he just couldn't bring himself to walk it back...to say, well maybe it wasn't 18 in a row. That type of thing.

Gamblers are a strange bunch, especially guys that don't play with an advantage and are not long-term winning players. MrV is very grounded, but most of them guys are not. You ask them how they did gambling in their lifetime and they will always give the same answer my grandfather, a horse players gave : "about even". When there is no way in hell they are or were about even.

I never thought of it before but we have another long-term losing player, who claims to win, and when caught what did he say? "about even".

I wish I had, had the chance to meet Alan and see what he was like in person. I would have liked to have asked him the "how do you think you have done gambling in your lifetime question and see if his answer was "about even".

But the truth is, I didn't trust Alan enough to risk meeting him. Very early on, in the tracking two tables discussion, he wanted to film me tracking two tables. Maybe that was just the journalist in him, but trying to maintain my anonymity as I do, I get nervous when someone on a internet forum starts talking about taking pictures or filming me. Or asking if anyone has pictures or information on me. Maybe THAT is just me.
You have to look at how/why his stories came about. They were often some kind of "teaching moment/ cautionary Tale" to prove a point. I think he just inflated the numbers to make it seem unlikely, without thinking about the math and how nearly impossible those things were. But once he wrote it, he couldn't back down no matter what, since that would damage his journalistic integrity.