A few words about Alan.

Overall I found him to be a decent guy, which is why I felt he was deserving of the tribute on the top of the forum. Well, that and the fact that he founded this place, and tolerated all of the bullshit here for so many years before handing it to me.

Say what you want about Alan, but he basically made this a free speech forum where people could come if they got booted from other gambling forums. That's not what he intended it to be, but that's what it became, and he never wavered from it.

Alan's personal life was flawed, to say the least. He had a gambling problem. He had multiple divorces, likely due at least in part to said gambling problem. He seemed to have somewhat of an irritation with the concept of advantage play, since he personally lost a good deal of money gambling, and probably didn't want to believe AP was a real thing.

I had my share of issues/arguments with Alan, especially after I took over here. I won't rehash those. It's minor bullshit when you get down to it.

I was truly sad when I heard about his passing. I knew he had major kidney issues, and I didn't expect him to live until 90. However, I thought he'd be around for a lot longer than he was.

I respected his journalism career, some of which took place when he was very young. Some people criticized his "Best Buys" TV show, which indeed was an infomercial, but I saw no problem with it. You'd have to be a complete moron not to realize he was getting paid by the businesses he featured. To me the program was more of a showcase of various businesses who wanted the public to know about them. Alan claimed he was let go from his last salaried TV position because of his age, and that's probably true. Show business is rarely easy on older people. He had to do something, and he used his notoriety in LA to start the Best Buys show. When I first saw him, I had remembered him from television from many years prior.

Anyway, bottom line is that we wouldn't have this forum if not for Alan starting it in 2010. This place serves a purpose. Among other things, you always have a voice here when the "less tolerant" gambling forums ban you for flimsy (or even not-so-flimsy) reasons. You can show up here and post absurd shit, and I generally tolerate it. You can partially thank Alan for that. While I also lean toward the free speech model, it was easy to do here, as I wanted to continue running the forum with a similar feel and tone to the Alan Bestbuys Forum as which it started.