Interview With Patrick McIrish
This Interview was arranged with Patrick McIrish. The interviewee is in no way connected to Sports911.com:
XXXX: Thanks for talking about this Patrick. Not being sarcastic here but are you running for your life as some have suggested in the forums?
Pat: No I hadn't read that one yet. A lot of the stuff on the forums I have not read yet but been told it wasn't very flattering. What a shocker!!? LOL. If you dish it out like opinionated posters like me do then folks will look to pile on you in these forums when they can, whether they know what's going on or not is besides the point. As far as running from someone? I am still at the same place I was, in fact had a barbecue for about a dozen people this last week-end. If that's running for my life I guess I am.
XXXX: Why have you been quiet on all this, almost seems like you were guilty before it started.
Pat: I can't say why other than to say a lot of people would not want this sort of stuff to be posted publicly. It just does no one any good. If I am told to LAY VERY LOW by someone I trust it's kind of silly of me to think I can just post without the subject being brought up over and over. So early on I decided to take the hits and stay away while the problem was being worked on.
XXXX: We may as well get to the point, what happened Pat? Is what we have read true?
Pat: Again I have not read all that has been written, very little in fact so here's what went down. I went away for 4 days in February and when I got home I owed 6 individuals (agents/local bookies) over $235,000 dollars. A relative of mine who had bet with me in the past had gone into open my desk without permission and ran up that much in losses while I was gone. No joke. He had every book addy, account # and password that he needed. He later told us he got stuck and got scared, he just wanted some week-end action. When he tried to double up to get even before I got home it didn't work. It got worse, much much worse.....
XXXX: Some people who are reading this may say, "yeah right I have heard that one before".
Pat: More than some people Sting, probably most. This is a gambling forum and most people are pessimistic about what they are told, LOL. That is one of the reasons when I got home I made a point of getting to the bottom of this before I said too much about it. I knew something was wrong (and the agents knew it too) but not exactly what at this point. I have been stiffed for some LARGE numbers in my life, never 235k at one time but the cumulative total is 10X's that high. Because of this I have heard every line in the book. I have had people allegedly arrested on the way to settle up with me, robbed, even recieved a Fed Ex package stuffed with newspapers once. Of course when it left the guys house my money was supposedly in it. My point is I would expect it to be doubted by some I hadn't done a lot of business with so I went to great lengths to show otherwise, this was important to me even before a nickel got sent anywhere.
XXXX: What could you do that could ever prove you weren't responsible Pat?
Pat: For starters as I mentioned above I was gone that week-end, thats the truth and was easy to prove. I had a copy of my hotel bill and showed it to locals and even faxed it to an agent who is out of town. Also since most of the damage was down over the week-end (Saturday/Sunday) it was easy to verify I was where I said I was when the games were being bet. I probably played about 25 hours of poker those two days and I am easy to remember even if you don't already know me. At my insistence I had people call the poker room and not only the brushes who worked there remembered me but also the main man vouched for me being there the week-end in question. The people I owed here locally are not folks you want to bullshit or owe big money to.
XXXX: Just playing devil's advocate but couldn't you have still had this person call the bets in for you? You don't have to be there to be responsible Pat.
Pat: Good point. Even though the circumstantial evidence would point otherwise to people who know me and how I bet this did come up in my mind. I mean these games were bet one right after another, not only don't I have a cell phone I couldn't have possibly gotten hold of this kid as fast as he was betting. I mean halftimes, 5 team parlays, monster teasers etc..... he was just betting sickening stuff I would never touch. I mean he would lay 4.5 points early and by the time he was done betting would be laying 6.5 points sometimes on the same game without blinking an eye. Just a seemingly desperate man. My limits with many of these outs he used were just 1 and 2k a game but he would still manage to have 40k on a first half bet, if they were down at half he would pound the same side again. There was no possible way anyone could have been telling him what to bet, even if there was a phone in the poker room that let me call long distance there would be a record of it here. Also the whole time my Don Best or G & J Update was never even logged on to. I don't know why he didn't at least do that but I have never bet a game in my life without checking for the best number, not to mention taking two points the worse of it like he was on a game? Not me. And lastly the thing that most these guys knew was I have a long track record with them. You don't have this much credit if you don't. Even the newest guy that was owed had been around a full year (most over 10 years) and they all knew something was very wrong about all this from the start. I mean did I pick a week-end in February to just go absolutely nuts for some reason? The amounts bet, the type of wagers, the sports bet on - none of it added up. Even with all this I realized there would be some doubters, people don't want excuses they want their money.
XXXX: What else could you do?
Pat: I'm glad I didn't do what I wanted to when I first found out. I want to post this though to show how much I was trying to work with the agents in resolving this, especially one who would be nothing but trouble. It was still early in the week and I hadn't gotten to talk to the kid yet but I seriously wanted to see him pay for this - I wanted to have him arrested. I really did. I knew the safest place for him was behind bars (before I got my hands on him) and I also did not want there to be any doubt that there was someone responsible for all this besides me. What maybe shouldn't surprise me was no one would work with me on this. I'm not stupid and realized no agent or bookie would admit to someone owing him big money but a legal book? In other words if it's legal for a book to be operating in Costa Rica why would it throw them in any danger to say someone had committed fraud on one of their accounts? I was all set to press charges but someone had to step up and say they had lost something in order for him to be charged. Though my own guy here advised against it I was willing to be charged for illegal gambling myself to get this kid put away and taught a lesson. While my charges would have been minimal this kid would have faced some serious stuff - fraud, grand theft, robbery etc..... Anyway as I said this was early on, though I was dead serious about it at the time I am glad now we didn't go this route. I would have felt like a rat had it gone through no matter how mad I was feeling at the time towards this kid. Besides the kid losing the money the loss of face with some guys I have known most my life was very humiliating and I was not sure what to do at that time. Though all of them (other than one agent) handled this very professionally it is nothing I want to go through again.
XXXX: What's the status of all this now?
Pat: I'm glad to report that the kid finally came home and is owning up to all of it. He ran for a full week as he was petrified about all this but after talking it out he and his dad decided to take care of it the best way they can. That's the only reason I am posting about this today. Both the kid who ripped me off and his dad have talked to every agent involved in this but one or two I believe. Besides the problem agent they are not sure what to do on a book who is going out of business (PanAm), I suggested instead of paying the book pay some of the money to players who may have gotten stiffed by the book instead. Anyway to date I am told they have paid off almost 20% of the amount they owe, it's at least a start. The agents realize it is probably going to be slow going for a while but they know the whole story and they are in contact with the kid working it all out. For me that's the best I could have hoped for out of this situation. I have talked to the kid and he seems serious about taking care of every last cent of what he owes, not many kids his age would even attempt to face up to all this so for that I give him credit.
XXXX: You said all but one agent above, why wouldn't they be in contact with all of them?
Pat: They may be in touch by now but one agent (DM) in all this was really a horse's ass from the word go. Unlike him I don't want to spill all of it out here for public consumption but this guy was unreal and I am not very happy about it. This went down over the week-end and by the time I got home on Tuesday this guy was in full panic mode already. He had called my home 50 times in those two days already. The first thing I told him was to RELAX and that I thought he would get paid what he had coming, that was my first talk with this guy on Tuesday night! At the time I was completely lost as to what had went on but I promised I would get to the bottom of it and we will work it out. All this time I couldn't get hold of the kid so this was very stressful for me yet this jerk was already trying the intimidation game. Not only the constant calls but he also would call at 5AM our time and hang up. On Thursday morning (just 48 hours after the settle date) he went to threatening me and the family at 530AM over the phone, this after I had talked to him Wednesday night about all this. That really pissed me off, what a complete moron. I saved the message and the kid and his family have it too just in case. Though he's probably talking shit you never know, also this is the same agent who is spreading all this crap all over the forum. Instead of trying to work it out I guess he is out after revenge at this point. He was going to "ruin me" on the forums so that is why all this got started out here. Other than him (and the PanAm guy I don't think the kid has talked to yet) everyone was all class in dealing with this. No one likes to be slowpaid but it beats the alternative so we all worked together other than DM. The fact this was the first year doing business with this agent may have had something to do with this. Either that or he knew he could make someone else pay the money to him that had vouched for me? I don't really know but why would you run to the forums with it the first week?? Maybe he didn't want a solution and wanted his money the quick way. Especially since we were still having conversations at the time he had his people post this on the forums? It wasn't like I had disconnected my phone and moved away. Trust me as I said above I have had to collect a lot of money in my day and this DM guy was the worst I have ever dealt with, complete amatuer. I mean I was talking to him on the phone and this was less than 3 days old when he went to the forums with it? What's the purpose of that? It's almost like he wanted to get me to walk away from this. Anyway I will have more to say about this situation one day but something here just doesn't feel right. The guy has deep Rio roots so maybe the RX is tied in here somehow, someone showed me where the ADMIN posted they would like to break my legs. Not sure yet what is going on but more on this later....
XXXX: Any final thoughts on all this? Are you going to be posting again? Do you think that some people will disagree with you on this?
Pat: Disagree with me? Oh I would almost guarantee it. Tough to say until it happens what someone would do. One thing I never even thought of was walking away. Even though I was teetering back and forth on what to do at first when the guy threatened me, I am glad it is going to be resolved. I realized I either pay the 235k or get out of the picture, I can't be "sort of" responsible. It's either my fault or it isn't my fault, you are either pregnant or you aren't. At that time realizing I had to make a decision I decided to be upfront and tell everyone though I will assist anyway I can I don't feel I am responsible. If someone wants to fly down here and shoot me over it that's up to them. To me it would be like someone stealing your checkbook and writing 235k of bad checks. Are you going to pay everyone the money even though it was stolen and someone committed fraud? The only difference here is I did not say "some stranger ripped you guys off and I don't know who it is". I had the guys name, his telephone #, where he worked, and even the business this kid owns. I always felt like everyone would get paid, may not be as quick as we would like BUT we know who the guilty party is. I can only WISH other people had handled things this way when I was on the short end of the stick. Instead of being thanked for seeing it through I have an agent run to the forums with all our personal business. Believe me, I have a lot of knowledge if you want to personal stuff about Rio/RX but I wasn't raised to do that sort of stuff. I can however be coaxed into just about anything. Anyway I think I ended up doing the right thing. Had I paid it Uncle Patrick may have never gotten his money back from the kid plus I still would be right in the middle of it all. That's a large sum of money to me, I am sure that wasn't the last threat I would have heard had I took it upon myself to pay these guys the first day. So while I did not pay it I stood up and got to the bottom of it for everyone else. And by the way the total amount loss was actually more than 235k, thats just what I owed. On one specific account I was up 38k with a 50k settle and after everything was done I was over my settle figure - I owed him 65k. While I just counted it as a 65k loss it was actually a 113k (65 + 38) loss with just this one agent. In addition the kid managed to wipe out a bit of money from some post up accounts as well that is not included in that figure.
XXXX: As the agent threatened, are you now ruined off-shore Pat?
Pat: Depends who you ask, LOL. I am not ruined with the guys I have known personally. I mentioned above I am already back playing with several of the guys who got stiffed in this fiasco. That's right, of the 5 or 6 agents involved I am back in business with 3 of them right now. I played before I started posting in these forums and will be playing long after even if I never post again. My main partner is one of the oldest guys off shore and was one of the first one's out there. I did go in my pocket and pay some of the stuff he had coming as I wanted to protect his name. He has guys laying off big action in to him all the time and I am able to get a nice piece of all that, no way was I going to ruin that. For the record the kid not only owes the other agents he owes me some cheese as well. So while I am not ruined in my dealings with the books I probably am in the forums as far as posting on a daily basis or being a moderator somewhere again. LOL. Big difference by the way, if you are going to be ruined somewhere it's much better if it is in the forums than in real life. Usually the "highly respected" posters aren't jackshit off-shore and conversely the real players don't give a damn about the forums unless they are making a buck here somehow. In this case I was very reluctant to ever tell what really went on as I don't really want the extra exposure. This stuff is no one's business and by nature I don't like to share personal stuff about myself along these lines, there's no reason for it. I still believe either Rio or the RX was prompting this guy to post all this about our personal dealings and I intend to find out what is what. I may be heard from again on this if I find out the wrong people did this for the wrong reasons. This DM idiot ran out here with it all in his attempt to publicly embarrass me, I have to give him enough credit to know that he knows that didn't help his cause. Anyway other than the fact I was once seriously thinking of writing a daily morning column for one of the watchdog sites (PM in the AM) which won't happen now, nothing has changed . Other than that I don't see any long term affects from this either on the forums or in real life.
XXXX: Any final thoughts?
Pat: No not really, if anyone wants to get hold of me everything is still the same. If this wasn't such a serious issue it would be almost comical how everything hits at once. Besides all this about a month ago before getting on a plane for Vegas my wife served me with divorce papers, 13 years down the drain. With all this and the timing of all it I was caught off guard but thats the way it goes. It's part of life and at times you just take one day at a time but you always find a way to muddle through it all. Ironically some real McIrish haters from the past have sent me private notes and have been surprisingly supportive in all this. More than once I have been surprised by who has dropped me an encouraging line. Also some of the posters I respect in the forums have wanted to wait and see so I do appreciate that most can tell when they are hearing half the story. As I said from the top I will still be around and one day I hope we can all say the entire 235k has been paid. I still hate stiffs and rats with a passion even if they are related to me (by marriage only).
XXXX: Pat thanks for the interview and hope you decide to post more now that the story is out.
Pat: We'll see how it turns out. I am quite busy now as we have two homes I am repairing that will be sold in the divorce plus all the other stuff. On the forums you can waste your time with stuff like this and no one ever wins. In poker they define a railbird as someone who lacks either the bankroll or the skill to play the game. They prefer to sit on the sidelines while they get off on pointing out mistakes from others, thats why they watch. They don't sit there to get better but watch to tell others how smart they are from the safety of the rail. On the forums there are a lot of railbirds. May come a day where I have time to mix it up again with those guys but this is a serious matter to real players off-shore and I don't feel like joking around about it. Instead of disconnecting my phone and moving away I made sure that I did all I could to see this gets taken care of. While it's not my style to run like most would have down right away, that still won't be good enough for some of the railbirds on these forums. Instead of defending myself over and over against these people I will probably limit myself to random posts here and there. Most important thing for me is to get action down when I need to, since that is not in question now I can live with the rest
Originally published on March 10, 2004 (1:28 pm EST)
This Interview was arranged with Patrick McIrish. The interviewee is in no way connected to Sports911.com:
XXXX: Thanks for talking about this Patrick. Not being sarcastic here but are you running for your life as some have suggested in the forums?
Pat: No I hadn't read that one yet. A lot of the stuff on the forums I have not read yet but been told it wasn't very flattering. What a shocker!!? LOL. If you dish it out like opinionated posters like me do then folks will look to pile on you in these forums when they can, whether they know what's going on or not is besides the point. As far as running from someone? I am still at the same place I was, in fact had a barbecue for about a dozen people this last week-end. If that's running for my life I guess I am.
XXXX: Why have you been quiet on all this, almost seems like you were guilty before it started.
Pat: I can't say why other than to say a lot of people would not want this sort of stuff to be posted publicly. It just does no one any good. If I am told to LAY VERY LOW by someone I trust it's kind of silly of me to think I can just post without the subject being brought up over and over. So early on I decided to take the hits and stay away while the problem was being worked on.
XXXX: We may as well get to the point, what happened Pat? Is what we have read true?
Pat: Again I have not read all that has been written, very little in fact so here's what went down. I went away for 4 days in February and when I got home I owed 6 individuals (agents/local bookies) over $235,000 dollars. A relative of mine who had bet with me in the past had gone into open my desk without permission and ran up that much in losses while I was gone. No joke. He had every book addy, account # and password that he needed. He later told us he got stuck and got scared, he just wanted some week-end action. When he tried to double up to get even before I got home it didn't work. It got worse, much much worse.....
XXXX: Some people who are reading this may say, "yeah right I have heard that one before".
Pat: More than some people Sting, probably most. This is a gambling forum and most people are pessimistic about what they are told, LOL. That is one of the reasons when I got home I made a point of getting to the bottom of this before I said too much about it. I knew something was wrong (and the agents knew it too) but not exactly what at this point. I have been stiffed for some LARGE numbers in my life, never 235k at one time but the cumulative total is 10X's that high. Because of this I have heard every line in the book. I have had people allegedly arrested on the way to settle up with me, robbed, even recieved a Fed Ex package stuffed with newspapers once. Of course when it left the guys house my money was supposedly in it. My point is I would expect it to be doubted by some I hadn't done a lot of business with so I went to great lengths to show otherwise, this was important to me even before a nickel got sent anywhere.
XXXX: What could you do that could ever prove you weren't responsible Pat?
Pat: For starters as I mentioned above I was gone that week-end, thats the truth and was easy to prove. I had a copy of my hotel bill and showed it to locals and even faxed it to an agent who is out of town. Also since most of the damage was down over the week-end (Saturday/Sunday) it was easy to verify I was where I said I was when the games were being bet. I probably played about 25 hours of poker those two days and I am easy to remember even if you don't already know me. At my insistence I had people call the poker room and not only the brushes who worked there remembered me but also the main man vouched for me being there the week-end in question. The people I owed here locally are not folks you want to bullshit or owe big money to.
XXXX: Just playing devil's advocate but couldn't you have still had this person call the bets in for you? You don't have to be there to be responsible Pat.
Pat: Good point. Even though the circumstantial evidence would point otherwise to people who know me and how I bet this did come up in my mind. I mean these games were bet one right after another, not only don't I have a cell phone I couldn't have possibly gotten hold of this kid as fast as he was betting. I mean halftimes, 5 team parlays, monster teasers etc..... he was just betting sickening stuff I would never touch. I mean he would lay 4.5 points early and by the time he was done betting would be laying 6.5 points sometimes on the same game without blinking an eye. Just a seemingly desperate man. My limits with many of these outs he used were just 1 and 2k a game but he would still manage to have 40k on a first half bet, if they were down at half he would pound the same side again. There was no possible way anyone could have been telling him what to bet, even if there was a phone in the poker room that let me call long distance there would be a record of it here. Also the whole time my Don Best or G & J Update was never even logged on to. I don't know why he didn't at least do that but I have never bet a game in my life without checking for the best number, not to mention taking two points the worse of it like he was on a game? Not me. And lastly the thing that most these guys knew was I have a long track record with them. You don't have this much credit if you don't. Even the newest guy that was owed had been around a full year (most over 10 years) and they all knew something was very wrong about all this from the start. I mean did I pick a week-end in February to just go absolutely nuts for some reason? The amounts bet, the type of wagers, the sports bet on - none of it added up. Even with all this I realized there would be some doubters, people don't want excuses they want their money.
XXXX: What else could you do?
Pat: I'm glad I didn't do what I wanted to when I first found out. I want to post this though to show how much I was trying to work with the agents in resolving this, especially one who would be nothing but trouble. It was still early in the week and I hadn't gotten to talk to the kid yet but I seriously wanted to see him pay for this - I wanted to have him arrested. I really did. I knew the safest place for him was behind bars (before I got my hands on him) and I also did not want there to be any doubt that there was someone responsible for all this besides me. What maybe shouldn't surprise me was no one would work with me on this. I'm not stupid and realized no agent or bookie would admit to someone owing him big money but a legal book? In other words if it's legal for a book to be operating in Costa Rica why would it throw them in any danger to say someone had committed fraud on one of their accounts? I was all set to press charges but someone had to step up and say they had lost something in order for him to be charged. Though my own guy here advised against it I was willing to be charged for illegal gambling myself to get this kid put away and taught a lesson. While my charges would have been minimal this kid would have faced some serious stuff - fraud, grand theft, robbery etc..... Anyway as I said this was early on, though I was dead serious about it at the time I am glad now we didn't go this route. I would have felt like a rat had it gone through no matter how mad I was feeling at the time towards this kid. Besides the kid losing the money the loss of face with some guys I have known most my life was very humiliating and I was not sure what to do at that time. Though all of them (other than one agent) handled this very professionally it is nothing I want to go through again.
XXXX: What's the status of all this now?
Pat: I'm glad to report that the kid finally came home and is owning up to all of it. He ran for a full week as he was petrified about all this but after talking it out he and his dad decided to take care of it the best way they can. That's the only reason I am posting about this today. Both the kid who ripped me off and his dad have talked to every agent involved in this but one or two I believe. Besides the problem agent they are not sure what to do on a book who is going out of business (PanAm), I suggested instead of paying the book pay some of the money to players who may have gotten stiffed by the book instead. Anyway to date I am told they have paid off almost 20% of the amount they owe, it's at least a start. The agents realize it is probably going to be slow going for a while but they know the whole story and they are in contact with the kid working it all out. For me that's the best I could have hoped for out of this situation. I have talked to the kid and he seems serious about taking care of every last cent of what he owes, not many kids his age would even attempt to face up to all this so for that I give him credit.
XXXX: You said all but one agent above, why wouldn't they be in contact with all of them?
Pat: They may be in touch by now but one agent (DM) in all this was really a horse's ass from the word go. Unlike him I don't want to spill all of it out here for public consumption but this guy was unreal and I am not very happy about it. This went down over the week-end and by the time I got home on Tuesday this guy was in full panic mode already. He had called my home 50 times in those two days already. The first thing I told him was to RELAX and that I thought he would get paid what he had coming, that was my first talk with this guy on Tuesday night! At the time I was completely lost as to what had went on but I promised I would get to the bottom of it and we will work it out. All this time I couldn't get hold of the kid so this was very stressful for me yet this jerk was already trying the intimidation game. Not only the constant calls but he also would call at 5AM our time and hang up. On Thursday morning (just 48 hours after the settle date) he went to threatening me and the family at 530AM over the phone, this after I had talked to him Wednesday night about all this. That really pissed me off, what a complete moron. I saved the message and the kid and his family have it too just in case. Though he's probably talking shit you never know, also this is the same agent who is spreading all this crap all over the forum. Instead of trying to work it out I guess he is out after revenge at this point. He was going to "ruin me" on the forums so that is why all this got started out here. Other than him (and the PanAm guy I don't think the kid has talked to yet) everyone was all class in dealing with this. No one likes to be slowpaid but it beats the alternative so we all worked together other than DM. The fact this was the first year doing business with this agent may have had something to do with this. Either that or he knew he could make someone else pay the money to him that had vouched for me? I don't really know but why would you run to the forums with it the first week?? Maybe he didn't want a solution and wanted his money the quick way. Especially since we were still having conversations at the time he had his people post this on the forums? It wasn't like I had disconnected my phone and moved away. Trust me as I said above I have had to collect a lot of money in my day and this DM guy was the worst I have ever dealt with, complete amatuer. I mean I was talking to him on the phone and this was less than 3 days old when he went to the forums with it? What's the purpose of that? It's almost like he wanted to get me to walk away from this. Anyway I will have more to say about this situation one day but something here just doesn't feel right. The guy has deep Rio roots so maybe the RX is tied in here somehow, someone showed me where the ADMIN posted they would like to break my legs. Not sure yet what is going on but more on this later....
XXXX: Any final thoughts on all this? Are you going to be posting again? Do you think that some people will disagree with you on this?
Pat: Disagree with me? Oh I would almost guarantee it. Tough to say until it happens what someone would do. One thing I never even thought of was walking away. Even though I was teetering back and forth on what to do at first when the guy threatened me, I am glad it is going to be resolved. I realized I either pay the 235k or get out of the picture, I can't be "sort of" responsible. It's either my fault or it isn't my fault, you are either pregnant or you aren't. At that time realizing I had to make a decision I decided to be upfront and tell everyone though I will assist anyway I can I don't feel I am responsible. If someone wants to fly down here and shoot me over it that's up to them. To me it would be like someone stealing your checkbook and writing 235k of bad checks. Are you going to pay everyone the money even though it was stolen and someone committed fraud? The only difference here is I did not say "some stranger ripped you guys off and I don't know who it is". I had the guys name, his telephone #, where he worked, and even the business this kid owns. I always felt like everyone would get paid, may not be as quick as we would like BUT we know who the guilty party is. I can only WISH other people had handled things this way when I was on the short end of the stick. Instead of being thanked for seeing it through I have an agent run to the forums with all our personal business. Believe me, I have a lot of knowledge if you want to personal stuff about Rio/RX but I wasn't raised to do that sort of stuff. I can however be coaxed into just about anything. Anyway I think I ended up doing the right thing. Had I paid it Uncle Patrick may have never gotten his money back from the kid plus I still would be right in the middle of it all. That's a large sum of money to me, I am sure that wasn't the last threat I would have heard had I took it upon myself to pay these guys the first day. So while I did not pay it I stood up and got to the bottom of it for everyone else. And by the way the total amount loss was actually more than 235k, thats just what I owed. On one specific account I was up 38k with a 50k settle and after everything was done I was over my settle figure - I owed him 65k. While I just counted it as a 65k loss it was actually a 113k (65 + 38) loss with just this one agent. In addition the kid managed to wipe out a bit of money from some post up accounts as well that is not included in that figure.
XXXX: As the agent threatened, are you now ruined off-shore Pat?
Pat: Depends who you ask, LOL. I am not ruined with the guys I have known personally. I mentioned above I am already back playing with several of the guys who got stiffed in this fiasco. That's right, of the 5 or 6 agents involved I am back in business with 3 of them right now. I played before I started posting in these forums and will be playing long after even if I never post again. My main partner is one of the oldest guys off shore and was one of the first one's out there. I did go in my pocket and pay some of the stuff he had coming as I wanted to protect his name. He has guys laying off big action in to him all the time and I am able to get a nice piece of all that, no way was I going to ruin that. For the record the kid not only owes the other agents he owes me some cheese as well. So while I am not ruined in my dealings with the books I probably am in the forums as far as posting on a daily basis or being a moderator somewhere again. LOL. Big difference by the way, if you are going to be ruined somewhere it's much better if it is in the forums than in real life. Usually the "highly respected" posters aren't jackshit off-shore and conversely the real players don't give a damn about the forums unless they are making a buck here somehow. In this case I was very reluctant to ever tell what really went on as I don't really want the extra exposure. This stuff is no one's business and by nature I don't like to share personal stuff about myself along these lines, there's no reason for it. I still believe either Rio or the RX was prompting this guy to post all this about our personal dealings and I intend to find out what is what. I may be heard from again on this if I find out the wrong people did this for the wrong reasons. This DM idiot ran out here with it all in his attempt to publicly embarrass me, I have to give him enough credit to know that he knows that didn't help his cause. Anyway other than the fact I was once seriously thinking of writing a daily morning column for one of the watchdog sites (PM in the AM) which won't happen now, nothing has changed . Other than that I don't see any long term affects from this either on the forums or in real life.
XXXX: Any final thoughts?
Pat: No not really, if anyone wants to get hold of me everything is still the same. If this wasn't such a serious issue it would be almost comical how everything hits at once. Besides all this about a month ago before getting on a plane for Vegas my wife served me with divorce papers, 13 years down the drain. With all this and the timing of all it I was caught off guard but thats the way it goes. It's part of life and at times you just take one day at a time but you always find a way to muddle through it all. Ironically some real McIrish haters from the past have sent me private notes and have been surprisingly supportive in all this. More than once I have been surprised by who has dropped me an encouraging line. Also some of the posters I respect in the forums have wanted to wait and see so I do appreciate that most can tell when they are hearing half the story. As I said from the top I will still be around and one day I hope we can all say the entire 235k has been paid. I still hate stiffs and rats with a passion even if they are related to me (by marriage only).
XXXX: Pat thanks for the interview and hope you decide to post more now that the story is out.
Pat: We'll see how it turns out. I am quite busy now as we have two homes I am repairing that will be sold in the divorce plus all the other stuff. On the forums you can waste your time with stuff like this and no one ever wins. In poker they define a railbird as someone who lacks either the bankroll or the skill to play the game. They prefer to sit on the sidelines while they get off on pointing out mistakes from others, thats why they watch. They don't sit there to get better but watch to tell others how smart they are from the safety of the rail. On the forums there are a lot of railbirds. May come a day where I have time to mix it up again with those guys but this is a serious matter to real players off-shore and I don't feel like joking around about it. Instead of disconnecting my phone and moving away I made sure that I did all I could to see this gets taken care of. While it's not my style to run like most would have down right away, that still won't be good enough for some of the railbirds on these forums. Instead of defending myself over and over against these people I will probably limit myself to random posts here and there. Most important thing for me is to get action down when I need to, since that is not in question now I can live with the rest
Originally published on March 10, 2004 (1:28 pm EST)
