[Charity Tournament For Bryan Micon]

Instead of writing more Micon-style rhetoric, I would instead post verifiable information about yourself, to prove that you are indeed a separate person, a person with a reputation we can trust. Because, above and beyond all the other reasons why this is a dumb idea that no one is interested in, absolutely NO one is going to trust a utter Anon with 5 posts to run and organize any kind of charitable activity. You understand that, right?

 

I hear that. If it matters in terms of participation, I can privately contact you with my info. I only ask that you don't share it with the haters, as I generally perfer to stay in the background and observe from a distance. I'm really not the right guy to be organizing this, but nobody else seems to be picking up the ball right now.

 

Joke all you want, but Ethiopia is the ideal place for Micon right now, assuming coffee is a priority, and aggressive ignorance and racism aren't going to earn him a lot of support. He needs all the allies he can get.

 

Yes he does. Jamaica might also be a good option due to the abundance of both coffee and weed. Last I heard, visitors could take up to 1 pound of pure Jamaican bud off the island with no questions asked. Plus, Jamaicans tend to be super laid back and friendly, so I think he'd fit right in. Something else to consider is that Jamaica isn't that far from Antigua, so he could probably just hop on a small sailboat or something and drift on over (hint, hint).

 

The smart thing for me to do isn't the same as the smart thing for someone else to do, because I'm dangerous as shit, and not in the internet tough guy way, but in the there are dead people in real life kind of way.

C'mon. You're going to karate chop somebody with a gun in your ribs, tough guy? Real tough guys use their strength to protect the innocent and persecute the genuinely guilty. They don't dump on peaceful and good natured people like Micon.

 

His choices in this matter were still stupid.

 

Okay, but stupid != criminal. Do you think he should spend the next 8-20 years in a cage? Doesn't he still deserve a good legal defense?

 

Also, businesses like that take a lot of work and provide a lot of value. You don't just turn on the software and watch money pour in. Micon did a lot of good detective work and busted up a whole bunch of online collusion rings, for example. On three separate occasions my account was credited out of the blue after he caught people doing stuff like that.

 

Guys with integrity in this business are about as rare as a four-leafed clover. So I vote with my dollars and support them.

 

The child should have been in the equation for Micon in the first place, when he chose to run an online gambling site in the one place on earth most hostile to online gambling....

 

Okay, but keep in mind that Micon was already involved with SWC long before his kid was even born. And for the record, I don't think he really ran everything. On several occasions, I remember him saying something about management not agreeing with some of his decisions. In any case, he obviously had a lot of help.

[Charity Tournament For Bryan Micon]

So much venom you guys! Dial it back a notch, k? I also hear some interesting and valid points, so I'll try to respond.

 

You're a poker dealing friend of Micons, who knows enough about Micon's poker dealings to know Micon went HAM on DN's cult, but you don't know who his former NWP partner, Todd Witteles is? Seriously?

 

That's correct. I've only know him since 2012, so it's not like we grew up together. That said, I've been observing his behavior fairly closely since then and I think I have a pretty good read on him. Except for what I've read on Donkdown, I know zippy zap about Choice Center.

 

I don't think you have an accurate perception of Keynan poverty.

 

I fully concede my ignorance on this topic. Maybe Ethiopia will be good for him. He does need to lose some weight.

 

 

... your plan is unrealistic, its a massive flop waiting to happen and Micon isn't getting 30 years (he will likely get something, but not anywhere near a full barrel sentencing.) ...

 

Sure it could be a flop, but so what? Worst case scenario, I get zero players, which is precisely what I'd get if I did nothing at all. So what's the downside? Plus, I don't like standing by while good people get thrown under the bus.

 

Well then he shouldn't have broken the law, and instead of worked to get the law changed while not... breaking the law.

 

What I hear you saying is that what Micon did was technically illegal and practically stupid. I get that. I'm not qualified to comment on the legal stuff, but I agree with you on a practical level.

 

But for the sake of clear thought, let's separate out the legal, practical, and moral aspects of this situation.

 

Micon definitely miscalculated the risks vs. benefits of the whole bitcoin poker enterprise, especially while living in Las Vegas. I agree. The Nevada mafia has always tried to shut down the competition. So I concede the practical and legal arguments. But as a friend, I personally only care about the moral argument.

 

Suppose a mugger sticks a gun into your ribs and asks for your wallet, OK? On a practical level, what's the smart thing to do? Hand over your wallet, right? Why? Because he's pointing a gun at you. But at the same time, you recognize the situation as morally illegitimate. You have no moral obligation to hand over your wallet.

 

No it isn't (like selling a bag of weed). For many different reasons. Further, the weed laws are changing because people are changing them. Selling weed before it becomes legal does not make you a hero, it makes you an idiot.

 

Well, both are examples of victimless crimes. As a general moral principle, I accept that real crimes require at least one victim. In the case of selling a bag of weed, we're talking about a voluntary transacation between a willing buyer and a willing seller. As long as the seller doesn't misrepresent the product or engage in fraud, there's no crime. No victim = no crime. Now of course, politicians can write down on paper that selling a bag of weed is a crime. But I agrue that all such laws are morally illegitimate. But maybe you disagree with my moral principle? OK fine, but then what priciples are you operating from? If you just say that right and wrong = whatever the government says. Well, I think that's a terrible principle. You're bascially admitting that you have no moral rudder whatsoever.

 

Fvck you and your moral conundrum, ****

 

No conundrum. It's a provisional judgement based on limited information. That's what poker players do.

"Let the haters hate. Let the players play." -Micon

How about you be a player?

[Charity Tournament For Bryan Micon]

Hey um.. "Nate" since I have your ear.. do you know what the story of the beef between Karina Jett and You... er.. I mean, Micon is?

 

So jaded! Someone's always lying in poker, so maybe that's a good instinct. But seriously, I'm not Micon!

Karina Jett, Todd, Zoe, Dustin? No idea who these people are. Are they connected with the Grindabit forumn? Yes, SWC and Grindabit had a falling out some time ago. I don't know exactly what happened, but here's my take on it: Grindabit basically sold out and started promoting a whole bunch of sleazy sites. Micon felt that promoting sites like that gave a bad rap to bitcoin poker in general. So they split. That's my read on it.

 

What's the coffee situation like for Micon down there? The odd thing about a lot of the best coffee growing regions like certain Latin-American countries and Kenya is that they don't actually drink coffee there, and don't know shit about roasting it. That's why if I were on the lamb, I'd hit Ethiopia. Could you pass that along to Micon?

 

Maybe that's because Kenyans would rather spend their meager income on real food. Just a guess. I really don't know him that well, but I'll mention it next chance I get.

 

Answer me this, Micon: rules are rules, who are we without our integrity?

 

It's like this. Have you ever done something illegal, knowing that it might be illegal, but you did it anyway because the activity was basically harmless?

That's how some guys are. They live according to their own moral compass and sometimes it gets them in hot water. I think Micon has a very good moral compass and that's why I call him my friend. Okay, sometimes he miscalculates. Sometimes he does things that are just plain weird. Things like shooting YouTube videos while lounging around in his bathrobe and hitting a bong. But guys like that are straight shooters. They'll back you up when popular opinion turns against you. It's the guys who always follow the herd that end up stabbing you in the back.

 

Maybe I'm wrong about Micon. Maybe I'm the sucker at the table. But my intuition says no.

[Charity Tournament For Bryan Micon]

So I just want to clarify something and give ya'll a quick update. No, I am not Micon nor do I have any affiliation with SWC. I don't even know Micon that well except that we've played a lot of OFC/p and Yahtzee together and I know he's for real.

 

What makes it personal for me is that he has a family and two year old daughter. I also have a two year old daughter and the thought of a little girl growing up without her father just breaks my heart. We're talking about an alleged crime with no identifiable victim whatsoever. It's like throwing somebody in a cage for 20 years for selling a bag of weed.

 

So this is my plan. Today I'm going out to buy a whole bunch of poker visors. Those visors will be prizes in the tournament. I'm going to pitch the idea to as many celebrities and quasi-celebrities as I can think of and ask them to sign a visor. If sombody really famous agrees to it, those visors might have real collectors value some day. Plus, how cool would it be to play poker with somebody like Charlie Sheen via webcam? Pretty cool, yes? (I don't know Charlie, I just picked that name as an example).

 

Also, I'm still looking for a site to host the event. Best case scenario would be to partner with a company like PokerStars to help with promotion and what not. But as the mod said, that's probably a long shot. I think PokerStars is trying to maintain a squeaky-clean image for the regulated market. But who knows. All I can do is ask and see what happens. Other options exist, like maybe a play-money network like Zynga or yahoo games or something like that.

 

I think it would also be cool to set up webcams and broadcast the event over twitch.tv or something like that. Just throwing ideas out there. That is all.

[Charity Tournament For Bryan Micon]

Micon always described himself as the site pro and affiliate manager, so whether he personally operated anything remains unclear. I don't think he had the technical chops for it, so I doubt it.

 

But legal minutia aside, Micon is a stand up guy. He never hurt anyone. He always paid his debts. He fought collusion and called out cheaters. SWC offered a good service at a fair price and created nothing but value for the poker world.

 

So that's why I'm organizing the tournament. Poker needs more guys like that.

[Charity Tournament For Bryan Micon]

As many of you probably know, my friend Bryan Micon was recently charged by the Nevada Attorney General with "one count of operating an unlicensed interactive gaming system." He could face between 8 and 20 years in jail if convicted.

 

What I'd like to do is organize a charity poker tournament to help pay for his legal fees. Say, a 20 dollar buy-in with 100 percent of the funds going to his GoFundMe account. The winner would get ... I don't know, a limited edition poker hat signed by someone famous, or something like that, which might become a collectors item some day.

 

The basic message of the event would be, "online poker is not a crime."

So here is what I'm wondering:

 

1) Would would it take to get someone like Daniel involved? No doubt we could raise more money if some high profile players got involved. Like, "Hey, come play poker with Daniel Negreanu and raise money for a good cause." People would go for that.

 

2) We need a venue to host the event, so I'm thinking PokerStars. I fear that SWC is too small a site right now to raise a meaningful amount of money. Any possibility of that?

 

Daniel, do you forgive Micon for the Choice Center cult accusations? Extra karma points if you do, and I think it would be super classy if you agreed to play in a charity poker tournament for him at this stressful time.