Quote Originally Posted by JeffDime View Post
It’s all about money/raising profile/engagement for most of the parties commenting on this situation. Berkey is doing things backwards. Narrative is Lafay (woman) is scrutinized and Mercer (man/swamp creature) was not. Now go back and find some “examples” of the hypocrisy. Now Druff is an easy target. He’s not doing this for money. Druffs not going to pay Above the Felt to sponsor Berkey for anything. So Druff made this tweet we can take out of context. Let’s bury him.

Why take it easy on Vertucci/HCL? Vertucci passed the bag around for this degenerate to play high limit pai gow. Well HCL is the highest viewed product in poker right now. Would Berkey maybe be a bit gun shy because his representation also represents Rampage? A frequent player on HCL livestreams. Including their Million Dollar Game. Maybe it’s best to play nice. This is best for business. Just bury that Todd guy.

Yes, I’m speculating but I hope I’m right. Because if Berkey really believes all the shit coming out of his mouth…yikes. Going forward at least when someone comes forward asking for coin it can be standard procedure to have them show documentation. Redact what you have to but let’s get the diagnosis and prognosis…we can go from there.

Let’s picture a world where Mercer is on this twitter space a few months back. Druff, who according to Berkey is obligated to, gets on the Space and says “Rob, with all respect, have you provided documentation of your illness? Because the community has been scammed before”. Holy fucking hell Todd would probably get immediately booted out of the space and everyone would say what an uncaring asshole he was.

Probably nothing would have changed except Todd getting absolute hell for a few months…and now he would be proven correct but the damage would already be done. It wouldn’t have been worth it. The scam would have most likely succeeded. See that wasn’t to tough to imagine how it would have went down.

Anyways, at least going forward someone asking for documentation will be taken seriously and this nonsense can be curtailed. But a few months ago all it would have done is most likely given Druff 2 more months of harassment.
Yup.

I don't think we should be hating on Vertucco/HCL, either. Yes, Vertucci was careless to not vet the guy better, but he was trying to do something nice (even if it also would help his/HCL's brand), so you can't be too hard on him. Nobody should be hard on Snoopdoug, as well. He didn't even have anything to gain by promoting Rob!

But everything else is spot on. It's easy to vilify guys like me and Slay with little consequence, so some will do it if it makes them look more empathetic. Ironically, Berkey and I developed what I thought was a good relationship when I was supportive of him maybe 18 months ago when he was getting shit for politically incorrect stuff he wrote. But here he is saying I'm sexist and questioning my motivation in calling out Jami in the first place. As I said, highly disappointing.

And you're 100% correct about what would have happened if I called out Rob. I thought about that at the time. The reaction would have been extreme anger from many people, especially those who only supported the Jami skepticism because of her prior bad rep. "Wow, Todd, all you ever do is pick on people with cancer. Are you not human?" I would have gotten the reputation as someone who tries to get attention by hassling cancer patients. No thanks.

The problem is that cancer is the second leading cause of death in developed countries (just behind heart disease), so almost everyone has a tragic memory of a relative or close friend who died of it (or is presently dying from it). Therefore, when you question a supposed cancer patient, these people instantly picture how they'd feel if their dying mom or best friend were hassled online about their condition. And they get mad. Really mad.

This is why the con is so effective. Poker isn't the first space where online cancer scams have taken place. This has existed for a long time, but the existence of Gofundme makes it especially easy, as you can reach a large audience, and donating is easy to do. You just need a way to amplify your scammy plea, and that's where you find an online community, get some social capital with them, and then bring out the money request and sob story.

It's even further complicated that there are bad people out there who also have non-terminal cancer, who realize it's an opportunity to exploit people by embellishing everything. Remember, bad people also really do get sick.

Anyway, bottom line is that had I shown any skepticism about Rob, I would have been jumped on even worse than last time with Jami.