*Pound* V.5: - November 9th, 2013 - Frederick, MD Featuring M2K, Scorp, and MD/VA's Best!

[Sweet™]

I've never been to a Pound tournament, and I've really wanted to for a while.

What Plank is doing now is respectable. He is attempting to wrong a right. It's not like he had done what he had done and then completely cut ties with the community. If you're still holding a grudge (which I'm sure isn't unlikely as the smash community isn't too forgiving) then hold your tongue for now and at least let him try work this out. He's trying. The players who weren't paid out should have more of a voice in this situation than the people just throwing out jabs here.

Just give him a little breathing room for now. You can't forgive a situation like this overnight, so just let him do what he needs to, and is trying to do.

 

[Tesh]

Not going to address your overwhelming ignorance with a legitimate response, please don't post in the thread anymore.

if im so ignorant, why not enlighten me?

I think you just don't have a good lie yet. You obviously have had plenty of free time in the past couple of years, you just didn't want to put in the effort to pay anyone back.

If you want forgiveness, there had better be some full disclosure about why you still haven't payed anyone back. I'm sure the winners want to know why you could never even send them a fraction of their money in all this time?

 

[Plairnkk]

ehh, seemed pretty reasonable to me, but i already knew i'm overwhelmingly ignorant.


also, can you please debunk rumors of the new automobile you acquired shortly after Pound V?

Lol, at least you know. And no, I didn't acquire a new automobile shortly after Pound V. And obviously I didn't move across the country.

Tesh, I am not interested in having that conversation in this thread. You should read some of the posts DoH and Laijin have made - they pretty much sum up where I stand without me having to spam it up. Again, if you have nothing of substance to say to contribute to the tournament, please move along. Thanks

 

[GimR]

My take on it since I actually helped plank out by bringing 40 tvs and recording Melee and Brawl for basically free. He paid for my room and the Uhaul though.

1. Plank did not steal the money and go off and buy a car or something like you guys are making it out to seem. He was put between a rock and a hard place. He had a hotel deal and he told smashers not to cram into rooms, but they did it anyways. And a lot canceled rooms last second. So when push came to shove, even though it was primarily his fault since he's the TO, he was a little pissed because smashers ignored what needed to be done in order for him to reach his deal and that's why he was so pissy in the results thread. It was still wrong of him to be that way but I can see why it happened. So the pot money was used to pay the hotel off instead of given to the players. This was wrong, it shouldn't have happened and Plank faced a lot of punishment for it too. He was black listed despite hosting 3 nationals before that which the players absolutely loved. He was not known as a TO that didn't pay people out is my point.

2. He was not forgiven easily. He disappeared for the first year and we (VGBootCamp) actually banned him from one of our Xanadu events when he tried to come back.


It's been two years, and he's going to start pay players back with this event. He is not going to be making ANY profits and he's going to be completely transparent. How can you be opposed to giving him one chance? This a win-win in my eyes. If it some how goes bad (Which it won't) he'll be completely screwing himself over (Why would he do that) so I can;t see that as possibly happening. If it goes well (Which it will) players will start getting paid back for his past mess up. It's been two years. He messed up at ONE of his many awesome events. Are we really not gonna give him one chance to redeem himself? It's just once chance

Also he's being completely transparent this time around. I'm pretty sure he'll be showing bills etc so you guys know exactly where all the money is going

 

[Tesh]

I don't see how 3 good nationals before it should earn him forgiveness. Are you saying it would be okay for Alex Strife to do this at Apex 2014 and then just ask for Apex 2015 players to pay for it?

Good lord you banned him from 1 tournament. How did he survive that?

Honestly if he was doing everything in his power to make things right. I could see him as an honorable guy that ****ed up big. But I don't buy his story of being so poor that he could never pay anyone back anything without the community being his bank again. When I see proof that this guy got a 2nd job and lived on ramen noodles, I could see him in a good light.

Plank you ran and hid from this conversation 2 years ago and now you don't want any part of it?

 

[GimR]

I don't like the conflict with Whobo at all. That's obviously a problem. But I'm confused. He's doing something that will actually pay the players back that were screwed but you guys are saying, "NO he should've gotten a second jo and lived miserably only eating ramen for the last two years" Like are you serious? THIS will actually get players their money back. Unless he suffers miserably to get the players their money back he can't do this to help get their money back?


PS: I said he dipped for a year. This is because he knew he'd be banned from any loca tournaments if he tried to go. And when he did try to come back, we still banned him. And when we banned him he dipped again for a long period of time. That was my point. You're acting like MD/VA was cool with him after what happened.

 

[Battlecow]

Say he did pay every penny of the pot to the Hotel. OK. One more chance is something you give to people who accidentally didn't get enough TV's for friendlies. One more chance is what you give to a guy who didn't run pools efficiently. You don't give one more chance to the guy who lost ten grand.

For all of the people who just happen to be from MD/VA and are telling us to get out of the thread or stop hating--no. This debate is just going to happen when plank tries to run another tourney. It just is. There's no way he gets to address it in an OP and then everything's peachy.

And GIMR, you might not remember but MD/VA totally was OK with him after it. Laijin took his money from winning amateur hour and came right to the thread to have a hissy fit about how mean everyone was being and how plank was the best TO ever.

Also I'm aware of the controversy surrounding mother theresa's life and it's my opinion that all things considered she was still a bad ***** (in the best sense of the phrase). Also I was using her as a catch-all for "really good person." Insert "Fred Rogers" if you insist on using an actual perfect human being.

 

[GimR]

Say he did pay every penny of the pot to the Hotel. OK. One more chance is something you give to people who accidentally didn't get enough TV's for friendlies. One more chance is what you give to a guy who didn't run pools efficiently. You don't give one more chance to the guy who lost ten grand.

For all of the people who just happen to be from MD/VA and are telling us to get out of the thread or stop hating--no. This debate is just going to happen when plank tries to run another tourney. It just is. There's no way he gets to address it in an OP and then everything's peachy.

And GIMR, you might not remember but MD/VA totally was OK with him after it. Laijin took his money from winning amateur hour and came right to the thread to have a hissy fit about how mean everyone was being and how plank was the best TO ever.

Laijin took his money because he earned it. He had no obligation to give Armada money he was screwed out of. Now, if he did as you claimed then obviously it was wrong. He shouldn't have defended plank like that. And you've given one example of MD/VA an MD/VA person still being cool with him. Plank dipped because he knew he couldn't show his face at a local event.

I don't think there's anything wrong with this debate happening. It's just hard when the opposition's argument is, "he did such and such, no forgiveness is allowed ever", and then they close their ears. I don't see how anything wrong can come out of it. He's making NO profit and giving ALL left over venue to players who lost money at Pound 5. Isn't that what we want? Don't we want players to get their money back?

I do hope the WHOBO conflict can somehow be resolved because that's a problem


I think this is the last thing I'll say on the matter.

 

[Laijin]

Say he did pay every penny of the pot to the Hotel. OK. One more chance is something you give to people who accidentally didn't get enough TV's for friendlies. One more chance is what you give to a guy who didn't run pools efficiently. You don't give one more chance to the guy who lost ten grand.

For all of the people who just happen to be from MD/VA and are telling us to get out of the thread or stop hating--no. This debate is just going to happen when plank tries to run another tourney. It just is. There's no way he gets to address it in an OP and then everything's peachy.

And GIMR, you might not remember but MD/VA totally was OK with him after it. Laijin took his money from winning amateur hour and came right to the thread to have a hissy fit about how mean everyone was being and how plank was the best TO ever.

Also I'm aware of the controversy surrounding mother theresa's life and it's my opinion that all things considered she was still a bad ***** (in the best sense of the phrase). Also I was using her as a catch-all for "really good person." Insert "Fred Rogers" if you insist on using an actual perfect human being.

Putting words in my mouth much? No need to get super defensive kid. All I did for you was lay down some facts. The most I did to "defend plank" after the tournament was tell people to stop jumping to conclusions and wait for him to post more information(which he did btw).

Go sit down somewhere please and don't return(to this thread at least).

We should really get a mod to watch this thread and start handing out infractions for moving off topic on this tournament. We should talk about the upcoming tournament, not something that happened and was already addressed two years ago

 

[Nintendude]

Since when is a MD/VA Melee regional conflicting with a Brawl national half way across the country a problem? I understand that WHOBO added Melee to the roster but let's be real here. NOBODY from MD/VA is going to WHOBO for Melee. Everyone who wants to travel for a Melee national in October is going to The Big House 3. Plank's possible dates for this venue were either this weekend, same weekend as Big House, or a venue without internet in November that may conflict with the successor to ROM5. Have some perspective, people.

 

[Tesh]

A 2nd job is not suffering horribly. An extra part time minimum wage job would not ruin his life. Hell it would do alot more for his image if he was willing to put forth his time to make things right. Getting other people to bail him out actually does make a difference. It shows a lack of responsibility for his own actions.

I guess you've connected the dots with my post and my sig, but I'd feel this way about plank if even if he found a whole month where not a single other person was running anything. I don't believe in running charity events for people that don't deserve it.

There is no conflict with Whobo (imo). The events are so far away from each other and I can't imagine any top player touching Pound because they see how it can turn out.

edit: what nintendude says is right, Whobo is primarily a brawl event (thas what the B is for) with a local/regional sized melee and 64 event packaged together.

the only personal stake any TX players might have in this is that you owe gnes, razer, jerm and trela hundreds of dollars.

 

[TheTantalus]

I'll reply to it. Guarantee you won't like my response.

Before I respond to anything though, I want to go ahead and preface this statement with my view of Pound V. Keep in mind I was the Brawl T.O. After Pound IV, I was paid a decent chunk of change for my efforts in running the brawl side of things and helping out in anyway I could. I was also offered to have a free room in the Pound IV hotel but I lived close enough to the venue that I had no reason to stay in a hotel. (It's the only national ever that I ran from home)

I knew going into Pound V that money was tight, and Plank told me "he wasnt' sure what he'd be able to give me" up front. Knowing that, I ran one of the most efficient Brawl tournaments i've ever put together (considering we ran 3 rounds of round robin pools, 1 in teams and 2 in singles), and paid my own hotel room (of which, we had an amazing cast of characters in). I was later informed there was nothing for me from the T.O. side. So I had a large monetary loss when you consider the amount it cost me for the hotel, and the amount of money I didnt' get for running a tournament incredibly effectively.

Either way, Pound V was an honor to run. Mistakes happen. Sometimes, you are literally pinned in a corner and have no way out. Plank based his projections off of Pound IV, and Pound V wasn't as successful, and Plank honestly probably shouldn't have banked on smashers renting the rooms at that price. But he did, and here is where we are.

My thought is "Let those without sin cast the first stone." No one is perfect, and Plank is trying redeem at least something here. The thing is, bad things happen to everyone. The money wasn't guaranteed in contract, and that is the risk you take in competing in a grassroots tournament (hence why no one has even bothered to sue plank for their "winnings", as the states of Maryland and Virginia both would refer to that as gambling and would have no reason to pursue that, since the money wasn't guaranteed by contract. Even if it was recouped, they'd have to issue a garnish of wages to get the money, and it would all be taxed by either VA or MD so you'd basically get crushed and barely get anything at all and it would take 10 years to get it). The difference between Plank and say Winterbrawl or Manacloud is that they intentionally took money from the pot for their own profit, while Plank literally lost so much money that he had no way to recoup the losses. Consider the already incredible punishment Plank has already had, he hasn't been able to even consider holding events for 2 and half years, he hasnt' been able to attend anything anywhere other than a few gracious events nearby since that time, so there has been a huge loss for him as well.

If you aren't willing to give him a second chance, don't show up. If you want to support the growth of melee and the community, come have a good time. He's made it quite clear that he's taken grave measures to make sure this event is sound and other people will be helping him handle the money who are known with good reputations.

Now for this tesh fellow...

Fool me once, shame on you.

Fool me twice...

Actually, he hasn't really fooled anyone. He's been up front and honest about everything. Oh and don't forget the amazing tournaments Pound 1-4 where he paid out with no issue. You weren't fooled at those, were you?

All of you people defending him would not be so forgiving if you had been screwed out of your winnings. Its easy to forgive him when you got what YOU wanted out of it.

See my above post. I lost tons of money. So what? Some people buy apple stocks and they tank once in a while and they lose money. Money isn't everything. Am I mad? Sure. I would've loved to spend that money on furthering my game collection, or putting it towards my 2011 wedding. But it didn't happen, and we dealt with it.

Any excess venue fees from your events should go to melee AND brawl players that you stole from. If you have a debt, its not our job as a community to come up with the money for you. Not a single brawl player should be required to come to Pound 6 to help you pay what you already owe. Nor should the Melee community need to bail you out of your debt to their winners.

Pretty sure he's made it clear he's working on all of that. And I don't think he's ever asked the community to help him. Other people have done that in generosity.

We know you didn't have malevolent plans from the start, but its still YOUR **** up. You flew too close to the sun and went down in flames. Then you blamed everyone else on your way down. You don't deserve some big pity party because you had good intentions. Other TOs have shown thats its possible to have great events without digging a giant hole.

You clearly missed a year or two in reading class. If you learn to read, come back and read the first post he made. Other TO's have also lost money/missed payouts on events as well. (I even lost some last weekend on an event.) It happens. No one is perfect, and no one can always plan for everything. Imagine if APEX got hit by a blizzard and lost power for a day. You think Alex Strife would be fully prepared for that? No one can see the future. It can happen to anyone quicker than a blink of an eye.

For those of you that had a good time at pound V regardless, thats great. But its pretty easy to put on an awesome show when you overspend your money and don't pay anyone.

Plank you obviously had free time to attend other tournaments, so why didn't you have time to pick up a 2nd job to pay what you owe? Do you really expect everyone to believe that in 2 years you never had any extra money or opportunities to make extra money to right your wrongs? And now the only way you can scrape together a few dollars is to profit from running smash tournaments? It seems to me that you are just putting the burden back on the community again. You are only willing to pay if everyone trusts you again and throws money at you.

If you knew plank, you would know that he HAS had 2 jobs at points just to pay his rent and expenses to live. Saving up 10 grand is no easy task. My wife and I make combined near 6 digits and we still haven't saved up 10 grand. It would take us 18 months to do that based on our expenses.

Enjoy your charity smashfest, plank fanboys.

Enjoy getting mocked by TheTantalus, plank hater

-T

Edit: Why are most of the people complaining people who would normally make $0?

 

[Yung Mei]

get reckt tesh

 

[GimR]

Just so you guys know. I don't want you to think I'm defending his previous actions. That was never the case. It was a bad situation. It's just that we have this opportunity to get players their money back. And I'm all for that.

 

[Tesh]

Dang man that was not a good comeback at the end.

I guess I should believe that Plank is that one young american who has a job that pays him exactly what he needs to continue breathing and not a penny more. I never said he'd be able to pay back 10k alone in that time, but paying back some percentage of that on his own dime would be worth something. He clearly has time to attend tournaments so its not like he is working round to clock to make ends meet.

Natural disasters are no laughing matter and should not be compared to poor financial decisions. What happened to Plank was HIS FAULT. He wasn't upfront about the risks before the tournament so why blame the community for that?

 

[TheTantalus]

Sure, that's clearly understandable and the biggest mistake made at the event. Pound V surely should have been cancelled. Not sure on that one, you'd have to ask him why it couldnt' be cancelled. It was a poor business decision. Unfortunately, that is the risk we all take by attending a grassroots tournament.

 

[Cyrain]

And GIMR, you might not remember but MD/VA totally was OK with him after it..

Mother ******
Do you not realize that not everyone believed Plank was a huge thief after *Pound* 5? I'm pretty sure he always was and always will be widely beloved in our community. Why the **** would we all suddenly turn on someone after something so devastating had occurred? Assuming he WASN'T a thief, you can surely realize how he must have felt after losing that money, spending tons out of pocket, not being able to pay back winners and having his reputation/amazing tournament series burned to the ground.

To the people saying "oh well if it was your money then YOUD BE PISSED hurrrr" no, I personally wouldn't. It wouldn't be the first time I got screwed out of money and I'm sure it wouldn't be the last. People GROW UP AND GET OVER THINGS. We forgive people. Jesus ****ing christ.

And seriously for all of you ******s in here ******** about Plank, get the **** out of here and PM him or JUST GET THE **** OVER IT. The man is trying to revive an amazing and revered tournament series right here in our backyard and you're coming in here to ***** about it? It's in OUR REGION and WE WANT IT so **** YOU. Keep your angry **** to yourselves or speak with Plank directly.

 

[Laijin]

Cyrain embodies the thoughts of everyone in one post lol

 

[Black Tyranno]

I'll be attending this for sure.

 

[Plairnkk]

I typed a long ass response and just deleted it because, again, it's not worth it and I don't need to put my personal information out there like that. The fact that you can't fathom there might be people in debt in 2013 is pretty much why I called you overwhelmingly ignorant. Everything that needs to be said has been said. If you don't like it, don't come, it doesn't matter. I am going to throw a baller event for those of us who want to have fun. Everyone will be paid, I won't even be handling the money, and hopefully some P5 winners will get some money back.

It's funny to me that the same 5-10 people who relentlessly talked **** on me and spread false rumors when this happened are the same people who are doing it in this thread. I can identify the names of these people just from so many obnoxious posts they posted back then and know immediately what they're going to be saying. That's exactly what happened with Tesh's first post in this thread.

Just because you are the loudest doesn't mean you are correct or that you are in the majority. It's often the loudest who know the least, actually. Maybe everyone "defending" me or supporting this tournament aren't just "plank fanboys" but maybe they are people with logic, reason, and the ability to see situations in a realistic and mature manner. Maybe they just understand a little more than you. Maybe the few of you who can't hold back from coming in here and talking tons of **** have a little bit of growing up to do. Just maybe though.

TLDR: STFU and GTFO

 

[Plairnkk]

also cyrain is my d00d. i am definitely his fanboy


I am done addressing both tesh and battlecow.

<3 everybody else

 

[Cyrain]

People who are incapable of expanding their view of the world to a point beyond themselves make for really dull arguments. x_x

Also this region still sucks let's step it the **** up for this event.

 

[Black Mantis]

 

[Laijin]

I don't get how people are ignorant enough to not realize that people could be struggling. We're not all lucky to be debt free without worries. Some of us have things like credit card debt, student loans, car notes, rent, etc etc to deal with just to live. Some of us are barely staying afloat.
To be ignorant to that is not even worth arguing with someone over.

And yeah agreed. I'm gonna step up a lot this year in time for this event.

 

[Plairnkk]

^See now at least that pic is hilarious :D

I am curious as to how you got inside the Hyatt cash office though o_O

 

[Cyrain]

Damn I've only seen this guy in one other thread. I think it was for that NC rock em sock em tourney and he was being a complete ****** in there too.
Shoutouts to players that don't matter to the community at all.

 

[Black Mantis]

Shoutouts to people who can't take jokes (and get bopped in Melee).

 

[Laijin]

Shoutouts to people who can't take jokes (and get bopped in Melee).

 

[Cyrain]

Naw I just remembered that I disliked the **** out of you based on your posts in that other thread.
Oh and yes I do get bopped in Melee. I'm pretty washed up, unfortunately.
And LMFAO laijin. That killed me.
Aight I'm done yelling at people.
See you all in october wooooooooooooooooooo

 

[Black Mantis]

Still can't take a joke. Also, I look forward to seeing you not make top 10, get bopped, and not defend your home state at this. I'm out folks. Plank I hope everything goes well (don't drop the ball this time).

 

[AllyKnight]

Yah seriously, tesh and whoever no need to post anymore, I'm sure everyone who was salty about their winning forgot this incident, hell I didn't remember until now but I don't give a ****, I was really mad because I made it back from losers and won it and how expensive the cost of the tourney was overall. Just let him do what he needs, america does suck and eats your money, I know tons of people who are in debts and if you ain't got rich parents supporting you, life's hard.

If you support Plank, go to the tournament, if you don't stay home and streammonster or do some fapping.

 

[big sleep]

people still do brawl tournaments?

LMFAOOOOOOOOO ****ing wow

 

[Plairnkk]

hey all - i changed the date to november 09 after talking with juggleguy. he was concerned that it being one week after might deter some bigger name players.... we've always been cool and i def don't want to step on his toes or anything like that. when i called the venue i had a stroke of luck and the guy who had the room i needed booked on november 09 cancelled so this will be a full month after big house.

 

[IceArrow]

That's good, and now there's no interference with WHOBO either.

 

[Juno McGrath]

Im in there

 

[Cyrain]

Still can't take a joke. Also, I look forward to seeing you not make top 10, get bopped, and not defend your home state at this. I'm out folks. Plank I hope everything goes well (don't drop the ball this time).

LOL you must think I think I'm still really good at this game. Getting top 10 would make me happy as ****.

 

[Omni]

Smashboards needs to wake up and realize...

 

[Battlecow]

anger

Right, right. Which is why there are, what, 7-8 people in this thread all pissing their pants over how mean we're being to plank? Insisting that it's obvious he acted perfectly at Pound V or that he "deserves forgiveness" and forgiveness means not raising any questions when this ****** tries to run another tourney? And they all just happen to be from MD/VA. One of the loudest ones even won money at P5. Hmmm.

Aiight, well, I've made my objections clear (one thing I do wanna reiterate is that it's ****ing scummy of the guy to try to force good players to come by not paying them any of the money he owes them if they don't). Might drop in once more to bemoan the idiocy of smashers if anyone from outside of the region actually shows up to this ****ing thing, but other than that I'm out.

 

[Black Mantis]

people still do brawl tournaments?

LMFAOOOOOOOOO ****ing wow

You know the old me would reference a certain apex melee tournament that had grand finals take over an hour, but I'm not going to do that because you're a Boro player like me and we're cool lol.

 

[t3h Icy]

I wonder how many of the angry people in this thread are going?