Ok, who got their money from Pound 5 (Winners)

[t3h Icy]

WAIT WAIT WAIT. This **** is serious?

I guess this being rigged isn't as much of a surprise then:

Not to mention his R3 Pool.

Also Plank had Mango in Round 1 at P5, but he lost anyway, rofl.

 

[GHNeko]

if he doesn't have a job, then I'd be mad disappointed and surprised he thought it was a good idea to host such a large scale thing. :/

 

[Samochan]

I feel bad for the people who lost their money on this tourney. And I feel sorry for plank for this to happen to him and on his tourney, it won't exacly boost his chances of hosting another where people would join, however im hoping this'll be a learning experience to him and to us smashers.

I will however be mad if this will be the reason armada is not able to attend to this finnish tournament he wanted to. We do not get foreigners here often, much less top of the world players and his attendance was highly anticipated here. Traveling won't even costs that much and it's fairly likely he will gain enough price money to guarantee he'll stay on + side, but... if it comes down to that he won't make it because of money issues, it's on you plank and I shall forever hold a grudge. >_>

 

[GHNeko]

bad blood aint good tho

 

[Nicknyte]

Check the International Smash Players fund yo.

Likewise, isn't this thread...Off Topic?

 

[Theftz22]

I can't believe the idiots who are threatening a lawsuit while issuing physical threats and verbal abuse against plank. Are you serious? I can't believe anyone would even consider a lawsuit, why would you make the smash community look bad by taking a TO to court on a weak case that's bound to do nothing but lose everyone money, over a few hundred or thousand dollars? Have some pity, really. It's not that you don't deserve the money, you absolutely do, but the reaction has been very saddening. This is a guy who has put up massive amounts of work and hours to host tournaments for the community alone, now a bunch of no shows and cancellations screw him over and even the pot money isn't enough to suffice and he has to go into his own pockets. Now to see this reaction from people like Esam and Ally is just ridiculous. Basically, Plank shouldn't have gone into the pot money or relied on the hotel income, but this reaction of physical threats, verbal abuse, and lawsuit considerations is one of the worst things I have ever seen of any group of people attempting to call themselves a "community".

Government bailout time.

 

[Yung Mei]

Government bailout time.

holy ****, i seriously lol'ed

 

[AlphaZealot]

Statistically, in the U.S., there are about 4-5 people for every job opening available.

Statistically in the US, 9 out of 10 people who can work have jobs. Or go with the not-so-accurate highball estimates and 8-8.5 out of 10 people are employed.

 

[t3h Icy]

So I thought it was silly that Armada got his tickets ahead of time, since he could of lost (hell, he almost didn't do well at Pound 4), but apparently he got his tickets after Pound 5. But that suggests Plank told him his winnings but not that he wasn't getting them.

wat

 

[ksizl4life]

Show what? The ******* is you right now lolol. Just get out before I ksizzle you.

looool god dammit XD

 

[Kuraudo]

Respect for PP for how he handled this. Those who were robbed of what they earned and won, are rightful to be angry however.

I myself have no real say on the matter. If Plank can redeem himself and find a way to repay those who lost their money to these unfortunate circumstances, then I think all should be right in the end.

Just leaving this be, however, is unacceptable.

If nothing comes of this and Plank continues to hide away though, the respect level for him and his credibility go down the crapper with no chance to resurface. Either way, it's a matter of letting the heat settle down and seeing what comes of this before final judgment can be passed.

 

[Eddie G]

This is just not true.

Statistically, in the U.S., there are about 4-5 people for every job opening available.

Now I'm not saying that people should use that stat as a rationale for laziness, but to say that anybody can find a job at any time is simply not factual.

Totally irrelevant to the point I was trying to make. Effort, applying everywhere (multiple times if necessary), and frequent pestering to show interest has allowed me (and many others that I know) to bypass those odds time and time again.

My message was that, despite the odds, make an effort and go find a more steady form of income instead of *****ing about cash that you're essentially leaving to chance, which could easily be made in less than a month (or 1-2 weeks for the higher paying ones). It's honestly sad when I read someone's post saying that they practically live off of Smash income, and an incident like this could make or break their bank and whatnot.

 

[AllyKnight]

I never said id physically do something to plank and I apologized about the insult. Can't believe some morons like that exists. Anyhow PP is trying to get into this apparently too with court last I heard from someone so yeah we all mad.

 

[Life]

Cool heads will prevail here.

Plank got screwed over here, far worse than you guys--the guy owes random people from across the country thousands of dollars. Srsly. Calm down and give him time. If he delays forever in repaying people, THEN you'll have a right to be angry, but for now, stay cool about it.

At the same time though, don't let him totally off the hook either. He still owes you all. You just act like rage can solve the problem, when that totally is not the case.

 

[Dr Peepee]

Nah I'm not doing court stuff sorry Ally.

I should have been more assertive when I got a call.

 

[prog]

One thing that is constantly overlooked is the fact that Plank said immediate payouts. There is an opportunity for the money to go out (albeit, delayed).

Everyone can point fingers and try and say who is culpable, but the blame can't fall solely on one man, nor one organization.

My 2 cents.

 

[Dark Hart]

you should Kevin

at least make Plank sign a check for you from like $500 bucks at some point

 

[DJRome]

1. pp's "mature" response i find stupid. sorry, kevin, but it only encourages people to think the way plank did. that is to say, "oh if i screw up i can just pay for it using other people's money le guu"

2. it wasn't that plank wasn't able to pay out prizes. he was fully capable since that money was at some point entirely in his account (everyone DID pay to enter after all). he simply chose to ignore that point and make his end okay first. he SHOULD be in debt for miscalculating. next i host a duke, im going to buy 100 bux in soda. then if it all doesn't sell, i will recoup my costs from the entry fees. free soda for me

3. in terms of room cramming, if you want to justify plank's stealing of prize money, then i don't see your problem with people pinching pennies through room cramming.

4. to those who think litigating reflects poorly on the community, **** you. we live in reality. outside of the smash community, no one cares or even has an image of us. let's be real people

5. to those sympathizing with plank's situation. sure it's sad to think he is in a bad position, but he put himself there. every other TO takes on the same risk and he should be no different.

6. people wouldn't even think about litigating if it weren't for the fact that he never stated that he would payout at any point. if i owed people money, i would pay them eventually. that is the nature of debt generally. instead of saying, "hey guys, i don't have the money now, but i will work hard to correct my mistake and pay out eventually" he simply paid off his debts and says, "uh, it's ur fault u didn't show up". nice TO

 

[Mew2King]

I would really like my money too. The reason I say this is because not only is this the 4th time this happened to me, both me AND my mother REALLY need the money. We are both a lot poorer than this community puts an image of us for, by a lot (at least me, people assume I am rich but half my money goes to her and the rest goes to travel expenses and paying rent to live there and college which I had to take off semesters for before since I couldn't afford it once). I put time into smash early on so that I could become successful more long term with it so I kept going. I play this game for money now (and because I have OCD) and I don't like when I earn it and do not receive it. (I also do not want to hear get a job or anything like that - this is money we rightfully earned and not receiving it is not our faults). You can hate me for that if you want but this is the truth for right now. I earned it and I would like it. I won about 1k at this. Not as much as other tourneys like SNES (1k, same as this) ActiveGamers (owes me 2k) and WinterGameFest (owes me 1.5k from Dec 2009). Not as much as Ally and only half as much at DrPP. That's not the point at all. The point is that this is not fair at all and I can't stand that this happens anymore. Why do things like this have to keep happening, it's not right. This made me lose a lot of faith in humanity in general even more than before. What is the point of playing, outside of pride and fun (which I have lost my passion for both of them in the past few months) knowing this is going to keep happening? It's not quite so easy to know that somebody will steal money and not pay just to help themselves. That is not the right thing to do at all. I will wait a little bit longer to see if he will pay out but otherwise I want to take some form of action or slowly leave this community. The money and weird obsession for smash I have is the only reason I am still around, but I have truely lost most of my respect for it. Things weren't like this before. It's both horrible to see other people experience and to continuously experience the punishments of other's greed continuously without ever seeming to stop. Anyone that tries to laugh or talk down to the people "taking this irresponsiblity" are ******** just for wanting what is Fair. Some people continue to play because they have become very good at it as a profession, at least for a little while longer. You wouldn't feel good if you worked at a job for 2 weeks and then they decided that you won't get paid, especially if you were really counting on it. A lot of you people make me sick with the way you look at others.

 

[boardsmash]

some one find out where plank lives!!

 

[Deleted member]

To Jon (Plank) if you ever read this:

*Pound* 5 was not a financial success. Noting that your attendance was lower for both tournaments despite a strictly better location should tell you something to the effect that the game is not as popular as it was before, or something was amiss. I do think the game is slowly phasing out, but I also think some things were amiss:

1. Stick to the old firehall if you can get it. The location for the first events in the *Pound* series might have been out of the way, but that place was awesome and I'm guessing a little less expensive.
2. I know your tournaments have gotten really big, particularly *Pound* 4, and that having online pre-registration goes a long way towards planning, but don't base your predictions and money around it. It's apparently good enough as a reference, but not good enough as a planning tool.

You've hosted numerous large scale events by now. Your tournaments are always good, run well, seeded properly, end on time, and more importantly void of stupid drama. I think that a lot of people would like to see you run more events despite the problems you had with this one. Just take this one to learn from from your mistake, and go back and see why your previous tournaments were all so very successful. If anything, this experience should make you a better tournament host for having gone through this mess, and you can come out ahead for it.

To everyone else: it was a fun time. Hope to see you all in Maryland next year.

 

[boardsmash]

pound is dead. screw pound

 

[Kason Birdman]

**** man.

and also, I don't see whats wronge with the room cramping in hotels.
Money is obviously pretty important, I don't blame people for trying to save as much as they can.

 

[Prince_Abu]

Plank is no better than any common thief, theres no reason why anyone should stand for this bull****

 

[Deleted member]

Plank is no better than any common thief, theres no reason why anyone should stand for this bull****

when you have so little time invested in the community, yeah I guess so. For anyone who's been around and gone to these tournaments, plank is a good guy and puts a lot of work into these events.

 

[Yung Mei]

and also, I don't see whats wronge with the room cramping in hotels.

more than likely its a safety issue - if suddenly theres a random fire imagine how bad it would be having [exaggeration]30[/exaggeration] people out of a 4 person room

 

[-Googs]

Pound v
mad ally strikes back

 

[Mic_128]

2. it wasn't that plank wasn't able to pay out prizes. he was fully capable since that money was at some point entirely in his account (everyone DID pay to enter after all). he simply chose to ignore that point and make his end okay first. he SHOULD be in debt for miscalculating. next i host a duke, im going to buy 100 bux in soda. then if it all doesn't sell, i will recoup my costs from the entry fees. free soda for me

There's a bit of a difference between soda and hotel rooms rented. It makes sense logically that he would pay off a large company off first before people because a large company like that could easily sue him for loss of income, ect from not getting paid and be able to afford good lawyers and no one wants that. The other problem is that how would it go if he didn't pay the hotel and they contacted other hotels around America and the Smash scene gets blacklisted?

 

[Dark 3nergy]

I didn't get paid anything...

If I just got my $200 back from travel expenses, that would be more than enough on my part.

There you go Plank, you owe $500 less if it helps lol.

Good job PP...I wish I had a job so I could have the same mindset.

Le sigh

With the way gas prices are rising...yea thats not gonna help any one much. Keep trucking your not the only one lookn for a job.

 

[DJRome]

There's a bit of a difference between soda and hotel rooms rented. It makes sense logically that he would pay off a large company off first before people because a large company like that could easily sue him for loss of income, ect from not getting paid and be able to afford good lawyers and no one wants that. The other problem is that how would it go if he didn't pay the hotel and they contacted other hotels around America and the Smash scene gets blacklisted?

having smash tournaments at hotels seems crappy anyways. all of the motels that host these tournaments are way to nice to house sweaty kids playing smash bros. if you want to live there, you can, but having a "deal" at such a nice place seems bad

and no one is going to care to blacklist smash lol so silly

so yeah, like i said before, since he didn't have the money to pay the hotel, he chose to steal from smashers to cover up for his mistake. how does the hotel also wanting the money they should get justify stealing again? it's not as if the money he paid the hotel was his own to be used to fulfill either debt. it was strictly for prize payouts

 

[Mic_128]

so yeah, like i said before, since he didn't have the money to pay the hotel, he chose to steal from smashers to cover up for his mistake. how does the hotel also wanting the money they should get justify stealing again? it's not as if the money he paid the hotel was his own to be used to fulfill either debt. it was strictly for prize payouts

"Stealing" isn't the best word. He didn't go and grab people's wallets. All money he had was to run the tournament, which included payouts and venue fee. He just prioritized paying off the large corporation first before paying off individual people first. People generally don't hire debt collectors.

 

[tect]

I think there should be a request made to those ppl who packed the rooms over capacity. It was maybe naive of plank to think ppl wouldn't, but he was also trusting in the community of smash, and it was irresponsible of players to break that trust.

Pro gaming can be a source of income for players and I understand why ppl would be counting on the prize money. Gaming on a high level requires an investment in timing and money. It costs money to travel and enter, it makes sense some people are angry, and they have a right to be. Losing money when you expect to get it is a big deal. However, it happened. I don't think it's feasible for plank to be able to just pay the winners when it's such a large amount of money, and unfair for him to be expected to pay thousands from his pocket. Forcing one person to lose that much? If you're upset because winning money is a big deal, then surely you can understand how losing that much could be devastating. That's a lot of money for someone to lose who was trying to do something great for the smash community.

His mistakes however should be noted, which I think is a great purpose of all these comments, so that future mistakes like this will not happen again.

In the meantime everyone should have lots of fun playing still, and still have faith in the future of smash!

 

[Karibola]

Maybe I'm naive on the costs of running events like this, but $10k seems like a lot of money to be under, maybe even more if Plank indeed did have to pull from his own pockets.

 

[AzN_Lep]

WinterGameFest (owes me 1.5k from Dec 2009).

??? I think you mean Winter Fest M2K. WGF gives prizes on the spot.

Similar names so I understand the mix up.

 

[Deleted member]

so yeah, like i said before, since he didn't have the money to pay the hotel, he chose to steal from smashers to cover up for his mistake. how does the hotel also wanting the money they should get justify stealing again? it's not as if the money he paid the hotel was his own to be used to fulfill either debt. it was strictly for prize payouts

So you're saying he had the money (which he didn't, thus the problem) and we're telling you he chose to pay the hotel and then the players second, and you're calling that stealing because you're initial hypothesis was wrong?

If you don't know what you're talking about, don't post.

 

[Kuraudo]

• Host a Regional/National
• Pay for the venue yourself (not saying Plank didn't, lol. just in the order of events)
• Don't bother with hotels, only leave recommendations for lowly-priced ones
• Housing. Housing everywhere.
• Local invites/advertisement otherwise
• ??????
• Profit?
• Preferably WHEN you win the tourney and it's paid on the spot?

 

[metalreflectslime]

??? I think you mean Winter Fest M2K. WGF gives prizes on the spot.

Similar names so I understand the mix up.

^^^^ This.

 

[SleepyK]

because you're initial hypothesis was wrong?

UMBREON MADE A MISTAKE


history has been made

 

[DJRome]

So you're saying he had the money (which he didn't, thus the problem) and we're telling you he chose to pay the hotel and then the players second, and you're calling that stealing because you're initial hypothesis was wrong?

If you don't know what you're talking about, don't post.

how did he not have the money? the fact that he chose to mix his own funds with the prize pool is his own mistake. prize money should never be mixed with venue fees. it is important as a to to keep them distinct. since he chose to treat that as one balance to use as he pleases, he is in fact stealing the prize money.

there shouldn't be any "prioritizing" since they should be in fact different funds

example:

i go to casino and get a room in their hotel. i go downstairs and place a bet. i win the bet. casino says, "hey, we miscalculated based on what we expected occupancy to be. we're going to have to take more from your winnings to pay for that"
even ignoring the fact that smash is not even gambling but earned through skill, we can see that the casino is plainly wrong. yet just because plank happens to play smash and is an individual, he is not being held responsible by some to pay his debts. the "bet" and "room fee" are independent and have always been distinct in smash for the most part. as sleepy said, most tos do not take fees from the pot and do not add prizes based on venue fee.

 

[Reizilla]

WGF? Aren't those the guys that gave out broken/incomplete computers for Halo a few years ago?