It’s hard to imagine that poker’s resident ‘Good Guy’, Joe Sebok, has been accused of Blackmailing. Then again, when you connect yourself to a poker site as sullied as UB.com, it’s hard to shake off the ire of the poker community, especially those who were directly affected. Then again, a Direct Message on Twitter from Sebok to Jon “FatalError” Aguiar just might constitute as blackmail – or not. It all depends on which side you’re taking.
About the Incident
Anybody who goes to the TwoPlusTwo forums probably knows about all the UB hate that’s going on in that site. UB threads go viral in a matter of minutes, and you can expect that all you’ll see once you enter one are wisecrack UB-hate remarks interspersed among the more relevant ones. All the negative comments aren’t confined to TwoPlusTwo either. Twitter has its fair share of haters, among them Jon “FatalError” Aguiar. Aguiar had attacked Prahlad Friedman, now a UB pro, on Twitter after Prahlad posted about his suspicions of Isaac Haxton and Justin Bonomo doing some account sharing. Sebok, seeking to defend a fellow UB pro and also their home site as well, sent a direct message to Aguiar saying “Might wanna chill on the UB hate a little, man. You + your gf may have a skeleton or two that you wouldn’t want public, no? Chill out.”.
Now, depending on who you ask and depending on your own level of paranoia, that remark could easily come off as blackmail. It could be a simple admonition or it could mean ‘back off, Aguiar, or you’ll find your own secrets laid out on a table for the whole world to see’.
Sebok’s Response
The direct message was supposed to be private, but Aguiar had no qualms about letting it be known. Aguiar demanded an apology from Sebok for ‘blackmailing’ him, and the mass of UB haters on TwoPlusTwo have backed him up. Sebok had to make his own TwoPlusTwo account to defend himself and to make some things clear. First, he says that “in no way, shape, or form was that message an attempt to blackmail Jon or threaten him, and I don’t believe he thought that legitimately for one second”. Sebok goes on to say that he was not telling Aguiar that he was literally going to expose the said skeletons, but he did admit that his choice of words were ‘dreadful’. He concluded by saying “Now, did I view that DM to Jon as private?
Absolutely. Do I think taking a private message and asking for a public apology is strange? That’s irrelevant. I shouldn’t have sent it, plain and simple. Jon made his decisions after that, and over 700+ posts later, here we are.” However, the reception of Sebok was far from warm at TwoPlusTwo, and ultimately, he just got more rotten tomatoes thrown at him from the forum members.
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