Task 1 - Boardroom (and Firings thread).

[Gus Mango Fish]

TankManDan, I've had to delete your last post from your team's thread.

Firstly, you posted PMs (Private Messages).

Secondly, the questions you asked in your PMs were not the ones you mention in your post on the forum, so the PMs were pretty irrelevant anyway.

Due to a continued bad attitude throughout this task, you've left me with little choice but to say:

YOU'RE FIRED

As TankMan has been fired mid-task that means Indolence are without a Project Manger at this moment. However, there seems to be little point in replacing him at this late stage, as there is only a few days left in the task.

At last one more person from the losing team will be fired at the end of the task, and possibly one member from the winning team - e.g. if they haven't turned up or put any effort in.

[TomPich]

May I ask who decides who comes to the boardroom? do you select three people from the losing team?

[Gus Mango Fish]

May I ask who decides who comes to the boardroom? do you select three people from the losing team?

Well, normally the PM from the losing team would select 2 or 3 members that he/she had felt hadn't performed to join him/her in the boardroom. However, as you've no PM at the mo, if your team does lose me and PokerWoody will have to pick.

[TomPich]

Well, normally the PM from the losing team would select 2 or 3 members that he/she had felt hadn't performed to join him/her in the boardroom. However, as you've no PM at the mo, if your team does lose me and PokerWoody will have to pick.

ty Sad to see TankMan go.

I feel Sir Alan would have taken similar action !

[TankmanDan]

Consider this my "taxi ride interview"......

Shocking. I have to lol at the fact I've been fired twice in 6 months for telling the truth, fighting the moral high ground and refusing to shut up and do as i'm told!

FWIW, and for my team members who have put in so much effort to this task:

1) I confess I haven't read the forum rules recently so wasn't aware that it broke the rules to post a PM on the forum. In fact i'm fairly sure i've seen others do it in the past. I guess technically I could have simply posted my questions and not your response but that would have defeated the object. Your decision to delete the post simply gives more credence to the fact that I DID make those enquiries to you, and that your response clearly influenced our decision making process and made no reference to the pcuk/network issue.

2) I don't believe I displayed a "continued bad attitude throughout this task". How do you justify that? I organised, led and motivated my team from the start. I identified skills and idea's, gave everyone a say, gained a concensus of approach and planned a structured campaign. It later transpires that this was based upon a fundamental lack of information that was, apparently, "obvious" to everyone except me. Yet no-one saw fit to actually bring that up in the discussions. I made limited protestations about this on my forum and then we refocused and moved on. You casted aspersions on the validity of my claim that I had asked you questions regarding the customer base of pcuk, what they play, when, and what the most popular games were, and you did it ON MY TEAM FORUM, thereby undermining my integrity within my own team! And when I prove that I was being truthful by posting the evidence you delete it, and fire me. Well played Sir.

3) You say: "the questions you asked in your PMs were not the ones you mention in your post on the forum, so the PMs were pretty irrelevant anyway."
So why delete them then? As I said above, the questions were the ones I mentioned in my post but as I no longer have access to that forum I cannot quote from it. How convenient.

4) You wanted to run your Apprentice as closely as possible to the TV show, yet I don't ever recall Sir Alan taking such an active role in the process during the tasks? Seems ridiculous to fire me a week before the end of the task, especially since there is still an outside chance that we might win, but hey, you the boss, you make the rules. Is usually common practice to let people know as and when the rules change though eh?

5) Its personally reassuring to know that I didn't even outlast the member of my team who had ABSOLUTELY NO INVOLVEMENT in this task whatsoever! And who had posted on other threads during the course of the task so clearly did have access... but that'll learn me for making an effort, getting involved, and trying to win I suppose. Silly me.

6) YES! I know i'm taking it all a bit seriously but only because I ALWAYS play to win! Lol. Personality fault? Maybe, but there's 2 things I have always believed in: Doing things right and Doing the right thing. When I'm in the wrong I acknowledge it and back down, when i'm in the right I stand and fight. And I NEVER have a sense of humour failure.

I have no doubt this will be deleted and I will get banned for it, which is a shame as its taken so fucking long to write!

No hard feelings Matt, I'll just take it out on your chipstack the next time I see you at a game!

[Dice Man]

Thankyou for a wonderful opportunity Sir Gus.

FYPforapprenticeaments

[Gus Mango Fish]

No hard feelings. Spoiler: It is only a game after all.

I'll reply to your post (there's a lot of misleading and incorrect stuff in there) and post the PMs up later this evening also - in the private poker section I guess? But(terface); I really can't be getting in to an arguement about this.

[Gus Mango Fish]

Going to have to be pretty brief as very busy today, but...

Consider this my "taxi ride interview"......

Shocking. I have to lol at the fact I've been fired twice in 6 months for telling the truth, fighting the moral high ground and refusing to shut up and do as i'm told!

FWIW, and for my team members who have put in so much effort to this task:

1) I confess I haven't read the forum rules recently so wasn't aware that it broke the rules to post a PM on the forum. In fact i'm fairly sure i've seen others do it in the past. I guess technically I could have simply posted my questions and not your response but that would have defeated the object. Your decision to delete the post simply gives more credence to the fact that I DID make those enquiries to you, and that your response clearly influenced our decision making process and made no reference to the pcuk/network issue.

I don't think rules regarding the publishing of PMs is written anywhere, that's just a common courtesy I'd have thought. My decision to delete the post gives no credence to your enquiries whatsover.

You asked the following:
1. What is the busiest day on pcuk in terms of traffic?
2. I assume the busiest timeframe is 7-9?
3. Do u have a rough breakdown of % of players at specific stakes? ie: how many in % of the total pcuk base plays at average 1-5 euro buyin?
4. What are your top 5 most profitable games on the site excluding cash?

You'll see none of those ask if the tournament is PCUK-only, or network-wide; or even the number of players (only percentages = not very useful imo). My reply was (and this is the actual PM):

Hey Dan

I don't have a breakdown of any of that data unfortunately. Though I think with some work I could work out 1 & 2. There's no way to find out 3, and 4 is possible but would take a long time and be way too much hassle...

Will get back to you with the ones I can find out.

Cheers
Matt


With 'some work I could work out 1&2' means the information is stored in the database, but it would require running a few SQL reports (very slow) and exporting the data to a spreadsheet then aggregating it. I don't believe no.3 would be possible to work out with the data we collect, and no.4 was possible to work out, but not without quite a lot of data manipulation that I didn't have time for.

2) I don't believe I displayed a "continued bad attitude throughout this task". How do you justify that? I organised, led and motivated my team from the start. I identified skills and idea's, gave everyone a say, gained a concensus of approach and planned a structured campaign. It later transpires that this was based upon a fundamental lack of information that was, apparently, "obvious" to everyone except me. Yet no-one saw fit to actually bring that up in the discussions. I made limited protestations about this on my forum and then we refocused and moved on. You casted aspersions on the validity of my claim that I had asked you questions regarding the customer base of pcuk, what they play, when, and what the most popular games were, and you did it ON MY TEAM FORUM, thereby undermining my integrity within my own team! And when I prove that I was being truthful by posting the
evidence you delete it, and fire me. Well played Sir.

I have to disagree with this point entirely. Comments like "Well played Sir" (used as recently as your point just above lol!), and posts blaming me for the fact that you didn't realise the tourney was PCUK-only (even though other members of your team knew and considered this to be an "obvious" fact) are obviously a bad attitude. i.e. you dropped the ball pretty badly, but felt the need to blame others for your failings. In fact your post didn't mention the content of the PMs, though your new point above does (the 4 questions in exact order infact!). Funny that...

Finally, even members of your team seem to agree that firing you is exactly what Sugar would have done in The Apprentice.

3) You say: "the questions you asked in your PMs were not the ones you mention in your post on the forum, so the PMs were pretty irrelevant anyway."
So why delete them then? As I said above, the questions were the ones I mentioned in my post but as I no longer have access to that forum I cannot quote from it. How convenient.

I've answered this in 1&2 above.

4) You wanted to run your Apprentice as closely as possible to the TV show, yet I don't ever recall Sir Alan taking such an active role in the process during the tasks? Seems ridiculous to fire me a week before the end of the task, especially since there is still an outside chance that we might win, but hey, you the boss, you make the rules. Is usually common practice to let people know as and when the rules change though eh?

Firstly, it's going to be almost impossible to run it as closely as possible to the TV show. I've had to set up tournaments, correct and send your mailer (and only got sent it the night before your first tournament - after having to specifically ask you for it), reply and respond to questions. This obviously results in taking a much more active role in the process. I'm not sure what rule changes you are referring to, but every time the rules were changed (usually minor rules with regards to points awarded) I posted these changes on the rules thread and in each team's forum.

5) Its personally reassuring to know that I didn't even outlast the member of my team who had ABSOLUTELY NO INVOLVEMENT in this task whatsoever! And who had posted on other threads during the course of the task so clearly did have access... but that'll learn me for making an effort, getting involved, and trying to win I suppose. Silly me.

I'd imagine that's a disingenuous comment. If not, you find strange things reassuring! You can rest assured though, that those who have had no involvement in the task whatsoever won't escape firing!

6) YES! I know i'm taking it all a bit seriously but only because I ALWAYS play to win! Lol. Personality fault? Maybe, but there's 2 things I have always believed in: Doing things right and Doing the right thing. When I'm in the wrong I acknowledge it and back down, when i'm in the right I stand and fight. And I NEVER have a sense of humour failure.

I have no doubt this will be deleted and I will get banned for it, which is a shame as its taken so fucking long to write!

No hard feelings Matt, I'll just take it out on your chipstack the next time I see you at a game!

Hell yes, I'd say you've taken it pretty seriously, but nothing wrong with that imo. But I do have to lol @ 'NEVER have a sense of humour faliure?' You sure about that?...

[Raiser]

I thought this was all suppossed to be a bit of a laugh? I think EVERYONE has taken this too seriously by the sound of it. I am not involved and my opinion doesnt count... but jeez its only a friggin game!

[Gus Mango Fish]

I thought this was all suppossed to be a bit of a laugh? I think EVERYONE has taken this too seriously by the sound of it. I am not involved and my opinion doesnt count... but jeez its only a friggin game!

Aye, QFT I guess. It has got a bit out-of-hand, even being 'in character'.

Wait until the threads themselves are made public. That'll be even more seriousness ahoy!

I think I should maybe cancel the whole thing before it gets even more silly? I don't know what I was even thinking of tbh, hence my postage when I had the inital idea that I wasn't sure it would be a great idea! hoho.

Still, you live and learn