Please unban "Rich Checkmaker" in 2025

I always liked Rich's blog posts. There aren't enough professional poker players on this forum, and I think they should be given more leeway than the avg poster.

Just to give a little background, we already have an entire thread about this, started by SimpleRick over a year ago.

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/55/ab...

SimpleRick was able to post then, but wanted to come back on his original Rich Checkmaker account. Despite that not being standard practice, I actually gave him some conditions under which I would allow him to do so.

About a month after the thread was started, I came back to him with this:

SimpleRick came back to the thread about three months later replying to a number of my points, and delving pretty deeply into transgender issues. I won't bother breaking down everything again here; it's all in the thread I linked above. Subsequent to that final exchange, SimpleRick came back a week later with one post in the PG&C forum, and then was over to "The costs of trans visibility" in Politics where he lasted for about a dozen posts, ending with this:

Which resulted in this, a few hours later:

Given that he wasn't able to take advantage of what I thought was a generous opportunity and instead managed to get another account permabanned, I don't see any reason he would be given that account again, let alone his original one, but I'm not going to be involved in any decision making on this, if there is any. The only modding I do these days is some very occasional clean-up, and I'm not on the site that often (a little more over the holidays, but I'll be cutting back again now).

That's the context, and I'll leave it at that unless I see anything that needs further clarification.

Well, he certainly was.

I appreciate you taking time to follow up. I read this a couple days ago and thought about it a while. I’ve known rick since before we were legally allowed to play poker. He started to bring poker chips to school one day and the rest was history. Pretty soon we were setting up multi-table tournaments in the neighborhood park after school or where we could. If not for Rick I might have never played the game.

He has good and bad sides. He would say the same about me. Clearly he went overboard and got sidetracked on on an issue that has nothing to do with poker. But the guy lives and breathes poker. I can't recall a hand I played 5 minutes ago. But he can remember every detail of hands he played 15 years ago. And he's a genius. He took so many advanced math classes in middle school that by 8th grade they were sending him to the high school every week for math courses. He lives and breathes poker, is really smart, talented, and the most honest guy I know. He would never steal, lie, or compromise himself.

I thought about it, and the reason he is asking to be unbanned is because he is at a place in life where he wants to really focus on poker, not just playing but also working with others. Possibly coaching (in one session he turned my losing game into a winning one, he has a lot of experience and has good instincts). We also have been discussing doing some other poker projects together.

I can vouch for Rick that he regrets that he fell out of favor in the 2+2 poker online community and if he came back he would be focused on poker and be a positive addition to the discussion.

That's exactly what he said (and I believe he meant it, for the record) last time. He calmed down and was a great contributor for about six months. Then he started getting erratic again. Then he stopped contributing positively almost ever while increasing his nonsense.

Despite this, he was given another chance with a very clear requirements for what to do if he wanted to get his original screenname unbanned. You've seen what happened with that. Bottom line, Rick has been given too many chances. IDK why he's so focused on posting only under his original SN, but that ship has sailed long since. If he wants to focus on poker and be a positive addition to the discussion, he can do it under a new SN, imo. And if he crashes and burns that one like he did his last two, I suspect he'll end up on the ban-on-sight list.

Note that this is just my personal opinion. I don't mod any of the forums he's traditionally been active in. But I was one of the folks pulling for him when it looked like he'd grown up and was going to stop throwing tantrums. He lost my support a few months later.

If Rich was truly a genius he would make a new account and write a new, better story. That's the play. It's so easy, even a non-genius could do it.

The implication was that he is a math genius. He asked if I can make a post to inquire about lifting the ban on that account. I imagine he has a lot of previous posts and history on that account that makes it more worthwhile to continue rather than start a new profile. I certainly don't know all the details. But it doesn't seem like something I would hold against him for the rest of his life.

His original account has 13 infractions, 5 user notes, and was permanently banned multiple times, after having had the first ban lifted after a promise to do better. His second long-running account has 11 infractions, 10 user notes, and was also perma banned multiple times. This is just way too much drama and time and effort on the mod team's part.

He's had more chances than almost any user ever, and even now could come back with another handle if he wanted to. His idea that the name "Rich Checkmaker" is somehow golden and that not letting him use it on 2+2 is punishing him for life is entirely a him problem. As his his complete lack of self control when he posts things that he not only knows are against the rules, but acknowledges as such and says "ban me if you want, I'm going to post this anyway." We don't need that in our lives and have no reason to believe that he wouldn't do it this time, after he promised to stop in multiple previous reinstatements and failed to do so.

I loved when he won over 100k in a MTT. Also his talks about the van heater and women with tatts come running into his van. Some guys really are good at poker and good with the ladies and Rich was one of them. UNBAN 2025!

I believe it was $130k. And yes, the van stories are the funniest. If I'm not mistaken that van has been stolen and recovered now twice.

As far as the ban, it seems like the potential upside is that we can get an improved version of Rick with some entertaining stories and though provoking poker lessons. Whereas the risk is essentially harmless.

Hi, Rick.

Says the guy who is not an unpaid moderator.

If "he'd" be so great, let him be great under a new handle. If he refuses to post except under his old handle, he is obviously still immature and petulant and thus highly likely to be a problem again. No thanks.

Haha. Rick on his account from 2014 posting about alternative life as a stay at home dad grinding at 0.10-0.25 and $10 MTTs.

Also it seems the conclusion is that he is allowed to come back but without his old account. Thanks for following up.

The lore here goes deep

Unban

How about he creates the username:

Rich Checkmaker 2.0

!?