Taylor C. receiving weird legal threats & psycho texts from fellow Live at the Bike player "Charles Jiang"

Very strange story, but it's already escalated pretty far, and now everyone on 2+2 has an opinion about it.

A young Asian player who calls himself "Charles Jiang" played on Live at the Bike recently. He supposedly drove there all the way from Dallas, and had a weird playstyle which ended up being successful. He won $30k in the game.

Prior to the game, he contacted known livestream player Taylor C. for advice about playing on stream, and they had a civil, seemingly normal conversation. Taylor was seen during the Postle videos playing as "Hart Banson", and was one of Postle's victims. (The name was a play on Bart Hanson's name, who had also played on that stream. Bart has nothing to do with this situation.)

Anyway, back to Jiang. I am not even sure that's his real name. He alternately goes by "Chao Jiang", which is incredibly similar to famous veteran poker pro Chau Giang. I also cannot find any Hendon Mob results for any Charles Jiang, so it's probably an alias of some kind. But whatever. Not really important here.

After Jiang won the $30k, some Reddit posters joked that he was the "new Postle" because of some of his unusual plays. There was no actual concern that Jiang was cheating. However, Jiang freaked out when he saw this, and went on a quest to identify those who posted these joking accusations.

Without anyone else to turn to, he started messaging Taylor again. At first he expressed his concern rationally, but then flipped out and started accusing Taylor of using multiple accounts on Reddit, and that he was actually the one guilty of making the posts. Then Jiang rattled off a lot of (inaccurate) technical mumbo jumbo in order to scare Taylor that he had proof. Presumably this was to either trick Taylor into admitting it was him, or to rattle Taylor into revealing the identity of the actual poster.

Taylor didn't bite, but instead aggressively argued back, and the entire thing escalated badly.

You can see the entire (long) string of texts on this 2+2 thread.

At one point during the exchange, Taylor ends the conversation and tells Jiang to contact his lawyer Mac Verstandig (who presumably is already representing him in the Postle matter). However, Taylor keeps responding to him anyway.

Of greatest note, Jiang demanded $1000 at one point as payment for the defamatory posts, and threatened to sue Taylor and also ruin Taylor's wife's career if he didn't comply. Taylor responded by simply coming back at him more aggressively. Also, Jiang seemed to alternate between being apologetic and getting increasingly threatening/psycho, though he never made any physical threats -- only legal ones.

Jiang did not respond to the thread, but a new account was registered, claiming to be Jiang's "friend", and there's a good chance it was Jiang himself.

You can see Jiang at the poker table in this Live at the Bike clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnvL6G7sWMM


Here is Taylor:

https://pnimg.net/lrep/2002/89/b8400b62984.jpg

Here was my response on 2+2, mostly addressing people who I felt were overly harsh on Taylor regarding the situation:

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As one who has dealt with harassment at the hands of various psychos over the years, I feel I can provide some valuable input here.

The criticism being lobbed at Taylor (OP) is mostly unfair and wrongheaded.

Dealing with psychos is a lot different than dealing with rational human beings. When a normal person is ranting at you via text, ignoring them is usually the best solution. Don't give them a reaction, deescalate, and the problem often goes away.

However, with crazy people, it's different. If you ignore them, it will often enrage them more than if you're responding. Furthermore, they will frequently take the ignoring as an indication that they're not being extreme enough to get your attention, and will keep ramping up the degree of harassment until they get what they want.

Ignoring them also can project fear, which again you don't ever want them to believe, because they will feed upon that.

The proper way of dealing with these type of people is to stand up to them and show them that you're not afraid (even if you are). You shouldn't escalate, but you also shouldn't hide. You don't give them anything they want, you don't back down, and you don't act like any of their threats are making you worried.

I will agree that you shouldn't escalate, and you should keep your responses "tight aggressive". That is, you should make it clear that you're not worried about anything they're threatening, and that continuing to harass you will be bad for them. However, an extended back-and-forth will just make things worse, so you're better off just laying down the law and ending the conversation.

That's easier said than done, though. It seemed like Charles was obsessed with identifying the person/people "accusing" him of being like Postle, and wasn't going to leave Taylor alone until he intimidated him into giving out that information. It seems he was using the "I have proof it's you, I'm holding you responsible" trick, hoping Taylor would panic and tell him the real identity of the poster in question.

I will agree that the conversation dragged on too long, and that he definitely shouldn't have incorporated memes into it. The last thing you want to do with a crazy person is treat them like they're a joke.

Regarding posting it here, if Taylor really believed this wasn't going to stop until he exposed this, then I don't blame him for posting it. Otherwise it was probably better to hold it back, but at the same time, Charles is less likely to send him harassing messages now that he sees this thread exists.

I'd like to make a few other comments:

First off, LOL at saying Taylor should call the police. No crime was committed here. He would be laughed out of the station. Indeed, Charles only threatened him with frivolous/crazy lawsuits, but that's not criminal. The only protection the law would offer Taylor at this point would be a restraining order.

Second, I don't believe Taylor got a lawyer regarding this. His lawyer is Mac Verstandig due to being part of the Postle lawsuit (correct me if I'm wrong). It's very possible that Mac was helping him out with this matter, though.

Finally, the technical mumbo jumbo cited by Charles is BS. Websites like Reddit do not have your device MAC address. They only have your IP address, and various browser-related info, such as your OS, your browser type, and any shared cookies. Anyone who says, "I got your MAC address off Reddit" can immediately be dismissed as a fraud.

Additionally, there's zero point zero chance that Charles has any access to Reddit server logs. There are ways to trick people into making their IP accessible (which I won't reveal out here), but this isn't anything you can do by simply opening Reddit and browsing posts.

Quote:

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Hello, this is Charles’s best friend, Albert Beingolea. Charles is currently in Redwood City, CA visiting some friends from his childhood. We have met at Liberty High School in TX where we spent a large percentage of our lives together. When I first saw this thread, I was upset and shocked. Charles sometimes does have an ego but never has it been like this, ever. The comments are harsh but justifiable, especially since you don’t know him very well. We met through poker back in high school and bonded through that ever since. I immediately talked to him once I discovered what happened. The poker community means a lot to him and I can tell through the week that he didn’t sound too right. He is right now writing an official apology, so please just bear with him.

---

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/s...&postcount=142



Interestingly, my records show there really is an Albert Beingolea in McKinney, Texas, which is where that high school is located. While I think it was likely Charles making the post, it was probably based upon the identity of an actual friend of his.

Charles is now posting as "ThankYouTaylor". He identified it as him from the first post.

He seems to be alternating between wanting to put an end to this whole thing to being angry with Taylor. He keeps insisting Taylor "lied" somewhat in his description of what happened, and that some of the screenshots were either fabricated or modified.

It is clear that Charles has some sort of mental health issue, and he really does need help. Apparently he has a hard time dealing with negative forum and Reddit posts, and is obsessing over everything written. Definitely a guy who should stay off social media. I feel bad for him.

At one point I tried to suggest he just apologize for flipping out, walk away, and that everyone will forget about this soon, which he agreed he wanted to do. However, he stayed in the thread and continued ranting. It seems he just can't understand that this is much less of a big deal than it appears to be, and that aside from a few random trolls, most people in the thread simply want him to calm down and get past this.

Lots of mental health issues in poker, actually. I can empathize because I had my own issues last year, though obviously quite different from this, as mine took the form of severe anxiety/depression, so I was still able to act normally on the outside.

I do hope that Charles can get his issues taken care of.

Sad ending here.

https://www.affoplano.com/obituary/chao-charles-jiang

He passed away on January 17 of a drug overdose.

He had e-mailed me after seeing this thread. We talked a little back and forth, and then he vanished.

RIP