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This is just my life philosophy in this area:

- Never try to make money on your friends.
- When you lend money to a friend think of it as a gift.
- Never ask to be paid back. Your friend will give you the money as soon as he can.
- Don't keep a score.

It is easy to make more money. It is very hard to find a good friend.

This is exactly right. Even if it is only in the back of your mind that your friend owes you, it is destructive. If this person is a friend, sharing shouldn't be such a burden anyway. And if he is eventually able to pay you back, Merry XMass.

- When you lend money to a friend think of it as a gift.

i dont understand how everyone agrees with this...
he is a friend, you do him a favor lending him money, the fact that he is a friend is by no means a reason he shouldnt pay you back, or that you should see it as a gift....
you lend him money as a friend, he pays you back as a friend, no more no less....
you shouldnt be asking to get your money back, you should agree on a date or timespan wherin he will be giving you the money, this can be a couple of days, months, even a couple of years, its up to you both to decide.
but saying that he is a friend and you lend him money so you should think of it as a gift, is total nonsense... (imo)

- Never ask to be paid back. Your friend will give you the money as soon as he can.

when you are the one lending the money, give him a date where before that date he has to pay you back, if the money isnt an issue, then by all means just say that he pays you back whenever he wants or when he has the money, no problem.
but never ask to get paid back... if you lend someone money, expecting to get paid a couple of months later, and now you have been waiting 5years on your money, goddamnit im asking my money back !!!

It is easy to make more money. It is very hard to find a good friend.

if your friend thinks that your loaned money is a gift, then he isnt a friend.
if your friend doesnt think he has to pay you back as soon as possible, he isnt a friend

i do agree with the rest

It was a pretty bad idea to give him that money hoping he would win it back in poker- and if he had that money on E-trade why did he need your loan?

Also why did he have 20k online and not pay you back?

I guess what is done is done though- so think about what will happen if he gets his 20k back and all the sudden has to cut you a check for 5 grand when you gave him 2? This seems like it could be a real point of contention if it actually happens, even if he agrees to that kind of deal right now in an obviously desperate-ish kind of spot.

I was taught as a kid that when I had a candy bar to split it and give the bigger half to my friend. Considering that candy bar usually represented the investment of my entire bankroll at that time, it was a pretty significant lesson. I think that whether or not considering the lent money as a gift makes sense has a lot to do with lessons learned growing up.

I think if he gets the 20k back it would be ok to ask him for the 2k back but to expect 3,4 or 5k is kind of crazy.

- When you lend money to a friend think of it as a gift.

i dont understand how everyone agrees with this...
he is a friend, you do him a favor lending him money, the fact that he is a friend is by no means a reason he shouldnt pay you back, or that you should see it as a gift....
you lend him money as a friend, he pays you back as a friend, no more no less....
you shouldnt be asking to get your money back, you should agree on a date or timespan wherin he will be giving you the money, this can be a couple of days, months, even a couple of years, its up to you both to decide.
but saying that he is a friend and you lend him money so you should think of it as a gift, is total nonsense... (imo)

It's simple really. Anytime you loan money, you take a risk that the other person doesn't pay you back. If you pursue it, it can change the nature of the relationship. So when you offer money to a friend you want to keep, you should always only do so if you are not going to jeopardize the friendship over the repayment. Since you can't know how your friend is going to react to your dogging him about paying you back, it is wise to only lend what you don't care about ever seeing returned. Therefore what you are doing is essentially giving them a gift you can only hope will be returned

if you lend money to someone you should

A. consider it already gone, because you only lend money you can afford to lend, like making a bet, you put it out there willing to lose it

and

B. try to only lend to people that will pay you back on their own term, without having to ask them for the money, or at least people that keep reminding you that they owe you money so you know they havnt forgotten but have all intention of paying no matter how long it takes, even if they chip away at the loan over a term

i hate people that avoid the debt! it makes me mad

This was asked before but i have to ask it again. What kind of deal did you make:

staking:
You give the money and take x% of his winnings. If he looses the money is just gone.n Since you say he ows you money that means you most likely didn't stake him but gave him a loan.

If loan you can could have asked for a specific date. He should pay you back on that date or try to make another deal at that point.
If you didn't specified a date this means he should pay you back when he has the money. Poker is a high votile game. You knew it could take very long to get money back. Now that the worst case scenario occured don't moan. He is in bigger troubles than you are. Getting money back isn't really tied to him getting money back from FT. I don't think think the guy will never ever possess 2000$ in his life again! It's more a matter of time.

Lastly offering him this deal might be a good idea as it takes away the pressure from him without changing the EV of your loan. I would just take the rate FT money is tradet the day you make the deal. I think there is a thread on 2+2 on this eventhough 2+2 is down atm.

I would wonder if you would get more than 2200-2300$ for such a deal. It looks really good to get money back atm. 4000 - 5000 isn't a deal it's a rape

Given the way this is bugging you, in retrospect you probably should not have lent him the money.

Best thing now is just to write it off 100% in your own mind. I would say to him: "This situation sucks man. Don't worry about the money, things will turn around. Let's go get pizza."

It was a straight loan. I was not to be given profits of the poker game.

For what it's worth, over the years, during the years of online poker, we have always loaned one another large sums of money.

I find it somewhat ridiculous that at the moment, 2,000 dollars seems like "a lot" of money, but I suppose when there's no online poker, and your job is entry level, 2,000 dollars is more difficult to make than it seems.

I also have no idea how my friend took such a huge downswing in the Commerce games. I mean I don't think he was playing his best, but towards the end I think he lost about 10,000 straight in the 2/5 which has a 300.00 max buyin. Truly mind blowing.

FWIW, I think my 2,000.00 was used to pay a month of rent + expenses in order to salvage some bankroll and confidence during this brutal downswing. I can confirm that my friend beat 1/2 and 2/4 up to black friday for a decent little clip. The whole thing didn't bug me either until my friend decided to step out of the "poker life" which is probably a good idea. But I feel like as he leaves poker behind him, he's also leaving our loan behind him, kind of like "oh, that's a part of my past that I don't have to confront any longer and is no longer a part of me." And I feel like my money is being included in that mental frame of mind.

Eussi, I think that you and Improva are both right in your thinking. Money just does not mean the same for you.

I see it pretty much like Oliver but never had a chance that one of my friends accept a friendly loan from mine.
I proposed twice but they were more on Eussi way of thinking and were reluctant to accept this from me after I told them that I did not want any interest and that they could pay back whenever they wanted. I also told them that it would notbe a problem if they never paid back and that I wanted to do that because they were my friends.
I believe that they both refused because money was meaning a lot more for them than for me.

Btw OP, did you ask him clearly what he plans to do to pay you back?

I hope you walk away from this with a lesson learned either way. you put yourself in a shitty position loaning to a friend who didn't have a plan B for repayment unless you were willing to consider it a gift if things went south. but we've all made similar mistakes.

you should ask your friend what his plans are with respect to repayment and try to look at the situation rationally from both perspectives.

I think asking for a lot more than you loaned is out of line but I don't think it's horrible to ask for a little jelly roll if you have to wait until (if) FTP repays