Our Editor Barry Carter did an interview with one of the heroes of the poker world: Barry Greenstein.

Part 1: http://www.pokerstrategy.com/news/world-of-poker/52610/
Part 2: http://www.pokerstrategy.com/news/world-of-poker/52611/

Nice interview on your part, though I don't understand his major line, the one in the title. He didn't convince me that black friday was necessary or good, even within a narrow scope of online players that were playing full time and doing very little else. There are millions of people just in the fortunate first world of the US that work longer, for much less and have all their eggs in one basket. At least poker has had the flexibility option and if players weren't taking advantage of that flexibility, I don't think taking away their jobs was probably the best way to enlighten them.

I'm not gonna read the interview now, so I'm just going off the title, but that's about the most stupid thing a poker player can say about poker.

The interviewer was a nice guy, but I always get burned when I let someone write excerpts from an interview without me reading what they wrote. He made it look like I wrote those answers down myself, and he also took the title out of context from one of the answers.

I hope that people can tell from the answers that I couldn't have written them exactly like that because of grammatical errors and Britishness of the answers.

Anyway, what I said was it was probably helpful for some people that Black Friday provided a wakeup call that their lives were too centered around poker. The key part missing is that this is talking about "some people," not everyone. Financially, Black Friday was disastrous for a lot of us in the poker industry.

Easy words for a man who has already made his millions

Hey Barry,

I'm sorry if you did not like the interview process.
To me, it should be a 100% standard to send an edited interview to the interviewed person for approval before publishing. I will make sure that gets done in the future.

Please drop me a line if you want any editing about the interview: lutz@pokerstrategy.com

Best,
Lutz

I usually insist on that, but it was obvious he was a good guy and he had a recorder with him. He obviously chose the sensational headline to get people to read it.

Thank you for the response and update.

Its amazing how many kids at 19-20 think 24 tabling $0.25/0.50 is better than staying in college. Hell even a min wage job in McDonalds give you experience and the chance of a promotion. The poker world changes all the time. I finished 10th in the first ever Full Tilt $215 major Sunday tournament way back in the poker boom after satting in for $5. Never been even close to the promised land again. It is just a game after all.

I wonder if he would still have said that if it was the other way round and pokerstars was closed while Full Tilt was still in operation?

Your logic seems backward to me. I'm telling young players to finish their education or take other jobs and play less online. I could see you calling me hypocritical if I said that if PokerStars was the one shut down and I was telling them not to play on other sites.

Very disappointing to read. I'm a student looking to go pro!

Hi, Barry,

Why must grammatical errors and Britishness go hand in hand?

I think it's clear from reading the article that the writer's first language is not English but, FWIW, you don't come off badly in the interview at all. Your points are clear and relevant.

You, Sir, may well be the only pro poker player I truly admire and what you say about looking back on life - you're not gonna wish you'd played more poker - that really rings true.

GL

A lot of the top British players followed Barryg's advice. It's mostly Americans who donated their whole existence to the game cos they were crushing 50nl.

this !!!!!!

kids start making money and start disregarding school & college. and they decide to become so called "pros" without a backup plan. this is a high risk decision they are taking for their life.