I stacked an old man with cancer at a live casino 3 times. he pulled out a roll of around 2k when he reloaded. I noticed other people wouldn't play back at him since he was slow and you could barely hear him when he spoke due to his breather. I didn't feel bad about taking his money at all. should I be worried about my lack of empathy?

Are you kidding? Really?

The guy is on borrowed time, wants to have some fun with what money and time he has left and you're going to deny him? Really?

What about the gambling addicts?
What about those buried in debt?
What about the guy whose house is getting foreclosed while he's at the table?
What about the guy who's kids have to get one more year out of their shoes because daddy wants to go play cards this weekend.

Those people all look normal, and you happily take their money and say "thanks fish".

It's the casino's responsibility to watch out for people playing too much, or playing too big. It's up to the individual players to make responsible decisions about how to manage their bankroll.

But once the chips are on the felt, it's about poker and nothing else.

You should, but it wont help you in any way because it's a natural born trait, an emotion, not something you can switch off and on at will.

That is categorically untrue.

If you saw this guy fall down some stairs, you would help him. If you saw this guy choking on his food, you would help him. If this guy was your father and needed some money, you would help him.

Empathy is not a mechanical thing. It is developed and cultivated through life experience and personal relationships. Mr. Flip Flop is obviously extremely young, and probably friendless, so he doesn't understand this.

Your lack of empathy comes from YOUR experience of knowing how to afford poker responsibly. You also have experience with poker, and know, that there are rules governing soft-play and things like that. You've been trained, and practiced, to be a poker player where everyone at the table is fair game.

Just play your hand.

It's both of these things, not one or the other. A person can be born with a propensity to be empathetic, but a certain level of conditioning channels those inherent traits into tangible application. One's level of empathy is just a part of their personality like intelligence, interests, etc. Just like intelligence, some of nature some is nurture, and just like interests, some is what we have a natural inclination for (because of innate ability or whatever the case may be) and some is our surroundings. For empathy to be entirely reliant on our conditioning, we all have to be the same template. We are not.

Anyways, in regards to OP, I don't believe you can choose in this spot whether or not you "feel bad", you either feel bad or you don't feel bad. You can choose whether or not you wish to justify it, and to which justifications you arrive at. I would point out "free will" and "the fact that him losing money to you being no different than him losing money to X Y or Z player" as obvious starting points in this regard. I think you need to question why you play poker if you find it morally difficult taking money from one person over the other, because poker requires you to be inherently greedy and objective. Not to mention the fact that cancer is merely a hardship that is easier to identify than others. Perhaps another guy at the table is on his last $ and about to blow his brains out, you don't know.

Empathy is not feeling sad for people. Empathy is understanding what someone is thinking and their emotions. Also, you probably feel some guilt as if you didn't care you wouldn't have created this thread.

Now OP certainly understand what the guy was thinking hence being able to beat him at poker. Empathy is probably evolved from the need to better understand how prey move and act under certain conditions.

You don't lack empathy. The thing is should you care about some idiot who is throwing away his money? I doubt it. People on here call others fish all the bloody time, the fish probably have families and dreams. Yet by taking their money at poker they are destroying their lives.

Poker is a pretty useless skill. It's not really useful to society. It's just taking money of people who have gambling problems that are destroying their lives. Thousands of people are in massive debts from gambling addiction and the fish you are taking money off is one of them.

Who cares if the fish is dying of cancer, you got to die someday.

This issue has been discussed to nausea, it comes up few times a year and it always have similar few months 'old' posters 'teaching' us what empathy is lol.
I wouldn't be surprised if it's the same posters with alt accounts.

For the last time, OP, you don't have a say in this, you can't control feelings.
You 'feel his pain' or you don't.
In your case, you don't.
You are not doing anything wrong moraly though so chill.

No you should not

Well, my answer would be that you're probably a much better poker player for not having this feeling, taking a sick dude's money.

What that says about the rest of your life--let's just say you're probably not the first person I'd go to if I needed someone to watch my dog for a week.

I think this is a level based on the breather comment.

WTF no

Cancer guy just wants to enjoy his time left and play some poker. He's there by choice. Softplaying him will destroy the 'competition' that he craves and that poker gives him, lessening his overall experience.

He wants to play poker, so let him, and you do the same.