Originally Posted by anilyzer

Sorry for teh typo.

Originally Posted by HorseHead

"teh" is a typo. Using the wrong word is something completely different.

Originally Posted by ThatsABingo

You are comparing the top tier of poker players and VERY successful multi millionaire rich people, to the bottom of the barrel. Howard lederer gets so much flak on 2+2 but hes winning in RL even phil ivey looks at him like hes the boss on PAD being like laughing at his random failjokes etc.

They arnt jaded, because they win life. Its like why are the 500 jobless autopart workers all pissed and sad poor and everything, hating life right now and are negative toward their old bosses...? but the millionaire owner over there is so happy with his homeoffice and new BMW and bitchin house?? LoL

Id assume you play 1/2nl or something where you encounter these people everywhere, yep, they are there, they are bad at life and poker. If you sucked super hard and had to play 1/2 just to survive or breakeven or you are so super degen you play losing poker... would you have bad or negative traits on your list?

Even some midstakes successful and losing players contain some of these tendencies. Although generally id say its the people who fail that will become angry, the ones the fail consistantly and fail to adapt get even more pissed, they are just destined to lose so them simply existing is an inevitability. I guess my point is a lot of these points are common for many people. Does poker bring out the worst in some? Yes, so do many, many other competitive markets of work.

Originally Posted by michael12345

your post is a typical example of the arrogant, condescending attitude the OP talks about.

Poker is a game/sport/hobby/business. like many others. Im english, so I'll compare it to football. lots of people play football just for fun, little kickabouts in parks or gardens. and for fun games it really doesnt matter if you're below average, average or above at the game.

tbh if someone made comments about other players being ****, coming up with dehumanising terms for poor players (like the OP said), they'd be the outcast socially. especially reading this forum i do get the impression alot of you, not all, have serious attitude problems and little respect for other people as human beings.

and you do no good for the popularity of the sport either. I dont even play poker atm, but i have in the past, i respect the game & skill involved, and will watch it on tv/youtube for fun. i tend to ignore the general attitude that comes across,and it doesnt stop me liking the game for what it is. but 2 points:

1-it does stop me joining in with the community here. there's a ridiculous amount of cynicism, disrespect and more that its simply not worth trying to have a normal human to human conversation with the people on this forum, at least.

2-to someone new to the sport, they might find this forum and be put off by said attitude.

Originally Posted by Former DJ

RagingBull:

This is interesting. I seem to recall Alec Torrelli writing a blog post a year or two ago where he bemoaned how poker has a way of burning you out. If I recall, Alec expressed some of the same sentiments that you are pointing out.

I was reading an article today by Paul Allen, the billionairre investor who co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates. Gates and Allen first met back in 1968 when they were in high school. After high school, both of them migrated to Harvard where Allen took a full time job as a programmer for Honeywell while Gates skipped classes writing code. Paul Allen would work for 5-6 hours for Honeywell and then spend the next 10-12 hours writing code with Bill Gates. These two guys did this day in and day out. They finally got their "lucky break" when they wrote the first interpreted BASIC for the Altair 8080 microcomputer. The rest is history.

In 1982 Paul Allen had a close call with lymphoma. He was unable to continue working at the pressure cooker pace that was customary at Microsoft. This eventually led to a falling out between Allen and his friend from high school. After being subjected to a great deal of "pressure" from Bill Gates, Paul Allen finally agreed to a buyout of his shares and (eventually) stepped away from Microsoft. A book recounting all of this will be published later this month, but Bill Gates certainly has (or had) many of the traits that you describe.

Our society (and certainly shareholders and investors) tend to admire and love high achievers. Some will argue (and Paul Allen even admits) that without Bill Gates' tyrannical drive, Microsoft probably would not be what it is today. The simple truth is that the world is so competitive nowadays that if you want to succeed - at any endeavour - you have to be more driven (and more ruthless) than the man standing next to you. This is patently evident at the poker table, but it is becoming more and more evident everywhere. Andy Grove, Chairman Emeritus of Intel, talks about the same thing in his book: "Only The Paranoid Survive".

It would be better for poker - and would certainly attract more "fish" to the game - if poker players didn't call each other "idiots" and say things like "I hope you get cervical cancer and die!" to lady players. (In fact, I think these kind of outbursts ought to be penalized.) I try to be cordial with people when I sit down at the poker table, but there's one thing I never forget: That person sitting across the table is trying to rip my heart out and take all my chips! That's what we all realize (and accept) when we sit down at the poker table. Stu Ungar said as much.

Poker, golf, football (and running companies like Microsoft) are not for momma's boys. If you truly want to succeed, you have to be willing to pay the price. Sometimes that price is very high.

Former DJ

Originally Posted by RagingBull