I think it's unnecessarily cold-hearted.

I agree it's harder to maximize your profits if you have a heart. I don't think it's impossible, and if you're willing to accept a modest discount it's not even that hard.

When playing I'm the evil sensei from the original Karate Kid. I smile and joke, have conversation and all of the rest but it's a blood sport to me. I recognize the game for what it is and it is a brutal thing bec so many players come to it thinking that, unlike house games, they have a chance to win when, in fact, they'd be better off playing the house games. We know the behaviors and they all stem from an inner rage or barely hidden glee. They want to play? Go on, then, play but don't blame me.

When they win, do they have the slightest bit of empathy for you? Don't worry about it.

Sent from my HTCD200LVW using Tapatalk

Well, tbh, I do have a sympathy for the player I mention who I've never seen win, nor has anyone I've asked. But he's a mathematical outlier, a curiosity or perhaps it's that he's demented in some way.

I so much agree with this post. Only three times I can think of that I deviated from the “live and let play” mentality.

1. I met a kid (like he was in his 20s) at the Bellagio who I then subsequently played with again at the “big game” in my home room. Nice guy and a solid player. But when he showed up in my game he was so drunk that he couldn’t even stack chips. Then he got even drunker. He was still holding his own in the game, but I thought it best to intervene because I was worried about him getting back to his hotel safely. I ended up leaving before he did, but I talked to the floor and another player in the game to make sure he was safe.

2. There is a guy who is a semi regularly pops into this game who I legitimately think doesn’t have a high enough IQ to be a self functioning adult. I don’t say this to be mean, but I draw the line there. I’ve talked to the guy who runs the room and they won’t ban him. I won’t play in the game if he is there (which generally doesn’t last long).

3. There is a woman who is a regular in this game who dumps multiple buyins daily. She almost never wins. In talking to her, I understood that she works at a home for vulnerable adults. I made some discreet inquiries and at least made myself satisfied that (as far as I know) her sources of money is totally legit.

Ethically borderline issues for sure - but beyond those you can play as bad as you want and it isn’t my responsibility imo.

Hf

"Want" is a complex word.

Of people who attempt suicide and survive, a very high percentage (80%? 90%?) will not eventually die from suicide. That is, a lot of people who may "want" to die at a very specific moment end up changing their minds.

Like in the case where someone may have a super low IQ or is inebriated, do they really "want" to play badly? Do compulsive gamblers "want" to lose all their money?

The answer to this is yes, on some level they want to lose. They're chasing the pain. They might believe and/or tell you they want to win, but the losing fills the need as well. Maybe not losing all of it, but losing is a fine part of the equation.

This is very a poignant observation. I (as many here may) have a personal relationship with someone with a serious gambling problem.

I'm trying to understand her motivation, as she fully understands that overtime she cannot win at her game - slots. Turned a nice nest egg into a small nest egg and despite this, continues-repeatadly to go get punched in the face metaphorically.

I also dont remember the last time I used poignant in a sentence.

It's not just financial pain that losers have to deal with, but there is a social and emotional (and physical) impact on the people around them.

I feel I have pretty good control over my emotions, but I've certainly gone home after a massive loss and been snappy with my wife or yelled at my kids over little things. And I'm one of the better players at most tables I sit in. I'm sure much more of these guys go home in worse moods than I do and do worse things to their families.

I'm not saying you have to change your behavior or your attempts to win, but you can't pretend these things don't exist or don't have a continuous long-term negative impact on other players.

I also think poker subtly changes your own personal behavior and social interactions even as a winning player in long term negative ways, but that's a topic for another time.

Let me put all of you guys on the flip side. You all engage in behaviors - eating red meat, sitting for hours on end, smoking - that will increase your likelihood of requiring pharmaceuticals in your future. Is it fair to say you "want" cancer, diabetes, or heart disease? If I charge a billion dollars a pill, am I a hero for saving your life or a villain for profiteering off your misery?

I think the answer is not simple. You didn't voluntarily get cancer but you didn't involuntarily get it either. I'd be a raging ******* if I promoted unhealthy lifestyles just for my personal gain. But I'd be a fool to totally ignore the financial incentives presented. I could be criticized for enabling an unhealthy lifestyle, even.

"Want" is complex is all I can say.

Or put it another way. Say you want to open up a convenience store. You find a town with plenty of customers and only one convenience store, run by some dumb guy that has no idea how to run a business. You open up your store in the same town, and he goes out of business cause he can't compete. Do you feel bad?

That's different, because there are there three parties, the two competitors plus a source of money.

But if you insist on characterizing your competition as dumb, let me ask you this - will any of your health mistakes lead to major diseases down the road, and if so, how do you feel about the pharmaceutical companies that will prey on your stupidity?

It's not different because we're not arguing about the economics of the thing. We're arguing about the ethics of reducing someones' financial security through fair competition. The business owner has to sink plenty of money into his business as capital and losing his business can be just as devastating to him as a gambler losing his savings in poker.

I was making a specific hypothetical example, not a sweeping characterization of my competition.

I'll freely admit that I make plenty of dumb mistakes when it comes to my life. But they're my mistakes, and I'm grateful that the pharmas are there to make pills that can possibly help me reduce the consequences of those mistakes. I don't see how that's predatory on the pharma's part.

And I'm arguing what "fair" means.

Let's start with the most obvious, almost everyone if not everyone has an age cutoff for gambling. It doesn't matter that a 12-year-old poker prodigy could easily crush a sub-average 30-year-old, it's a rule that we set up in society to protect the vulnerable.

Is it still fair competition if someone is physically older than that cutoff but has the mind of a 12 year old?

I forgot that you aren't in the US.

Things are different here. Our government doesn't negotiate prices for drugs, so pharmaceutical companies get to dictate their prices without competition. Pharmaceutical costs are a large burden on our system and the system will almost certainly need total overhaul as the Baby Boomer generation gets into their 70s and 80s.

No. If a 30 year old has the mind of a 12 year old then it is the responsibility of the state, family or community to remove their financial independence because they can't be trusted with making decisions for themselves. They are relieved from their personal responsibility.

However, it is not your responsibility and would be pretty arrogant to think that you can somehow ad hoc make that call for a stranger at the poker table.

I'm not saying this is clear cut or anything btw. E.g. the alcohol issue. It's the drunk persons responsibility to put themselves in an inebriated state, but at some point they become catatonic and what then? The nice thing to do is to try to get the stumbling down drunk person out of the game, but what about someone that is drunk but still coherent? They obviously play worse than if they were sober, but you had no hand in getting them drunk. That was their own doing. So why should you pay for that by having to remove yourself from the game on moral grounds?

So everyone owes me money.

Read less Ayn Rand and watch more Mister Rogers.

Don't feel in any way knowledgeable to talk about an adult with learning/mental issues, but with an actual 12 or 16 year old there are real brain development issues at play. Maybe even along the lines of concussions -- the developing human brain is different. Putting one in a poker game playing for real monies can harm that development. As a society there is a real cost for this, and imo goes beyond personal freedom issues. Wonder if gameoverjc is around, as I think he has actual expertise in the field.

While some of his stuff certainly has "shave off all the real meat of the subject to make a headline" issues, just listed to an excellent podcast by Gladwell about CTE and concussions. Wonder how people in the future will judge us on allowing peewee tackle football? Growing up in Oklahoma, am I nuts for remembering like 6 or 7 year olds putting on pads and hitting?

Wut? I didn't read The Fountainhead but the movie was one of the greatest comedies I've ever seen.

Here's something that can only work in a lunatic's fever dream: Tell the jurors that they are parasites and that the remedy for breach of contract is to dynamite the offending structure, lolololololol........

Nice cliche there bud. I've never read Rand, but I do live in a scandi country so I do have first-hand experience with nanny-staters that think they know best how other people should live their lives.

I dunno why we are having this semantic debate - everybody is going to have a different definition of what is fair. I was just pointing out that for me someone who seemed mentally handicapped, who may have playing with stolen money and who was a good person when sober but was horribly drunk were instances in which I drew the line in the past.

Yeah, i'm done. It's obviously complex, ambiguous and neither side is 100% right.

Good morning

I'm not trying to take a shot at you, but it's curious to me that we can spend days on end discussing other people's problems, but then when you pose a very interesting introspective view here and nobody bites.

I got into an argument on social media with a very old friend about what has become what I call our "blame culture" a few months ago. He posted a picture of a shopping cart that wasn't put away; it was taking up an open parking spot. He said, "if you did this, you're a terrible person." So I called him out for being petty. One thing leads to another and he tells me off, deletes our friendship, and then blocks me from responding to his final private message.

Welcome to the future.

Omaha Beach February 1998:


My cat Buddy says hello also:


I don't have an agenda for posting these. Just that it was exactly 20 years ago this past winter that I visited Normandy, France on the student exchange for three weeks. Was a great time. If you have kids that have such an opportunity then you should try to sell them on the idea of visiting other parts of the world.

Buddy turned 13 this spring. Hopefully the number is not unlucky for him. He was born under a house in the ghetto. The owner of this house said he was gonna kill the litter of kittens for no good reason other than his hatred of cats. So my girlfriend and I gave him a home. Then when it came time for her to move out, I said "I want Buddy." I've had him ever since.

Because we live in a society where we have to agree on a few basic things like what "fair" means.

Let's say the nanny state liberals are constantly trying to ban poker entirely because it's predatory and the defenders of freedom are trying to protect peoples' constitutional rights. Can any poker room or casino function in a regulatory environment that drastically changes every 4-8 years?

On a more local scale, if you're a good player and want to play long term, you have self-interest in keeping your game running as long as possible. The better players set the expectation at the table - if you angleshoot, seat hop, talk strategy, and whatever else annoys people, your games will be combative and short lived. If you appear to be an honest, decent human being, your games will carry a friendly tone and last a lot longer.