Started reading
the story of "The Home Game". The author describes a bunch of guys who almost can't walk by a blackjack table without putting at least one bet down, hoping they get lucky. But there was no luck to be had for them. If they won a hand, perhaps their first, they had to play the rush. If they lost, they'd have to double speed martingale. 1 2 3 4 -> 5 20 80 320 etc. If they push, then "that was boring"/"that didn't count".
My circles were different. The home games I've played in were generally filled with hardworking, successful guys. I was never really exposed to that much degeneracy. I mean even when when I got to the part about pushing in blackjack in the previous paragraph, I Googled it because I was like
"fk I can't remember, can you even chop in blackjack or does dealer just win on ties?"
Instead I got friends like Sol Reader who plays Overwatch with me and we go to the beach and yeah we have some fun, but god damn does this kid's face light up when I ask him whether AdQh is better to cbet than AcQh on Td6d2s (let's say you have to check one and cbet one, which do you choose). In context of
post #6217, spend 60 seconds thinking about it before clicking the spoiler!
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I think these experiences affect how people view poker a lot. I find many posts on 2+2 talk about how it's a scummy environment, but I never felt that way. With my background in gaming, it felt just like another gaming community to me except most of the members were older and used more racist/sexist jokes and less memes.
I can only think of one guy I know where poker "ruined his life", and it had nothing to do with finances (he was clearly making an insane amount of money). Also everything I've heard is secondhand so don't know how much is true. Anyway this guy's wife left him after she found out he pretended to be at work while he was gambling. Now you might think that seems harsh, but it wasn't like a one time thing. He spent roughly 17 hours a day at the 5-10 tables, 3 more at 10-20 and 2 more at baccarat for several years without his wife even knowing that he ever gambled. So the way I see it, poker... well, it wasn't really poker's fault here.
Of course I've witnessed plenty of despair around poker as well. But I've also witnessed poker bring plenty of joy. Experiencing extreme emotions is energizing. Compared to twitch streamers playing video games with absolutely zero expectation of monetary reward, when watching various twitch streamers grinding poker online, they have just as much fun (yes, some fraction of it is for show). But it doesn't matter if they've been playing for years, they still get excited watching a big hand at their table that they aren't even involved in when it's QQ vs AK for stacks. I feel the same way.