I will add (this is a serious point) that a significantly high percentage of poker players have destructive personalities. Again, I think this trait is nurtured and exaggerated by an unhealthy volume of participation in a game where the object is to destroy other participants, which also can cause players not succeeding in this to become resentful, and/or jealous and/or vindictive.

Poker for many/most people in some/many ways is a very unhealthy activity

Joey and Cumicon's podcast now stands as a very valuable insight highlighting some aspects of this.

I think you tend to over-generalize a lot of what you've witnessed in the poker world while focusing on what you perceive to be negative aspects of it.

From someone who's worked in the radio, restaurant and ESL industries, I can tell you it's about the same everywhere you go... you have some good apples & some bad ones. Some good days & some bad ones. Some destructive traits & some virtuous ones. Have you looked at your social media feed lately? Half the planet has some sort of serious "destructive" tendency (and that's on a good day).

Maybe if we're going to run a fine-tooth comb through poker players' lack of whatever, or how the game has negatively affected them, we should also take a look at the "benefits" of the game. Check out David Sklansky and Alan N. Schoonmaker's article in the November edition of the 2+2 Magazine for more insight on this.

https://www.twoplustwo.com/magazine/...od-for-you.php

I wasn't generalising. These are my actual observations of a significant number of poker players, both live and online. I've worked and been in many jobs and industries for 35 years of adult life and never seen such a high percentage of people with negative character traits in any of those industries.

There are many benefits of poker of course, but these benefits can be gained in more healthy and/or productive fields. E.g. I'd rather improve my maths skills as a geneticist than as a poker player and chess is a way more accurate microcosm of life than poker is.

I think if you live in America you downloaded some **** from the culture that equates to mental disease. It helps that psychology has been employed since WW2 to help us be impulsive consumers thru advertising. It's quite the neat little trick they did to our brains over the years appealing to our ego and self gratification impulses since we were babies.

Honestly if you live in the US and don't have some sort of bad software in your brain then you are an outlier.

Thanks for the article link: I hadn’t seen this and it’s very good.

Exactly. One of the best episodes for a while! Joey can obviously have whoever he wants on the podcast as often as he wants. I like Doug and JNandez but feel like I've heard enough of the same stuff and tend to skip those now - but I'm not going to complain if that's the direction Joey chooses to go. Thanks for the great content!

+1 to farewell Ansky podcast. Would love to get an update from Lefort and also from Kanu who doesn't seem to playing any more?

Also... BigAisAOK if he would want to do it? Seems you guys would have a lot to discuss.

I thought it was hilarious that Cumicon noted, unabashedly, that Doug was one of the biggest calling stations at HSHUPLO... anyone else notice that?

yeah that part was hilarious. cumicon basically described his strategy against doug as not bluffing but not making it obvious he wasnt bluffing. like there were hands that he knew was gettting called on the river but he had to bet it so that DP wouldn't realize he wasn't bluffing.

honestly i felt bad for cumicon. no serious or casual relationship in 5+ years. what's the point of having all that money? snowboarding by yourself?

thanks

no, thank you!

I can understand some of the negative comments on the pod. I think people probably had pretty high expectations coming into it.

It's a bit difficult for me to watch back just because I had no idea I was saying 'like' so much. I'm a pretty private person, so spending 2 hours talking about myself was not something I am used to, but I don't think I'm nearly as socially awkward as some people were led to believe. The mental health/personality disorder comments are a bit out there

Not quite sure why feel bad for him... First of all it was a personal choice, not like there was a gun to his head. A lot of people spend 4+ years studying or mastering a specific craft and have literally no life at all, I didnt feel he was completely out of the social aspect, just focused on what he was doing.
PLUS he is still young and is financially set for life, those 5 years can be earned back really fast just on travelling experiences alone. Just my 2 cents.

GG Cumicon!

GG, Cumicon.

Great job hosting, Joey.

Cumicon,
You were fine. The haters need to latch onto something to bring you down. Morons are just jealous that you figure out how to do something they only wish they could ever do.

What I saw was incredible persistence to attain a superhuman goal, playing against the best players in the world and crushing them. Your thoughtful, cerebral response was quite evident in the podcast. It's authentic.

Compare the cast of 2 months 2 million, you would fit in fine with them. Yet some of these fanboys go gaga over those guys.

Don't let these comments bring you down. These people are pathetic losers, sitting in their mom's basement and spreading hate on the internet to avert how miserably they themselves fail at life.

Or there might be some truth in them, who knows.

you have a mental disorder

No but seriously, Isn't it obvious ?
Are you all trolling me by pretending you did not see something was wrong with Cumicon during the podcast ?

theres a big difference between 'something is wrong with him' and 'he is an odd fellow.'
so far in this thread (including podcast) you show more signs of a mental disorder than cumicon

To clarify my earlier comments, I don't think there is anything wrong with Cumicon and he came across as exceptionally nice and personable.

But it appeared that the self-imposed degree of mental and physical confinement he chose in order to achieve his poker goal, which is an amazing achievement, has set him back in a similar way to someone who has been wrongfully imprisoned for 5 years.

In both cases there is nothing wrong with the person themselves, but the person has incurred some degree of "damage" that is in need of repair.

It's amazing how random folks gather to come at the rescue of their idol when I was not even attacking him in the first place.
Quite the opposite actually when I was benevolently just trying to make him aware of a probable personality disorder that he should take care of now that he has the millions.

I still feel like this discussion is a joke honestly, did you not see how he did not react normally in the video ? How his emotions were absent, no enthousiasm whatsoever, no relationships, etc...
Someone wake me up.

Cumi dont give a fu ck what people think of you bro.Everybody is different and thats normal.Dont try to imitate someone else,just try to be yourself man

If Cumicon were "normal person", he wouldn't make $7.4 million profit.

You can't make assumptions like that from a pod during which he clearly felt uncomfortable.

He was very successful in what he was doing, doesn't appear to suffer from him being more introvert then most and is actively planning to live a more "social" life from now on.

So while he may show some signs of a schizoid disorder (pretty much any introvert person does), it's way over the top to give them pathological value.

Me thinks someone who can't spell enthusiasm properly shouldn't be handing out a personality disorder diagnosis.

You are quite the humanitarian and everyone on 2p2 can rest easy knowing you are looking out for them.