The most disheartening thing about this whole situation (if i can pick just one) is the willingness of people to instantly demonize the opposing viewpoint wrt keep it locked down or open it back up.

Its annoying that the keep it locked down crowd think they have the market cornered on empathy, but its equally annoying that the open it up crowd think the lockdown crowd are a bunch of sissies. You can find doctors to support both arguments, and us laymen are left wondering who the hell to believe.

Both sides in general are acting upon what they believe is for the best. One side will end up being misguided, and only time will tell. In the meantime, both sides are trying to find the best path forward that will put the least lives at risk while also allowing a full economic recovery. (IE, open back up but protect the at risk and practice increased hygiene, which is something the general population desperately needed anyway.)

How dare you come in here with your first post and make nuanced and well reasoned comments!

The Fear Fallacy:

Those who are focusing on whether people are afraid or not afraid of coronavirus are missing an essential biological fact that the spread of a contagious virus is not directly affected by the level of fear it's potential host may feel. As if lack of fear maintains safety? That is silly. Somebody who doesn't fear swimming in the ocean during a rough storm can still drown. Lack of fear won't save them from a force more powerful than human emotions.

You can have low levels of fear or even no fear at all yet still get infected with covid19, and spread the infection to other people, exponentially. The fear factor is nothing more than talking points to sell a position on an issue. A contagious virus doesn't care about whether a host is afraid or not, and decide to only infect those with high levels of fear.

The Direct Contact fallacy:

Those who think that only people in direct contact with them can get infected also miss essential facts about contagious viruses. Other people do not need to come near you to get infected. You infect people who infect people who infect people, and that is how virus spreads exponentially.

a practical example:

So, you go to the bar, and as a potential asymptomatic carrier who doesn't wear a mask or stay 6 feet away from others, you potentially infect 5 people. Those 5 newly infected people then go home to infect their families, go to work and infect their co-workers and customers, and the pattern continues until eventually some people who are vulnerable to the virus, and nowhere near you at the bar that night, may get very sick or die, even though you didn't "jump into their personal space".

People may feel that the risk of infecting others is worth taking, for either economic, political or social reasons, and will try to sell that point of view, but to pretend that risk of infection and sickness isn't real, or that the risk is somehow connected with fear, is foolish, convoluted and out of touch with reality.

It is now mid May. As businesses open up, it will take time for infections to spread. In 6-8 weeks, new data will shed light about whether the reopening is dangerous, and how dangerous it is. See what the situation is after people are gathering at will, unrestricted for 2 months, and then we may know what the level of danger really is, and whether opening up was the right thing to do.

Personally, I hope I am wrong, as I think hasty re-openings, plus millions of people believing that masks and social distancing are unnecessary, will cause major outbreaks and wind up being a major setback in public health and the economy, with possible future shutdowns that could have been avoided by waiting it out longer. If I am wrong, that's great, but if advocates to open up without masks and social distancing are wrong, that will be a huge disaster.

totally agree. the US has become polarized on many issues.

regarding 'rona.... I dont think the answer is all locked, or all open. from some of the posters, I feel like im listening to one of the news networks.

Best description I read was some doctor (cant rem where). Paraphrase.... reopening should not be a light switch, on or off. think of it more like a light dimmer. off now, lets turn on the lights a bit. then a bit more, etc etc. this light dimmer approach makes the most sense to me . we cant live like this forever, but we cant bring forth the zombie apocalypse either. like most things in life. balance.

Good times!

Wow, that's some high level snarky trolling.

Anyhow, there seems to be some research out there questioning the usefulness of masks even more than I claimed...

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/art...nst-sars-cov-2


What's the point of getting your hair up when someone else's prediction is different from yours? Can't we just wait and see who's predictions end up coming true?

That looks terrible to me personally. Just the optics make it look unpleasent. Even poker lovers aren't going to want to play if it's gonna look like that. 6 handed 9 handed 4 handed isn't gonna matter if it's going to look like your about to undertake a colonoscopy . They better find a way to make it look better then that if they want anyone to come back for a second visit or lock down ends.

The new normal

So whatever happened with this?
Vital Vegas posts so much unvetted garbage on twitter, I wish people wouldn’t promote it here.

Well Caesars still has May 22nd up for booking. If they change it again then we know Vital was off on this. If they open on the 22nd then he is a genius.

If you read thru NGCB docs, there are a a few steps casinos have to go thru.

the first one has to do with potential employee licenses that have lapsed during shutdown. I dont rem the details but I think NGCB has to approve that casino is in compliance with all of those licenses.

then they have all the new covid guideliness. i dunno how or if that stuff has to be formally reviewed and approved .

man, I hate to say it, but at some point we just have to say that maybe we should hold off on playing poker for a bit. Is it really that important ? it is just a game and form of entertainment.


also. 6 handed, reg infested games are going to net what.... $50 / hour, maybe. gonna take 30+ table hours just to pay for the barrier.

Okay thx Dr. Phil appreciate the advice. Maybe you should read how the person is framing their thoughts, basically accusing people in here of going way overboard.

And by the way, that's rich especially coming from you, the guy that writes novels in nearly half of your posts. If I need a sleep aid I'll pull up 1 of your 9 paragraph replies and I'll be out in 5 minutes.

I highly doubt most poker rooms nationwide will be using those kinds of tables. That imo would seriously drive business away. Looks uncomfortable and annoying to play poker with those kinds of tables.

That seems to be the case in most places - the question remains how much, if at all, that's because of measures that were taken.

That's a serious oversimplification. People are forced to go out and buy groceries and other essential goods, and a higher level of community transmission puts them at a higher risk. I'm not suggesting that nothing should reopen and that people shouldn't be allowed to make their own choices, but it also isn't time to open the floodgates everywhere because others can choose to stay away from people.

Blanket statements like this aren't especially clever either. Shutdowns staying in place in many areas might actually be sensible. Or at the very least, easing them slowly.

That depends on a lot of factors, of course.

Sure, which means that using daily case numbers as the only criteria for decisions on what to open would be foolish. Hopefully no one is doing that.

It amazes me that after the last two months, people can still make sweeping statements like this with such certainty. Have you not been surprised by anything that has happened over the past two months? I have, many times. If you look back to where your mind was at on March 1, and where we are now, would have expected everything that has happened? I certainly didn't. To assume you know how things will look for the next 7 months with enough certainty to call a different point of view "ridiculous and not based on reality" is foolish IMO.

Yeah, it's hard to see why people would be offended given reasonable posts like yours and this one...

While there's plenty I disagree with in ECB's post, I don't read any panic in it, and I'm not sure what the point of your mockery is, other than to prove this right:

Yup. Thankfully, in this thread, there hasn't been too much of that polarization, with a few notable exceptions like some above. It's been a decent discussion for the most part.

Okay, enough! This is serious. The degens who can't wait until they get back and make everyone sick just so they can throw their money out the window are not helping the situation. Live poker as we knew it is dead and gone for 2020.

Settle down buddy. No need to get triggered. There are plenty of people going overboard on both sides of the issue here and elsewhere.

And for someone who claims they get easily bored with what I have to say, I’m surprised you studied my words so intently as to question whether I was referring to the constituent elements or something else when I mentioned air.

Anyhow, if I can somehow help you get to sleep, I’ll take that as a compliment. Sleep is very important to one’s health. Personally, I like to throw on a Bob Ross painting video. That guy is ASMR gold.

Seems to me you are trying to have your cake and eat it too. Either poker is dead, or there are degens who will keep it alive. You can’t have both.

Totally disagree with everything you said. If players are aware of the risk, which everyone in this country does, they could never argue they didn't under these circumstance.

They are certainly immune from any lawsuit as long as they followed and safety guidelines they needed to follow. If they are allowed to run the tournament, follow the guidelines, and people get sick, how in the world do you think they are negligent?

Just like when sports eventually open and fans are finally let back in. If there is an outbreak that is deemed to stem from a game in Miami. Where a bunch of covid carriers somehow got in and infected 100's of people. As long as the hosting team followed procedures, temp checks or whatever is in place you think they are liable??


I may come off one sided and strongly in the "set us free" side. Thats true but I'm open minded and know some people close to me on the "lock down" side. My biggest problem is it seems the lock down side aside from being afraid of things getting worse, also seem to have some of the "if I can't (or won't) do anything I don't want anyone else being able to do it either"

Like going to the beach or golfing. Deep down even the most paranoid people can't think thats dangerous. But they don't want anyone to go if they can't do their favorite things.

I have no problem at all with anyone not being comfortable doing certain things during a pandemic. If you want to stay inside, fine. Want people to keep their distance fine. Just don't try to force businesses that have nothing to do with you to stay closed. Or try to prevent others from living their lives.

Another little pet peeve regarding the crisis is the "hero's" and "on the front line" employees. These are just regular people doing their jobs who didn't think much of it themselves until the media starts hero's!

Little backstory, I own a small business deemed essential, so we have been open every day through it all. We work with most other stores locally who remained open as well. At my store I bought masks for the employees right away and told them if they don't feel comfortable they don't have to work and when they are ready they can come back. Two guys didn't feel comfortable and decided not to work. The rest continued on, and didn't chose to wear masks either. Just like the majority of Costco, Giant, etc etc employees. Until PA made it mandatory most places weren't wearing them and there were no outbreaks at any of them.
Both of my employees who left came back about 3 weeks ago when the realized it wasn't as bad as things were made out to be on the news. Now we all wear masks which sucks, but whatever.

None of us think we are hero's. None of us are scared at work. Maybe 10% of the customers seem really scared about the pandemic. Everybody else is aware , take precautions and follow the rules required and can't wait for this to be over with.


I'm part of the minority that has benefitted from the pandemic financially. Business was lucky enough to remain open, started playing poker online for the first time in like 8 years and the game have been awesome. Without the downtime from the lock down I would have never started playing again.

So despite it being good for me financially I all for opening things back up. I'm under no delusions about the virus and don't think I'm immune in any way. Maybe I will contract the virus. I'm going to take measures to prevent it the best I can without staying "locked at home " for an unknown time period. Vaccine , now idea when that will be ready. Now the nig thing is "testing!' when the testing gets up to speed they will find another reason to stay locked down.

"In addition, restaurants must report to the board whether there is a separate entrance or notify how patrons can only enter the restaurant with stepping food into the gaming floor."

"If no bathroom is located within the restaurant, it must also explain how restaurant-goers can enter the restroom, also without stepping into the gaming floor"

https://gaming.nv.gov/modules/showdo...cumentid=16753

You seem to be minimizing the fact the virus fairly easily spreads from person to person, even possibly from asymptomatic people. And it is virtually impossible for any individual to fully incorporate these "down-stream" possibilities (possibly affecting unknown other people at some unknown time in the future) into their personal "risk-reward" calculations regarding their behavior (going to bars, restaurants, social-distancing, etc.).

Everybody wants to "get back to normal" as soon as possible. Everybody wants to "open up" as soon as possible. But the public health issues require this to be done prudently.

Not trolling at all. You were claiming that cloth masks are largely ineffective since they can't trap air, so I was really not getting your point. How then are N95 masks largely effective since they also don't trap air? Both types trap particles and droplets. One is just a much more effective filter.

It must be trolling only when someone takes issue with your posts, but you are free to do so with others as much as you like. It seems to be your raison d'etre.

So this makes it sounds like casinos are nowhere close to being able to reopen.

Weird. For an outlet directed to those in the health industry, it's playing a little fast and loose with what that study revealed. Specifically, this is a quote from the MNT article:

And this is a direct quote from the actual study. I've bolded the slight but significant difference:

The study shows that the viral material went from the inside of the mask to the outside. I don't anyone thought surgical masks and cloth masks could prevent this, because most thinking people already know the masks isn't really designed to protect the wearer but rather to protect others from the wearer.

Furthermore, the patients were asked to cough onto the petri dish from a distance of 20 cm (a little less than eight inches for us 'Muricans). All recommendations for facial coverings to prevent transmission still came with the caveat that social distancing should be maintained.

Thus, the Bae et al study didn't really tell us anything new.

A more important study would be have been to test the effectiveness of the different coverings at varying distances. They've already shown -- to no one's surprise -- that the viral load is relatively similar at close range, regardless of covering. I'd like to see the results at 40 cm, 60 cm, 100 cm. If nothing else, this would provide a better idea of what the proper social distance can be if everyone wears a mask.

Furthermore, this entire experiment measured the distance the virus can be transmitted via coughing. I would like to see the viral load tested when a person is breathing normally and talking. People who have symptoms (e.g. coughing) are already instructed to simply stay home and/or get themselves tested. They shouldn't be out and about, thinking a $10 mask from Etsy will protect people.

I suppose if you REALLY wanted to see what cloth or disposable masks will do in "real life," they should also test the petri dishes under different PPE conditions. Some are sealed with a paper mask, some are protected by a cloth mask, and some are uncovered. These will simulate the different possible recipients. Of course, the patients will run the gamut of PPE on their end. Then the patients cough, sneeze, breathe normally, breathe heavily, and speak.

TL;DR: Dr. Seongman Bae et al measured the effectiveness of different masks under two specific conditions: a) when the patient is coughing and b) is doing so at close range. Medical News Today somehow left out those two specific conditions and made a wide blanket statement that was neither proven nor disproven in the study reported.

No word about poker either way.



"The Mississippi Gaming Commission said Thursday that casinos in the state can start reopening May 21 — more than two months after the commission closed them because of the coronavirus pandemic."

"In neighboring Louisiana, casinos can start reopening in most places Monday, but they must remain closed in New Orleans."

Video:
https://www.wlox.com/2020/05/14/miss...reopen-may-st/

You should probably look up the word fallacy.