Why I don't tell people I play poker.

[UATrewqaz]

A few entertaining ignorance is bliss tales...

1.
When I told my sisters I play poker (not for a living just low stakes online and B&M occasionally for fun and extra $$$)

"How much have you won?"
"Oh probably about 5K (at the time)"
"You better stop before you lose it."
"I've built that up from nothing, I won't lose it all, I play low stakes against bad players and win it a little at a time."
"How much is the most you've lost in one night??"

(insert me trying to explain variance, statistics, etc.)

"You better stop before you lose it all."

2.
Me playing in a free NL tourney hosted by a sportsbar chain here in Atlanta (I played these frequently back in the day and hardly at all in the last year, mostly when I found internet poker).

Some random middle aged chick talking about losing money at limit in Tunica and confused as to why because she's pretty good at no limit (she was god awful terrible of course). A random shaved head tatoo'ed guy begins his long winded speech about how limit isn't real poker and stupid and good players can't win, to the agreement of most of the table. I kept my mouth shut the entire time, both amused and sickened.

3.
Another sports bar tourney, guy A talking to guy B about online poker, and how he wins even though they juice the cards for big action and to make it exciting, guy B "oh that makes sense"

4.
I work for an online casino software company so there are several people in the office who play (and alot of them are ok, they'v read 2+2 stuff, etc.) But i never know how to answer "Are you good?" my standard response is something to the effect of "Not particularly, but compared to the people I play against yes."