Re: Stupidly Gambling For Millions Is Admirable?
 

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unless they is really ugly then they dont score anything

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Not true, even the mouth gets some snapper.

Re: Stupidly Gambling For Millions Is Admirable?
 

I find the ups and downs of gambling for large amounts of money fascinating - with or without an edge.

I admire someone with good bankroll management.

Re: Stupidly Gambling For Millions Is Admirable?
 

Post deleted by Mat Sklansky
 

Re: Stupidly Gambling For Millions Is Admirable?
 

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It seems like a lot of people think it is admirable, or romantic or exciting to risk millions of dollars on gambling games with little or no edge.

[/ QUOTE ]it's more like fascination combined with disbelief combined with jealousy.

I don't understand how it's not exciting to see people gamble for high stakes. Imagine a scenario where you make $50,000 a year, so money means a lot to you. Then imagine a scenario where you see people flip a coin for $100,000 and within 2 seconds, someone just won 2 years salary. How is that not fun?

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Was playing Benyamine fun?

Re: Stupidly Gambling For Millions Is Admirable?
 

People often admire others who are doing something they wish they could do. I wish i could bet 500k on a game of golf.

Re: Stupidly Gambling For Millions Is Admirable?
 

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It seems like a lot of people think it is admirable, or romantic or exciting to risk millions of dollars on gambling games with little or no edge.

[/ QUOTE ]it's more like fascination combined with disbelief combined with jealousy.

I don't understand how it's not exciting to see people gamble for high stakes. Imagine a scenario where you make $50,000 a year, so money means a lot to you. Then imagine a scenario where you see people flip a coin for $100,000 and within 2 seconds, someone just won 2 years salary. How is that not fun?

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Zeebo, it seems you don't understand. To many, many people in the world, gambling for that amount of money is soulless and sickening. (Not me, of course, I love gambling, but I know how the other half sees it, too).

Re: Stupidly Gambling For Millions Is Admirable?
 

When I first started gambling, I learned the simplest, ages-old axioms that gamblers live by. Take the best of it on bets in relation to your bankroll. When I first went on the road traveling with big-time gamblers, I went broke fading dice because my bankroll was too small even though I had the best of it on every roll.

I never understood the gamblers with bad leaks and especially bad gambling leaks. How can anyone admire the tragic losers who, although skilled poker players, also lost large sums gambling: Johnny Moss, Titanic Thompson,Stu Ungar, Jack Straus, Nick the Greek. Nick the Greek and Johnny Moss ended up playing cheap limit in their old age because they just wanted to gamble every single day. Colorful but hardly admirable as the best gamblers.

I have often seen very young gamblers go on big winning streaks only to end up broke for various reasons. I have been there. You tell a good trapper by the furs on the wall.

Re: Stupidly Gambling For Millions Is Admirable?
 

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To many, many people in the world, gambling for that amount of money is soulless and sickening.

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Especially when they're just flipping (or equivalent). Playing a game with a skill element is easier for people to relate to I think.

Re: Stupidly Gambling For Millions Is Admirable?
 

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I agree with this sentiment.

Poker players today are in a unique place in time and space, and if they really want to be part of the larger world, they should try to connect in more real ways with things that aren't always related to gambling lots of money. The contest for Biggest Degenerate will never be won, so it would be far more enlightened to take that money and do something useful with it. (Edit: At least in the case of someone trying to pursue some version of religious enlightenment with or without poker).

I also think it's crazy that we have the unique opportunity to travel to lots of amazing places in the world, in near first-class style and with relative ease, and the only thing most poker players could tell you about those locations is how good the cash games were or how much they flipped for over dinner.

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God I love you shane.

Perhaps the greatest thing about my 0-4 record thus far in live events is that I've really gotten to see the places I've been in. Altantis and Monaco were ridiculously awesome trips because I went around and did so many non-poker activities, not because of any of the poker related activities. I would hate to have missed out on an afternoon trip to Italy whilst in Monaco, or a Jet-Skiing adventure in Atlantis w/ my best friend because I was locked in the lobby playing tournaments like so many people were. I'm in this for the money and for the thrill. There are certainly people in this who are just in it for the gambling it seems, and their supposed glamorous cojones on and off the table are likely just a facade for their degeneracy.

I am guilty of quite a bit of degeneracy myself, but I'd like to think it's not overwhelming, and I can balance it out. I still agree w/ much of what Strassa said in the other thread about David's attitude about all of this, but I definitely wouldn't compare a Teddy Rooseveltian take on life with constantly being busto and gambling your life away on -ev ventures. There is a fine line between pushing the edge and having a bit of risk in your life, and being a mess of a person whose mental state rides on the turn of a card every other day.

I have played over my head in games I shouldn't have played in, I have done my share of retarded shot taking, but make no mistake I realize that it was my ego clouding my vision, and not an Evel Knievel take on life.