[TxRedMan]

Poker can suck the life out of you. The highs and lows are like peaks and valleys or some insane topographical map. I tell people, when they ask me about poker- I tell them dont start playing, dont get into it. For me it's been a huge preoccupation at best and a 24/7 obsession at worst. I've learned and matured through poker, and I've come to a point where I'm impervious to things in life that irritate other people because of the conditioning you have to go through and the mental abilities you have to acquire in order to be succesful in the game. One of the hardest things to do is to learn how to shelter those around you from what you go through as a player. Try telling your mom you lost ten grand in five hours, or try and explain to someone who doesn't play that even though you dropped twenty five grand this month you're still a winning player. It's hard to find a balance between honesty and protection, because believe me, you need to protect the people that care about you from agonizing over how they perceive your occupation or hobby.

Most of the people who post on twoplustwo and criticize others as their main reason to post- they're either teenagers who dont have a clue, failed poker players with intense resentment and jealousy, or life-know-it-all's who have been succesful at poker over a ridiculously small sample size. The thing is, and I've said this before with this same disclaimer, you can't relate to what someone goes through who went to war unless you were there with them. I by no means am comparing the gravity of these situations, but i'm trying to lend to the idea by using an analogy- unless you've spent years in card rooms, playing hundreds of thousands of hands, and living through the trials and burdens of a full time poker player- you just cannot relate. If you play online four hours a week and go to Vegas or LA once a month for a weekend of poker, you cannot relate to those who are there everyday. If you're 19 years old and reading this from your dorm room that your parents paid for and have a gas card, meal ticket, and no car payment- you cannot relate to the guy who has none of those neccesities handed to him, the guy who makes his living from the felt each and everyday with nothing coming to fruition unless he himself makes it happen.

There's a million varieties of card players. I'm one of them, you're one of them, Shannon is one of them. I've never met him and most of you have never met me, so I can't comment with any expertise on the specifics in this thread, but I do know that there's a million arm chair quarterbacks in this world and an equal number of people who need a big [censored] slice of humble pie- especially around here. If you're not on the grind supporting yourself as a professional card player, try and STFU and listen more often than you speak, and understand that there's truth in every story and a person behind it who knows only his reality, his perception.


You know what they say, misery loves company. And poker has succeeded in making many of the posters on this board miserable, broke, and insanely jealous of someones good fortune who of course, in their eyes, was just some lucky donk who caught the cards at the right time.



-Tex