HOW CAN YOU NOT LOVE THIS GUY?!

[Zetack]

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But praying to God to intervene in a specific hand, to essentially bless your outcome and forsake your opponent is kinda icky.

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I agree this is worthy of debate, though probably not here.

My main point was that I liked this guy after his interview and think he'll be good for the reputation of poker.

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Fair enough.

[JooWish622]

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After just winning 8M the following exchange takes place between Yang and Chad (taken from Pauly's Tao of Poker):

'When Norman Chad asked him if he was having the best day of his life, Yang mentioned that when he came to America for the first time, "It was the first day I found freedom. My family tried to escape Laos and we failed. They (communist regime) hunted us down. Then we escaped to Thailand. When I found out that we were going to America was the happiest day of my life."'

Talk about having your priorties straight! Turns out though that lots of people are upset with him 'cause he wears his faith on his sleeve...but isn't that what the freedom of this great nation allows? Maybe Pauly said it best when he went on to comment:

'"... A devout Christian and religious man like Jerry Yang can help draw positive attention to the poker community. Poker can be a conduit for goodwill. Sure it's a form of gambling, but so is beating the stock market. Heck, praying for an imaginary being (aka God) is the ultimate gamble. What's the difference between shoving all in with a Big Slick vs. a middle pair and believing in God? There is none. Both are coinflip situations. God either exists or doesn't. That's a race situation that church goers gamble with every single Sunday."'

I know one bet that's not a coin flip: having Jerry Yang as poker's ambassador for the next year...that's a slam dunk.

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It was actually Pascal who demonstrated that believing in God is a +EV wager. After all, if you don't believe in God, you only get looked up when you're behind.

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untrue. your more intellectual and less self-deceiving friends will mock you if you believe in GOd.

[Nuff]

How can I not love him? Easily. His behavior at the table was extremely offensive to me.

Not only was he offensive and rude with the in your face praying that was insulting to his opponents.

Not only did he run around yelling louder than anyone else at the table when his horrible calls won.

He also would force a hug on opponents after knocking them out and make comments such as "you have a friend for life". How is that anything but offensive when you've been knocked out by a donky who likes calling all in's with A9o and what were the others, J8o I believe was one?

The real question is how can anyone possibly not be offended by this guy's behavior?

[Zetack]

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Out of all of the world's major religion's you can go and visit the grave/tomb/burial site of the religion's founder. Muhammad, founder of Islam, is a good example. Budda is another.

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Except, you know, for those religions that have no specific founder, like Hinduism or Judaism. Or, you know, those religions where you can (or could) visit the tomb of the founder like Manichaeism or Zoroasterism.

Claiming a religious truth is one thing; claiming the truth is founded upon the gravesite of a single founder is idiocy.

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You totally missed the point. I never said it was 'founded' on a gravesite. The fact that Jesus does not have a gravesite is testimony to the fact that he arose from the dead & ascended into heaven.

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Yeah, but his dad has some issues:

Why God Never Received Tenure at the University

1. He had only one major publication.
2. And it was in Hebrew.
3. And it had no cited references.
4. And it wasn't published in a refereed journal or even submitted for peer review.
5. And some even doubt he wrote it himself.
6. It may be true that he created the world but what has he done since?
7. His cooperative efforts have been quite limited.
8. The scientific community has had a very rough time trying to replicate his results.
9. He never applied to the Ethics Board for permission to use human subjects.
10. When one experiment went awry, he tried to cover it up by drowning the subjects.
11. When subjects didn't behave as predicted, he often punished them, or just deleted them from the sample.
12. He rarely came to class, just told students to read the book.
13. He had his son teach the class.
14. He expelled his first two students for learning.
15. Although there were only ten requirements, most students failed his tests.
16. His office hours were infrequent and usually held on a mountaintop.

[RealMcCoy]

For those that want to better understand Mr Yang and possibly reassess their position of him as both a person and a poker player it would be worth your time to listen to this interview BEFORE he won the ME.
He does discuss his playing approach (definitely above the felt) late in the interview.

http://www.worldseriesofpoker.com/wsoptv...p;txtQueryDate=