Johnny Hughes romanticises liars, cheats and scum, why ???

[Hume]

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agree 100% with op.

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[GeniusToad]

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(As karma would have it, I would guess that Dikshit made a LOT more from poker than Johnny Moss.)


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good guess.

[Johnny Hughes]

Johnny Moss won three million from Nick the Greek alone in an honest heads up game in 1949. That would be like thirty million in today's money. At the first World Series, the players voted Johnny Moss the champion. He won it the next year.

The gun quote is from Al Capone, noted American gangster. He said, "You can get further with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone."

I haven't posted one of my stories in a very long time and now you know why.

Morality? I am a poker player. Society and the law consider me an outlaw here in the Lone Star State. I have been arrested several times at poker games and once at a dice game. They used to put KG by our name for Known Gambler. Nearly every poker game I played in was very honest. I never cheated. I'd bet my left nut they were more honest than the Internet. I was too lazy to work and too nervous to steal so I became a gambler. It is going to come as a huge shock to some of you, most especially the original poster, but I sometimes write humor that you do not understand. That is a big part of the point.

[Floker]

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If we only base our respect of people on how good they are in fulfilling their selfish needs, the successful violent criminal should be on top of our list.

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Makes no sense. If we only respected people based on that criterion, then the person who is most successful at fulfilling those needs would be top of the list. You've given no reasons to believe that people who use violence are most successful at that. And a quick glance at history shows that they're most likely to die as a result of violence, or spend long periods in prison, making them far less likely to succeed at their long term goals.

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As I said it, it doesn't make much sense, true. I should have said that if one criminal is more successful than another, but he uses violence, then that shouldn't be a consideration if we ditched the moral side of the story. Some people have this stupid respect for those people who are simply selfish leeches of society, so if someone is very successful with violent crime, they ought to respect those people too.

I raised this point because I feel like choosing to not respect criminals because they use violence is a feeble attempt to make your position about condoning crime more respectable. A criminal who doesn't use physical violence can inflict pain on his victims (trauma's etc.) so there's nothing more respectable about those people.

[yimyammer]

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In my thread "Should I steal this money?", Johnny Hughes calls me a whining whimp, tells me never to steal anything small, and says I give gamblers a bad name. It hurt a bit since I really like his posts, but heck he had a point. Here's something he wrote in that thread about stealing:

"It does not matter to me what a man does to get the money to play poker. I've never judged others. I used to play with a guy who stole copper, aluminum, etc. at night. He'd be around the poker joint all day. One time this Art Professor who worked in metal figures got in a discussion with this thief about melting down varied metals. They both knew their stuff. If you are going to be a thief, be a better one. Quit looking at stealing on the small and figure some better thieving.

When I was really broke, we'd steal food from the richie's garage freezers. You can go into a supermarket and graze. I still do that, being cheap is my hobby. I also breeze through the Holiday Inn for free coffee, free big cookies, free apples, the Wall Street Journal and the local newspaper, herbal tea bags that I take home. If you dress nice, you can go to Happy Hours and hit the buffet and move on. At any motel that provides free breakfast, I stroll in and serve myself. If I am ever caught, I'll say I am just checking in. Around any casino, you can find food, food comps. If you are going to be broke, learn how to be broke. If you are going to be a thief, learn how to steal properly."

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showfl...rt=all&vc=1

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This reminds me of Dave Chapelles comedy routine where he talks about how a wiser and older woman (than Lewinsky) would have sucked us (America) into Utopia.

See

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBH20L7Pnwo

About 6:25 minutes into the video (NOT a rickroll, I PROMISE)

Funny as hell

[glimmertwin]

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I raised this point because I feel like choosing to not respect criminals because they use violence is a feeble attempt to make your position about condoning crime more respectable. A criminal who doesn't use physical violence can inflict pain on his victims (trauma's etc.) so there's nothing more respectable about those people.

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And while I agree with your fundamental point, nobody has addressed my point in which I argue that, in order to minimize risk, the classic con will invariably target other criminals -- or at least, those who have a tendency to larceny.

In these cases, the person that the con man is gaming is actually another criminal, or somebody who is seeking to enrich themselves by illegal or underhanded means. I tend to see these people as much more akin to poker players because they're seeking to use their wits to get over on somebody who is trying to do the same thing.

Of course, the game here is completely unequal, and the mark doesn't stand a chance, but that's no different to me sitting down opposite sbrugby or patrik antonius. Will that stop them from taking my money? I don't think so. To be honest, I don't see an awful lot of difference between 'don't tap on the fishtank' and 'always leave the mark a dollar for gas'.

Also, the division between gamblers and con man has long been much narrower than many posters would have you believe. If you look at many of the classic prop bets that have made their way into the literature, these are little more than out and out scams, disguised as fair wagers. As with a con, the person who wins these bets has generally used careful prior preparation, a gaffed item of some sort or is relying on unequal knowledge to gain an unfair advantage.

So, perhaps part of the respect that people have for a good con is derived from seeing some of the victims of these cons as less deserving of protection and more as equal contestants in a battle of wits?

All that said, I think this actually represents a mythical conman who probably doesn't exist any more, possibly never did, and the vast majority are just scum who would happily use force to steal from their innocent victims. But it's this mythical conman that gets the respect and admiration, not the guy who scams some old lady out of her purse by telling her that he's come to read her gas meter.

[The Bride]

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In my thread "Should I steal this money?", Johnny Hughes calls me a whining whimp, tells me never to steal anything small, and says I give gamblers a bad name. It hurt a bit since I really like his posts, but heck he had a point. Here's something he wrote in that thread about stealing:

"It does not matter to me what a man does to get the money to play poker. I've never judged others. I used to play with a guy who stole copper, aluminum, etc. at night. He'd be around the poker joint all day. One time this Art Professor who worked in metal figures got in a discussion with this thief about melting down varied metals. They both knew their stuff. If you are going to be a thief, be a better one. Quit looking at stealing on the small and figure some better thieving.

When I was really broke, we'd steal food from the richie's garage freezers. You can go into a supermarket and graze. I still do that, being cheap is my hobby. I also breeze through the Holiday Inn for free coffee, free big cookies, free apples, the Wall Street Journal and the local newspaper, herbal tea bags that I take home. If you dress nice, you can go to Happy Hours and hit the buffet and move on. At any motel that provides free breakfast, I stroll in and serve myself. If I am ever caught, I'll say I am just checking in. Around any casino, you can find food, food comps. If you are going to be broke, learn how to be broke. If you are going to be a thief, learn how to steal properly."

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showfl...rt=all&vc=1

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This reminds me of Dave Chapelles comedy routine where he talks about how a wiser and older woman (than Lewinsky) would have sucked us (America) into Utopia.



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[Banks2334]

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The advent of online play actually brought the game out of the clutches of the shady players you discuss.



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There are still plenty of shady players in poker. If anything, it has opened it up to a greater number of cons, especially those who are computer savy.

[GeniusToad]

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The advent of online play actually brought the game out of the clutches of the shady players you discuss.



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There are still plenty of shady players in poker. If anything, it has opened it up to a greater number of cons, especially those who are computer savy.

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hey, multi-accounting MTTs is perfectly legit.

[sethypooh21]

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The Enron remark is total BS. Only 0.01% of shareholders were frozen from selling their shares - those were the Portland General employees who were locked into holding while the 401k plans were merged.

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There's also the Californians paying inflated energy prices and so on, but your point is valid. (Though I think your narrative of people 'knowingly' taking on risks is a bit flawed by leaving out the role that accounting firms, either as dupes or semi-willing participants, played in downplaying those risks.)

And regardless, are your really suggesting that there was no con played there?