Quote:
Originally Posted by classhandicapper
I think we'd be way better off as a society if there was no gambling at all. But people enjoy gambling. So they should be free to gamble. Personally, I don't enjoy gambling. I enjoy winning at games that other people gamble at. 
My problem or good point is guilt.
I can't actively try to deceive someone for an edge. Let me give you 2 examples.
I started playing pool again in the mid 90s. They had local tournaments in Queens for C through B+ players and I wanted to play. No one knew my game because I had quit years ago and was just coming back. I got back in stroke and had to be rated. The owner of the room I played in watched me play for 30 minutes in practice. I did not hold back at all. He rated me a B-. I told him he was underrating me and that I was going to win a tournament quickly at that level. He said "No, B- is correct. Everyone thinks they are better than they are". I lost badly in the 1st round the first week. It was the first time I played competitively in a long time and I was very jittery. He dropped me to C+. I told him he was going to be sorry. This was going to make him look bad because I was a local guy and it would like a setup. I won the next week. He raised me back to B-. I won the next week and he raised me to B. I made the finals the next week and then won the super tournament and he made me a B+ (which was the correct rating at the time). I did nothing wrong. I even proactively tried to correct the error. But I took the money and he took the heat.
When I was 18-19 and broke a new guy started coming into the room. He was dropping $100 almost every time he played and had no idea he was playing people much better than him. I immediately suspected he was kind of "slow" intellectually. He was 2-3 levels below me and asked me to play. From the conversation I could tell I was right so I said "No thank you". Every hustler in the joint started yelling at me privately telling me that this guy was going to drop $100 to someone no matter what I did, so it might as well be in my pocket rather someone else's. I needed that $100 badly, but I couldn't do it. I watched other people take the $100 every time he came in. One day I was dead stone broke and an old time hustler finally talked me into it. It's 40 years later and I still regret that decision every time I think about it. |
the casino's don't feel bad when i lose, and i am thrilled when they go for their money. i am also ecstatic for anyone that takes the casino down for their cash, i only wish they could get more of it.
i only hope that Phil Ivey was smart enough to hide the money so the casino can't put their hands on it.
