Hey, everybody. I have been on a business trip all week. Driving around the upper midwest, tons of fun. No computer, no internet connection = no poker and no livepokerforum. On the plus side, I seem to have missed tetsuo's April Fool's joke until way way way after the fact, which is good because I probably would have fallen for it.

What did I do without poker? Well, of course all the hotel rooms had cable TV. I don't have cable at home. So this was my first chance to watch poker on TV.

A small digression. On the south side of Madison, Wisconsin, where I live, there is a street called Fish Hatchery Road. I'm not sure if the fish hatchery is still there or not, but they used to hatch millions of fish there years ago. Just millions of the little guys darting around. We saw it on a field trip when I was in junior high.

Relevance? Well, watching the poker on TV, I'm started realizing that I was seeing a fish hatchery of another sort.

I was watching some big NL tournament from Atlantic City. Don't even remember the event. Here's some of what I learned from watching.

Most memorable lesson learned from players in the games. If you get AJ and the flop comes Txx and your short-stacked opponent goes all-in, you should call. Yes, your opponent has AT and you're drawing to 3 outs, but don't worry, it'll come and you'll win the hand.

Honorable mention. If you get T9o and raise preflop on a bluff and get called, then the flop comes 98x and your opponent goes all-in, you should call and announce that you "want to gamble." This won't work out, but it's an example of how the pros play so it must be right.

Most memorable lesson learned from the announcers. If you have K9 of diamonds and your opponent has KK and the flop comes Kxx with a diamond, you are drawing dead. Pay no attention to your backdoor diamond draw. No two cards that can come can possibly help you. They're only dealing the last two cards as a formality.

Lessons learned from what the announcers did NOT mention. (1) The size of the blinds does not matter when trying to understand how big a preflop raise is. (2) The size of the players' stacks does not matter when trying to understand why they might raise or call. (3) The size of the pot does not matter on the turn when trying to decide whether to call a bet of 5,000 chips.

Most memorable lesson learned from Donald Trump. Poker is exactly like business. If you want to make a lot, you have to risk a lot. (I think that's pretty much word-for-word what he had to say.)

What can I say except thank you to the TV folks.

Thanks for giving poker this awesome TV exposure.
Thanks for explaining the game so badly.
Thanks for failing to include important information, thus making it look unimportant.
Thanks for featuring terrible, awful plays.
Thanks for featuring Donald Trump's brilliant theory of poker.

Thanks for hatching millions of fish!

Anyway, like I said, this was my first time watching. I'm really curious. Was this sort of thing typical? Is there better poker on TV anywhere?

K3nt... Definitely welcome back... a few thoughts from a wandering mind about poker...

I know where you play K3nt, and you know all those boneheads that go allin w/ 88 when the flop is AKQ? Where do ya think they learned that... WPT on TV baby...
The famous "allin bluffs", not paying attention to pot size while betting, playing every damned Kx or Ax in the deck... All WPT...

At best, it's interesting to watch, as it's pretty good drama tv... but for actually getting any kind of insight into the game or strategy tips, it's the worst... But SHHHHH... don't tell the fish that...

MVP

That event you were watching was the 2004 US Poker Champonship. I just ignore the commentators or listen to see how much they can f-up. I love to watch ALL poker events on TV not to learn, but to be entertained by how some people play their hands.

As for the guy calling an all in with AJ on a Txx board, that was Erick Lindgren getting knocked out with his AT and the guy with the AJ proceeded to play a couple hands (notably a JJ hand) so badly that he was out soon after.

TW, the point you're trying to make here does ... sort of ... make sense ... I think.

I never berate anybody in chat playing poker. (I'll holler at the screen a bit, but nobody hears that so it doesn't matter.) I'm sure I wouldn't yell if I played live, either, even on the worst of suckouts. I would do my best to smile and congratulate them on their brilliant play. But I would do that in order to try to get them to keep making that bad play again.

Let me put it this way, and see if this is what you were trying to say.

(a) It's not OK for me to be nasty to people, no matter the circumstances, because that's just uncool. [Definitely agree with this one.]

(b) But it is OK for me to be happy at the bad plays made by other people, because those bad plays make me money. [Also definitely agree with this one]

(c) But when I call someone an "idiot," even if I don't call them that to their face, or in such a way that they can hear me -- then I am demeaning them, which is not OK.

Statement (c) above is (if I'm understanding) what TW was saying. It involves making a distinction between bad PLAYS (without which we could not make money) and bad PLAYERS (who, on some level, we might have a duty to root for and hope they improve, because they're people like us). So we need to love the bad plays, but feel bad for the player who makes them all the time.

I don't think I agree with (c). I want my opponents to be bad poker players. The worse they are, the better my chances of winning. And I'm playing to win. Anything I can do to make them play worse, I will do (short of being obnoxious or making the playing experience unpleasant). I don't feel bad about that attitude. And I don't think I should.

This is where poker is different from, say, tennis. In tennis, you want your opponent to be almost exactly as good as you are, so that the game can be worth playing for both of you. You both get a better workout, and the game is more fun. But in poker, the point is not to have fun, and you're not getting any exercise out of it. The point is to win. In a game featuring equally good players, the only winner is the house.

Anyway. Chalk up another thread hijack to TW!

K3nt,

First off, I'm really sorry for the hijack, and I feel like a bit of an asshole that I ruined a perfectly good thread just because I was in a pissy mood.

All three points are pretty accurate as far as the argument I'm trying to make...sort of. I'll try one more time to clarify point (c)...

You shouldn't feel bad about winning money. You shouldn't feel bad about inducing mistakes among your opponents, because that's how you make money. You should feel good about the fact that you're making money...BUT...you SHOULDN'T feel good about the fact that your opponent is losing money.

I guess that's sorta the same ridiculous, contradictory statement I made before...alright, look; I'm not a particularly talented poker player, but I have read enough literature to be a winner. But I'm only a winner because I know more about the game than most of my opponents. Therefore, isn't a bit silly to belittle them on account of the sole factor that makes me a winner? Isn't calling an uninformed opponent a fish or an idiot sorta like looking a gifthorse in the mouth? Time and time again, I hear good players whine about the fact that their opponent sucked out on them, i.e. made a mistake. Is there no pleasing us? If we're playing better players, we lose money; if we're playing weaker players, we snidely call them morons...in the end, my argument is not really about the morality of poker at all, it's about attitude. And I don't believe that anyone who considers his opponents to be inferior idiots will ever be completely happy with playing poker for a living or a hobby.

-TW

TW... I hate to disagree, and please call me a hard ass, but I don't really care about my opponent... All I care about is, the more he loses, the more I win... on your Aborigine (sp?) example, I agree, and will do anything I can to help... But, if I offer to help, he ignores me, and one day needs desperately to know about the Pythagorean Theorum, screw em...
I'm totally hijacking this thread probably, but if someone decides they want to do something dumb, (ie... running w/ the bulls...) and one of the bulls gores them in the nuts... well... sucks to be you... I am a strong believer in Darwinism and survival of the fittest...
If someone is gonna lose all their money in Poker, they might as well lose it to me...
MVP

Okay, it is time for me to take off the "TW, the drunk and incoherent troublemaker" hat and replace it with the "TW, the hardcore moderator" hat.

In otherwords, this serious discussion has gone on long enough. The initiator has been warned via Private Message, and in order to restore order to this forum, a re-hijack is now in process.

Throughout my grade-school / high-school career, I never really got into fights. This is primarily because I'm a tremendous pussy and a devious bandit who stole $60 a week from my father to afford myself some degree of protection.

But one day, I finally came across a situation in which I was forced to abandon my pussyness and defend my honor. It seems that Big Jim O'Hallihan, the 6'8", 320 pound captain of the curling team, made a snide remark about my next-door neighbor's cousin's hairdresser's great-aunt. Clearly, this could not be taken lightly.

So I marched up to Big Jim and said, "Look, you dick-pinching cunt-head, you and me are gonna..." at which point he slugged me with a fist the size of a $20-ham, knocking me unconscious and causing me to miss my final exam in Medieval-Vermont-History 101.

But I got back at him by kicking his legally-retarded 7 year-old brother in the genitals.

-TW

I completely understand what TW is trying to say. There is a somewhat abstract yet very discernable distinction between my winning and someone else losing. Perhaps not so much in practice, poker being a fixed sum game and all, but somewhere up there in metaphysical space, my winning and my opponent losing are two different things- rooting for one is not the same as rooting for the other. I can say 'i hope i keep on winning' and not have it mean the same thing as saying 'i hope my opponents keep on losing.'

T-dub may be a degenerate and a souse and all around arsehole, but he is obviously a philosopher and a gentleman, and for this, he gets props. When i play with the regulars at the B&M room I play in, especially the ones that give action, were always throwing each other lucky chips when we suck out, and turning over our hands on the river when the opponent weve beaten in the hand has been getting beaten up all night. And these small gestures dont really decrease the profitability of the game, because they go both ways- even if I am on the winning side more often than the losing side, it doesnt significantly affect my profits.

HOWEVER: This utopic example really only applies when your playing with friends and regulars, because it increases the camraderie of the table, makes for better action, and generally a better time and a better game, and because everyone feels the same way about it.

But, When you are at a random table with a bunch of random chode-wackers, i have no moral misgivings about taking my opponents money. And why is this? Because every person that sits at a poker table, has DONE SO VOLUNTARILY and has assumed the risk that goes along with it, the risk being the loss of every red cent in from of you. you and your opponents both recognize this, and your opponents do NOT feel sympathy for you when they give you bad beats. This might be because they are losing players, and everytime they win one against someone they think might be a winning player, they revel in it, and think you deserved to get a bad beat for playing like such a tight ass. It might be because they just view poker as many do, which is just as a game and as recreation, and not have a whole lot of regard for the money, and thus not feel sorry for anyone they beat, and conversely, not sorry for themselves when they lose. Maybe theyre just arseholes, or maybe they dont even think about it at all.

Whatever the particular case might be, the fact is that the vast majority of players that dont know you, good or bad or otherwise, are NOT going to feel sorry if they beat you out of a pot, via a bad beat or otherwise. I used to give random people lucky chips- tell them to save a river bet, or givem an extra $10 or $20 when they rebought a rack off me. Ill tell you something: I dont get shit back for it. The same guy that i gave lucky chips to when I was big stack and he rebought a rack off me is VERY UNLIKELY to show me any consideration when he catches a wheel against my set of aces. Hes just gonna jamit down my throat. And whats more, he has every right to, because its in perfect accordance with the rules of the game. Thats just the way the game is played, it aint right and it aint wrong. There is no moral quality to poker - poker just IS.

Yes, your opponents are people too, and you shouldnt wish ill upon them. However, when you sit at a poker table, the implied agreeement between the players is that there is a WAIVER of the general norms of social contract and/or the goodwill of one man toward another. Everyone knows it and everyone acts in accordance with it.

My ultimate point? The vast vast majority of the poker playing world, good players, bad players, tall players, short players, ugly players, fat players, maniacs, rocks, calling stations, saints and assholes alike-- view poker the same as most people on this site do, which is they are there because they want to win money (even the losers think that, they just dont know how to), and they have no problem taking yours, and if given the opportunity, would LOVE, more than ANYTHING, to make sets on the river against your wired overpairs ALL NIGHT LONG.

And so, there is really no need to feel any sort of moral misgivings in the game of poker, because for the most part, there is no moral aspect to the game. Sitting at a table is an implied waiver of all moral laws that might be otherwise applicable.

Think about it: How many times have you talked and BSed at the table, in an attempt to confuse your opponent? Havent you ever told the truth about your hand to inspire a call, because you think your opponent would think your lying? Or vice versa? Or just talked general nonsense in an attempt to confuse or misinform> I have, why the hell not? They do it to me all the time!

I mean, in a game where the ability to deceive an opponent, by any means necessary makes you a better player than a non-deceptive player- a game where there is no duty to tell the truth at all, and which encourages players to do exactly the opposite, it is hard to find the normativity there!, Further, this is a characteristic of the game that is recognized by all the participants, and is basically implicitly agreed to by everyone playing the game. All is fair, and its everyone for themselves, and everyone knows it.. No one feels sorry for anyone else, because the general attitude is that it couldve been me, and no one would feel sorry for me. And they are right, because thats the way the game is played!!

So, i guess what i mean to say is- Playing poker is like going to war- you don't need to feel guilty for having the biggest guns. You just better usem as best you can because even though your opponents are outmatched,, theres a whole lot of em, and they're gunnin for you.

I totally understand and respect TW's opinion when it comes to players i know, and players with whom i have a mutual consideration. And, if everyone acted like a total gentleman maybe the game would be more fun, or maybe it wouldnt - its hard to tell. But the fact is nobodys doin it, so fuck it - its pistols at sunrise, mother-fucker!

Just kiddin bout the arsehole thing-nothin intended by it. I should probly wait till i know people better before i start talkin shite. hehe.

FUCK YOU, YOU FUCKIN CUNT-SNIFFING FUCK-EATER! NOBODY CALLS ME AN ARSEHOLE!

Heh heh, just kiddin bro, it's cool. Honestly, at this point, I take asshole as a bit of a compliment

-TW