blonde poker forum

I posed this question in the 'interview' thread, but I thought I'd throw it up in the air for everyone to answer.

I'd really like to know how you guys felt on the matter.


So here it is:

If a winning poker player is causing bankruptcy and depression in opponents by hunting them down, outplaying them, and encouraging them to refill, does that make him a bad person and his actions immorale?

nope

Nope, dog eat dog at the tables.

no

I love this question! I wanted you to post this elsewhere!

No-one should feel guioty about the actions that someone else CHOOSES to make. We aren't in a nanny state, thank god, and if someone chooses to make decisions that will hurt them, then that is their choice.

So .. nope.

Love it Beagle :)

The encouraging to refill bit is extremely dubious.

I would say this is bordering on immoral.

echo's of the smoking debate...........

Are we not putting a beer in the alocholic's hand and encouraging him to drink.

um........err.........how?

When I play and someone makes a huge error, giving me all their chips, they may say 'I can't believe how unlucky I was'. I might then say 'Yes, you were, you got done there m8. Unlucky' when I actually mean, 'No. You're a fish. You got what you deserved.'

I'm encouraging that player to carry on playing under the false pretence that he is just unlucky.

I'm encouraging him to continue playing and, more importantly, I'm encouraging him to continue playing badly.

If this guy is an addict, perhaps with wife, kids, and big financial debt, then what does that say about me?

Does that mean that a winning poker player is not only failing to contribute financially to society through not having to pay taxes, but also making it worse by taking money off guys who can't afford it and, quite simply, can't stop themselves?

I know what you mean snoopy. I played the Walsall £300 Freeze the other Saturday.
Midway through this young chap goes all-in utg with 33 ( Hard to Believe )
I called with my 99 and the guys history. What did concern me was his welfare
and state of mind. What would happen if he went on a lonely walk to the roof and
jumped off the casino and landed on my £52k M3 Convertible in Techno Violet (company car)
causing vast amounts of damage

Very worrying   

Regards

M

 

I KNOW I can't let myself play the fruit machines here, I play em in Vegas to get them out of my system, so I am not tempted over here. 2x 9 days a year when I allow my little addiction to take over.

I recognise that little aberration I have in my genes that I enjoy stuff like that a bit too much and keep away. I suppose I play poker because while it is a gamble, if I get good enough, it won't be that much of a gamble.

If people aren't self aware enough to recognise that they have a problem, then that is their fault.

I am a firm believer in people being responsible for their own actions.

Gosh I am being harsh tonight :)

An interesting post Snoop. I run a pub in a town center , if i serve a bloke a few drinks and he gets in his car to drive home and kills someone am I responsible for serving him the drink?

I think the taxman can rest easy, as the bankroll we use is probably money that tax has been paid on.
Lets say its descrecionary spending, and it might as well go into the poker community than end up in the pockets of ciggie makers or brewery owners, whare it gets swollowed by multi-national coperates.

There thats my bit.

Snoopy you don't have to feel guilty for winning.

Let's face it, if winning were easy everbody would be doing it.

Then we'd all be jumping off the roof onto MPower's M3 (and doing a service to his passengers)

Nice Karabiner

Just a little secret Snoopy had the 33


Regards

M :D

hehehe, he wouldn't even dent it!! :D :D

 :redcard: :redcard: :redcard:

I was on the button, not utg.  >:(

I'm not skinny, I'm small boned!

gotta admit, it seemed strange when he said it was you UTG..........you ain't THAT bad!!

I think a similar point would be if you encouraged him to drive home, or encouraged him to drink more knowing he was driving home.

I remember my good friend Tony Bolton describing poker players.
"Poker players are like vultures, living off the flesh of the weak " 
So true.

eek  :o

The day after I got married I was going out to work and I had £25 between me and starvation

On the way I saw two of the men that were stopping on the same camp as me, they had parked their trucks in a layby and were playing quoits on a wide grass verge

Quoits is a game which involves pitching rings, or in our case horseshoes, on to, or as close as possible to a metal peg. Nearest shoe scores one, a 'Toucher' scores three, and a 'Ringer' scores five, the first to eleven, or twenty one. wins. One other rule is you must finish 'Dead hole' score one too many and you bust

Now I knew these guys were gambling, and I knew I could beat them both (I played quoits for hours on end in my youth and was much better than average) so I too parked my truck and strolled over to greet them, pretending that I was just passing the time of day, of course, it wasn't long before I was invited to have a game, we would play winner stays on, fiver a game

My plan was to lose the first two games and then up the stakes to a tenner a game. This I did and was soon in the position of wanting one point to win the ten pound game. It was me to throw first and my shoe fell about three inches short of the peg, now he has two shots to better that or I don't have to throw my second shoe. surprisingly, he did better it.  Because he still needed five more points, I should have thrown my last shoe away and played another round. Instead I made the tactical mistake of throwing my last shoe in an effort to win it there and then, I hit one of his shoes and flipped it up on to the peg for a ringer and five points to give him the win

Now I was in trouble, I could beat them easily but I only had a fiver left, I couldn't very well reduce the stakes so I said "Thanks for the game guys" and started to walk away " Hold on" one of them shouted, "I feel a bit guilty about taking your money, you being just married and that" and he offered me a fiver back. "If you give me that fiver back" I said, "I'll play you again and you can't beat me" "Fair enough" he replied, pushing the money into my shirt pocket, "The next time I take it, I'm keeping it"

His kindness and his conscience ended up costing him and his mate £140 that day, quite a lot back then, but all three of us learned a valuable lesson. Mine was, 'Don't play if you can't afford to lose' Theirs was, 'If you are going to play, play for keeps'

 :goodpost:

Didn't know we had a hustler among us.  :D

Snoopy, if a player makes a huge error and then says "i cant believe how unlucky i was" i just smile to myself and think your chips are mine!  I dont think this is harsh because if they stump up the money and take a shot at it then it is 100% their decision and i never feel bad about anyones bad play because i have made enough of them myself in my time.  The difference is learning from your mistakes and make yourself a better player.  If other people cant do this and more to the point play above their means, that is their problem and no-one elses!

Snoopy, you are a good guy

RED-DOG

On a serious note though. If they'd have been the one's starving and just married, and you were aware of that, would you still be happy taking their money just because they agreed to gamble?

I only brought the topic up because I heard on the news the other day a story about the amount of folk who'd run up massive financial debts from playing online poker. They then went on to one fella who had lost everything, house, wife, the lot.

This made me say to myself - 'I could have been a part of that.'

Just makes you think.

Of course people make there own decisions, but we do a bit of gentle prodding in the meantime.

(Don't mean to be heavy. Just thought it was an interesting topic.)

it is an interesting topic but we have enough people to worry about in life i.e best friends, family etc so dont spread your conscience out to people who spiral into uncontrolled gambling debts.  Talking from experience you couldnt help serious gamblers anyway.  The only way to learn is unfortunately for them to hit rock bottom.  Its the only way to come up again.

Here is a thought, do you think gambling (not poker playing)  is in the genes, blood or inherited or a gene malfunction!  If it is hereditry then i'm screwed!  ;D

Careful Kev, careful........

I'm no scientist, but I'm sure I recall hearing something about there being a gene based around gambling/addiction.

So I guess it's hereditry. Looking at your family though, I suppose you already knew this.


poor kev.  :D

The only thing hereditary in my family is our inherent grumpyness ;D

hey!!!
i didn't know you lot could modify posts without leaving any evidence of it!!!!
not fair :redcard:

lost me...



another whoooosh in the bank then.  :D

your post at first said "has Tikay flipped", this quickly became "poor Kev" and no sign of an edit

I wasn't starving, and if I had been, they would have been the first to offer me help

Gambling and trading is very common amongst Gypsies and I was considered to be a grown man and fair game, you are expected to learn by your mistakes

Now that I'm older (and softer) would probably offer them something back if the situation was reversed, but I wouldn't play again

It's rare for someone of your age to be concerned though

not sure why that is.

unintentional though.

If you modify your message quickly enough, it doesn't say edited?

see. it's just that ifm and the rest of the oldies aren't as quick on the draw as snoppy.

News to me - but I'm about to try it now. Watch & see.

"Ironside is NOT a fish".

I am

that was edited

Ooh-er - I DID edit my last post, & it don't say I did.

A mystery - I'll get the software peeps on the case tomorrow. We DO need to be able to see when posts have been edited, & by whom.

Well spotted ifm.

Very interesting topic snoopy and brings up some interesting moral issues. Im of the belief that everyone playing poker is a grown adult and therefore has to be responisble for their decisions in life. In poker we all put down our money on the table and say how much we are prepared to risk. Therefore that money is now up for grabs and to be honest within the rules of the game i want as much of that money as possibly. In actual i would feel i would be cheating people if in was going easy on them, i certainly wouldn't appreciate it from someone else.

I have just been playing a NL 200 game online in which i made a bit of money off one bloke who played a hand pretty badly slowplaying a nut flush and letting me house up on the river and paying me off. He admitted afterwards that he played the hand bad and that financially he had blown alot of money he couldn't afford to blow tonight. I must admit i felt a touch sorry for him but said that is the nature of the game. Which i firmly believe, there is no way i wouldn't have re raised on the river if i thought he was broke or not, this is a game i play to be competitive/ make money and im not going soft on anyone.

Now if it is a close friend/family who i know is on the poverty line i might refuse to sit down with them if they insist on playing as i don't want to be put in that situation. I would do my damndest to stop them playing in the first place beforehand obviously.

Causing Bankruptcy? A bit far fetched...you do not force your opponent into bankruptcy he does it to himself and if he doesn't lose to you he loses to someone else as he is obviously a compulsive gamblker and determined to go broke one way or another regardless of whoevers going to get his money. He has chosen to gamble and subsequent depression has also been brought upon by himself as he has chsoen to gamble at poker and the winning player has possibly accelerated the rate at which his opponent will get to that position of banruptcy and depression.

I'm not sure what you mean by hunting them down unless you mean you actively go after them with bad cards to give them a bad beat and put them on tilt which means that they will easily be goaded into buying more chips and losing more to you as they will be seeking revenge for the bad beat.

Outplaying an opponent is part of the game and if hunting them down means looking for easy opponents in a game then thats just too bad and imo it is defintiely not immoral. You make money from weaker opponents and it would only be immoral if you were forcing someone to gamble with a gun to their heads or playing against minors.

Morality is for Priests and not poker players and unless you are actively cheating or gaining an unfair advantage by devious means that break rules I can't see how iyour actions can be deemed immoral but if you're a catholic and feel bad about winning money in this way you can always go to a confessional on a Sunday or give it to charity to ease your conscience.

Question is, if you were a stock broker and you made a good trade, say sold something short and the price dropped, would you feel bad that the guy who bought them bottomed out??

Poker is investing, if someone makes a bad investment that is thier fault. Be it poker or buissness, i am not going to go easy.

As a catholic if they later come to me for help, then i will. I don't think they would listen though!

I like the 'holding a gun to their heads' strategy, but would it be considered a moody?

Whenever someone makes money be it in gambling, trading or business there is always going to be a winner and a loser as the money has to come from somewhere or someone.

If you get some kind of value for money, entertainment or service then its not immoral.

However whilst on the subject of immoral activities......I nominate Insurance companies, estate agents, lawyers, accountants and banks as the most immoral as I am always left with a feeling of having been mugged by each and every one of them when I have come into contact with them.

Maybe it's just more transparent with poker, people SEE thier money going to someone else. And they know damn well who it is.

Having said that i wouldnt encourage someone to cash back into a game just because i thought i could take them.

You hear that Robert?

I think it's quite simple. Adults take responsibility for their own actions. So if someone is at the tables it is perfectly acceptable to 'hunt them down' and outplay them.

It's the "encouraging someone to refill" bit I have an issue with. Especially as the question implies knowledge that your 'opponent' is not in a fit state of mind to recommence play.

I don't think it makes you a bad person but it isn't something I would feel comfortable doing, it seems a shabby way to conduct yourself.

the basic premise of playing for money is that you want to take it off other people. - thats understood by all.
If you felt strongly enough asbout it you could take his money and then pm him or tell him that you genuinly think he should give it a break for his own sake as he is playing bad/a fish/not thinking straight.
he then has a choice to make - he can listen and do the smart thing and take a break or he can continue and bankrupt himself which is his responsibility

self responsibility is all but a helping hand sometimes isnt a bad thing.

all you are responsible for is being an honest person with some humanity who listens to their own conscience...everything else is up to other individuals

Harry, I'm shocked!  ;)

OK there are bad apples in many barrels and law is one of them. I feel satisfied that I have never given just cause for complaint, but as a lawyer who's paid out of public funds the client is not often given to complaining about being ripped off.

The vast majority of poker players lose. In my dissertation I discovered that the majority of big winners are funded by lots of smaller losers rather than one big loser. (Obviously this isn't always the case but the big loser tends to be the exception, not the rule.) In honesty, yes that does make me feel better when I win.

From my experience if it feels wrong it usually is. For me, it would feel wrong cleaning one guy out totally if he couldn't afford it. There are always other games to win at. :)

stop it spoonster - your making me cry

But don't most convicted criminals blame their lawyers for not defending them properly and cite that as the reason for them being sent down?  ;-)

I placed the list in no particular order but the very worst of them WITHOUT DOUBT are the banks and if we had a poll I would offer no odds about which industry/group would top the list of most unscrupulous and immoral.

PS Rumpole "Only Defends" of The Old Bailey was the only decent lawyer around and alas he's no longer with us.

i agree with the banks bit >:(
Mine still owe me £5,800 from a stolen cheque!!
Despite the FACT their own banking code dictates it should have been returned to me, i am currently pinning my hopes on the ombudsman service.

Can one feel sympathy without feeling guilt? Yes, I believe one can. I certainly do. The golden rule of poker is to induce your oppoent into making a mistake. I feel bad for the person commiting all his chips when it is not EV+ for him to do so, but thats poker. Do I feel guilty when I disguise my hand so well that I get a guy to commit all his chips on the river when he just rivered a pair of kings against my trip 10s? No, not in the slightest. It was good play from me.

I did feel a small amount of guilt last night when I make a bad play and hit, betting and then calling a pot sized raise with an up and down straight draw and hitting - but there are other factors to consider than just pot odds.

Good question, my answer - No.

I'm a great believer in letting them "learn the hard way".  Bookmakers give their punters free food and drinks, a warm place to bet and watch races via satellite tv.  They don't do it for fun.

I followed a Turkish guy around over the weekend and gutted him on several occasions, he cropped up last night and I took what little he had left then too.  I don't feel guilty, I feel great.  If he can afford to drop a grand here and there, that's his business.  He is the first name I look for when I log on right now.

When I play poker I leave my heart in the drawer.

I guess the question should be this then:

Considering that people are responsible for their own actions, is it still immoral for us to prey on them when they are weak and not in control of their own actions?

-- or is that just the way it goes?

I see some truth in what I KNOW IT quoted:

"Poker players are like vultures, living off the flesh of the weak "

I'm not sure I can deny this. I find people who are weak, and I knock them even further down.

Why do I knock people down even lower?

$ --MONEY-- $

Because I prosper financially.

Boy, when I put it like that it sounds cruel.

However, this isn't a mugging. It's an agreement. If that player agrees to play poker than he automatically puts himself in a position where poeple can knock him down when he loses control.

as I keep hearing these days, 'That's Poker'.

I used to play Rugby and quite often you get yourself into a postion where you are going to knock someone to the ground and possibly hurt them, sometimes seriously.

In normal culture it is a horrible thing to do, not to mention illegal, however its 'part of the game' i guess the same is true in poker.

Hey snerpy not only is it poker it;s life. If you wnat to be a winner there must be losers . Society goes out of its way to give a hand up to the losers while the winners just get a load of grief for being sucessful.

Well Snoopy that question has opened a can of worms!
Lets put it this way - I am unemployed at the moment and have a wife and two children. Yet i still play online poker everyday (lucily i am winning enough to justify playing) - despite knowing that the financial risks could be serious for me. When i lose i lose and thats that - i don't blame the other players - i have made the decision to play and to gamble so therefore my actions are my fault.
However what i do is play SnG tournaments with low limit entry - £3.60 or £5.50 and occassionally £11 so that should i lose i can afford it (just) - this makes me around 40 - 50 quid a day most days - and keeps me in poker!
I know that should i lose then i may struggle for money - but the very fact that i don't lose very often keeps me playing becuase the belief in my ability is there.
The problem as i see it is that players who can't afford it playing higher limit stakes games are fools - they should stick to what their budget allows - its not about gambling with stupidity - its about gambling within your limits.
Someimes it hurts but i never ever blame my opponents - i play i gamble and if i lose then that is my fault and not yours or any other players.

No-one should feel guioty about the actions that someone else CHOOSES to make. We aren't in a nanny state, thank god, and if someone chooses to make decisions that will hurt them, then that is their choice.


i dont know how to do the cut and paste quotes but ill try

sometimes people make decisons that they dont know are hurting them. this is usually when they have lost self control and are desperate or on their way to being desperate. you could see this debate in another way. although adults make choices for example, using herion. do we blame the user of heroin or the top of the pyramid dealer that makes lots of money from the person who is addicted to the heroin? can someone with such a dependance really take control when they are embroiled in a sub culture of such activity. its the same with gambling. the person should have control but when you get desperate and the only way you can see out of a situation is to get more money, the vicious circle does not allow easy exit and risks are taken.

i do believe we live in a nanny state. i cant open a shop down the road as a poker club or gambling den without getting all sorts of licenses or risking imprisonment. i cant take drugs that humans have been taking from the beginning of time without getting arrested. i cant drink a beer i the street or ill get the jail. im going to have to have an id card cause the government want me to. what a load of baloni.

desperation, dependance, addiction are all human traits (not related to genes) that other people take advantage of. i reckon that the world is too greedy and everything revolves a round money. im going to stop going on now cause im going to depress myself. someone tell me a joke quick!!!!!!!!!!!

mad

Just playing devil's advocate here as it seems most of the responses have dismissed the immorality of poker.
As they all came from poker players they might be somewhat biased so I think I'll try to balance out the debate a little.

Consider this very hypothetical situation.

You have a choice of two games.
At table A sit three millionaires who don't play very well along with a few decent players. You'd stand to make $50 on average by sitting down to play.
At table B sit nine degenerates who play appalingly, you are guaranteed £200 an hour by sitting down, however, you know that they are all playing with borrowed money, have mountains of debt, and if you they lose all their chips have no money to buy food for their kids tomorrow.

One would probably justify choosing table A as by not playing at table B four of the nine guys there will walk away with enough money to keep the baliffs from the door for a while and buy a bit of food for their family. If you do play there, perhaps only two of them will.

If I were to choose table B I'd probably justify it by considering the inevitability of the compulsive gamblers self destructive behaviour and that if their dosh doesn't go to me tonight it'll just go to another player, a bookie or a casino eventually. Why not allow myself to get in on it.

Ok consider another one,

A small, everyone knows everyone, town of population 500. The only form of gambling available is one bookmakers. Some guy, lets call him Dipsy, develops a big gambling problem. It is getting out of control but his friends step in and help. They get the local bookie to agree not to accept any more bets from Dipsy. His phone has barrs placed on it to prevent him calling any out of town bookie, even Mrs. Muggins at the post office has agreed to not accept letters from Dipsy lest he bet by post. With the help of his town Dipsy would probably conquer his affliction with the GG's and be able to responsibly support his family again.
Dipsy asks Tinky Winky to put some bets on for him in exchange for 5%.
Would Tinky be immoral to do this?

Anyone who knows of a problem gambler's habit and helps him feed it shares the responsibility for his illness at least in a small part. If it's a bookie, a casino, a purveyor of scratchcards or indeed a poker room. This includes, in my opinion, the poker players who are aware of the problem. Just because someone else will if you won't, like in the first example situation, makes it no more or less moral than Tinky Winky in the second. If everyone was a mugger and an old lady walked down the street, it would not be ok to snatch her purse just because someone else will if you don't.

Online, more so than in live games, you can't tell those who have a serious destructive habit from those with plenty money just having fun. If you're a winning player who has played online for any length of time then you shouldn't doubt that you have contributed to the ruin of people with an illness who could no longer control what they do.

As for encouraging a guy with a problem by congratulating him when he wins the odd pot with cards he shouldn't have been calling with. That's the equivalent of Tinky Winky approaching Dipsy offering to take his bets instead of the other way round.

Not sure how much of all I have written I believe myself, but I'm certainly sure of one thing. Poker ain't charity work, we're not doing people favours by teaching them lessons (except perhaps in rare specific situations, of which I can think of none)

i dont believe gambling or any addiction is an illness. its a learned behavioural problem. if you get someone with an addiction and change their daily routine and keep them busy away from the addiction this really helps. also if people learn to control their thoughts and thinking, its easier to move waway from addiction because a lot of the time people run on automatic thinking.  deliberate and reasoned thinking can alter decisions and change potentially distructive behaviour.
my fears about saying addiction is an illness is that when people are told they are ill, they dont feel in control and dont take responsibility for their actions. in other words i only did it cause ive got this addiction illness and 'i cant help it'. its a cop out!!

only my thoughts

mad

It is often used as a cop out yes. I think though, big time addicts, can go into frenzys that they have no control over. They need outside assistance to heal.

In the same way that a problem gambler can hastily try to absolve themselves of responsibility for their actions, so can a poker player feeding off them deny having anything to do with it.
We should perhaps recognise that, while not responsible for, we do sometimes contribute to the decline of peoples existence by making the most of their contributions at the table.

If anyones having conscience problems then you can do something positive, like making a donation to a relevant charity which in turn might undo any harm you may/may not have helped come about. The Mental Health Foundation use research and practical projects to help people survive, recover from and prevent mental health problems and they help tackle the stigma attached to mental illness.
The prevention aspect I think is worth a look at for all poker players, even though you may be winning money, problem gambling is not the only potential mental problem that poker can lead to. Tilt is after all, while it lasts, a symptom of a mental problem. Learning to deal with it is invaluable.

I think their website is mentalhealth.org.uk I think it's worth a look whatever side of this debate you stand on. Understanding the condition more cannot do any harm as it's something I'm sure a lot of us come across all the time. Hell, it might even help you get inside a compulsives head to win even more money off them if that's what floats your boat.