blonde poker forum

  Adrian Peterson (Minesota Vikings) has lost his 2 year old son to an assault.  As I have a near 2 year old myself this just seems such a dreadful thing to happen.

I had never read his story before, but I promise I won't be cursing any bad beats tomorrow.

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/news/nfl-adrian-peterson-stranger-tragedy-153116322--nfl.html (http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/news/nfl-adrian-peterson-stranger-tragedy-153116322--nfl.html)

RIP little fella.

Awful bit of news  :(

I know people react to tragedy and adversity in differing ways, but it seems like he's going to play for the Vikings tomorrow.

Pretty surprising.

What an awful thing.

God bless.

Horrible news

"His decision to play, or not play, is not to be judged. As anyone who has grieved knows, reality doesn't always set in immediately; sometimes it takes weeks or years. Peterson, unfortunately, has grieved more than most.
"I'll be ready to roll, focused," Peterson said about an hour before the news broke of his son's death. "I will be playing Sunday, without a doubt."

Seems like he has had a pretty horrible upbringing reading that and has developed some kind of immense mental toughness

Really interesting one that "to play or not to play" and i believe its just what feels right for you at that moment.

Aye, def this.

RIP.

Don't know the ins and out but it matters little in these circumstances.

How utterly dreadful.

Right now, I think he should do whatever he wants, though perhaps most surprising is that the Coach would allow him to play today.

RIP.

Absolutely horrendous, certainly puts a lot of what we do in day to day life in prospective. My thoughts and prayers go out to him and his family.

Agree, only he knows how he feels, but If the guy says he wants to play, hard to tell him no in this situation I'd think.

I would look for any form of escape as well, he can just dive into the game and be with his 'family' not having to think about the reality of it all. I would be shocked if he didnt play.

Wonder how the media will handle it....

How awful don't follow the nfl but I really feel for the bloke can't imagine what he is going through

So sad, can't imagine what it feels like - just impossible.  The man is clearly incredibly strong - his line "We're only given what we can handle" is so humble, strong and resilient in one simple sentance

What a shame that not everyone can feel the sympathy for AP that most reasonable people seem able to manage.  Disgusted to see this on Facebook today from someone with poker connections:

Dusty Schmidt
Lead Coach at PokerStrategy.com, Columnist at Card Player and Lead Coach at DragTheBar.com
23 hours ago
Anyone else out there completely appalled by Adrian Peterson taking the field today 2 days after his son died? His 2 year old kid got beat to death by some animal and 2 days later Adrian deems it appropriate to play in a football game. I'd be too busy trying to break into jail so I could kill that guy with my bare hands to play a football game.

A pro golfer will withdraw on the weekend of a major with the lead to witness the birth of their child. A pro football player plays game 6 of a 16 game season 2 days after their son is beat to death. How did the team owner or coach let this happen? I'd tell him he can't play just to save Adrian's reputation. I hope Adrian gets paralyzed on the field next week just so he can't again breed another kid who will grow up with a despicable father who is never around. Pathetic.

Wow, that's a really despicable and uncalled for outburst imo. Who is he to pass judgement on how someone deals with their own grief?

what a disgusting post

Most people that make comments like that, with no knowldge of the situation, no emotional intelligence or right o are often playing out something funfamentally with their own personality - probably find he feels unloved by his dad or he wasn't around - even if the lonk is subconscious.  Not excusing the guy at all, needs to deal with his own stuff

It's an incredible statement to make. I'm guessing, and hoping, he has no first hand experience of losing a child.

It's the most guy wrenching feeling in the world, and I wouldn't wish It on my worst enemy. But you have to make tough decisions when it happens. You can curl up and let it ruin your life, or you can go on and live your life to the best you can, in memory of your child. I'm guessing that's what this guy is doing.

Everyone reacts different, and until you are in that situation, then you really shouldn't be able to comment. In fact, even if you are in that situation, you shouldn't comment either. Let people handle it, the way the think best.

The day after my daughters funeral I was at the g playing a silly poker comp. if anyone wants to suggest I didn't care or was an idiot to do so, then they didn't say it to me. I didn't think at the time it was the best thing to do, but it was a million times better than sitting at home feeling down and getting depressed.

Shame on Mr Schmidt.

What an utterly deplorable human being. Clearly can't have lost anyone remotely close to him as the grieving process can hit you in a million different ways.

But let's be honest, the guy has spent the majority of his life behind a computer screen, he lacks any social skills, has no real merit to his life, he looks like a badly drawn cartoon and he has a shit name. (i'm not very good at rising above it)

I know its not in the same league Vinni but when i found out my father had died it was mid afternoon and he lived in Cyprus so i couldn't get a flight until the next morning. I had 2 options, sit in doors on my own or head down to the casino and play the local £50 freeze. I'll give you one guess which i thought was best for me that day.

Been through both, each as painful as the other. You made the right choice IMO.

Dealing with grief is a totally personal thing.  There's no right and wrong answer.

It's bad enough for some dipshit keyboard warrior to go public on how someone chose the 'wrong way' to deal with his situation, but to then go further and wish paralysis on him is about as deplorable as it gets.

I sincerely hope all the sites he's associated with decide they can do without such a fine 'ambassador'.

The guy probably wanted to go out and rush more yards than ever for his lad.

I agree with all above. It's just a horrible thing to tweet and has nothing to do with him anyway. It's a shame it came from a poker player though. Hardly going to put the game in any good light.

would like to see schmidt say that to the guys face.

I've been wracking my brains as to who Schimdt looks like and then it came to me...


(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/01/05/arts/05freas_neuman.jpg)

Think I might boycott the sites that pay his wages till a retraction is printed

For the record, despite describing himself as "Lead Coach, Poker Strategy.com" I gather he has not been assiciated with them for over a year.

lmao oh he is that sort of egomanaic then

Well I'm not defending him, but that is jumping to conclusions. He probably just forgot. 

Schmidt isn't at dragthebar either

http://www.dragthebar.com/poker-blogs/author/leatherass/#jump-post-1742 (http://www.dragthebar.com/poker-blogs/author/leatherass/#jump-post-1742)

He has a film to promote though.

The comments are still on Facebook, but the equivalent thread has disappeared from 2 plus 2.

I don't know what brings people to post comments like that, when I first read this, I was just astonished by Peterson's ability to play a game after this happened.  I don't think I could, I'd be in bits.  But to add some context to his decision, it has been said elsewhere that Peterson had only recently become aware he had a child, so his relationship with that child may not have been as strong as other father's relationships with their child.  I don't know if this was known by Schmidt, but doesn't make me feel much better about him.

What was the general tone of the 2+2 thread, & why has it disappeared? As near as damn, 2+2 is un-moderated as to flaming & the like, so why did it get removed?

Everyone's different, they deal with grief/death of loved ones differently. Find it very strange anyone can judge a way a person reacts to the loss of a loved one.

Well the tone wasn't as restrained as here, but it only went 3 pages before it was locked, and now it isn't there at all.  I can't really remember anything as nasty as what Schmidt wrote.

It is obviously easier to lock it than mod it, but don't know if that was the reason, and it doesn't explain why it has gone completely.  Given his relatively high profile and given I can read the leatherass facebook post this morning just by googling him then I can't really understand it.  High profile poker player says something nasty seems more legitimate than most threads in NVG. Maybe PM Boba Fett, he is a mod there AFAIK.

He was aware of this - if you read the comments on his FB post he mentions this:

Dusty Schmidt
He didn't know he had a kid? More evidence he's a joke. It's not just that I disagree with his decision. It's indicative of his care. Don't you think help is needed to plan the funeral? What about others who care about the kid that he could be there for during their grieving process? He bragged about how he was going to be ready and focused on playing as if he was playing through an injury. It's just shameful and no decent human being would ever do what he just did, I don't care what anyone else says.
13 October at 22:43

Along similar lines to the response on Facebook itself (nearly 200 comments to the post) but the thread was locked early on for some reason (I was as surprised as you at this).

I suspect there may be some commercial relationship at some level that triggered this, as I can't think of any other equivalent incident where 2+2 have locked something of an equivalent nature.