great big

That poor guy might have been in the middle of guinness poo.

I hate these kinds of stunts pulled on me. I shriek like a little girl.

You're looking well

his bowel

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.

I hope they get it all sorted out soon.

and a

. This thread

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)

How sad am I? After brushing me teeth and donning me jimjams I couldn't get to sleep without getting out of bed, turning the computer back on and posting this one final final pun.......




















But now I really Moscow to bed.

One last one before I go to bed

I'm not too bothered.
If we never find out then Soviet.

Worse pun time

What could fit in that box?

Perhaps a Smolensk.

Bad pun time

Just as well he keeps us waiting as..........fools russian where angels fear to tread

where the

In answer to the question "what's in a name", in the case of my online poker handle tigmong, the answer is, to put it mildly, a lot of nonsense. Be warned if you read on, 2 minutes of your life may be wasted and I cannot give them back.

When we were kids my brothers James, Edward and I gave each other rapper names. Edward became Puff Deady, James was Snoop Doggy Jog and I was the Notorious T.I.G. At this point I would like to re-itterate that we were at this time KIDS.

The rappy part was dropped over time, Puff Deady became Dead, My name became simply Tig. Jog was used for a time to refer to James but it eventually evolved to Jig.

Tig can be pronounced how it sounds, but occasionaly it is spoken as 'teague'.
The latter was sometimes substituted as a sylabble in various different words to describe my various personas.

eg., when playing sports I was competiteague

when consoling someone is was being sympatheteague

when courting ladies I was romanteague

and after lots of that I became fateagued etc etc.


When I worked in an Irish bar I became fond of many of the Emerald Isle's traditional songs.
Molly Malone was one of my favourites. Not quite sure why, perhaps Guinness was involved in quantity, but I became prone to paraphrasing it...

He was a tigmonger
And sure twas no wonder
As so were his father and mother before

This makes little sense, as both my parents insist that they are not, nor have they ever been tigmongers. Nevertheless I began the habit of entering tigmonger on computer games high score boards. One of them at some point limited me to using 7 letters so I just dropped the er and tigmong became the norm.

Used the tigmonger rather than the tigmong on msn as some mad buddhist fae Tibet already nicked tigmong. Something to do with his belief that his soul was forged by the coming together of a tiger and a monkey, or so a friend told me after they chatted to him for hours thinking it was me. I should have just said that my reason, much less long winded.

As for thetank's origins. My name is Thomas and you'll see from above my siblings also share names with characters from the childrens books 'Thomas the Tank Engine'. My mother insists this was accidental but I believe it was her way of extracting a little revenge for putting her through the rigours of childbirth. I've recently thought thetank would be a far cooler poker nickname than tigmong. That and I'll no longer have to flog cockles and mussels a-live-a-live-oh.