[sam h]

Kurn,

I've always liked your strategy posts and I appreciate your opinions in this thread, even if I completely disagree. Sorry if this is a somewhat harsh response.

“Welcome to the real world.”

I find this somewhat condescending but tellingly simplistic.

“Now let me clue you in on life in "straight job" world.”

See above. You figure I’ve never worked a job?

“You think that all those guys who strut around the office aren't in hock up to their necks?”

We have a negative national savings rate. Of course many people are swimming in a morass of credit card debt, bank loans, and student loans. But they’re not trumpeted by irresponsible journalists as being these loaded superstars of their profession.

“There's a lot of fluff and flash in the 9-5 world ,too. And an awful lot of the schlumps there bust their butts for 40 years for a gold watch and a meager SS check. What's wrong with dreaming of glory, even if it *is* an artifice?”

When there is a Middle Manager Magazine put out by upper management, books chronicling the World Series of Accounting that prominently feature the abacus, and lots of obsequious media too lazy or self-interested to tell the truth about these professions, maybe I will criticize them too.

There’s nothing wrong with dreaming of glory. But there is something wrong with soft media coverage of an industry that is fundamentally and intentionally misleading the public in numerous rather extensive ways. Most journalists see it as their mission to protect those people you derisively call “schlumps.”

“So poker marketers play up the glitz and the glory and play down the lows. Good for them. The same things that depress you make me smile.”

Yeah, it’s a Hard Knock Life and everybody’s just hustling, so good for them, you, Enron, and Martha Stewart too. Because only a sucker or somebody who didn’t understand the “real world” would give a sh** about such abstractions as responsible journalism and truth. Or about the “schlumps” for that matter.

“Poker is just another life-path available in a free society, and freedom ain't safe.”

No, freedom ain’t safe, though it’s a lot safer than despotism or totalitarianism. And part of the reason why is that free societies tend to have institutions dedicated to safeguarding the public interest, like the media, against powerful entities, like the gaming industry.