[DPCondit]

[ QUOTE ]
Or read a few of limon's posts. The mentality of a lot of winning players is of how to best exploit the weaker players. It's certainly not a life is lovely kind of mentality. I'm not making a value judgement here - I'm just reflecting on what I see with my own eyes. The notion of emotional indifference was I thought a good one; I just thought an extension or subset of that would be a sometimes or somewhat saidistic pleasure in the suffering of others. Let's face it - all winning players rely on people losing money. I don't think many of the losers particularly enjoy the experience - which raises a separate (to this thread) question, of why on earth they continue in this vein. It's always been a mystery to me. Masochism?


[/ QUOTE ]

I was sitting in a game, and this guy says "do you know why people gamble? It's because they need to feel the pain it gives them" with a straight face. I guess that's true for some people, although they probably don't admit it consciously. He was admitting this consciously, and still kept playing, I just said "really, that doesn't sound all that wonderful", and grinned to myself, because I knew why I was there, for quite a different reason.

Don