[benkahuna]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't get why so many care whether paul phillips is here. If he wants to post fine. if he doesn't his loss. end of story. Why does everyone kiss his butt? Does he pay you guys to go around telling everyone how important he is?

[/ QUOTE ]

This comment feels rhetorical and smarmy, but if you seriously don't understand why people value his input, you're either inattentive or don't understand the comments of others very well.

And, to be clear, my reply relates to why people care if he's here in the sense that if he's not here, we must search elsewhere for his input.

A lot of people don't kiss his butt, including me. I find him interesting because he's insightful, provocative, and highly experienced at large buy-in poker tournaments. And he clearly puts a great deal of thought into his posts, much more than almost anyone on this site. I forgive his ego and other imperfections because I'd rather have brutal honesty and playfulness than droll politeness, because I have a similarly large ego so I don't find his threatening or really bothersome, and because I value intelligence more than I value conformity or politeness. I also appreciate Paul's strong convictions.

Given the nature of gamblers and poker players generally and how they so often do not fit into the mainstream 9-5 culture of US and Western World with regular schedules and corporate overlords, it's entirely unsurprising that they many of them have a predilection for Paul's posts and his presence here. The response to the loss of Paul on this site was quite predictable. Some people say "we lost something good" while others say "screw him for his ego and/or audacity."

There's also a clear trend of people being incredibly critical of public figures on this site. Given the response to the the poll despite that trend says a lot to me about the strength of people's leanings.