I left off "an absence of pettiness" because a) I didn't agree with it; and b) it undermined my argument. You read too damned carefully.


A lot of guys who play cards, it seems to me (you should excuse the expression) exhibit that list of characteristics: "Unsuccessful, smart, unable to fit, outside the system, beholden to no one, fearlessness." They are basically unhappy people who don't get along well with others because they have trouble seeing that the world does not revolve exlusively around them. This puts them on the verge of anger all the time when the facts of life, namely that the world does not revolve exclusively around them, intrude, and when they approach the precipice they become insulting; when they go over, they throw cards. You yourself coined a useful term that summarized a lot of the problem: entitlement disease.


A lot of the jerks I know in the cardroom also want to project a tough guy image. They want you to fear them when they play, so they feel they have to come across as not nice guys in between the hands as well. It's not enough that they win; it's as important that you know they win, that you know why they win, and that you know you're inferior to them because they play poker better than you do.


They've found a world where what they're smart at is important, where they are beholden to no one but themselves.