Self Destructive Players Online

I recently $4-8 stud at Paradise with a player who played every hand (yes, 100%). I saw him lose $750 in about 90 minutes. I've seen other players play almost as badly online and lose large amounts in very short timespans. The mental picture this conjures up is of a dissheveled man or woman, hunched over a desk, cursing and sweating and swigging from a bottle of vodka.

In a casino, I think such extreme behavior would be more likely to attract intervention, either from the floor or from other players. Especially at lower stakes. The anonymity of online play seems to me to increase the ability of troubled players to lose everything fast.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

And there are $1,000 slot machines at Bellagio.

So what? Maybe the guy you saw is a Saudi prince with $$ to burn. I hope he comes to my table. I'll have no remorse taking his money. Free will & all that.

Why respond if all you have to say is "so what"? I think there is a point at which compassion dictates that I should try to help (or at least not participate in hurting) people who are sick. Just as bartenders are required by law in many places to stop serving obviously drunk patrons, casinos do in fact bar certain sick gamblers. My point is that there is less (or no) ability to do this on the Internet. I love bad players who lose money -- but I don't think I'm the only one who starts to feel uncomfortable when "bad" becomes mentally unbalanced.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

Fine, if that's how you feel, but that wasn't my point. The point is, you made a judgment about the person based on nothing but your own view of the value of money. For all you know, that $750 could have been less significant to him than $0.75 is to you or me.

On-line, there is no way of telling what the person's circumstance is, thus (to me at least) it is irrelevant. Even in a casino, if a floor person took someone like that away from the table, unless I was assured that there was a personal relationship there that was the basis of the intervention, I would consider it unwarrented outside interference.

Sure, from a human standpoint, I would favor taking the person aside and trying to reason with him, but once that's done, if he chooses to sit at the table, he's fair game. The line beytween winning and losing is too fine to let emotion get in the way.

[bernie]

"Just as bartenders are required by law in many places to stop serving obviously drunk patrons, casinos do in fact bar certain sick gamblers"

the reasons bartenders are required to intervene is due to liability should the drunk go out and injure somebody. the bar can be held liable for damages. a problem gambler is only a danger to themselves.

also, you cant help someone who doesnt want to help themselves. what are you going to do if the guy refuses help? leave the table?

sure, it's sad. but man are they good for the profits...

b

[bad beetz]

it can be sad, but mercy and sympathy don't mix well with poker.

"there's no crying in baseball."

Often times I feel guilty when I sit at a table with someone who is clearly flushing money down the bowl, but a couple of things make me not worry about.

1)If they were taking my money, they would (almost always) have no remorse.
2)There are always better players than me at the tables I sit at. In a way, we are all "handicapped"(I use this word very liberally) when compared to better players, yet we still choose to sit-down.

Hell, I've known quite a few women (better than I'd like to admit), who continue to buy things that they can't afford. Maybe people out there should try to stop consumerism. I don't think you'll ever see a Lord & Taylor manager walk up to an irresponsible patron and say "Excuse me miss, but you have a sickness, and I think you need to put down the thousand dollar hand bag." Of course, not until the card is maxed out.

-Huh?

[Fitz]

Unfortunately, we live in a stretch and break society. Stretch and break is what the mob has been accused of doing to poeple who owe them money. They keep loaning the guy money until he was in so deep he couldn't possibly pay. At that point they would break the guy. If he owned a business, they would bust out the business. Take the assets and leave the poor SOB holding the bag. The mob, loan sharks, and old time casinos were known for these type of tactics.

Who does this now? Citibank? Chase? Bank of America? Think about the realities of the credit card world. How many people carry a balance on their credit cards? How many have a balance they can never realistically reduce? Some of these people will refi their home and spend 30 years paying interest on interest on fees and long passed dinners.

I do feel sorry for someone who gets in over their head gambling. I have an old friend who's wife blew over 50k from their IRA in slot machines at riverboats here. Of course, she looked and talked like a winner. On two different occasions, she hit jackpots over 10k, and when you talked to her about it, she always had a great story about the latest big hit. In the final analysis, she was a net 50k loser, and she ended up having herself barred from the boats to save her marriage.

Another true story from my travels. I sat down at my regular $4/8 game, and a kind of dirty unkept guy at the other end of the table had a huge stack of chips in front of him, and he was blasting away with both hands. He was running the legs off the cocktail waitress, and he was losing a ton. He probably dumped $500, and reloaded, and lost that much again. It was a typical maniac session, and he was having a ball, but losing a ton. Was he a guy with a problem? No, I found out from a floor that he had just won $8000 in the bad beat. He took a check for 7k and decided to take a grand in chips and have some fun.

If it were someone I really knew was in trouble, I'd pull him aside and say something. If I were unsure, I would probably leave it alone. Things aren't always as they seem. I like to think I'd personally never stretch and break anyone, but I'm not in too big a hurry to tell a person how to spend his money.

Good luck, and interesting discussion.

Fitz -- interesting response. I think you and I are pretty much in the same place. It's interesting that you, Kurnson and I all play 2-4 on Paradise a lot. I play more stud than he, but I've played 2-4 hold em with both of you. (Not often though, you aren't the opponents I'm looking to knock heads with!)

You've posted that you've won a good amount (think you said about $5,000) in many hours of play. I've won about $1,800 in about 600 hours over the last two and a half years -- which includes my learning period, the first 200 hours or so in which I was negative $1,000. So I've won about $3/hour playing poker overall, about $4.50/hour for the last 400 hours. This is a mix of all games. I'd actually estimate my expectation at 2-4 stud on paradise (my best game) to be perhaps $8 or 2bb/hour. I'm sure others have done better, but I doubt anyone is making much over $12/hour at 2-4. I'm basing this on the many published estimates that top players can earn 1.5 bb hour in live games and factoring in the greater number of hands per hour online.

Any way you look at it, at these limits, the game is pretty much a financial waste of time, even for the winners. Of course, compared to my other hobby, golf, poker is a bargain. But compared to spending the time on working more, it's a huge financial loser.

The reason I play is because I enjoy the game immensely. That enjoyment, for me, would be seriously compromised if I behaved in ways I could not justify morally or ethicially. Similarly, when I go on golfing trips with the guys I don't join in the over-the-top drinking or whoring around that some do. (I'm married and a "social" drinker). I don't judge others for their fun, but I'm not going to suspend my own moral beliefs. The same goes for playing poker.

For those who play for a living, I can understand that the pressure to get the money would be greater. On the other hand, when something is your livelihood, I'd also think the pressure to set your own moral and ethical standards would be greater as well.

I really appreciate the thoughtfullness of most posters here, including Kurnson who's taken the trouble to articulate his opposing point of view extremely well.

[Ulysses]

Similarly, when I go on golfing trips with the guys I don't join in the over-the-top drinking or whoring around that some do.

Obviously, here's the problem. [img]/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img]