I take all his money whether he is paralytic, inconsolable, desperate, non compos mentis, psychotic, whatever. (Well, I guess I draw my own personal moral line if the dude is seriously mentally incapacitated and is just out for a day of fun at the poker table, probably with assistance…ok, I am an utter bastard…so what?).

I am not so great at poker that I can afford to pass up edges like that. 

In fact, look at the thing objectively: we are all utterly mercenary bastards trying to lie/ steal/ destroy every other mercenary bastard and/ or every other unfortunate who thought it was a good idea to put money down at our table to play cards; and to take their money.

Cut the crap. We aren’t benign entities over here.

I actually like this Ginger. It’s true, I do love this game. Hell, I’ve lost enough money over the years playing it. Maybe I’m the mark all along!

What else is there to do? 

Except join TPE or a similar site and study hard, and interact with the forums, and buy all the software, read all the books, and spend years studying this crap, in the hope that eventually, it will all come right financially. TPE is much like a rainbow in that regard…there’s a pot of gold over yonder, but I’m buggered if I ever believe I’ll get my hands on it.

But, touching on the point you made…I never got in to poker for the money. Which is just as well, because…

I checked out my SharkScope the other day. I’m $10,000 down over five years. 

If you looked at the trajectory of my graph, it could represent this: an entirely bored and probably mentally challenged individual takes a ping-pong ball up a long flight of steps. He stands at the top of the steps, and because he is bored and simple decides it would be a worthwhile idea to throw the ping-pong ball down the stairs for the simple pleasure of watching it bounce all the way down. He throws the ball. It misses entirely the first few steps (this reflects when I first started playing…at mid stakes like a tool…the period in which my graph resembles the trajectory of a man leaping headfirst to his doom). On about the seventh step, the ball bounces! An upward trajectory finally! (I began to win something, at least). But then a freak miracle occurs! On the ball’s next bounce, it hits the corner of the step! And leaps in to the air! (This represents the moment I though I was ready to “go pro”, and bought my daughter a silver bracelet because I thought I was now guaranteed success…what a wanker). From here on in, the ball just continues to fall plonk plonk plonk with occasional peaks, and here we are, five years later, $10,000 down over an turnover of probably >$ $100,000. 

The only thing that maintains my hope, is that I am profitable in the 180 man turbos. Like an utter sad-case, I hold on to this fact and cherish it, and it brings me solace when I need it, and frankly, other people at TPE must be bored with me even mentioning it again (which I feel I need to because otherwise I feel like an UTTER LOSER!).