stevesbets

As I walked home from lunch today I heard basically the only question I ever hear when I’m walking down the street by a random person, “do you have any spare change”. As is my custom, I walked by without saying much, maybe i muttered a “sorry, no”. I have one friend who routinely gave whatever change he had to beggars on the street. The reason he cited was, “it means more to them than it does to me”. Obviously if you extend this reasoning to every situation where someone who needs something more than him wants something he will end up in bad shape, but in the micro sense I suppose its noble. I am often moved to give a little bit to these sad cases, but anytime I am close I remind myself of the bigger picture.

Giving money in this form encourages bothering people on the street, and even acting belligerant if they refuse to give change. The plethora of beggars is a bad problem in Philadelphia and I’d imagine many other parts of the country. Aside from lowering the value of all the real estate and businesses in the city, they make some people feel unsafe walking around at night and sometimes refuse to go out. On a more personal level, they condition everyone to be less friendly and sociable with everyone else in the world. If ANYONE approaches you on the street, aren’t you most likely to just ignore them and walk right by? This is the opposite of the natural human inclination to be social beings. These social desires are made clear by the massive popularity of networking sites like facebook and myspace. I fully realize I’m not stating any good solution to the homelessness issue, I’m just giving my own philosophy for not giving money.

On the weird things that happen after dark subject, my friend and I went to a diner last night at like 2 am.  On our way home we saw a cab driving down the street with its back door wide open. The driver seemed to be aware of it, but was too lazy to get out and close it, he was seemingly indifferent to the possibility of the door hitting something and causing danger to himself or others. We also saw someone peeing off the chestnut street bridge into the river. He honestly cant find a better place? What is wrong with people?

Borgata tourney report still to come

There was recently a thread on NWP where someone asked if its unreasonable to ask his roommate to pay an additional share of a skyrocketing electricity bill due to his roommates serious girlfriend basically becoming a 4th roommate. Lots of disagreement ensued and popular poster DanDruff was heavily criticized for saying that its not unreasonable to ask him to pay more. I thought that what he said wasnt as crazy as what some other people thought, but here is how i responded to it:

Whole thread can be found here: (but if you arent familliar with neverwinpoker, its pretty  uncensored and obnoxious) http://www.neverwinpoker.com/forums/content/Shooting-Off/48456/Roomates-and-electric-bill-tilt/

I lived with two roommates a couple years ago and had a serious girlfriend who was over alot. I was also home more than either of my roommates since one worked and one was addicted to live poker, therefore using way more electricity. Had my roommates asked me to pay an additional share of the electricity bill, I would have happily done so, however it would have curtailed any future generosity that I may show to them since I think its kind of a nitty, girly thing to do. I am very generous with my friends and I’m sure I more than made up the difference over the course of the year. So while I understand what Todd is saying, I think in this case it is best not to say anything and hope that human generosity will prevail. However, if your roommate is a CONSTANT leach and never gives back in any way without u asking, then it may just be time to cut him out of your life, but i once again would not ask for money. Friendship is about, many things, one of which is giving and receiving value. Value can be measure monetarily or otherwise. If someone provides no value ever then just cut them out, but don’t ask for 10 more dollars. Just my two cents.

Stevesbets

Anyway, I just busted from the Borgata winter open. I’ll write a tourney report soon

I get multiple emails a day ranging from mundane to inane. I have a few simple requests to try to cut down on the emails because I want to be able to respond to everybody but with the current volume it would be impossible. First of all, I don’t think you should be asking me questions that can be easily googled such as, “what is a flop?” or any other simple poker rule/terminology question. Secondly, don’t ask for money in any form, stake or loan because you won’t get it unless you are my little sister coming over to clean for an obscene hourly rate. Thirdly, I’m fine with people attacking me or tilting on me, but I’d appreciate it if you make some sort of argument so I don’t waste my time reading things that could be directed at anyone a hothead lost a pot to. Lastly, if you want a response it is probably better to post your query in the form of a comment as opposed to an email to me.

I’ve coached several students so far and they have all made great strides in their game. If you want coaching, check out that section of my site. I will not deal with anyone that doesn’t pay in advance to prevent scamming me out of my time. I can accept payment on stars, full tilt or UB. I’m going to try to get some of my students to post reviews soon.

I once again have been lagging with my blogs, this is because I have been putting the finishing touches on my business school applications. This has required a good bit of writing so when it comes time to blog I haven’t felt up to it.

If you are looking for a TV show to watch during this writer’s strike I recommend the Sarah Connor Chronicles. I suppose you should take my plug with a grain of salt since I have always had a thing for the Terminator movies, but I love the ideas and the two night series premiere was very entertaining. As long as you don’t expect it to be something it’s not you will enjoy yourself. If you are looking for books to read just for fun, I recommend Michael Connelly, I love all his police dramas and you will too.  If you are looking for books to read to help your poker game…wait until my book comes out in a year or two:)

My buddy and I walked over to 30th Street Train Station for a late night snack tonight. While we were there we noticed that a train was leaving for Atlantic City shortly. This was the 6 dollar “gambler’s express” that we used to love taking in college to play 2 4 holdem at the Taj. We used to go at any hour and enjoyed it like few other activities when we were learning poker. As we were walking home I asked him how much it would take for him to just leave at 2am tonight, and take the train to AC for a 5 hour 2 4 holdem session just like the old days. He said he would need to be paid 700 dollars. I question whether he would even do it for that much.

I remember it always used to be very exciting to go, but then something about getting no sleep, usually coming home broke (when our whole bankroll for the trip was $100) and sharing a 5 am train ride with an eclectic mix of mostly miserable degenerates was really depressing. The funniest part of the whole thing is, even though we remember clearly that coming home stunk, and that now we wouldnt repeat that sort of trip now even for a very nice hourly wage, we have very fond memories of doing the exact thing for no payment of any sort.

I’m pretty sure that GA says a sign of a gambling addiction is a loss of interest in formerly desirable activities. To me this begs the quesition, does it still hold true when the formerly desirable activity for which interest is lost happens to be degenerate late night low limit gambling?