stevesbets

As a blogger, I feel it is necessary to sometimes not just write my random opinions on things, but occasionally pop onto the proverbial pulpit and preach some powerful words of wisdom to the Betsies (a term coined in a previous blog for readers of my blog). It is with that in mind that I write the following blog.

As a poker player, I frequently am up late playing in games when it seems the rest of the world is asleep. I get bored and as a result have watched quite a few on demand movies recently. One such movie was the Adam Sandler movie from a few years ago called Click. This blog will contain spoilers so if you haven’t seen it and like to go in fresh, you should probably stop reading now.

Click is about a happy successful man with a loving, beautiful wife (played by Kate Beckinsale) and family. He doenst have much of an appreciate for what he has and he stumbles upon a universal remote that can control the world around him. He can pause everything, rewind to redo life, or as he finds is very useful, fast forward through moments that he just does not wish to live. When he chooses to fast forward, his body is still in place for all those around him to see, but it goes into standby mode pretty much where he has no personality at all (since his personality is fast forwarding through that time). This seems like a dream come true for Sandler, and probably most of the Betsies reading. He doesn’t count on the remote having a memory, much like TIVO, it can learn your preferences and apply them. Unlike TIVO, once it learns your preferences you cannot cancel them!

Sandler fast forwarded through boring little things like family dinners and lying in bed talking to his wife, and some bigger things like dealing with the stress of a job until he got his much awaited promotion. The remote quickly starts fast forwarding him through all the special moments with his family, and all the time in bed with his wife. Before he knows it, 10 years have been FFed, he’s overweight, divorced and fairly miserable (but very successful since he always put work first).

For the purposes of the blog the rest of the movie is kind of irrelevant, but I took a meaningful lesson from this movie. During the mundane, uncomfortable, and just downright annoying moments, life happens. My parents always told me not to wish my life away, and I am coming to realize that this is especially true for the moments you don’t want to skip.  “Gold” can be struck at any time and without much warning and you want to have your eyes wide open when it does. As poker players, there are times we all want to fast forward through, but will constantly remind myself to be aware, awake and present in the present.

One of the eclectic dinner table conversations we had in Long Beach Island concerned rape laws in this country. Someone “in the legal know” explained to us that recently rape laws have become more favorable for victims as there previously needed to be some sort of corroboration to an allegation in order to secure a conviction. Now an uncorroborated allegation is legally sufficient to send a man to jail for life (if the jury believes the victim). Additionally rape shield laws prevent the defendant from examining the victims past (possibly sketchy) behavior in front of a jury.

At the risk of alienating most of my (probably very few) female readers, I find these laws to be pretty outrageous and sort of ignorant of all the evil in the world. Psychopaths are capable of coming off so well and lying in such a cool, convincing matter that Ted Bundy was thought to be a future senator when he was in high school. While the traditional view of a psychopath is that he is male, as we in the poker world know, there are many female ones as well. These people can be charming and convincing, certainly sly enough to convince a jury that somebody raped them. The fact that a psychopath heavy on vendetta and light on evidence can end a mans life by simply being a convincing liar on the stand terrifies me. Further, for the defense to not be able to delve into the alleged victims past seems to render the “he” impotent in any sort of “he said, she said” debate.

One of my friends sisters friends (and hopefully my friend now too though maybe not due to this discussion) took exception to my opinion and felt that the laws were appropriate since it has historically been difficult for women to report rapes. I sympathize with the plight of women and any other protected classes, but I simply cannot stomach the fact that a potentially crazy woman (or man for that matter) has so much power over anyone he/she hates simply because he/she is a very good liar.

 (I am going to write this entry in the form of an 11 year olds diary entry)

Dear Journal,

I’m sorry I haven’t written in you for awhile, I have been very busy. Most recently I went on a trip to Long Beach Island. My friends parents rented a gigantic house on the beach which was full of family and friends, it was very fun and made me happy. I learned new games like Beach Baggo (the ultimate bean bag toss game) and Celebrity and also played some old ones like Cranium. On the last night a team of me, jill, lily and hillary lost cranium narrowly to jen, dannie, evan and deanna. That loss made me sad but the good teamwork and concentration both teams showed made me happy.

Dinner with these friends is always interesting. They are not afraid to speak their minds and tell it like it is. I was told on more than one occasion that I contribute little to society and that poker has dulled my moral sensibilities. This did not make me sad because I know all these people well, they have different opinions, and they are all wonderful.

Long Beach Island is a funny place. Lots of stores seemed to have very short hours of operation and odd customs. One friendly lady informed us that her store did not carry tens or dimes because they are terrible luck. Maybe I need to change over the content of my wallet before I start playing poker again. There were no superstitions in site on the beautiful beach though and I wish I could stay there forever.

To the diary writer who’s work i butchered in this blog entry, I beg u to remember that imitation is a sincere form of flattery and I know there was perhaps more depth of emotion in that diary than in this poker blog of a 24 year old.

Sincerely,

Steven “Stevesbets” Jacobs

It is widely documented and laughed at how many sports players and coaches thank god after winning big games or championships. I’ll spare comment on that since it is a subject of nearly universal ridicule. 2007 WSOP champion Jerry Yang is a very pious man who prayed each and every time he was all in throughout the tournament. His prayer was well documented by ESPN.

The absurdity of someone praying over the outcome of a poker hand I doubt I need to explain, but I’ll outline a couple of points here. Firstly, for someone to win a poker hand, someone else has to lose. Does god like the winner more than the loser? I guess Jerry Yang would say yes. Further, Yang is praying to the same god in whose name poker has endured all of it’s recent legal problems stemming from legislators pandering to their lunatic bible-belt constituency. The people that care to outlaw poker have made it quite clear that their god does not like it.

There is an utterly hilarious scene from the 2007 WSOP (and props to ESPN for showing it properly) in which Yang and his opponent Lee Watkinson are in a big hand against each other. Yang falls into his usual prayer routine, but little does he know, he has to pray extra hard because Lee’s girlfriend is also a true believer!! She is praying with all her might for Lee to win the hand. As the cards slowly fall, this man and this woman both pray with an ardent fervor to the same god for an opposite result. If either of them can watch the episode without feeling like total fools then I’m truly amazed at the level of self delusion that is humanly possible.