Posted by Dr Fro 1:13 PM
There have been a lot of poker articles lately worth mentioning from the Daniel Negreanu piece in the NY Times to the Doyle interview in Bluff and DMN to the SI article on college kids playing online to the Rolling Stone article on the Crew. Much has been written on the Crew and on Dutch in particular. I think that this one gives some new insight. Reading the last few paragraphs makes me wonder if either the writer can't write or if Fischman is a lunatic. I am pretty sure the latter is the case.

I think the article does a good job of pointing out how self serving poker is how self service is the natural enemy of the community the Crew tried to be (this is the natural state of poker that I recently lamented.)

Dutch is a freak but I cut him a little bit of slack. The disservice he did customers was not intentional, and that is a key point. Another key point is that he first got screwed by the credit card processing company. That is, Dutch didn't run off with everyone's money. There was no more money. Dutch is probably better labeled a failed businessman than a con artist. I know that ignores the month or so he continued operations after the sh1t hit the fan, but that only delayed and expanded the problem. Had he declared bankruptcy and folded a month earlier, there would simply be fewer people pissed off.

But he is crazy and that is a fact. Not to sound to unsympathetic to a person with a diagnosed illness, but mental illness has one thing in common with physical illness that we have to be honest about: you can't absolutely avoid illnes, but you can make decisions that reduce the risk and severity of illness. People that eat well and exercise get sick less than people who don't. People who live life on the edge are more likely to suffer mental illness. Trust me, if I had never met Jane, I would have continued on a path that would have almost surely landed me in a padded room. I have made decisions that reduce that likelihood and Dutch can (or could have) too.

Overall it was interesting and thanks to Iggy for the link.

I wonder why they chose to spotlight those 7 youngsters rather than the 4 good looking studs on this blog? Hmmm...

More on the SI article later.

1 Comment(s):

Posted by  Johnnymac, at 2:20 PM, June 10, 2005  

I read the Sports Illustrated article early this week. I was a little alarmist.

I found it to be a little annoying... not necessarily because of the subject of the article - college kids and scary gambling - but because reading it kind of reinforced the unfortunate realization that something that I have liked for a long time, and that I kind of reveled in its obscurity, is now a damn fad among college kids. Dammit.

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