Atlantic City

When I went to Atlantic City to play in a World Series of Poker Circuit Event I had expected many things. What I didn't expect was that Atlantic City is in fact the epitome of American life. Nothing I have experienced in six years of living in America has prepared me for this mirror to America's soul than a visit to this city.

I arrived late at night and riding in my friends enormous SUV we passed by one slum area after another. A street containing failed businesses, bail bondsman, check cashing services, massage parlors and strip clubs. Among the squalor and the poor rose these enormous casinos; great monuments to the almighty dollar, and a reminder to the poor of their place in society.

We drove in and walked through the comfortable air conditioned walk ways. We were inside, safe, protected, from the world of the prostitutes and crime outside. In fact I stayed there for three days and I never had to leave the comfortable confines of the casino. Moreover, my casino was linked to half a dozen other casinos by a series of walk ways designed to ensure that the 'rich' who could afford to stay there would never have to mingle with the poor outside. For those that cared to notice the chasm between rich and poor was so clearly prominent you could almost taste it. As you walked through the plush sky walks you could take a look at how the other half lived. The poor, the needy, those who had suffered the bad beats of life. If you stopped on a skyway and looked down into the dirty dangerous looking streets the poor were there shuffling around while the lucky few wandered comfortably from one plush casino to another to squander their money merely for entertainment. In fact in the casino people were willing to bet more than what many people make in a week on a single roll of a dice, a turn of a card or a poker tournament.

I'm not rich, I am pleased to say that after many years of hard work I am comfortable, but unlike the evil Republicans, I am capable of realizing that I had help in the path I chose that led me to the point I am at now. My education, my intelligence, my desire and resolve together with a liberal mix of good fortune have taken me to this point in life. But for many they did not have the opportunities that I had, they were born in the wrong area to the wrong family and never got lucky in some of the ways I have.

One of the saddest things about America is the lack of compassion for those less fortunate. For a so called Christian country it is astonishing to me just how the poor are treated. While people like me wager hundreds of dollars for fun, there are people out there who would give almost anything (including their bodies or dignity) for that money.

I've visited many cities around America and have been to ten different states. Atlantic City for me was one of the saddest places I have seen. If you have a reasonable amount of money they will show you a pretty good time. But if you pause and take a look out of the window for a moment you will see some of the forlorn downtrodden individuals who have suffered the bad beats of real life. Unfortunately for most people looking out of the window and thinking gets in the way of the fun.

All that said I had a good time, left up over $500 and enjoyed the poker. I doubt I would ever go again, because Vegas is a lot more fun and these days cheaper to get to.

Comments

In response to one of my Bush posts I got this comment from one of the few remaining Bush supporters in the county. I decided to make my response to the comments a post. I appreciate this person’s feedback, even though I strongly disagree with most of his points. My comments are in blue.

“Maybe we should tax the hell out of internet gambling!”

- Actually that’s a wonderful idea. What the government is doing right now is trying to pass a bill to push internet gambling further underground. This precludes them from the benefit of taxing it and regulating it. It’s a multi billion dollar industry and the government thinks that prohibition and jailing online poker players is the best course of action. Welcome to China.

“Get over it, nothing you say will ever change the way the poor suck off the government, or us.”

- Indeed. But not all poor people are evil spongers. Some people are born into poverty, receive a crappy education, maybe their mother did drugs during the pregnancy and now the kid has a 90 IQ. There are a million reasons why people are disadvantaged, and it is a right wing fallacy to assume they are just lazy. Not everyone is capable of working hard and suddenly getting rich. What’s more my post referred to the Bush program of reducing services such as education grants and healthcare. Things that will create even more poor people that cannot dig their way out of the poverty cycle.

“If people work hard and make their own money.”

- In the ideal world it would be that simple. But there are millions of people in America that work very hard doing two or maybe three jobs and still only make enough to scrape by. Then their car breaks down, or they get sick and have no health insurance and suddenly they have bills they can’t pay and the cycle of poverty begins.

"The rich pay more tax's in one year than you will ever pay in your entire life.”

- Yep, and they can afford it too. If you are Donald Trump and you have to pay several million dollars in tax, that is not going to curtail your life style in any way shape or form. When Bush continues to give tax cuts to the super rich, it really isn’t going to improve their lifestyle in any way. They just get to hoard a couple of million extra that they will never need to use. So why do it? Why not use the money to help the poor and needy to help themselves? Why not use the money to dig this country out of the horrific debt Bush has created?

“These people have worked hard, taken chance's, and they have prevailed.”

- That’s a romantic view of the world. Many rich people are lazy lay-a-bouts whose parents or grandparents worked hard and got rich. Do you think that George Bush worked hard for his money? Every business he ever had was a flop, propped up by his rich daddy.

And for every success story of those who have worked hard, taken chances and prevailed there are a dozen who took their shot and missed. Now they are working in some dead end job they hate wondering why life was so cruel to them. Does this make them any less of a human than those who were more fortunate?

“Our president has done more in eight years for this great nation than anyone has in a long time.”

- Wow, talk about flying in the face of public opinion! Even among white male die-hard republicans Bush’s popularity is at an all time low. I would love to hear from a right winger like you and know what it is that you feel he has achieved. By my way of thinking his legacy will be to have deepened the gap between rich and poor, classified more documents than any administration in history, presided over the worst terrorist attack in our nations history, plunged us into war with some random country based on lies and misinformation, created the largest deficit in our history, made America almost universally hated internationally, sold our ports to some Arabs, cut back government programs that help with health care and education, allowed thousands of Americans to suffer during our worst natural disaster due to incompetent leadership, and done all this surrounded by a bunch of cronies many of whom have no business at all being in the position they are in.

He may have done more in six years than other presidents that came before, but sadly not in a good way.

“The more people with views such as this is what seperate's americans. If you want to converse about problems come to the table with a solution, or you are just another problem.”

- Unfortunately there may be no magic solution at this point. It will likely take years to get the country back on track after all the damage he has done. The solution was not to take the nation down this dark road in the first place. But the best solution I can think of right now is to impeach him before he does any more damage and bring a competent leader in to start cleaning up the mess.

“I do enjoy reading your comments though, it makes me understand why I love this great nation.”

- Thank you. I enjoyed reading yours, and welcome any future comments you might want to make. I value everyone’s opinion even if I strongly disagree with it.

I too love this nation, not because I happened to be born here, but because I chose this place as my home. However, when I see Bush hurting it, I feel obliged to speak out. To blindly support the president for reasons of patriotism is actually harmful to this great nation. We hired him to take care of the country, but history will show that he was woefully ill-equipped to perform in this roll. The damage he has done will take a very long time to rectify.

Who's Da Man?

I have been playing poker now since 2003 and I am pleased to say that practice seems to be paying off.

Last weekend I took part in a tournament staged by a local poker league. I managed to beat 173 players to take first place. My prize is an all expenses paid trip to Atlanta where I will be playing in a World Series Of Poker Circuit event. It's only a little tournament with a $500+$60 buy in, but for an amateur player like me winning my way into such a tournament is a very exciting achievement.

I played my best poker ever in the league game to win my spot. The crunch for me was a pot at the end of the first day (the final hand in fact). I had top two pair on the flop. A player moved all in as a bluff which I correctly read as an act of desperation. Another player called the all in bet and I correctly put him on a flush draw. I moved over the top and went all in myself costing the other player more than half his stack to call. He was unhappy about my play, but called anyway.

The turn was a massive scare card for me as it gave my flush draw opponent the flush he was looking for. But the river gave me the boat and I took down the largest pot of the session making me the chip leader by almost 25%. My stack was over triple the average at that point.

When I returned for the finals I managed to turn my stack from $75,400 to $167,000 in an hour. By the time I went heads up I had around $850,000 and my opponent had $250,000. While he was not a bad player it was clear he had little experienced at heads up play, and was quite easy to read. My aggressive play combined with my scary big stack soon whittled him down to $150,000. I finally put him out with top pair. He was the 11th player I had personally knocked out which won me $50 as the player who knocked out the most other players.

So this time next week I will be in Atlantic City and on Tuesday I will be playing in my first 'real' tournament. Go me!