League Players
- Thread starter Johnnyt
- Start date
master9baller
Banned
Well I've made >5K a year playing pool for the past several years as a AA speed player trapped in a weak pool environment. I only wish I were around in the good old days, probably wouldn't be sitting at work on this computer would I?
If you play a game of skill and know what you are capable of producing I wouldn't call that gambling. Hoping to draw a queen on the river is a differrent story.
And NOT gambling produces something? Just by playing pool, you produce nothing. Dumb argument. If you wanna produce something, come make me a sandwich.
Skill helps, but still for you to win someone else must lose.
Compare that to a productive business where the business and all dealing with it win, too.
It's win/win vs. lose/lose. That eats at a Person after a while. The good gambler becomes someone who looks for and hangs with losers as opposed to someone who looks for and hangs with winners.
Not trying to switch the thread here or cause trouble, just trying to reasonable make sense about the psychological part of gambling.
This probably needs a (nother) thread of its own.
Jeff Livingston
right...I agree (not the "dumb" part but the rest)
I was talking about those who make a "living" from only gambling.
MikeyFrost, if you've read the Des Moines thread (and apparently eveyone has
) works real hard at his job and is good at it, it seems. Then he goes to the pool hall and gambles it well (I'm told, I don't do it anymore). I'm wasn't talking about guys who do it like he does. I'm talking about guys who are very good at gambling and win enough to survive and thrive.'course, I'd never advocate a law against living that way. A lot of experience can be had in such endeavors that could be very valuable in the marketplace later on. I used to play near pro-level blackjack, e.g., and learned a lot about stats, human behavior, and other things that can tranfer to the buiness world. But I wasn't productive while I played, I was wasting resources, even though I won money in the long run.
Jeff Livingston
But, if you where learning, where you really wasting resources? Or, where you utilizing your resources at the time to attain more resources? When someone loses gambling, are they just a loser? Or do they learn something in the process to make them better? Not everything equates to just dollars.
I agree with you, Neil....but...
Yes, I was relly losing because of those inevitable opportunity costs. I could have been producing and trading marketable values instead. Also, I could have been in engaging relationships with winners, not stuck with finding more and more losers.
(You probably replied before my next post concerning your questions?)
IF man is to produce to survive, and he is, then living man qua man (to bring in Ayn Rand) is necessary for survival, thus necessary for happiness.
We've all seen some players wasting a lot of living doing the gambling thingy. Some waste their whole lives and never produce much happiness. How many have said at the end of it they wish they'd lived a productive life?
Now, some are forced into this life-style because of previous problems (prison, for example) , etc. and they're just doing the best they can.
I'm not trying to tell anyone how to live his life, just making an observation.
I hope that makes sense.
Jeff Livingston
Jeff, I agree that a lot of the gamblers do waste their life. Just pointing out that just because someone is a gambler does not automatically equate to being a loser. A point often lost on many.
Back to the thread....
I love leagues.
I even love APA as it brings in new players faster than other leagues. Then those guys move up the ladder to better playing leagues and some move up to greatness, even.
Seeing lower-level players on tv could be a nice touch to marketing pool, as I said in an earlier post and no one responded. Could such a popular thread as this be a hint that beginning pool has spectator potential?
Jeff Livingston
The APA made a commercial a few years back and several of the people I played with and the pool hall we played at were in it. Kinda funny
Seeing more matches with lesser players makes you appreciate the skills of the extraordinary that much more. Knowing full well that any of the top pro's are likely to run out any given table becomes just a tad too predictable, to me.
That's why I really enjoyed TAR20, on the big table. Seeing two of the best battling it out and actually missing a shot every now and then was awesome. It added a lot more intrigue to the game.
Is there a real market for televised matches with lesser players, probably not. But seeing them on a stream now and again might give folks some perspective. So long as it isn't me on the stream.
That would give you the heaves, I'm afraid...:yikes:
Rooms survived long before leagues did.
"We've been making buggywhips for hundreds of years, why should we change?!"
Seeing more matches with lesser players makes you appreciate the skills of the extraordinary that much more. Knowing full well that any of the top pro's are likely to run out any given table becomes just a tad too predictable, to me.
That's why I really enjoyed TAR20, on the big table. Seeing two of the best battling it out and actually missing a shot every now and then was awesome. It added a lot more intrigue to the game.
Is there a real market for televised matches with lesser players, probably not. But seeing them on a stream now and again might give folks some perspective. So long as it isn't me on the stream.
Other participation sports have spectators who personally know the Persons playing while maybe not being into the sport so much. Softball comes to mind as one example. Soccer is another. High skool sports definitey fit that.
Perhaps we, the lovers of pool, have gone so far beyond Joe Sixpack's perspective on pool that we've forgotten what it is to appreciate this sport from Joe's viewpoint? Perhaps we insist on watching a higher level than the public can currently grasp as well as we do and therefore we are missing out on a vital market?
This thread just got me thinking outloud here.
Jeff Livingston