I’d like to point something out:
I don’t know if you all are old-school enough to remember this, but Ikestoys was one of the first people to get superused by AP. Like, Trambopoline was the first guy to really come out for UB, and the UB part got much more focus, but there was our boy Ikestoys getting violated on AP and not being believed.
I mean, can you fucking imagine? I don’t know who here else played for a living (and the semantics are tricky if you were a student or had another job, but still were a serious player making a nice earn) but I did, at UB and AP (though I was a PLO and O8 player, whew), and holy god at the psychological damage of getting cheated in that fashion, in what, in hindsight, was still the poker boom. How could you ever really trust anybody or anything after something like that? Every time I’ve argued with him, no matter how ridiculous I thought he was being, I always had in the back of my mind, “You need to be empathetic on some level for this dude, he was fucking superused for God’s sake.”
Mf said he was taking medication for blood pressure and anxiety, right? Fuck, wouldn’t you?
I even expressed this empathy and sympathy to him once way back, and he didn’t reply, either because he thought I was being patronizing or because it was after we had argued about some shit and he figured to just leave it alone. Regardless, that empathy was and is sincere. I mean, in a manner of speaking I still do play poker for a living.
So, yeah, just wanted to put that out there. It’s why I didn’t have a problem with him posting here until he Ikesed out on me over something ridiculous (and I still don’t have a problem, I was just not nice after that) and like, I feel bad about being not so nice. I don’t expect anybody else to share this niche empathy but I just thought I’d share the story in general.
I also want to absolve myself in case I say something mean concerning the topic at hand. I probably won’t, but uh, just in case.