My Ethical Dilemma with Poker

There was an aspect of poker that bothered me, or more succinctly put, gnawed on me. For me, it was the proverbial elephant in the room, my bad conscience and something that I most times avoided even thinking about, because I didn't particularly like where the train of thought took me. But sometimes it's good to challenge one's demons, and in this particular case, I discovered that my demon was fictional.

What troubled me is the idea that when I play poker, I don't contribute to society. That's it, in its simplest form. In the best case scenario I'm just taking money - value - that someone else has created from the system and putting it in my own pocket. That made me feel like a thief. In the worst case scenario, someone else is winning my money. That made me feel like a loser.

See, when I make money doing what I actually do for a living - creating software for set top boxes - I contribute to the GDP of Sweden and the world. When I make money playing poker, I don't contribute. This constituted a great ethical dilemma for me, because I need to feel useful. I think I made the connection that playing poker isn't useful, and if I'm not useful, I'm a leech. Therefore, playing poker makes me a leech.

But I don't think this is true anymore. Or at least sort-of not.

Why would playing poker be a worse pastime than, for instance, playing golf? Well, okay, besides the obvious reasons (one is highly stressful, the other usually relaxing, one is done sitting on your ass in front of your computer or in a smoke filled casino, the other is out exercising in Mother Nature), but looking at it from a macro economical perspective, both are activities that for the majority of people cost money and take time. Both are volontary. And both are hobbies, of sorts.

A lot of people play poker and lose money. They may not particularly want to (or even think they do) lose money, but in effect they're paying to play cards as a hobby. If this was like golf, everyone would lose money in the form of green fees, membership costs, equipment, cost of getting to and from the golf course, etc. so why should it bother me that instead of all the "fees" that people incur from playing poker just going into the game itself, some of it goes to me? In fact, most everyone who plays do it with the hope that they'll be the ones who have a good day.

I should not feel guilty about having more good days than others. I've worked hard to earn them.

The reason it's perhaps taken me more time than most others who have thought about this to reach the conclusion that it's morally OK for me to play this game and win money is because I reached the wrong conclusion the first time I thought about it and I've been a coward and mostly avoided the thought since then.

But there you have it.

Now, there is still a potential ethical problem with poker, and that is that some of the people I play against are bound to have serious gambling problems. They might be playing with money that they need to buy food for their kids, they might be playing with stolen money and they might lose it all to me. This is a far cry from the majority of my opponents (which seems to be what the republican bible-thumpers are suggesting and Barney Franks so eloquently disagrees with) but there are bound to be some of them. For this, I still feel a sting of guilt. But even if I knew who they were - and that's borderline impossible when you're playing online - I'm not sure how to do anything about it. I'm falling back on the semi-faulty thinking that "they're not going to stop playing if I'm not there" which is essentially the same thing as saying "it's okay to do it because everyone does it."

That one I still don't know how to tackle, and I'm not sure I can or, honestly, have to. Perhaps I can accept that this is a part of the game I love and I counter that part with all the other things that are so magnificent about it. Poker is like a simulation of life itself in many aspects, and perhaps the misery of a few people are a needed reminder in the microworld that not everything is OK in the macroworld, either. A mirror of life that contains only rosy pictures is a poor mirror, after all.

This is apparently a poker blog

I've been feeling very energetic, lately. After two weeks of nausea, fatigue and tilt I'm now fully recovered. I sleep well at night, I come home after a productive day of work and I have energy left over to do stuff around the house and even play the occasional hand of poker!

As part of this energy, I've also been spending time thinking about what to do with this here blog and reading up on ways to improve it. I've been toying with Google Analytics and I've installed FeedBurner. This will, by the way, be the premiere feed going via FeedBurner, so that's, well... Something. I kid around that I have about 6 readers, but the number is actually close to a devout and loyal 50, which is tiny in the great cosmos of the internet, but kinda big for me. And I don't even have friends or relatives (not counting myself or my wife) who follow my blog, so that's 48 relative strangers who actually visit this site semi-regularly or has a subscription in Google Reader.

A large chunk is of course regulars from CardsChat.

A couple of other readers came over from Bill Rini's blog after I had a "guest-appearance" with an article. A total "clickthrough" of 17, which is actually quite a bit lower than I expected. I know Bill has a lot of readers, but I guess I hoped more of them would peek at the link in the blurb at the bottom. Ah, well, such is life.

And then, the biggest jump by far in Google Analytics, is the day that The Poker Grump mentioned that I had mentioned him. It's blog back-patting at its finest.

Finally, quite a few have come here looking for dirt on Betway. I wonder if I'm doomswitched yet.

So figuratively and literally, there you are. I'm humbled and thankful that you read what I write, and I hope I can continue to write stuff that you, for whatever reason, like reading. What's clear to me, however, is that I'll stick with what I know - and that appears to be writing about poker.

Taxation Madness, Part II

When I wrote about my decision to play at Betway, I gave taxation as one of the basic problems with playing at the large sites like Stars or FTP. The thing is, these sites are not based in Europe and therefore I have to pay taxes on my winnings if I play there. If I play on a site based in the EU, however, that's not the case. Now, on the surface, I'm dodging a 30% extra "rake" by playing in the EU. But it's not quite that simple.

I'm sure you've all seen Swedish guys playing at Stars. Wanna know something about 'em? They're tax evaders. No, really, they are. Yes, I'm sure. Yes, that sure.

Because there's no way they'd be playing there if they were following the letter of the law, and I know this because I very recently was informed what the letter of the law actually means. As I explained in the post I link at the top, the way Swedish tax law for poker is written (presuming it takes place outside of the EU) is that I'm taxed on my winnings but cannot deduct my losses. And it's on a per-pot basis. So if I win $10 in one hand, I get to keep $7. If I lose $10 the next hand, tough break. 50k hands of $3/$6 6-max limit hold 'em works out to owing the government about $70,000 - (almost) regardless of net result.

So when you see someone from Sweden playing $3/$6 at Poker Stars - a site based in Costa Rica, i.e. "not EU" - then you can consider it a safe bet that he isn't being entirely honest when he fills out his tax declaration.

The way this law works is pretty sickening. See, I can accept the idea of paying taxes on net poker winnings outside of the EU. It would still make a whole ton of sense for any professional Swedish poker player to stick with the European sites (Ladbrokes, Party, etc.) since the extra 30% off the winnings that he or she would have to pay for winning money at another site is difficult to offset with game selection, although I suppose plausible at the highest tiers. But as it stands now, it's not financially viable to play on a non-EU site. The term I used in my email to Skatteverket was "financial suicide," in fact, and the lady who replied didn't disagree with it.

But now that I've gotten the confirmation from Skatteverket, it's time for me to move this fight to the politicians. I'm not entirely sure how to best go about it yet. I've contacted them about this law before but without result. This time, I'll have to try a new angle. Maybe I can get Poker Stars to help me apply some pressure? This really is in their best interest as well.

I'll have to think about that.

Lori lets me know that it's dinner time, and it's smells deeeee-lish-us! Of course, that might not be dinner, that might be the blueberry cup cakes she baked. Either way, I'm in for a treat. Jealous? You should be.

Bye, Bye, Betway

Yes, like Blackbird, Betway is now going Bye-Bye for me. I'm sorry, but I can't take it anymore. The software is gnawing on me and every annoying little detail adds up until frustration just gets the better of me.

1. Not being able to top off my stack until two deals after I lost the money is annoying.
2. So is being dealt AA when I have a stack of less than two blinds.
3. Having the support staff tell me that I can't top off my stack until I go bust completely is not only false, but - you guessed it - annoying.
4. Being further told by the support staff that there's no one to send a request to fix this "rule" (yes, they called it "a poker rule") in their software is annoying.
5. Them calling it a "poker rule" is annoying.
6. Them referring to not being able to fill up my stack between hands in casino poker as an explanation as to why they have it this way is annoying.
7. The entire software occasionally freezing for 4-5 seconds when I open another table is annoying.
8. ... and timing out on some other table because of that is annoying.
9. Having about 80% success rate in even starting the software to begin with (usually hangs at "graphics loading") is annoying.
10. The little sliders in the lobby that you're supposed to use to set the limits of the table not actually being usable - I click and drag, click and drag, but they don't move - is annoying.
11. The "show empty tables" check boxes not necessarily working is annoying.
12. And finally, having to spend 10 minutes even figuring out how to withdraw my money from the site, when I'm fuming and just want to get the hell off it, is annoying.

So, bye bye Betway. I'm now back at Party Poker, which, for all its faults, has software that doesn't drive me insane. Yet.

...

Tomorrow, we're driving up to Stockholm to see Mamma Mia (the musical) with my parents and sisters, which will be fun, so I'll be gone for the better part of the weekend. When I get back, I hope to share with you the stupidity and, in my opinion, hypocrisy of the Swedish Skatteverket (our IRS) that I got sent as a response to an email asking how taxation of poker winnings work.

Have a good one, everyone.

Sloppy Editing

I've written about this before (on the now dormant Cardschat blog), but some things bear repeating:

When I buy an instructional book, I don’t pay money to the authors because they’re so very knowledgeable. I pay them money on the promise that the book will teach me the things they know. I mean, I didn't get Stephen Hawking's book "Cosmos" because he's so very good at cosmology. I got it because I wanted to learn more about it myself. This is an obvious point, I would think.

Let me re-state it in a way that is seemingly less-than-obvious to a lot of poker book authors:

If the book contains great information but does a poor job of explaining it, the book doesn’t deliver. Now, bad grammar or spelling doesn't necessarily mean that someone does a poor job of explaining what they mean. Bad spelling (and/or grammar) doesn’t bother me in itself, either. I’m perfectly capable of understanding what the author means when he writes “stratagy” or "stradegy." What bothers me, and I'm taking the liberty of quoting my original post from Cardschat:

When there are many typos in a published book, it’s an indication that the book hasn’t been proof-read thoroughly. And I want my books to be very thoroughly proof-read, because - as I said above - it’s not what the authors know that I pay for, it’s their ability to explain it to me. A writer of course knows exactly what he’s trying to say. When he reads something he’s just written, it’s probably going to seem crystal clear to him. But he needs other people - preferably people who aren’t already knowledgeable about the subject - to give him feedback on whether or not the explanation is satisfactory.

Certainly a book may be very good in its very first version. Perhaps an author manages to write a full 300 pages explaining the most complex ideas simply without having anyone as much as look at the manuscript before it went to print. Does it seem likely to you, though?

Let me re-state the main point: It’s not the presence of typos that’s the problem. It’s the fact that where there are typos, there generally aren’t proof-readers, and without proof-readers I feel that the the author hasn't gone through the appropriate hoops to make sure he does a good job of explaining the ideas that he’s trying to convey. A good idea would be, in the case of poker books, to let a novice poker player read the chapter that was just finished, and then have the novice explain to the author what the chapter tries to tell him. If he gets it wrong at all, re-write it. Keep this up until the point that you’re trying to get across is crystal clear.

(I was reminded of this pet-peeve of mine when I read some posts over at The Poker Grump.)

31

It's my birthday. I don't know exactly when it happened, but at some point in the past few years I reached the age where I wasn't counting down to my birthday. Last night, I wasn't aware that it was going to be my birthday today, and this morning I didn't open my eyes and think "ooh, birthday!"

31 is also an age that is firmly within the 30s. Being actually 30 is borderline 20s, so that was younger. I'm not sure how to feel about 31. Lori asked me if I feel 31, and while the answer is perhaps "no," I don't actually feel like any other age, either. I guess I mostly just feel like myself.

That's a good thing.

Nausea and fatigue - and tilt.

I felt tired and hängig (meaning "hangy" which is an excellent Swedish adjective for how I feel - shoulders slumped, uninterested and apathetic) and wrestled a little bit of a headache all of last week. I also slept very, very poorly. If the sleep deprivation was the cause or effect isn't really clear, but I figured it should be mentioned. On Sunday, the feeling of sickness escalated, and yesterday and today I simply stayed home from work, trying to get some rest. I slept for 11 hours last night, which is probably a good sign.

In other news, I've managed to hit another 17 buy-in downswing, which is pretty awesome. I take complete responsibility for the tilt-spew that is my own doing, but as with the last one, I'm also completely aware of how badly I was running. In a matter of 20 minutes, I lost with AA vs 88 preflop, kings ran into aces, AKs ran into aces, and AKo ran into kings. When I made obvious bluff-catching calls, they weren't bluffs or they got there on the river. Out of chaos comes harmony, however, and here's what I learned, or... Well, here's what I already knew, but have gotten reinforced by the universe's sick sense of humor:

If I look at the past month-and-a-half (which includes no-less than two of these bankroll devouring downswings) I'm break-even. My bankroll is where it was at the beginning of July. And if I now take a moment to ponder how many buy-ins I've lost not because of cards but because I was tilting, and then I reclaim that money, I'd actually be up. Not a huge amount, but I'd probably be up a few hundred bucks.

It's useful for me to remember that I still tilt. For awhile, I felt like I wasn't. I felt like I could just shrug off bad beats and misfortunes easily. And I can - as long as there aren't too many of them lining up in a row. So now I will go back and work on tilt again, and try to identify the causes of it. One thing I'm absolutely positive that I do is that when I'm losing money left and right, I make much looser calls, probably with the mentality that given how much money I've already lost, I'm not going to lose yet another pot because of being bluffed off of it. No, sir.

Anyway, I end this post with a reading recommendation:

The Poker Grump

This is an excellent poker blog. A good writer can make anything seem interesting, so it's hard for me to tell if Rakewell's stories are actually interesting or not. But they provide reading pleasure, so it's all good. It gives me some kind of sick masochistic joy to read about casino poker which I can't really identify. It's like... Well, you know the saying that America as compared to Europe is culturally inferior but morally superior? I won't go into a debate whether that's true or not, but I think I have this idea that Casino poker is fancier and online poker is tougher. The fancy people play in casinos. The smart people play online.

No, don't start. I already know this isn't true. I know this, because I've been to casinos, and there are a lot of words suitable for describing the people that frequent them, but "fancy" rarely comes to mind. But I think I have a tad of the "grass is greener"-emotion when it comes to playing live poker. So it's fun to read about a guy who plays in casinos and his experiences and feelings about it - especially when (or maybe exclusively because) he writes so well about it. I've read other live-poker-blogs and they usually fall pretty short. The Poker Grump doesn't.

So, go read. Now.