Empathy and Poker

One of my better qualities, or so I like to think, is the fact that I can empathize with my fellow man. As I'm sure most of you can imagine this is not a good quality to have on the felt. While I have essentially no qualms about taking people's money at poker since I view it as intellectual warfare or some such there are some exceptions to this rule that make me cringe. I have one such example from today.

There is this regular player who goes by the name of J (okay so I shortened his name to protect the innocent, sue me). He is a big guy, late 20s with thinning hair and he plays a lot. He definitely isn't a pro but he isn't the worst fish in the world. He has some of the worst bet sizing I have ever seen in my life. Frankly it should be a crime for him to size his bets the way he does. Anyway I digress. The other day I was playing with him and was talking about how his ex-gf told him that her mother has cancer. He also mentioned that she had broken his heart and he wasn't supposed to care about this now that he had gotten over her. Then I play with him today and he was talking about how life wasn't going well and how he was in a bad mood. He took some bad beat to bust a tournament or something and then he was playing cash. Every time a dealer came in he would say hello and try to talk to them. I honestly thought it was because he was simply lonely. Several times he remarked that he just didn't care anymore when he would make a play that I would regard as truly awful (trust me I'm a good judge of poker plays). I finally told him that he should pick up if he wasn't in the right mindset. He thanked me and said it was good of me to say that and it was true. At one point he even ordered a double gray goose cranberry drink thing. He truly looked so pathetic that I felt bad even attempting to take his money.

And that's the thing. As a poker player on the felt this simply does not work. I told him to pick up and me even saying that instead of trying to take advantage of his mentally weakened/upset state is -ev (expected value for the uninitiated). I simply can't do it though. I don't have any qualms about taking advantage of stupidity like the guy next to me who would raise his cards to look at them and thus leave them on display for 1/2 the table, but for someone who has been beaten down by life I feel awful. Obviously I am still going to make the right play but that doesn't stop me from feeling bad. Or maybe that makes me a bad person. I truly don't know. Of course I got KK (kings) in against J's QQ (queens) and lost for ~$500. That sucked but at least I didn't have to think of this guy's suicide or something on my conscience. I mean J tried to leave 2 or 3 times and he always came back 10 or less minutes later saying he had nothing to do or whatever. According to one of the dealers, his new job (J's) doesn't start for a few weeks.

Anyway I had a few drinks (if you couldn't already tell from my rambling) after I got back to the local bar while I was pondering the moral repercussions of what I do and whether or not it is tainting my soul. I even started to have an in depth conversation with the bartender who has become a friend of mine (and will be a subject of one of those "interesting person" posts in the near future) about whether or not he feels guilty when he serves alcoholics. However, his girlfriend was in town so he was a little bit distracted. I will be sure to continue that one in the future.