ok you asked for it
I feel like you wrote pretty cop-out responses for #1/2 so I'm gonna try to rephrase them:
1. You basically admitted that your job doesn't benefit society in any way. Does it bother you that 90%+ of the working population is doing something that in some way helps society while yours doesn't? Almost every single other job in society provides a service someone else is willing to pay for. Your job preys on people who think they are better than they really are at the game and although there is the occasional rich recreational gambler who knows he's paying to have fun, I would argue that the Guy Laliberte's are not the majority of poker fish and that most are people with gambling problems and/or think they have an edge when they don't. How do you justify to yourself what you've chosen to do in life doesn't help society while most people in the world spend their lives doing something that even if indirectly, somehow does help society? Not trying to be a dick and I have my own answer, I'm just curious as to what yours is.
2. Your Peyton Manning example is actually perfect. Probably the majority of boys growing up want to be like him. There are far more than 30 kids growing up in this country that work their ass off to try to be the best QB they can be. Yet only 30 end up starting in the NFL at any given time. I would argue that the reason is there are enough people that work their ass off to be the best QB they can and the ones that make it are the ones who work their ass off AND have a natural ability. So I agree with you right now about most people that are reasonably intelligent being able to work hard and be able to beat small stakes no limit hold 'em. But what's happening is more and more people are working hard and eventually I think it will come to a point where you have to work extremely hard AND have some sort of natural ability, whether it's intelligence or something else, to win at any decent stakes at poker in the future sometime. I'm not sure how far ahead that is, but I see it as the natural progression. Ten years ago it didn't even take that much work. Now if you put in the work you can do it. In ten years I can see you not only needing to put in a ton of work but also being gifted in the game to succeed.
So I guess the question is do you agree with me or do you believe because of recreational fish that it will always be possible with hard work for a person of average intelligence to be successful in the game of poker?
11. Thoughts on the Jason Ho scandal? Did that effect how trusting you are of other people in the industry or do you think it's just a rare exception?
12. Do you think people are too quick to trust people in the poker world? High stakes players will trade tens of thousands of dollars between sites without thinking when any transfer that large in the real world would definitely have lawyers and contracts involved.
13. I'm likely going to play the WSOP ME too, although probably gonna be backed unless I win a satty since I don't play quite as high as you and don't want to pay 10k for one tourney. We gonna take 1st/2nd?
14. What are your thoughts on Ultimate Bet? They claim to be under new management and be perfectly straight but recent posts on 2p2 have claimed otherwise and it seems they are still being extremely dishonest with how the cheating scandal happened and what they are doing to ensure it never happens again. On top of that after new management they've had a software bug where the pot shipped the wrong way to Phil Hellmuth. Would you really trust your money on a site like that? Does it bother you that sites like Cardschat will still endorse Ultimate Bet and hold tourneys there after we've seen how they treat their customers?
15. If you were going to die next week, what would you do this week?
16. If I offered you a flip for your net worth, how weighted would the coin have to be in your favor to take it?
17. If I offered you a 55/45 flip in your favor, what percentage of your net worth would you put on the line?
18. Cherry or Apple Pie?
19. Chocolate or Vanilla ice cream?
20. You can decide to either never play golf again in your life or never play poker again in your life. Which do you pick?
21. I know you used to completely idolize Tiger Woods. Has what's come out in the last few months ruined your opinion of him or do you still admire him because of the amazing athlete that he is?
ok that's all I can think of for now