The Loser

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September 26th, 2017
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If you play poker long enough, you are bound to find yourself sitting at a table with a person who has no business playing poker.

It's a fact. Back in Brownsville, PA., there was a woman who was probably one of the worst poker players I have ever seen. She would lose pot after pot, hand after hand, and she would go digging into her purse for more money. Then she would go to her husband who was at the bar and borrow money from him.

She rarely won. But that did not keep her from playing.

I know of players who have this incredible desire to play in the World Series of Poker. Never mind that they can't play that well. They are convinced that if they can only get the $10,000 to enter the WSOP, the rest of it will take care of itself and they will win the thing and retire a multi-millionaire.

When I hear of a young person who wins a tournament or a cash game and suddenly decides to drop out of college or who abandons his parents' dreams of him becoming a doctor or attorney in favor of becoming a professional poker player, I cringe. I want to take the kid and shake him and say, 'You idiot, do you know what you are doing?' But I don't, of course. He makes his bed and he has to sleep in it. That is the way life goes.

Andrew Feldman, a native of the United Kingdom, started playing poker on-line when he was in his teens. He became serious about the game at age 18. The excitement about piling up money won by his unseen foes grabbed hold of his emotions and he became a poker addict, playing the game night and day.

He won money and then he lost it. All of it. By the age of 27, the Londoner was broke. In tears, he joined Gambler's Anonymous and managed to quit for a while, but it didn't last long.

Feldman started playing on the internet again. He began winning. He played in the card rooms in London and traveled to Macau. While there is no way of knowing how much money passed through his hands, friends estimate he may have won over $10 million.

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He became acquainted with Sam Trickett, a British professional player who had finished second in the Big One for One Drop, winning over $10 million. Trickett liked Feldman and helped him out, usually with cash loans. While they were in Macau, he lent Feldman $25,000.

Feldman took the money, went on a losing spree -- and decided not to repay Trickett.

They got into a major squabble over the money. Trickett finally gave up on trying to collect the debt. He called Feldman 'a dishonest and disrespectful cheat.'

Feldman responded by sending him humorous emails with funny faces over the Internet. He said he had no intentions of paying Trickett back for the loan.

Today the word is out that Feldman has given up gambling. He is convinced that he cannot win at poker and this is one of the reasons he won't give Trickett what he owes him.

Trickett has given up on collecting the loan. He still plays big stakes poker in Europe and Macau, but these days he is more careful about whom he lends money to.

'I try to avoid the losers,' he says. 'They're a bad investment.'

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