The Camel bites back!
Keith 'the camel' Hawkins has written about me in the latest entry on his blog. It follows the previous post that I made on this site, as well as comments I left on his. I take issue with some of what he says, as I shall outline below, but before I do, I would like to stress that I really like him, even though I don't completely understand him. Keith is one of poker's nicest players and I wish him well in all he does. So much so that I wish he would improve his health, so that we who like and love him can be more sure of enjoying his company for decades to come. When I wrote what I did below, I thought I was helping him to identify his strengths (online heads-up matches) and deterring him from wasting his time and money on big-ticket tournaments, where though equally strong, he faces a far higher level of opposition, as he so often reminds us.

With that in mind, I quote his latest piece about me with comments from me in italics:

The problem with David Young
I like David. He is an old fashioned British eccentric. But, I cannot deny he has pissed me off. Firstly he questions my sanity with my decision to give up heads up matches on Pokerstars and then he continues to criticise me in his blog. He asks "I'm baffled. Is he after money or recognition?".

I think that this is a fair question to put to anyone who doesn't have the security of a fixed salary. It's easy to be distracted by trophies, ranking points and the glamour of the travelling pro's lifestyle.

The problem with David, and anyone who has read his posts on the Hendon Mob forum will agree, is that he seem unable to see things from anyone elses point of view. I guess it is a problem alot of privately educated people suffer from.

I have not been privately educated since 1982, when I was 13. For my secondary education, I went to the Royal Grammar School in High Wycombe. It's a state school. I will cover the point about seeing others points of view in another post later this week.

He decides what his view on a subject is going to be on a subject and then stands by it through thick and thin. I don't think I've ever seen David admit he's wrong, let alone be swayed by an argument.

On this very website I wrote an apology to Guy Bowles. It was only a couple of months ago. I don't intend to rehash the whole story but the essence is that I totally misunderstood something he said. Further down this page you can also see where I have quoted an email about Nicaragua from Ruari Patterson. In this instance he felt that I had not given a full or fair account of the history of the Sandanista revolution. In fact, I had not intended to, but he pointed out that I had left an one-sided impression and so I quoted him in full on the subject to provide balance.

David is a cash game player.

I do play tournaments too, but not at Keith's level for sure. Then again, not many people play tournaments at his level. I play a reasonable tournament game and would probably be a winner at them if I were to play more. However, they are a very unreliable way to make money, a point that is well made in an excellent essay titled 'Is your wallet fat enough for tournaments?'. I cannot stress enough how important it is for any aspiring tournament player to read this essay. It appears on page 136 of 'Fight Fuzzy Thinking in Poker, Gaming and Life' by David Sklansky.

In order to be a good cash game player you have to be ruthless, you need to want to take the last penny of your opponent. If you have an ounce of sympathy it can come back to haunt you by the recipient of your sympathy taking all your money.

This is complete nonsense. The risk of leaving your oppponent with chips with which he can later hurt you is a tournament concept and not one that applies in cash play. In tournaments it's a total disaster if you leave someone with chips that they later use to beat you. In cash play, your opponents can always replenish their stacks anyway and if not they are replaced by new players with more money. I don't understand what Keith is saying here at all. It looks like an ad-hoc rationalisation shoehorned in to support a pre-existing belief that cash-players are somehow more cruel than tournament players by some sort of Darwinian selection.

Playing cash games for a living is very much like having a job. You need to put the hours in in order to overcome short term variations.

And so must you in tournament play. I'm quite sure of this.

I gave up work for alot of reasons, but one of them was to break out of the routine. Playing cash games (and heads up matches) for a living is the ultimate in routines. I am also convinced playing cash games all the time affects your personality, you can become hard, aggressive maybe even greedy. (Obviously this is a sweeping generalisation and there are many exceptions to this).

I play poker primarily for pleasure and I get little satisfaction from cash games or heads up matches. Obviously I want to make a living out of the pastime and that is the aim. But, I would prefer to make my living doing something I enjoy.

There is nothing wrong with any of this. In fact laziness is my primary motivation in playing poker for a living. I hate the idea of working for other people. I've done it before and I'm in no hurry to do it again.

David, please don't judge me by your standards. I don't want to make a fortune from poker. If I did, I certainly wouldn't be persuing the path I am. I am happy with my decision and if that means you question my sanity, so be it.

Keith, I respect your desire to spend your time only doing things that you enjoy. For me, that's the best definition of success! But some elaboration on your previous post was required. Otherwise people might wonder why you submit requests to be staked in large WPT tournaments, when most us would rather back you in heads up $1,000 SNGs on Pokerstars on the basis of your own words! Good luck in all you do, David.