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Brave post from someone it appears just married and cheated on then promptly divorced his brand new wife. It's been interesting to see you drop the 'fake nice guy' bit here and there the last couple years, I think people would be surprised if that mask fell all the way off.
The poker community Kevin is referring to back then was the most toxic I'd ever seen - it was largely men from the oil fields who would come down and get super drunk, dump off money on their weeks off. They were so rude to me (being called "bitch" or "c*nt" just for winning pots, and the casino would never interfere because the guys who did this were the biggest losers of money in the room - once a roided out guy followed me through three table changes and after I'd repeatedly felted him he got dragged out by security after threatening to punch me) it got to a point I would just wear headphones and refuse to engage with anyone.
The locals would largely sit around complaining about how horrible their wives were, and leering at the women going past the glass to the night club next door - I remember one guy once saying, "that one reminds me of my daughter" while undressing her with his eyes.
There was even an incident where an elderly poker player LITERALLY MOTORBOATED a waitress without her consent, and nothing was done until the waitress complained to her boss' boss (or something) and the guy got banned. The poker player's reaction was to say, "poor Norm" and literally threaten to boycott the room (even some women were defending Norm) unless they unbanned him. They ended up giving him a six month ban instead (conveniently six months in the winter that he normally spent away anyway), so effectively no punishment. The woman however I vaguely remember hearing she was no longer allowed to work in the poker room. So basically no consequences for the guy and the woman lost the most lucrative section of the casino to work in. When some guys were saying "poor Norm" over and over I snapped at the table and pointed out that that was literally sexual assault - and just got a bunch of deer in the headlights look in return like I was the crazy one.
It was an environment that made me super unfriendly and anti social for a period of time, but I used to pull in so much money from those games because they were so good and especially against a woman some of their egos would just cause them to make absolutely terrible plays either insane bluffs or just never fold to my bets. I won so much money out of those rooms some not so bright players actually started complaining that I *must* be cheating somehow. They looked at hours and hours of footage and told those guys, no, she's not. But the complaints didn't stop and management who I liked very much asked if I wouldn't mind not sitting with certain people or using my phone at the table just to shut them up. I liked this guy, and wanted to make things easier on him and the room so I complied, but my winrate went unchanged, and they continued to insist I must be cheating *somehow*. Eventually the narrative became that because I wasn't "allowed" to use my phone at the table or sit with my friends any longer that there MUST have been something right to that narrative, like it confirmed their suspicions even though I was still winning the same amount - so eventually I pointed this out to the manager and said it's not fair to have my reputation harmed in this way and we agreed I would resume sitting with whomever and using my phone like anyone else.
Since having seen some amount of success, I refused to go back there (why would I?), and people who have asked me to come and knew what it was like for me back then have repeatedly told me it's changed, most of those people are now proud to say I came from there, and please come back. I got stuck there last year on a layover when there were fires in my current hometown of Kelowna, and ended up playing in the rooms for a week.
The atmosphere was unrecognizable. People were friendly and kind to each other, I noticed a number of really respectful interactions between the men and women (and many more women in the room than there used to be), women being treated exactly like the other male players, and the maybe one time I saw someone be rude the entire table chimed in to shut them down.
Somehow that place went from the (socially) worst I've ever seen to one of the best, and it made me really happy. Everyone was extremely nice, welcoming, happy to see me and I had a wonderful time.
When things are really wrong with a place, or an environment, or a person, and you hold a mirror up to it - the reaction is rarely positive.
You wanna say I "caused" a lot of problems or that they magically appear around me - it's only because I have a tendency to bring to the surface things that are not right or fair. And if that makes me the problem, then I guess I'll take that.
