Just a quick break from my scheduled stuff to write a paragraph about Chad Brown, who sadly died earlier following a prolonged battle with a very rare form of cancer.
I didn't know him. I'd played a few tournaments in the past and exchanged a few words over the table. He was very likeable, a talented player, very engaging, and fun to have at the table. These things are missing more and more from poker nowadays. Not blaming it all on kids, because older people can be miserable emotionless robotic jerks also. The reason I got into and enjoyed the game at the start was at least partially because I loved the social aspect. People talked, bluffed, needled, laughed, and battled. And it was fun. It's becoming less fun with each passing year as rude, impassive, obnoxious, analytic little know it alls try to squeeze any remaining social element out of the game, and make it more like playing online. Guys, if you like it so much, then go and PLAY online, and leave us to play the game in the spirit in which it was designed. My tables are normally fun. I get people talking. Sure some people don't want to talk all day, that's quite ok. But when I sit at a table of clones I really wonder why they are doing this at all. It's no life if you just sit there wearing headphones for 9 hours and never say a word, really it isn't. Go find a girlfriend. Talk to people, get a life. Live it.
Chads life was cut short, and I'm sorry for his friends and family. If more people were like he was, and less people were like the norm nowadays, the game would be 100 times more fun for everyone. I guarantee it.