yazeez

One of my American roommates is literally a professional poker player. He doesn’t have a job, his income comes through poker. He plays online poker at least? 4 days a week, sometimes he stays there for over 12 hours on the computer, playing 3-4 games at the same time. He uses both hands, one hand is on Alt+Tab, the other on the mouse, that’s all of what he does, and sometimes he gets into tournaments in bars around Charlotte. He is supposed to be really good. He sometimes makes ridiculous amounts of money ($5000 in one night) and some times he looses badly (May - mid June 2006, aka the ” you guys go ahead, I’ll stay at home” days).

Sometimes he has his friends over at our apartment, like once a month, and they play poker all night, until they get bored, or someone has all the money. The other day he got a number of his friends together in an open game (you can leave when you want). I was sitting in the living room watching TV with my other Saudi roommate, it was 2 am and I was bored. So I decide to join their poker game, for fun. The only money I had on me was a $1 bill, so I exchange it for a $1 chip, bear in mind that these guys bet at least $10 per hand, and I was entering the game with $1. They deal the first hand, and it turns out I had good cards (King and 10), they have a lot of poker on TV here, and I play free online games (partypoker.net) so I know a good hand from a bad hand. So I go all in, $1! And I win it! My $1 becomes $5. The next hand I get a King and a Nine, so I go all in, and yet again I win it! Anyways it was like that for a while, whenever I bet, I win. I got a few bad cards, but I didn’t bet on them. All the sudden I almost became the chip leader, and I only played for the last 15-20 mins of the game. My roommate’s friends were pissed off. I started off with $1, with everybody else thinking that I was only joking and only trying to kill some time, not to actually win this thing, when the game ended, I had $180! The perfect investment. It doesn’t get any better than that really.

Well I knew it was 7aram, and that the money is not really hallal, I was only joking and trying to kill some time, I never really thought I would actually win something.? After everyone left, I went to my roommate and gave him the money. I explained to him what the money, in our religion at least, means and how it is not appropriate to keep it. He didn’t accept it at first, but when? I told him that I wasn’t going to do anything with it, he knew I was serious and said “that would mean that I would be really fucked if I was a Muslim” I was like, YES.