We would like to start off the year by bringing you Barry Greenstein, or the Robin Hood of poker. He is not a well known figure, and because he’s not a gaudy asshole, so most people wouldn’t know him anyway. Barry got a degree in computer science and studied for a Ph. D in mathematics, but never defended his dissertation. He got a regular job when he first started playing poker to give himself a better chance to adopt his stepchildren. As if that wasn’t enough to get people to like him, he donated the pay-off of all of his poker winnings to different charities of his choosing. In 2006, he announced he was doing so well that he would begin donating all of his net earnings from poker to charities. This is why he is nicknamed “the Robin Hood of Poker.” At this time, Greenstein has won three World Series of Poker bracelet’s, seventeen final tables, and 102 money finishes, but has never won the Main Event. In the World Poker Tour, Greenstein has won the season title twice while making five final tables, and nineteen money finishes.

The lesson we would like to point out from this great man, and I will personally fight you if you think he’s not, is once you get yourself into a good position in your own life you should find a way to help others. Our world is filled with so many problems and the bureaucracy of the modern world makes it almost impossible to help others through government and other such agencies. At the very least, the bureaucracy makes it so difficult to help it’s damn near pointless. To steal from the Atlanta Falcons, I would like to challenge you to “rise up” and help the people in need who truly deserve it, but do better than the Falcons.

See all you Bad Asses in a week.

Love,

your friendly neighborhood Gare Bear