For the love of Online Poker

In my single days, I always referred to Valentines Day as: “The unimaginative, consumerist-oriented and entirely arbitrary, manipulative & shallow interpretation of romance day.” Now that I’m older, and have finally found my suited pair, I’ve come to appreciate this day a little more. Don’t get my wrong I still don’t support the marketing aspect and as one person put it on Postsecret – the fact that "Hallmark stole all the romance from this day."

What I do treasure about Valentines Day is its history. It reminds me of poker and the current challenges the online industry is facing. We shouldn’t loose hope and should take the Valentines Day story below as inspiration that online Poker will overcome all the odds and we’ll be playing it happily ever after….

St. Valentine's Story....

Let me introduce myself. My name is Valentine. I lived in Rome during the third century. At that time, Rome was ruled by an emperor named Claudius. Claudius wanted to have a big army and he expected men to volunteer to join. Many men just did not want to fight in wars. They did not want to leave their wives and families. This made Claudius furious. He thought that if men were not married, they would not mind joining the army. So Claudius decided not to allow any more marriages. Young people thought his new law was cruel. I thought it was preposterous! Being a priest one of my favorite activities was to marry couples. Even after Emperor Claudius passed his law, I kept on performing secret marriage ceremonies. One night, I was caught and thrown in jail and told that my punishment was death.

Many young people came to the jail to visit me. They threw flowers and notes up to my window. They wanted me to know that they, too, believed in love. One of these young people was the daughter of the prison guard. Her father allowed her to visit me in the cell. Sometimes we would sit and talk for hours. She helped me to keep my spirits up. She agreed that I did the right thing by ignoring the Emperor and going ahead with the secret marriages. On the day I was to die, I left my friend a little note thanking her for her friendship and loyalty. I signed it, "Love from your Valentine."

I believe that note started the custom of exchanging love messages on Valentine's Day. It was written on the day I died, February 14, 269 A.D. Now, every year on this day, people remember. But most importantly, they think about love and friendship. And when they think of Emperor Claudius, they remember how he tried to stand in the way of love, and they laugh - because they know that love can't be beaten!