POKER AS A FORCE FOR GOOD, at least in this case.

My blogging has been a bit thin the last few days because of family and personal pressures. Last night, even my weekly poker game with several local buddies was truncated because of a term project with my daughter that I had to oversee, cutting my game-time down to two hours.

My wife amazed me, however, by informing me that the mother of "thedonator," a neighborhood boy who attended my daughter’s school and was rendered a paraplegic after horseplay caused a schoolyard accident with his friends, had just given her a call while I was at the poker game.

For those who are not aficianadoes of Texas Hold’em, you can google "thedonator" or look him up in list of poker pros you can find in Motown Poker.

Our 24-year old neighbor had just won $112,000 at a World Poker Tour weekend playoff in the Bahamas.

I had recently talked to Stu Patterson’s father, who was born in Glasgow, Scotland and talks with a nearly impenetrably thick brogue, about his son’s career.

After his life-changing injury, Stu began playing poker on-line for free on the poker.net practice sites. After a while, he began to play on low dollar sites and soon started to win money online. He was then invited to play in live tournaments without an entry fee and there won enough to pay to enter other tournaments.

He has now participated in two World Series of Poker Vegas final rounds and has made it past the first day both times.

He has now become an established poker professional and February 1st was his first mega-pot over $100,000. He had won over $30,000 in a previous tournament and wins consistently in local private games here in Boca.

There is an interesting and uplifting reason I am so happy to see this young man win.

Not only does he pay IRS taxes immediately upon making his winnings, unlike some of his young friends who leave their winnings in the "cage" in Vegas and spend it in the hotel on food, drinks, and whatever else you can imagine without tipping off the IRS.

Stu calls himself "the donator" because he actually donates a significant fraction of his winnings to good and worthy causes. Since the private school he attended has a religious affiliation, perhaps some of these donations are to religious charities.

So, despite the temptations of living on the edge as he begins to win serious tournaments, Stu is thoroughly grounded in the real values of life.

But, of course, all those dollars do make life a little easier for him and his parents [both born in Scotland].