Raise or Fold:  A Year of Risky Business

Writing and playing poker as if they were activities worth doing well.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Day 3: AC/DC (and not necessarily in a good way)

I'm back from my Atlantic City trip, totally and completely exhausted and richer in experience and wisdom but not in the 'roll. I'm going to try to process what I learned and give you some of it in a constructive narrative form ~ but not until I've had one good night's sleep.

The big challenge from this episode is to try absorb the positive lessons as thoroughly as the negative ones. There were both kinds to be had in this chapter of the story. It is much easier, though, to dwell on the things I did wrong than on the things I did right. After all, evolution has built in higher priority and more efficient pathways for the negative feedback loops that help us survive danger than for the positive loops that reward success in competition or acquisition and in learning (hierarchy of needs = survival > reproduction > status, roughly, according to Maslow and, less academically but more entertainingly, by various PUAs).

I love poker but, you know... poker is hard. (If it were easy, anyone could do it.) I am trying to remind myself that, expenses aside, I came back less than one buy-in down over the session. Statistically, in a poker year, that means nothing. I recovered from worse while I was still there, for example.

Would I rather have come back with fistfuls of cash? You know it.

Am I going to panic because I didn't? Nah.

Dudes: it's day three. We're on a long road here. Have a look at the bankroll numbers, which do include poker-related travel & lodging expenses, for perspective (that sure helps me).

Live Bankroll: 98.3%
Online Bankroll: 100%

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