Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Good read about degenerate gambling

http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/personal_essays/the_high_is_always_the_pain_and_the_pain_is_always_the_high.php

The real pain of poker, the only chronic, threatening pain, comes from the
daily loss of livelihood—how a player views himself in the face of losing. Pain
tolerance, then, is not measured in how well the player can take a bad beat or how long he can sit at a table without questioning what the fuck has happened. Rather, it is how the player handles an inevitable losing streak and the extent to which he will allow losing to affect his idea of himself. After a month straight of losses, a player can become convinced that losing is his role. Going broke becomes his thing to do, his inevitable outcome. The fog of losing, which feels like a seething, dirty steam in the veins, seeps into everything.

That is the pain of poker that must be endured and held at arm’s length: the existential pain that causes you to turn your vision of doom into a fate-bound story, as tragic and merciless as fiction.

Hat tip: Katie

2 comments:

Grange95 said...

Dammit! I started a post about this article a few days ago. Now I have to go do something interesting with it, or delete it.

I have half a mind to hunt you down and repeatedly two-outer you with the deuce-four ...

Oh wait, you're on my WPBT team. Never mind! Good post!

dmbfan41cnLV said...

What a fantastic read... thanks for posting the link to that article! I have just recently stumbled upon your blog within the past month and I must say - it is always an excellent read. Keep up the good work!