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When I first started gambling, I learned the simplest, ages-old axioms that gamblers live by. Take the best of it on bets in relation to your bankroll. When I first went on the road traveling with big-time gamblers, I went broke fading dice because my bankroll was too small even though I had the best of it on every roll.
I never understood the gamblers with bad leaks and especially bad gambling leaks. How can anyone admire the tragic losers who, although skilled poker players, also lost large sums gambling: Johnny Moss, Titanic Thompson,Stu Ungar, Jack Straus, Nick the Greek. Nick the Greek and Johnny Moss ended up playing cheap limit in their old age because they just wanted to gamble every single day. Colorful but hardly admirable as the best gamblers.
I have often seen very young gamblers go on big winning streaks only to end up broke for various reasons. I have been there. You tell a good trapper by the furs on the wall.
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Brilliantly put! I think it's also true, though, that spectators enjoy watching all the more when they know the gamblers are being fools. People are voyeurs, and enjoy watching others risk destruction. It's a way they can enjoy the sensation of a thousand little deaths without risking it themselves.
Exhibit one: read the blog of Ed, aka Bluescouse, a 19 year old guy in Wales who lives with his parents and has several times managed to turn £1000 into £150,000 and then lose it again, because he has no game selection, no bankroll management, and no tilt control. Right now he is in the process of losing his last £70,000, one day at a time, and it is gripping reading. His poker blog is one of the most talked-about on the net. The comments pages are filled with people trying to shake him out of it - to hand the money over to someone else, to buy a house, a car, at least a holiday. But he is beyond help; he will lose all this money, and so we want to read on even more.
http://88percent.blogspot.com/
How much more exciting his blog is than that of any number of successful and controlled players. I visited CTS's blog the other day and saw his preppy life, his amazing Los Angeles flat, his fancy cars. I felt a little envy but otherwise wasn't engaged; I didn't think to visit again to see how much more he had won and how fabulous his life continues to be. But I check Bluescouse's blog every day.
Tragedies have always been more popular than comedies; the emotions they make us experience are that much greater.
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wow - didn't know that you were actually capable of semi-intelligent posts
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I've written 10,000 words in this thread; whether any of it is semi-intelligent I couldn't say:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showfl...0&fpart=all