[Pasterbator]

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Self-destructive behavior is a basic human need. It's born out of a need to advance society at a cost to any individual. A large number of small -EV bets become profitable when the utility of that one big score is able to offset the losses. It's kind of like ICM for society, except the basic result is opposite. ICM usually tells you to pass up a neutral cEV spot because those chips are worth more than half the $$ of what twice as many chips would be worth because of the payout structure. In the same vein, any individual will lose taking a risk, but often society gains more if he succeeds and that's why our behavior has evolved in such a way. If a cave-teen never feels the compultion to go exploring far away, he never finds that new fertile valley for his clan. If the clan has 8 explorers, seven of them die and one comes back. The clan finds it's new home (+EV for the society) even if it's only a marginal gain for the individual, and seven of them just got eaten by bears (way -EV overall for the individual).

I have all sorts of self-destructive impulses, just none that really do anything to my bankroll. I hate to gamble. It makes me feel really, really sick to lose $200 playing BJ, so I never do it. Dumping $150 into the $50 2+2 game actually pissed me off a little (I didn't deserve about $100 of it). I finished up Sklansky-bucks but lost on "real" bucks. Such is life. My other hobbies include some things that others might view as stupid or needlessly-dangerous, yet there's something I could never give up about them. It really pisses me off when people say "Why would you risk all the *blank* you've worked for in your life just for a little rush of *blank*?" It especially pisses me off when it's people whose opinions I value because I think they ought to know better about me.

Point is, I don't like when other people criticize the way I live, and I do well for myself. There's no need to maximize one dimension of life EV while ignoring the others. If young people donk off huge wads and learn something about money management, great. If they don't learn, they probably never will.

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Nice post Slim. I just want to thank everyone who is helping or has offered to help me after i self-destructed the other night. I understand that many of these posts weren't directed at me, per se, but they all helped me a lot.
I definitely learned a lesson, and i will never do that again. I've decided that keeping myself from playing in the 2+2 games is also stupid because i have a lot of fun at them. Its a fun atmosphere and as long as i don't throw away my bankroll, it will continue to be fun. Playing a 50NL table is much more within my (new) bankroll, so maybe i'll start one of those up sometime soon.

Also, for those that don't know (which is pretty much anyone on the forum who i don't talk to on AIM) i'm on a 2 month (600ish SNG) breakeven streak and i really appreciate all the people that have offered to help me with my troubles.

As Sharf just posted in his 1000th post thread... "This community is awesome"