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Terrence wrote in his last entry: "If you never get your chips in with the worst hand, you're not playing correctly." I've loved poker since the moment I played because it reflects life in so many ways. I can honestly say that poker has made me better able to handle my emotions and deal with the bad beats in life more effectively. A recent revelation I've had is that poker _is_ gambling. There is no longer any doubt in my mind about it. If you focus in on the micro-strategy in poker, you can always justify out the gambling portion (and this is true). However, when you examine the meta-game, it essentially is gambling.

Everytime you play poker, you are essentially flipping a coin to win money or lose money. The strategy in poker, however, is to maximize the chances of that flip coming up in your favor: It's been referred to as the Bill Chen 6-5 coin flip theory. In the short run, you may seem like you are losing or winning a lot of money, but even the most seasoned pros are grinding out a win. The difference being, of course, when you grind out a 6-5 (or a 7-5) odds at $500/$1000 games ... that quickly adds up to a lot. Just keeping playing your winning strategies bit by bit and one day you'll realize the gains you've made. One of the huge misconceptions I had in poker was that if I was good, "I'd win a lot of money fast." Not true. All pros have to put in hours and hours every day to grind out their living; they build their bankroll up for months and then they make the smart move climb up the ladder of blinds.

Here, Bill Chen says it better:

"When we sit down at a table, every hour we're essentially doing a coin toss for a rack of chips. Now if you're a skilled player you may have an overlay of half a stack (assuming 100 chips in a rack and 20 in a stack). So if you're a skilled $3-6 player, it's like flipping a coin and getting $120 if you win and losing $100 if you lose or if you're a 15-30 player it's $600 if you win, $500 if you lose. Now this is a pretty huge edge when compared to blackjack on a per-hand basis but we shouldn't be too surprised at all if we get on a bad streak and lose $3000. How easy is it to flip tails 6 times a row? It's bound to happen if you flip coins all the time -- now 10 or 15 in a row is a little unlucky but nothing too phenomenal."

The caveat that I'm not going to get into here is that no-limit is a slightly different game, but in general I feel this rule still applies.

How does this apply to life? I honestly feel that most days I wake up, I have a 40-60 shot of having a good day; I think it's the standard way of living in America to have (by default) a bad day. Think about it. If you are a creature of habit (as most of us are), then the only things that can happen is disruption of your schedule, and that is usually bad. Everytime you get into your car, you expect to get somewhere ... and the only thing that could happen is you get into a car accident. You surely aren't going to get laid or make a million bucks driving to your grocery store.

What matters to me is maximizing your chance of having a good day, or letting the bad days not bother you. So many days have been wasted when I wake up and find a crappy e-mail in my Inbox; my mood is wasted and I just feel unproductive. Poker, with its endless bad beats has taught me that life is all about percentages. You take the beats as you come, and eventually you'll get a win. In the end, I'm just looking to have been on top...

Tying this back into Terrence's quote ... you have to be afraid to take risks sometimes. You cannot make your 6-5 by living a constant lifestyle of no change and "safe habits." If you do, eventually statistics will catch up to you and something bad will happen ... and can you deal with it then? Probably not. The people I've met who are best at handling adversity are those who have been surrounded by it for the longest time (unless they've caved into the pressure). Sometimes you just got to gamble with the worst hands and hope you can get it done.

I'm sure this is all pretty common sense to you guys, and I'm honestly not sure why I'm writing it. I just feel like it needed to be said.