Principles are the same. Some aspire to excellence, and others to mediocrity. Success is a mind set, as is mediocrity, as is the sorrowful journey to failure.Originally Posted by ZeeBabar
Regardless of the endeavour, some pay heed to their dreams, others do not, others excel at being one of the boys, so to speak, happy as long as they have their beer money. Others simply have different motives for what they do. Whatever the endeavour, your mindset on the matter is a recipe for failure.
This whole discussion reminds me of a smart intelligent friend in college back in 1969. He was a heck of a lot smarter than me, at 18 he played both, the Piano and the Guitar. He was a pre-med major with his parents supporting him but he opted to change his major to Music, got encouraged into playing in a band after sitting in on one at a bar gig in a small college town. He dropped out to pursue music as a career. I lost track of him. About 10 years later I ran into him playing at a small bar in a small town in Illinois. There were maybe 10 people, smoking and drinking, no one paying attention. He said he hated playing there, playing top 40 pop songs (he was into more jazz fusion stuff) but it paid some of his bills. Another 12 years later and he was behind a small bar in the same college town, occasionally playing when no local young band was available for college crowd. Regretting that he did not make a better career choice..ended up ring a bartender.
Musc seemed more attractive and what should have been a recreational activity, he tried to make it a career. Same thing with BJ.
Everyone is different. I believe in living life to its fullest because you never know what day will be your last. I have engaged in all kinds of careers some to pay the bills while I did all the activities that gave me pleasure and others because I enjoyed them. I never had much but never wanted for anything. I have no regrets and earn more now as an AP than I ever did at other jobs. Sure I could have devoted my life to making someone else rich and made a lot more money but then I wouldn't have been able to enjoy my life doing all the crazy stuff I did. I appreciated everything I had a lot more and didn't live the life of excess. They train all the gullible people to be always wanting more. A bigger more expensive house, a faster more expensive car, fancier toys etc. Most people don't understand what living a successful life is. To them life is about showing up the Jones's and material possessions. They think they have all these friends but if they were to lose everything there would be nobody standing by them. Life is about friends, family and enjoying each day like it were your last. One day it will be. You don't know which day that will be. I was once asked if I regret any of my life choices by someone that took the other road. I said if I knew then what I know now I would have made some different decisions because we have all colossally screwed up from time to time but I have no regrets because I like who I am. I am very happy in my own skin. And while the journey to get to this point may have had its troubles I would not be the person I am without them. Usually the biggest personal growth you have is from troubling times. If you could go back and avoid all of them you may not like who you would have become.
It's great when your passions and talents are congruent. For most of us however, life is a system of tradeoffs. When I first entered the workforce, the highest paying career path is what I thought I wanted -- I really just wanted the money and status, but didn't have the passion. I stayed with the same company for over 40 years eventually finding my niche. The work wasn't exactly my passion, but allowed me to work independently most of the time, which I valued highly, and provided a very comfortable but not a lavish lifestyle.
After retiring, AP allowed me to make almost as much income as my day job "working" only 2-3 days a week. I enjoy the independence and challenge of doing something where few are successful. I've always had a passion for beating "the system", doing it "my way". (love that Sinatra song)
Regarding Z's example, I am glad his friend did not become a doctor without the passion for the profession; everyone is better off. Some of the most miserable people are those whose parents or peers chose their profession or career path.
Regarding your Sinatra comment, my father was likely the most stubborn hardheaded guy you could ever meet, with chutzpah and good values up the ying yang when it came to ethics and family. In many ways, I am my fathers son. At his funeral, I quoted that exact line - he did it his way.
Regarding your comment of having passion for beating the system, where few are successful - not only does that describe me, but I would think a number if people on this and similar forums.
I too dislike acquiring new things. It's one more thing taking up space in my house. One more thing to pack when I move. No thanks. I tend to not like flashy, expensive things either. My coworkers wear designer clothes, have coach purse collections, and drive fancy new cars. I'm over here in some stuff I found on clearance, lol.
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Where to begin.
From age 18-21, I played at a 18+ casino recreationally after picking up a book by Stanford Wong. I memorized the indices and had a few thousand dollars in my bank account.
I memorized the indices to the tee. My discipline was however ridiculously bad. I had all these traits:
I can never leave a loser.
If I am stuck, I'd play 10-20+ hours.
I'd have to be at my peak.
There was probably a 10-20% chance I'd get the "get even or go broke" mentality.
Every time I lost what I brought with me, I'd sink into depression the next day after realizing it wasn't necessary. Every new session I'd remind myself of the times I went busto and promised to not turn on my degenerate mode. Time after time, history would repeat itself.
After turning 22 (right after college), I decided to give AP BJ a serious shot. Internet poker just became banned and I actually made some money from that despite my innate degenerate tendencies. I think the game was so soft back then that I was still +ev even with the degenerate overlay.
I knew very well myself that a demon lies inside, but I really enjoyed BJ too. I decided to allocate just 10k to the game, play 1/2 kelly, and go from there. I picked up all the recommended books on bj (BJA3, Blackbelt in blackjack, wongs stuff, etc) and read/re-read them despite not understanding a lot of the content, read all these bj forums (synder, wongs, norms), subscribed to all these newletters/articles, got CVCX, learned more about stats and probability, look over the ev changes from play deviations, picked up a stronger count system, side count pitch games, tried to improve PE in pitch games (i'm not great at math, so a lot of intuiting such as 14 vs. 10 where a ton of 7s are removed) where BS and card counting don't seem to help, etc.
For the first few months I did well. No major degenerate tendencies relapsed. I also didn't mind leaving down. Having more options instead of one store helped tremendously. 10k became 20k. 20k became 40k. It was then I also started playing about 1/4 kelly since the money became more significant to me and I didn't felt comfortable betting black chips. Then disaster started. The downswings started to come in clumps and I was getting barred left and right. I began to play 1/2 kelly, sometimes full kelly, sometimes even 1.xx kelly.
6 months down the road, I decided to quit with the 17k bankroll. I stopped cold turkey for a while.
I look back at this AP BJ attempt today and I'm not sure if I'd consider it a failure or success. I made 7k after expenses, made a lot of self-discoveries, improved my gambling IQ, and realized my discipline is still horrible. I probably should have never attempted AP gambling with my personality traits in the first place. However today, I do legitimately feel like my discipline is magnitudes stronger and my impulsive and compulsive nature is more confined/controlled (but still there).
I play poker now and consider it a success. For me, it is significantly better than bj (ev to stdev ratio is significantly better). I can never be in a spot where I'd lose my whole session bankroll in a few hands.
I didn't touch bj for a long while after the whole AP Bj attempt. Today, I play bj recreationally (red/green level) and only see it as a hobby. I'm not as sharp as I was and a lot of the indices I once knew are now fuzzy. I rely more on i18. The "get even" mentality still lingers sometimes, but the "go even or broke mentality" is significantly suppressed. Leaving a loser was really tough for me (even a few years ago), but now it doesn't have that psychological hook anymore. I don't like losing and will focus my energy on getting back to "even". However if I get tired or frustrated, I shrug it off and just leave.
I have to admit there's been ~6 instances where I had the compulsive "get even or go broke" mentality while within a gambling environment (fortunately all 6 wouldn't dent me as hard as with my earlier years). 6 in just 4 years is a hellavulot better than having it occur 10-20% of the time, but it is still 6 too many. Out of those 6, I've also caught myself in 3 of the instances and decided to leave instead of chase. I'd reason myself that actually getting even is the worst thing that can happen. I'd also reason that going broke is more painful than the happiness gained from getting even. It is only these recent years where the logical thinking overcomes my impulsive nature. It feels a lot better waking up the next morning knowing I didn't unnecessarily throw away money. It's also reassuring that I'm playing a +ev game and it's just one long ride. It also helps to be significantly better bankrolled where I don't wake up the next morning extremely upset about the money I've lost.
I'm still very afraid the demon inside will come back out and do major damage one day (given a set of unlikely conditions). I still don't think I'm 100% there with my discipline (not even close). I imagine if I was under more stress, placed in an AP game with higher stdev and lower EV, have a bigger session bankroll, get very very very unlucky, etc, all it takes is one blow up to ruin it all. I don't think it is likely to happen since I would never be put in a spot, but that is not a risk I should ever take. It should happen 0% of the time. It is still something I'm slowly working on 7+ years down the line. I think some people would learn their lesson after 1 or 2 or 10 blowups. I'm a slow learner and perhaps handicapped in that sense. Maybe gambling isn't for me, but I love it too much!
Last edited by FishBear; 02-07-2017 at 12:57 AM.
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