I'm in the middle of a s***ty year, continuing my barely-positive AP career, and I thought I was handling it pretty well: "Results don't approach EV until many multples of N0, yadda yadda yadda ..." and all the other mantras that run through my head like so much elevator music at the AP Hilton. Every big win followed by a loss of equal magnitude: "No problem - this short-term stuff is meaningless."

Then, one fine afternoon, in a good mood, I Wonged in to a rich shoe. Dumped bet after bet as the count tanked. I played no more than 8 hands before moving on, having suffered an abrupt but modest loss, something which, in the course of a long positive shoe would have been nothing more than a fluctuation.

I was despondent. Just wanted to puke. Didn't recover until the next morning.

The psychological challenges can erupt suddenly and disproportionately. I can't imagine what feelings might hatch out during a losing period of several hundred hours.