Gambler's Guide to the World: The Insider Scoop from a Professional Player on Finding the Action, Beating the Odds and Living It up around the Globe

Sometimes, the most profitable thing you could ever do is to lose a little bit. You'll never realize it at the time. At the time, all you want to do is to get even. You just want to get even and you don't care how long or how much money it takes you and you're just glued to your seat as the hours fly by, but later on, and trust me, later on, you'll realize that the most profitable thing you could ever do is to lose a little bit. Life ain't about always going forward, it's hills and valleys, and sometimes chasms. Addiction. I call it passion, loosely. Without passion, you're a dead fish. With passion, you have to deal with addiction. It's a paradox, because what you love kills you. We, the lovers of life, are the passionate addicts of all things, whether they be romance or sports, gambling or drugs, eating or drinking. What you love to do can kill you. Those are the demons of passion. Gambling is a more dangerous passion than most. It can wipe you out, tear your heart away, and make you grovel. It can get you high, lift you up, and bring you cash, the god of material pleasures. How does a person deal with this, with the danger, with the demons? You have to be strong. First, you must study your opponent. Know what battlefields you can attack him on, where his weaknesses are. Know your own weaknesses. Be aware of where your opponent will attack you, when he will come calling with his lights and bells and shiny promises. Playing the game is to be on the edge, but the better you know that edge, the more secure it becomes. And then sometimes there is no foothold at all. Sometimes there is no foothold at all, you can't rest no matter which way you turn and the rock is crumbling away at your feet and every step is a landslide, a landslide. Then you must get out. You must just get out. Because down there is a pit of no return. Addiction? It's tough out there. A common mistake of most gamblers is that they figure that just because the odds are slightly in their favor, there's no way they can lose. Brother, I've lost more money with the odds slightly in my favor than any reasonable person has the sense to admit. Don't worry, I've also lost plenty of money with the odds against me, but that's not the issue here. What I'm trying to say is that when the odds are in your favor or when the odds against you are greatly reduced, that's all it is. Nothing more than that, and as to what the outcome of any individual wager will be, only fate can say. Those odds only mean something when they get pounded over the course of a thousand or a million or ten million bets, and what I'm trying to say is that there is no substitute for bankroll, no substitute at all for having the cash to withstand the losses. And that's why most players get ground into the Nevada dust. And I just keep trying to tell myself the same thing, over and over. Cards have no memory, the cards have no memory. Yeah, my ass they got no memory. On my right is a deaf mute. Hell, I didn't know he was a deaf mute, I just thought he was crazy, he's over there waving his arms and speaking tongues at me every goddamn hand giving me the hand signals when he doesn't like my decisions, which is just about every hand. And he's jumping up and down out of his seat and waving his arms at me like a windmill, and I move all the way over to the other side of the table 'cause I figure he's off his goddamn rocker, and believe me, even for a deaf mute he's a little goddamn weird and he's drinking beers to boot and for a guy who can't talk he's making so much noise and doing so much waving and pointing that I got a goddamn earsplitting headache and meanwhile I'm trying to keep track of the count, the cards spitting out of the shoe by some hotshot dealer who's trying to show off by how fast he can deal, and I tell you I'm losing it. Meanwhile, over on my left is a voodoo Chinese fellow betting either $50 or $100 each hand who looks like he's ready to punch me becaMay, Jesse is the author of 'Gambler's Guide to the World: The Insider Scoop from a Professional Player on Finding the Action, Beating the Odds and Living It up around the Globe' with ISBN 9780767905527 and ISBN 0767905520.