Even if your favorite hand is pocket fours, you don't call if your opponent makes a huge raise, preflop.
You fold. It's the smart thing to do. The payout might be great but it's the chances that should be dictating your decision. Too often, in risk vs reward analyses, we allow the latter to cloud our judgement and obscure our understanding of the true costs involved.
That being said, it wasn't easy to make the decision, nor was it easy to reconcile. During the entire drive home, curiosity gnawed persistently until I started picturing alternate outcomes. I wanted to play that hand! If only to see how it would have ended, or even how it started. It could have gone my way.
But in a way, I knew how it would end. I would step forward cautiously, get some false hope from those initial cards. Bets would be placed, I would be drawn in. Ultimately, I'd reach a point of no return and commit to the ending. And when the cards fall, I would lose. I knew how it would end.
I knew how it would end, ~80% of the time. I will never know what would actually have happened.
I don't need to know anymore. No longer will I charge in pursuit of pipedreams.
Love how you describe something without actually saying what that something is. I'm guessing its about a girl.
ReplyDeleteSometimes you just have to play the hand even though "reason" tells you not to. Playing it safe will only get you so far. Life is boring if you stay in your comfort zone all the time.
Folding and losing a hand are the same thing.
If you fold, you can play again immediately. If you go in and lose, you've not only lost the money, but the time that you put into that hand.
ReplyDeleteIf you fold, you lose your "buy-in" to see the cards. Folding is losing.
ReplyDelete"Don't you want to take a leap of faith? Or become an old man, filled with regret, waiting to die alone!" -Saito, Inception.