Life's a Gamble

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With a gamble there tend to be too many variables to complicate the picture down the road if things go on. Life decisions are not so clear-cut, so if you are in a tedious job, you can't get up and "walk away from the table.

Michael Richard Sexton (September 22, 1947–September 6, 2020) was an American professional poker player and commentator. Western sensibility misses many abstract symbols and references, but its "message" is universal: the gap between the haves and have nots. The people resisting taking the COVID-19 vaccine are gambling with their lives and infecting others, but if you asked them to play poker, they might say, "I don't gamble. A retrospective risk analysis by the Space Shuttle Safety and Mission Assurance Office found that the first nine shuttle flights had a 1 in 9 chance of catastrophic failure. If I lose today, I can look forward to winning tomorrow, and if win today, I can expect to lose tomorrow.When the perceived value (an individual difference based on station in life) exceeds gambling losses by definition, you are a "problem gambler" defined by the DSM-V. Most gods throw dice, but Fate plays chess, and you don’t find out til too late that he’s been playing with two queens all along. Another way to think about gambling is to take a risky action, a "bet on the future" in the hope of a desired result. Or if you enter the military, you risk injury or losing your life, trivial compared to a monetary loss playing a slot machine online or at a casino. Finally, if you begin employment after high school, you learn life is hard––low paying tedious work––and in hindsight, you should have taken high school more seriously.

True luck consists not in holding the best of the cards at the table; luckiest is he who knows just when to rise and go home. Prior to magic he was musician who was touring as a keyboard player from the time he was 17, opening for everyone from the Rolling Stones to BB King. Plus, having taught game theory, I know how game theory determines the outcomes based on probability, statistics, and money management.

Lifelong pain, an unwanted pregnancy, and even death may be the reward for such a brief window of pleasure.

On the World Poker Tour (WPT), Sexton had seventeen career cashes in WPT tournaments, including four final tables.

This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www. To be fair, gambling provides spice to life, but it is easy to become addicted after a significant win or loss. Even as I approach the gambling hall, as soon as I hear, two rooms away, the jingle of money poured out on the table, I almost go into convulsions. Both cases involve an action with only a chance of success, a chance that is heightened by acting with boldness.

The stakes of life or death are higher than a full house in poker, but these dissonance thoughts fail to mentally compete.

It’s hard to walk away from a winning streak, even harder to leave the table when you’re on a losing one. Gambling is a sickness, a disease, and addiction, an insanity, and is always a loser in the long run. To view the purposes they believe they have legitimate interest for, or to object to this data processing use the vendor list link below. Sexton finished 10th in a preliminary event at the 2005 World Series of Poker and also in the final 16 of Poker Superstars II.