Interesting Posts

From two sides of the gambling spectrum. First our old friend Phil made a post about switching some of his play to poker.

On racing:

I have matured as a handicapper and consider myself to be atleast as good if not better than I have been at any point in time.

Yet, as time moves along, I find myself struggling more and more just to stay afloat.

On poker:

I consider myself a mediocre poker player at best. I probably play too many hands and am probably not able to calculate pot odds quick enough to be considered good, yet I can win at that game.

Case in point, as mediocre as I am, I had a convention in Atlantic City three weeks ago. So to kill some time, I took $40 dollars in chips to the poker room to play Hold’em. Over the next three days, I turned that $40 into over $400. Yet, this week while I was off, I used my above average horse playing skills to lose almost everyday. So tonight I decided to ditch the horses and fire up online poker. It was a good decision. In the last 5 hours I have multiplied my money by six. And I’m mediocre.

I once had a friend put $40 in a poker account and he played for six months before losing it. Low rakes are a nice thing. People like winning more than losing, that is a pretty obvious fact - win more at poker, play more poker. It is not difficult to understand.

Our other old pal Allan has a nice post of stats and stuff on the other end of the spectrum. Gamblers who know they will lose yet flock to give money to the bandits at Yonkers in huge numbers.

When I was at Woodbine on Saturday, I was sitting in behind a newbie table. They won a couple of show bets. One woman said "this is way more fun than slots; you have to think here!" Exactly. People really like it when they figure something out and it goes their way. It was not a pull of a lever, or a lottery. They used their head. Now if we could just find a way to send more people home winners at the races. We might do ok.