Enough is not Enough
Poker Strategy
One night when I was camping, I was sitting by the fire -- a fire that was in no jeopardy whatsoever of being underfed -- when it occurred to me that my relationship to firewood while camping is the same as my relationship to money while playing poker. I severely and drastically do not want to run out of either one.And it turns out there is a scientific theoretical mathematical relationship at play as well. To camp, all I need is time and wood. To play poker, all I need is time and money. Do the algebra and you end up with wood equals money.
Before I carry this analogy too far, let me describe the landscape.
The place I camp is Butano State Park. It is a redwood forest. Did I mention that it's a redwood forest? That it comes with daytime darkness and extra silence? And did I mention that there's not much for ants and bees and flies and mosquitoes to do at human level, so there aren't any? And that the dominant representative of the animal kingdom is the banana slug? And that when you walk in the forest, on the duff carpet, you are not really walking next to the trees, you are walking through them, because really, the ground itself is just more and more redwood stuff, and the whole forest is like one really big tree?
Butano is five miles in from the Pacific and 1600 feet above it. Along this stretch of ocean there are State-managed beaches, which are basically deltas. You can see geological time here. You see a beach, and behind that, sand dunes, and behind that, huge ancient sand dunes that have become sandstone mountains with soil and plants and your occasional redwood forest on top. You can see the rivers come down from the mountains and go right through or under the beaches they make.
During the big winds and waves of winter, thousands of trees that were living on the edge are uprooted, and they fall into the ocean, where they are dismantled and sanded and baked. The ocean then transports the driftwood to my beaches and deposits it on high ground where it waits for me to come along and select the very finest, for the fire. There are no signs on the beach that say, "no wood gathering." But I asked a ranger anyway, to be sure. "Take all you want!" she said.
It's a labor I love, walking hundreds of yards in the soft sand, rummaging through sprawling lodes of logs of every kind and size, and walking with the chosen ones, back to the car. I place the bounty in the trunk and in the back seat, just so, to make room for more.
Back at the campsite, me and my saw do five minutes here, ten minutes there, and suddenly, hours later, there is a heaping array of wood for all occasions. The fire is started in the large, metal, cylindrical fire pit.
The pile of wood depletes, but it is never depleted. At noontime on departure day, everything I brought to the campsite is in my car except for one thing: a stack of leftover logs, with kindling on the side.
You could say I've gone too far with this. You could say I'm too worried about running out of firewood. And you'd be wrong. I'm not the slightest bit worried.
The campers among you might be wondering…
But don't they sell firewood at the campsite?
Yes, in toy-sized bags, to the plebeians.
But isn't the forest by definition full of wood? Can't you just go pick up nearby old dead logs and burn them in your happy little fire pit?
Uh, no. You don't go into a redwood forest and burn the plants, even the dead ones. They do officially tell you this, but they don't have to -- you just know. If I may continue now…
What does it mean, really, to have enough of something? Does it mean having barely enough? Does it mean having more than enough? Or does it mean having way more than enough? With things like meat and milk, I like to have barely enough. With things like olive oil, soap, and candles, it's no big deal if I run out, and I only have so much room in my supply bins, so what I like to have is more than enough, but not that much more.
But firewood? Enough is not enough for me, no matter how much enough actually is. Let's say I arrive at the campsite at noon on day one with 100 logs, intending to go to the ocean at noon the next day to reload. Noon the next day comes around, and I burn the very last of the logs just before heading to the ocean. If we look back at the previous 24 hours to evaluate my wood-management skills, we see that I did not run out of logs, which is good, but, does that mean I had brought "enough?"
NO! The problem with the 100-log pile is I'd know from looking at it that if it was enough, it was barely enough, and I'd be in constant panic for 24 hours. 100 logs, as it turned out in this example, would be enough to keep the fire from going out, but not enough to keep me from going off.
So we know that the right answer is more than 100 logs. But how much more? The answer is however many logs it takes so that whenever I look at the wood pile, the only thought that comes to mind is, "I have way more wood than I could possibly need."
Why do I obsess about not running out of wood at the campsite? I think it started with obsessing about not running out of money during a poker game. How did I get to be obsessed about not running out of money during a poker game? By playing thousands of hours of poker like this:
I'd run short on money and I'd sit there and play under a cloud of dread. The less money I had on me, the thicker the cloud. Let's say I was playing $20-40 limit holdem and I started with $1000 on the table and $1000 in my pocket. That's blue skies above, with scattered clouds on the horizon. Then I'd run flat for a couple hours, and the clouds would drift a little closer. Then I'd run bad for an hour, and the clouds would block the sun. Then I'd start playing bad, and not long after that I'd have let's say $0 in my pocket and $600 on the table. Huge thunderhead directly overhead. Then I'd win a nice pot and now I'd have $1000. The clouds would break up and some hazy light would shine through. Then I'd lose some, and win some, and lose some, and win some, and the cloud of dread would not go away until I did.
Sometimes I'd walk away with money, and other times I'd get sanded down to a nub and wait for a pair or an ace to go broke with. Then I'd go broke, and the dread of going broke would end, and I'd enjoy a twisted sort of relief, but not for long, because every time the dread of going broke ended by going broke, other pains would move in. The shame, and the self loathing, and the pain of being yanked away during mid-addiction, and the pain of the reality that the scoring is definitely over and I definitely lost.
I know the causes of those pains. Whenever I have pride, I will suffer shame. Whenever I am an addict, I will suffer withdrawal. Whenever I play poker, I will suffer loss. Those causes of pain do not come with dollar signs; they cannot be eliminated by adding money. But the dread of running short is all about dollars; it grows and shrinks based on nothing but cash.
So I had a little chat with the pain merchant.
Hello, Mr. Merchant. I am going to play poker and I would like to buy some pain relief. How much will it cost me to not have to worry about running out of money today?
What are you going to play?
$20-40 limit hold'em.
How much do you usually take?
About $2000.
What's the most you have ever lost at that limit?
Ever?
Yes, ever.
I won't allow myself to hold on to that kind of data.
Take a guess.
I'd say $2500. But it took a really long time.
Okay then. By your own history, if you sat down to play with $2500 in your pocket, you should enjoy total peace of mind about not running out of money. Does that number feel right to you?
No.
What's wrong with it?
It's too small.
Why?
I think it's because when it comes to quitting, I always want to quit because I want to, and I never want to quit because I have to.
Good one! Now we're getting somewhere! Tell you what. Try taking five thousand with you today and see if that doesn't make your dreaded dread go away.
I like it. So basically what you're telling me is, more money equals less pain.
And there you have it.
Wow.
Yeah.
I do believe this will work. So, what do you I owe you for the pain relief?
Just pay me what you think is fair.
Well, that seems fair!
There is one condition though.
What's that?
It has to hurt.
