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Maryann Guberman has been a writer and editor with many gaming publications, including Sports Form, Card Player, Poker World, Player's Panorama and Systems and Methods. She also has written and edited numerous books on gambling.

June 10, 2006

Beyond the Pale

The next best thing to gambling and winning is gambling and losing. -- Nick Dandalos

In the opening to his book How to Win the world Series of Poker (or Not), Pat Walsh penned the above oft-used quote attributed to the man known more universally as "Nick the Greek." Old Nick probably meant those words but my guess is he would have preferred the winning part of the equation.

Dandalos came from money and lived for a while on an allowance provided by his parents. A degree in philosophy, which he is supposed to have earned, likely had as little value in the marketplace then as it does now so Dandalos turned instead to gambling as a means of earning money. The legends of Nick the Greek likely outweigh the reality of the man but it is certain, noted both from biographers and those who knew him, that he did gamble and he did gamble big.

During his first effort, Dandalos is reported to have won half a million dollars betting horses; Walsh, however, lost a measly $6.40 playing penny poker online. And despite the opening quote, he didn't write it up like a man who believed that the next best thing to gambling and winning is gambling and losing. He wrote it like a man who had just taken a sucker punch to the gut that left him totally winded.

If you've watched any poker on TV or in the casino or read about it in magazine articles, you know that the common attitude about losing isn't one of celebration. It's one of extreme disappointment, intense letdown, deep frustration, even impassioned anger at the person who beat you and at yourself for allowing the beat to happen. Because only one person can win a poker tournament, the negative emotions that follow a loss are extreme. Once that last chip disappears from in front of you, it's gone. It's not a boomerang. It won't come back. And you can't replace it with cash.

Luckily, in today's tournament-crazy environment, more people than ever are winning money. But the sting of the loss burns just as hot for some to whom a half-million dollars isn't as good as the really big cash prize, the trophy and the bragging rights.

Maybe it's a testosterone thing, a hormonal drive that as a woman I'm not privileged to understand or privy to experience but I doubt it. This madness called winning -- and sometimes at all costs -- seems too much like warfare and too little like competition.

Before the emails start, let's get one thing straight. I don't like losing. I prefer winning. However, since my life doesn't hang in the balance, I can accept the disappointment, frustration and letdown of the loss and let it go. I can take the winning by remembering to stop holding my breath and thank my opponent for a good game. And honestly, I could accept the million dollars for being the first one out at the final table of the World Series of Poker with as much pride of achievement as I would winning the $7.5 million and the trophy and the bragging rights. (I think.)

I don't think all the big honchos of poker believe they have to drive their opponents into the ground with verbal taunts, sneering looks and war whoop of victory. I also don't believe they think like Nick the Greek either. Sure they would rather play poker than deal it but I'll bet they'd rather deal it than watch it from the rail while eating the last hot dog their bankroll could buy.

Even though much of Pat Walsh's thoughts mirrored Nick's thoughts about gambling, Walsh didn't totally embody the principle. Thankfully, I say, he eventually stopped to think about his quest to win the World Series of Poker. He did it in the closing page of his book when he wrote about Steve Dannenmann, who finished second in the (2005) event Walsh wanted so badly to win, and in so writing, agreed with a positive philosophy I've preached many times over.

"He [Dannenmann] played the game like it was a pleasure ... He told himself that the only way he could lose would be if he didn't have fun ... ."

I think I read in Ted Thacker's book about the man that Nick the Greek paid women to sit by his bedside when he retired for the evening because he was afraid he might die in his sleep.

Nick lived beyond the limits of acceptable behavior, much like Stu Ungar would do a generation later, not because he gambled but because he was obsessed with gambling, driven by the need to beat the bipolarity of luck.

Maybe Nick the Greek had fun but I doubt it. What I do know is that he died playing poker for peanuts in Southern California, but he died just the same.

So try to play happy; try to have fun; try to appreciate the fact that there is life after poker, life after losing and life after winning.