"...he is unbeatable today..."

"...he is unbeatable today..."

...typed one of the cousins. 

The first lockdown was hard for everyone. People took to all kinds of online engagement like playing housie/bingo & poker in the evenings.

It was on one such evening where I was playing online with cousins. The Poker Gods seemed to favor me that evening. I kept getting good cards & even on riskier calls/bets, the lady luck seemed to have my back. After about an hour, I was up 3x. "Looks like I should just play every hand. Given my luck today, even bad cards may end up winners" I thought, as the goal of moving from 3x to 4x was dancing in my mind. 

Eventually, I started playing loose. Started making a lot of hero calls, riskier bets. I knew it was my day, so if I continue taking risks I will end up higher. One of the cousins playing with us is a very good player. He saw my pattern of play & started trapping me by feigning poor hands. In no time, my stack went from 3x to 2x. The target of 4x was mocking at me. I had to take a few more risks to move to 4x. Eventually, in the next 30 min I ended up going below my buy-in due to the risky plays. 2x became 0.5x. I was now at a loss with half a buy-in lost. The cousin was now up significantly & ended the evening with the highest stack while I ended up with a loss. 

The cousin said something to me later. He said "Remember one thing. Take risks when your stack is small, but once you are ahead, cut down on the risks. Preserve your stack & work towards increasing it with minimal risks, otherwise you will always risk throwing away what you have built."

This advice hit deep & stayed with me. I could connect it to so many aspects of life. Be it habits, passion, wealth creation, recreational activities, sports or any other aspect of life. Moving from level 1 to level 3 is great. But when we get too greedy & try to move from 3 to 4, 5, 6 & beyond by taking too many unconventional risks, we risk losing what we have achieved till that point. A 3 can easily go back to 2, 1 or even 0. Moving from 2 to 4 is seen as 100% profit, whereas moving from 4 to 2 is seen as only 50% loss, whereas the fact is that we lost 100% of what we had gained from the starting point. 

The reason I penned this down is that about a month back I heard about the passing of a person in my locality. He drove a high end car, had a bigh house. Seemed financially well set, but often worked for 14-15 hours a day. Could be very passionate about his work or perhaps wanted to accumulate more for his retirement/family. However, his passion/goals perhapsgot the better of his wellbeing. The untimely event brought it all down to zero.

So often we run behind things, taking unnecessary risks, while risking our physical, mental & financial health. Take a pause & think if the risk is needed. And if it is, at what cost? What are we ready to put at stake to take the stack to the next level? Should we take calculated risks on AA or reckless risks on 72 (considered as the weakest hand in poker)?