Gambling for Money- Part 1. I gamble. A lot. Not for big stakes, not in bookies, but in online poker.

I started about two and a half years ago, with the vast sum of £35 deposited in an online poker account. Today, I have cashed out just over £3000 lifetime, and have £835 in 4 different poker accounts available for play at a moments notice. This makes me winning small fry.

Britain, is, by the way, one of the best places in the world to be a gambler. Gambling profits aren't taxed, and even better, you get free healthcare. If i were a professional, I'd want to live here.

As I sit here now, part of me is thinking that I could be playing poker. It takes an actual effort not to fire up the poker cient, launch my tracking software and start playing.

Whay does it appeal to me so? It's not because it's a game of skill, though it is over the long run. Trouble is, you don't really know how long the long run is. For example, one of the best poker players I know had a losing streak of 100,000 hands of poker. For perspective, I've played maybe 150,000 hands in my entire life.

Think about that. He's a superb player, in a far higher league to me and plays for much larger stakes, but a slight shift of the universe against him and all the advantages of his skill, knowledge, tenacity and inner calm were wiped out, not once, but again, and again and again.

No, the appeal is that you are testing your skill, your nerve and your knowledge against others. The pleasure lies in competing, and in beating others. It's not a nice game. In a single table tournament, for example, you buy a seat, sit down with nine other people and your aim is to take everything they have. All of it. Last man standing wins. When that represents some signifincant amount of money, the tension of keeping your wits about you, of trying to work out the motivations, the reasoning, the skills and the awareness of the other players is a wonderful stimulant.

When I play poker I notice two things. First, I am completely focussed on beating other players. No part of me wants to go easy on a bad player who sits down at a table with no clue about what they're doing. I don't worry if they can afford the money, I don't care if they're happy, sad or sublimely indifferent. If they're making mistakes they're giving away money and I want some of it.

Second, I see my own flaws reflected in my play. I'm easily bored, so I too often fire up two, three tables at a time, read a poker forum, read political websites, buy music or even read a book. this is a huge error. Second, I thin I can bend people to my will. When I have a good starting hand like Ace-king, raise, get called and the board brings rags, I believe by force of main will that I can drive the weak caller into folding. When they have hit their cards you never will, and this misplaced belief in your own potency and puissance is expensive.

My skills? I have a good awarenes of what's happening, I'm good at judging other players and understanding why they bet the way they do. I'm a good reader of people and styles. I'm aggressive when I should be and I take calculated risks. I can risk everything when it's needed and retreat when it's useful to preserve your forces for another time. i usually know when I'm ahead and behind and act accordingly. I'd like to think I have those same qualities in life too.

Yet there's another appeal. The victory is illicit. it's taking without working, without producing, without adding one iota to the sum of human knowledge, sensitivity, felling or creativity, it is a victory self contained and unrelated to the world outside, yet measured in the currency of the world- and that feels good. It feels good to feel like youve found a way to cheat the system, to have hundreds of dollars pushed toward you because of luck, postion, a modicum of skill and the mistakes of others. Conversely, defeat can sometimes be sweet. I hate losing at poker. The Moll (to borrow from Anthony Holden) will tell yu that when I lose repeatedly I'm shocked by the unfairness of it all, filled with self doubt- but without that possibility there would be no thril.

Let me put it another way. I currently average a winrate of 2.67 big bets per 100 hands at limit hold em. If I sat at the table and the other players offered to simply give me that much mony to no play against them, I woudn't want to take it, even though it would be a perfect deal. I want their money yes, but i want to beat them too, and that means I want to risk losing.  ¶ 7:07 AM