The reason I was so good at losing was that I did so much of it. I never knew when to quit. I thought you just kept playing until the lites went out and the sun came up or they locked the doors to the establishment and sent us home. But by that time, I was already hitching up my pants and pulling on a jacket, because I had already lost my shirt.
One nite playing poker in some discreet out of the way motel room in downtown Las Vegas, a guy who was making a habit out of whacking me on a nightly basis in our 7 card stud poker game, looked at me and asked the question: "Don't you ever quit?" His name was Pete and he was at every game and usually went home with the other players money.
This was back in the mid sixties and I was looking to get my feet wet in the casinos in the desert. Pete rarely, if ever, spoke and when he did, people tended to listen. I had been playing in this particular game for about 3-4 months but never really got to know the people in the game, although we were all regulars.
During the day I would see these guys at the Blackjack tables and craps tables and the local sports books, making their wagers. I guess we would be called professional gamblers, ekeing out our living at the tables and then getting together at nite to see who went home to their motel room, or who got to pre pay a week at one of the classy hotels, such as Riviera, Sahara or Desert Inn.
Anyhow, old Pete, who had to be in his seventies at the time offered to buy me breakfast. I wasn't in a talking mood but when all you have left in your pants is your lucky (?) two headed coin, a handful of quarters and a couple of stamps, to use when writing home for money, you grab at the chance for a free meal.
While we were eating, he again brought up the subject of "Don't you ever quit?" He was talking about the fact that I would never know when to leave a table, choosing to keep banging away, until the winning streak ended or I ran out of money. He told me about the 40 years he had been living this style life and his secret was the fact that he had two keys that he followed:
1) ACCEPT SMALL WINS
2) SET LOSS LIMITS
He emphasized the fact that you MUST set an amount of money you will lose, before wrapping it up for that Session or for the whole day. He showed me a Bankroll that made me drool more than the breakfast I was glombing down, and explained that even though he had plenty of cash to fall back on, he had pre set a limit on how much he would donate, before packing it in.
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