Originally Posted by
Don Perignom
Recapping. To win at gambling, you have to quit when ahead.
But to win at a professional level, you have to not care.
For 40 years, I've argued that not being a capitalist can be an enormous advantage gambling even though most people perceive gambling as pure capitalism. I recommend dipping into much of the personality research that's been done and the established ideas of stress/performance curves and how they relate to everyday performance.
H.J. Eysenck is a good starting point; then research some of the stress/performance studies from the 70's and 80's. Even something as seemingly innocuous as caffeine can have significant effects. It all ties together with successful gambling (or any stress-inducing activity) being aided by physical training (to create a consistent baseline physiology that's less affected by stress) and a healthy disrespect for coin of the realm in all of its forms.
After my "Scientists, Gamblers, and Magicians" essay was published in The Humanist, I was contacted by a literary agent (Allen and Yarnow) about doing a self-help book from a "gamblers' perspective." My sample chapters covered quite a bit of this. Personality theories are a bit out of fashion these days, partly because there are few easy answers and manipulating people based on personality criteria has been overtaken by more obvious, direct means of behavior manipulation. But the studies were and are valid.
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