This discussion started in last week’s column, originally inspired by a post my friend and co-host Frank Kneeland made on vpFREE, available a few clicks away. Frank will have his chance for rebuttal next week. In that column, I argued that losing is common at video poker today and that losing or the fear of losing causes stress.
For me, one of the synonyms of “stress-free” is “boring.” Playing penny Full Pay Deuces Wild with a good slot club (if that game existed somewhere) would be stress free for me. I have a 0.000000001% chance of going broke (I made that up, but for practical purposes, there’s no chance at all) and I can be assured of making 30¢ an hour forever and ever amen. I’d rather watch paint dry.
This is like an expert Suduku player working on easy puzzle after easy puzzle. He can finish them off, error-free, every time in less than five minutes. But so what? There’s no challenge. And without a challenge, why get out of bed in the morning?
For many players, to enjoy the gambling experience, you need to play for stakes that hurt when you lose. Not fatally hurt. Not seriously hurt. But hurt. Playing penny FPDW you could lose $30 a day. . . if things go bad. For a lot of players, this is way less than “pocket change.” Playing $1 FPDW (if such a game existed), you could lose $3,000. This is different. This is a big percentage of their bankroll for a lot of players. This is too much risk for many players.
Personally I prefer larger stakes (that 3-coin $100 FPDW game at Caesars Palace that lasted less than a week is the stuff I dream about). At some casinos I’ll play a less-than-the-highest-EV game for higher stakes. I don’t look at this as stressful. I look at this as a good use of my time.
There are other items that are related to stress. Such as health issues. Video poker causes eyestrain, back problems, second-hand smoke issues, along with obesity problems caused by “free” food. Players know they should eat less, eat smarter, and exercise more, but relatively few of us do this regularly.
Relationship problems cause a lot of stress. Before I met Shirley, I’d spend a couple of nights a week “looking.” My preferred method was to go to Country Western dance halls — where I excelled. That’s where I met Shirley — but she certainly wasn’t the first one I went out with to see if she could possibly be “the one.”
After Shirley and I hooked up, I had to spend even more time maintaining the relationship than I did looking for it in the first place. Video poker is isolating. Even if you’re sitting side by side, both of you are (or should be) concentrating on the game rather than each other. Now, when I’m a player and Shirley isn’t, keeping her happy is a time-consuming process. Not keeping her happy is highly stressful.
I suppose they have low-stress meaningful relationships, but I’ve never had one. Or known anybody well who had one. (A lot of folks I don’t know very well seem to have this, but I suspect if I knew them better I’d discover things aren’t this way.) But if something happened that Shirley and I weren’t together any more (I’m neither expecting nor planning for this), I’d probably go searching in order to get into another relationship, and would work hard to make that one work.
One can argue that your relationship isn’t part of your gambling career and hence shouldn’t be counted as a stressful part of that career. In my opinion, I don’t know how to segment my life into compartments. Relationships and health are part of my overall life — which is primarily devoted to various aspects of video poker. When someone’s love life is out of balance, it’s very difficult to keep everything else in balance.
Finally, each of us has a level of stress that’s comfortable. If you took gambling, writing, teaching, hosting a radio show, keeping Shirley happy, square dancing, going to the gym, etc., out of my life, I’d look around and find other things to fill up my time. Decompressing might be nice for a few days or a week, but then I want to get back to living — and dealing with stress.
In thirty or more years down the road when I’m in a nursing home and all I have to do is watch television and try to remember who those people are who visit me from time to time — that’s probably as stress-free as possible. And whenever I’ve visited such places, the people seemed very unhappy. Why would I long for an existence that makes everybody unhappy? I hope to put off that stress-free existence for as long as possible.
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