But the Patient Died

You’ve heard the expression, “The operation was a success but the patient died.” What does it mean?

For many people, the “but the patient died” is the definitive part of that expression. Somebody dying means that there was a failure in the process.

For me, “the operation was a success” is the definitive part of the expression. You did everything right based on the information you had at the time. It didn’t work this time, but that’s not really relevant. There’s nothing more that could have been done.

There is often a “if we only knew that blah, blah, blah, then we could have done things differently.” Maybe. But you didn’t know. And reconstructing history based on “if we only knew” is not a useful exercise.

If we’re talking about an actual death, and the death is somebody close to me (i.e. wife, brother, friend, etc.), then I might not be so dispassionate about the dying not being relevant. Although intellectually I know that we all are going to die some day, when somebody close to me dies my life is changed irreparably. When somebody dies, they don’t come back alive again — miracles aside.

Let’s switch the argument to gambling. All good video poker players have many times had the experience that the game, slot club, and promotion made it a great play to play today. They did everything right. And they lost a lot of money. Whether that means $100; $1,000; $10,000; or more depends on the stakes you play.

This is a perfect example of “the operation was a success but the patient died.” We did everything correctly but on this particular game the cards didn’t fall our way. It has happened to all of us. Many times.

Regular readers of my column know that I tend to take the view of “it’s no big deal.” Swings happen. If you keep playing correctly when you have the advantage, eventually you will come out ahead.

I’m assuming, of course, that however much you lost this particular day is a small fraction of your bankroll. If you lost your entire bankroll — or a significant part of it — then obviously you’re going to feel this is pretty damn important. In fact, you’re going to feel like this is a disaster.

Losing your entire bankroll is quite a bit different than actually dying. Many gamblers have periodically been broke. (It happened to me in 1980. I had to, horrors!, go out and get a job. It was awful!) But being broke today doesn’t mean that you are broke forever and ever. It is possible to financially come back.

When I say that losing today is no big deal, some people dismiss that as, “Well, you’re rich. If you didn’t have so much money you wouldn’t feel that way.” Maybe. If you’re not close to “dying” financially, you’re not so worried about it as if you are. But a lot of this is like saying, “You have such a big family, losing only one relative isn’t such a big deal.” And that, of course, is rubbish. The pain of losing a relative isn’t about how many you have. It’s about how much you care about these people.

The same is true with money. The pain of losing money isn’t primarily about how much you have. It’s about how much you love to hold on to money. And it’s how much you feel the need to compare your current wealth with your wealth in the recent past.

If someone has $50,000 in savings, it’s easy to them to believe that if they had $53,000 life would be a lot better but if they only had $47,000 life would suck. For somebody with $30,000 in savings, it’s hard for them to relate to how life with only $47,000 would suck.

For most of us, daily swings do not change the quality of our life — unless the swings are seriously trending downward. There are a lot of people with poor gambling skills who end up losing everything. This is sad. This is tragic. But these are not the people I’m talking to in this column.

If you have sufficient gambling skills, and most of my readers either have or can develop such skills, then your gambling bankroll will be trending upward. For these people, the swings do not matter.