Six Poker Players You've Met

What he refuses to admit is that the thrill is coupled with a strange, raw feeling. He gets no authentic pleasure from poker.

He knows the odds and approved strategic principles but does not apply them to his procedure. Overpowering hunches compel him to play long shots which come in about as seldom as the book indicates.

"I expect to pay for my fun and I can afford it," he says. "Suppose I had gone out to a decent restaurant and taken in a show tonight. I've had a better time here for less money."

Gambler does not mention the collapse of International Plutonium, in which he owns 200 shares: a speculation which has made him a customer of a loan company.

Modern psychiatry explains him: unconsciously he wants to lose.

At the poker table he presents you with no problem. You do not have to beat him. He beats himself.

WAD

Starting his business career as an operator in a dry-cleaning establishment, Wad accumulated enough money to buy out the owner. He worked long hours to pay off the mortgage. Once he was overcome by fumes from a solvent, and this is the basis of his assertion that his success was achieved at great risk.

He prospered, bought a second dry-cleaning establishment and in time became the owner of a chain. He bought an ornate house in a suburb—and an undeveloped 56-acre tract near by. He developed the tract and sold it in small parcels, adding to his fortune.

Although Wad contributes to the local hospital and youth center, the amounts are much smaller than those from residents not nearly so wealthy. "Nobody appreciates what a man in my position is up against," he whines. "Everybody always asking for financial aid. I give to more people, places and things than you can imagine."