Quote Originally Posted by BCR View Post
When we hear a story about Druff on the phone with customer service for an hour arguing for a $50 credit, or the countless other things similar, it is kind of is baffling to most of us and seems a waste of time.

But given he made the majority of his $ in limit poker, which is game of saved bets and extracting an extra bet, his Jewishness or whatever you want to call it, is the trait that has allowed him to stay solvent.

Whether it’s maximizing casino rewards or finding the best value credit card deals, it kind of all goes together.

Obviously he’s skilled, but many are skilled at the game. He’s just incredibly disciplined in regard to money. He also has the temperament for it.

I’ve lost a few thousand on a bad beat in poker, headed to the pits, and lost $25k still irritated at some small bad beat. He’d be irritated at the bad beat, but I don’t think he tilts off money at some -ev pursuit because he’s tilted. He’s just not built that way.

Deleware always called him the perfect poker player. I always agreed with him about that, because money mgmt and temperament is really absolutely the main thing if you want to survive decades of swings. Druff hates wasting a single $. It’s easy to make fun of when it’s being a millionaire clipping coupons, but it’s why he has never been out of play.

Unique skillset to have for him. The only similar people I’ve known like he is came from very poor backgrounds.

I’m glad to hear him say he’s going to embark on a wellness regimen now that he isn’t a kid. As much as that stuff makes you a great poker player, the way he is wired, can also be stressful and unhealthy.
I'm a big believer in the concept of, "What's good about a person is also what's bad about a person."

There aren't many exceptions to this.

Do you have a friend who absolutely never lies? That's a great trait, until you need him to go along with a small white lie to a company in order to prevent some massive inconvenience.

Do you know a person who is extremely non-judgmental? That's very noble, until a bad person enters their life and you're tearing your hair out trying to convince them to look at this person realistically.

Dou know someone who is extremely easygoing and never rattled? That's a very relaxing person to be around, until you need them to get fired up about something important, and then they're useless.

I could go on forever with these. List a good trait, and I can find a bad side effect to having that trait.

Poker and AP gambling is a weird thing in that aggression and risk-taking can both lead you to big money and to ruin. Not enough of it can cause you to either slowly lose or be muddled in low-value grinding, and too much of it can bust you.

The problem is it's usually correlated. It's not common that you find a person who will fire at big events, high stakes cash games, and play wildly, yet show financial restraint in other areas of their life.

The short answer as to what has kept me from shooting it off has been an internal "off" switch. After I take enough of a beating, I either change something or quit. I won't keep banging my head into the wall until it destroys me. That's what pushed me out of the high stakes cash scene in the late 2000s. After a big downswing, I decided the stress wasn't worth it, and I stepped back down.

In recent years, I've even reduced my exposure at the WSOP, staying away from $10k events because the variance is too high, and the later-stage competition is tough enough to where it's not worth doing. The exception has been the WSOP Main, of course, because that one has a ton of value.

I try to always take the attitude that money has value, and while it's not everything, it makes things a lot easier if you're not struggling for it. So I couldn;t just let it slip through my fingers once I ran it up.

In recent years I have given a lot more respect to the value of health, though. I guess it's because I am getting old. Far better to be poor and healthy than rich and not healthy, even if "not healthy" doesn't mean you're terminal. When your health sucks, pretty much everything else sucks.