For the record, I have a perfectly valid excuse for delivering yesterday's blog post today: I spent last evening gambling--at first with other people's chips, then with my own. I seemed to do well enough both ways, but given that it was at an office party, it's not like I'll be cleaning out Vegas anytime soon.
For awhile, I almost had myself convinced that blackjack--gradually upping my bids, splitting, and even doubling down--was really an exercise in innoculating myself against risk and loss in the entrepreneurial sense. So by the time I "cashed out," I was feeling just a teensy bit smug about my aptitude. 'Course, alternating between Reisling and something called "Apothic Red" might have had a little something to do with that. (In case it matters, I didn't drive myself home.)
After more sober consideration back in the workaday world, there is the unescapeable reality that--even with odds favoring the house--blackjack's rules and statistical underpinnings can't hold the proverbial candle to the complexities and unknowns of the real world. But the good news, to me at least, is that managing risk--by which I mean not freaking out when a bet goes bust--seems to be a learnable skill.
