The Olympics, Variance and Life...

As I entered the Bicycle Casino for the day 1a of the $10,000 Main Event; I was greeted with a pleasant surprise. It was Julio (a writer for CardPlayer Magazine) who was talking with Katie (my manager) about how I needed to write more blogs. He quickly shifted the conversation to me as he saw me walk in and said something along the lines of, "they're great, we just need more of them." "Quality not quantity," I smirked. In any case, Julio; this one's for you.

Sometimes (as I have said before) Im just not in the mood to write or there's not much to write about. This happens to be more a case of the latter but fortunately (more so for you) I had a long car ride home from the Bike to think about it. (For those interested about poker… you should know by now this is not the place to look; however I did make day 2 with a very healthy stack and have 2 pro analysis blogs coming out shortly with detailed descriptions of hands. You can get your fix there. Simply go to www.cardplayer.com find the pro analysis section and click on my name.)

Now back to the topic of choice. I couldn't help but be marveled by the olympics. As Im sure many of you experienced, the more you watch, the more addicting it becomes. You get to know the athletes, their back stories and all the hard work and dedication it took to get them to where they are today. Top this off with the charisma and modesty many of them display (especially at such a young age) and you can't help but be humbled and inspired. Furthermore, it never ceases to amaze me the heart these athletes have. I found this particularly prevalent with the Americans (although I understand I may be slightly biased). Take the mens 4×100 Freestyle for example. The French claim that they are going to "crush the Americans" and "that's why we came to the olympics." This criticism only "fired up" the American team and inspired Jason Lezak to swim an unprecedented 46" 100 which is 1 second faster than the previous world record split. Or the track athlete who literally dove across the finish line to secure the bronze medal for America. When asked about this in the interview he only mentioned that he wanted to bring one home for his country. These two events as well as several others nearly brought me to tears. You just don't see the other countries have the same determination and heart as the Americans. There is something else that I found interesting about the olympics which perhaps only resulted from several years of playing poker. I can't help but notice the variance involved in such an event. I think it far exceeds that of poker.

Several days ago a female track star (an highly favored to win the 100M hurdles) geared up to run the race of a lifetime. With her sights set on a gold metal the 24 year old took her mark on the starting line. Lolo Jones had been training for such an event for over 4 years. Perhaps her only olympic shot (28 being to old to compete for gold again) the pressure was on. The announcer spoke over the loud speaker with his Chinese accent.

"Set."

"BANG!" Lolo was off. With a clear lead after 5 hurdles she had only 5 left. Her speed increasing with each one she seemed to have a clear lead when disaster struck. Her back leg clipped the ninth hurdle, and she saw her gold medal slip through her fingers. When conducting the interview after, the reporter asked stupid questions like,

"What happened out there?" and "How do you feel right now?"

I would have (and was hoping she would reply) "Well lets see. I just spent my whole life training for a 10 second event in which I would win 19/20 times but hit the hurdle to get seventh. Can't beat that Joe."

Unfortunately, she was a bit more classy but her answer is what hit me. "Well," she said, classy as ever with a smile on her face, "I'm just happy I could come out here, compete and do my best for my country. I didn't finish where I would have liked; but that's the olympics for ya." She proceeded to talk about how she hits only two hurdles a year in races and it just sucks when one of them is in the Olympic games.

"Hmmmmm," I thought. Smells very familiar. Lets run some numbers to see just how sick of a beat that really is. I'd say she spends 40 – 50 hours/ week training (note that this is just physical however her lifestyle is significantly affected by this as she has to eat, travel or lack there of, sleep, etc. according to her training schedule). We'll say for math purposes that its 50 hours/ week. Lets say 50 weeks/ year x 4 years. That's 50 hours x 50 weeks x 4 years = 10,000 hours. She spent 10,000 hours for ONE shot at a 10 – 15 second race. Now that's pretty damn sick. The emotional stress alone must be catastrophic. I know when I bust out of a major poker tournament there's a period of at least 8 – 24 hours following the event (and any poker player will tell you the same thing) that Im on absolute suicide watch. Nothing seems to matter, you lose motivation to do otherwise important events and you are somewhat socially inept. You sit there and reflect on "what could have been" or mourn over your "bad luck." All this and sometimes I have a tournament coming up the very next day with a chance to redeem myself! Could you imagine how Dara Torres felt (the 41 year old mother who lost the 50M freestyle by 1/100th of a second?) knowing full well that its her last (and in the case of Lolo, only) shot to do what you trained your whole life to accomplish? What we (the American public) don't see is the thousands of races she (back to Lolo now) does each year and wins. Or the countless times in her backyard where she (perhaps) breaks the world record and nobody notices (or runs a perfect race). No. We only see the product of this training and we only see one ten second glimpse of the 800 + hours it took to get her here. If she messes up, false starts, cramps, falls or hits a hurdle, she's forgotten forever. Succeed, and she's the world's best. The stakes are high and the variance is higher. Compare this to poker and its not even comparable. The WSOP is annually at best (not to mention some 50 + events) with countless other 10k + events on a monthly basis. We (as poker players) get hundreds of chances to win a tournament (our "gold medal"), yet we are condemned (generally) while the athletes are condoned. Before you go any further stop right here. If your taking out of this that Im somehow complaining that poker's not treated fairly your missing the point. For one I could care less how people view my profession so thats not what this is about. It's more looking into things beyond what meets the eye (some like to call this face value) to better understand a given field. With poker, the threat of variance is very eminent to anyone with half a brain. They understand (as they deem it as gambling) the highs and lows or potential to win and lose on a daily basis. While the best athletes have a higher chance of success (like we stated earlier she wins say 9/10) the stakes are much higher in the Olympics. Should I make a mistake in a tournament so what? As long as I have the bankroll to play (cough cough look who's talking) then it won't put a noticeable dent in my net worth. This is not the case with the olympics. There are countless examples of this in 2008 alone (both men and womens track and field dropped the baton in the 4×100 relay and thus disqualified from the race or Phelps' classic 1/100th of a second win in the 100M butterfly) and many more in olympics to come. I recently read a book called "Fooled by Randomness" (thanks Andrew it truly changed the way I look at things) and I would suggest it to anyone who wants to be more observational about the things that occur around them. This is one example that can be deducted from such knowledge. The author, Nassim Taleb uses examples from stock trading and other various scenarios to point out (although this may seem trivial it is discussed in detail) that some risks are not worth taking no matter what the payoff because should the opposite occur, the downsides are extraordinary. Perhaps it's a good thing this book isn't prescribed reading to Olympic athletes and they started to take less "risky" paths; NBC 4 would be out of business. (Not to mention I'd have an extra 8 hours a day to learn Italian, salsa dancing or Muy Thai).

I know that this might be a (very) different direction than I take on most posts and I will assure you it won't become the norm, but I can't help but look at things differently after reading this book. I wish I had some sort of feedback system so I can see what ya'll like and don't like reading. Im glad this came to mind as that's going to be my next request. I think it would be cool to hear requests, have a comment board and get feedback as to what's good what's not. Kinda like a "blog filter" if you will. Lastly, what I found most interesting about this olympic dissection was that some professions (and Im sure Ill see a lot more in the future) are far more "risky" than mine. (if you define risk as the difference between the ideal outcome v. the least desired). Now try explaining that one at the dinner table…

P.S. Until I confirm with Julio that my request is even possible, Im going to go out on a limb and put my email in here (alectorelli@gmail.com) in hopes to receive some feedback (constructive criticism as well as requests accepted) on my blogs. Please don't ask for a backing deal cause I'll just forward you to Durrrr. LOL only joking Tom but serious only please (starting today I will only be checking my email twice weekly both to save time and stress) so I will have a lot to attend to when I do check it. As always, thanks for reading and please throw me some suggestions.

~ Trah ~