Someone should run this flame IRL and poast results.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5866843&forum_id=2...id#49886509)

People make it weird.

Like yesterday at work, Greg was complaining about how our manager schedules lunches unfairly and I said, “Yeah, it’s negative EV to take first lunch if the afternoon workload spikes after two.” Everybody looked at me funny. I wasn’t even talking about blackjack. That’s just how probability works. Greg goes, “You always compare everything to blackjack.” Which is objectively false because last week I compared office politics to poker.

At dinner my sister asked if I wanted to split the check evenly and I said, “I mean technically I’m subsidizing your order unless we settle this proportionally, but I’m not gonna Wong out over three dollars.” Then I had to explain what Wonging was for twenty minutes because apparently nobody reads anymore.

My girlfriend says I “find ways” to bring up card counting into unrelated conversations. I disagree. I think blackjack just naturally applies to a broad range of life situations.

For example, we were furniture shopping and she said I was overanalyzing the timing of buying a couch. I said, “No, I’m just saying if demand is high before Memorial Day sales, then right now we’re basically standing on a sixteen against a dealer ten.” That’s a normal analogy. She stared at me like I’d announced I had a second family.

The annoying thing is I don’t even gamble that much anymore. I maybe go to the casino a few weekends a month if conditions are good. Fewer if penetration sucks. See? That wasn’t even bragging. Most people don’t know penetration matters. They think card counting is Rain Man stuff where you memorize every card individually, which is insane. You just track the ratio of high cards to low cards and adjust your bets accordingly. It’s not complicated. The casinos hate it because they can’t stand when somebody edges the house by one percent after spending twelve hours inhaling cigarette ash next to a guy named Rick who keeps splitting tens because “the flow feels right.”

Honestly, blackjack is mostly waiting.

People picture glamorous casino scenes but it’s really just me standing near a high-limit pit pretending to watch a hockey game while mentally converting a running count to true count and deciding whether a table is worth entering. Half the skill is looking like you don’t care. Which, ironically, I don’t.

That’s the thing nobody understands.

If I really cared, I’d wear one of those stupid little blackjack-theme shirts or talk loudly about “the grind.” I don’t do that. I casually mention variance once every six minutes and happen to own three different casino-player cards under slightly different abbreviations of my name. That’s called being practical.

My mom says I’ve become impossible to talk to.

She asked if I was thinking about buying a house and I said, “Interest rates are high, inventory’s weird, and I’m trying to avoid committing bankroll during unfavorable conditions.” She goes, “This isn’t blackjack.” But it kind of is. Everything is bankroll management if you zoom out enough.

Even normal compliments become a problem now.

A coworker got engaged and showed me the ring and I said, “Nice. Hopefully you didn’t overbet your unit size.” Apparently that was “not the moment.”

I don’t know. I think people exaggerate.

Just because I once described dating apps as “continuous shuffle machines for emotionally unavailable people” doesn’t mean I’m obsessed. That was just accurate.

And for the record, I don’t even talk about blackjack that much anymore. I used to be way worse. Back then I’d actually explain deviations to people unprompted. Insurance at +3, sixteen versus ten at zero, all that. Now I mostly keep it to myself unless somebody says something mathematically irresponsible around me.

Which, unfortunately, is constant.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5866843&forum_id=2...id#49886518)