If I was headed to a max $200 buy-in poker game, I would show up with $1k.
Yeah, 5 times the max buy-in!
From the outside, this might look like a lack of confidence. The thing is, I never expected to lose.
So why all the cash?
Avoiding Embarrassment
The thought of being forced to leave a poker game because I was broke was humiliating to me.
Losing sucked, but as long as I could buy back in I wouldn’t be embarrassed.
The strange thing is, there was never anyone at the table I cared to impress. Quite the opposite, I always gambled alone.
But even to strangers, I wanted to “show off” that I could buy right back in. It meant that I didn’t care about the money. It meant they had to fear my moves.