All In Startup: Launching a New Idea When Everything Is on the Line

Chapter 37Understand Your Tendencies On Tilt So That You Can Compensate for Them

Sam was right, dammit! Get back to the tables. Play like a man possessed for the next hour or whatever! Leave with the chip lead tonight and be able to knock on that door and say to Lisa that you’re going to the second-to-final table!

But first, one more look at the cell phone. Nothing. Fine. Power off. Back into the black. Owen returned to the floor and couldn’t believe how much it had shrunk. One, two, three, four. That was it. Four tables left. That’s only 36 players left, max, and he could see that one of the tables already had two empty seats and another table had one empty seat—33 people left.

It could have been down to 32 if Owen had stayed away another hour. At first, he thought that his seat had been moved after the break because the chip pile in front of his old seat didn’t resemble the one he had left. But no, that was it. Did somebody steal some chips? Of course, they wouldn’t. There were far too many cameras for that. It had to be accurate. Damn, these blinds were brutal.

At the top of Owen’s chip pile—though pile was now a generous word—there were several $50,000 chips. That was good. But every other chip underneath those big chips was tiny. Like inconsequentially tiny. It was pointless to count them, he’d have to go all-in soon, and judging by the quick glances from the other players, they all knew it.

There were a couple of new players at the table. Their faces looked familiar, but ...