Chapter 12

Tumbling Dice

Thursday, 2 for the money thursday...yes the gang got together again for one of our traditional extravagent movie nights. Let me start at the beginning. About 3 weeks ago, I was bored at work and was scowering the net. I stoped at IMBD.com and read about this movie called "two for the money". A movie about a man who picks 80% winners for 2 years for gamblers in the NFL...but than greed sets in and his cold streak begins. Watch a movie about gamblers who are willing to bet it all.

Now I work with some of the biggest gamblers I've ever met. Every night before we leave the office, they log onto one of the many online UK gambling sites and bet away. I've seen them win and lose my years salary in a single night. Its scary. In fact there are a lot of gambaling addicts on Wall Street. Pete can make our firm such amazing money cause as a market maker he can lay our chips on the table and take a chance that the market will go our way. In some ways its good that he's a gambler. At least for the sake of business, but there have been days where he's been caught on the wrong side of the trade. In fact this May, it got SO bad that he was forced into a two week time out. Those were dark times for my friend...I used to go out to see movies with him while he wasn't working. He was really shaken up and he didn't think he'd be back. He did return and we managed to bring our book back from the red.

I'm getting sidetracked here, but I told pete about this movie and then noticed that it was going to playing at the american cinema in 3 weeks time. Pete got all excited and called it 2 for the Thursday. He called up all our friends and made it an event. Come on guys...lets go see a movie about gamblers..a movie about us! We even had a 2 for the thursday countdown.

So today, it finally came. We all raced after work to Slavenskaya to Sumosan Moscow (best sushi in town). dima, richard, pete + date, raf, and a bunch of other people all came. Pete did not want to miss the beginning. Knowing pete, everyone was joking about how we were going to see his life story.

We all sat down in the theatre and watched the movie. When the guy started gambling, the guys started to tease pete by whispering "Peytar!" (russian pronunciation of Peter) loudly during the film. It was funny for a while. The guy making tons of money..."Peyter!"....the guy being picky with clothes and fooling around with beautiful women...."Peyter"....making tons of money at work and laughing about it...."Peyter!". Then all of a sudden the movie took a dark twist....he started losing money, and the company almost went bankrupt. During these scenes, we still whispered "peyter" but our tone changed from sillyness to slight concern. Finally the main character is in the bathroom, laying in a fetal position and freaking out cause of all his losses and from all the pressure to win it back.....Dima than whispered out a really quiet but concerned "Peyter?!?!!?" out loud. We became really worried for pete. Of course pete's bubbly russian date had no clue what we were getting on about...

The movie had other moral dilemas as well. These gamblers had issues with the norms and rules of society. They wanted cash and they wanted to win it by chance. They wanted to buy the thing that most people get through years of work..they wanted to buy sucess, the feeling of victory and power. One of the main gamblers in the film even "gambled" on his relationship. He was willing to lost his wife cause he just could not stop. That aspect really hit me cause i saw the same traits in some of my gambling friends. They knew that if their partners would be upset if they knew about their "extra-ciricular" love interests. Going to certain places, they were also gambling their health. They are willing to lose it all. Everything that makes them happy. The thought of that scared the crap out of me and like usual I had to remind myself that I'm not like that. We may all have some things in common, but I'm not a gambler. I treasure the things that make me happy, inc whatever health I have. Its shocking.

I do have a gambling story. I'm not sure I blogged about it...before or not. Last November when I first arrived in Moscow, I was given the grand tour of all the city had to offer. It was a stressful time and I wanted to at least try to associate with my compainions. nick took me out all night and it was one of those nights where you get home really late and realize that you still have work the next day. Anyways, before the night ended, we went to a Casino at 3am. Nick layed down $3k in cash on the roulette table and got his chips ready for the night. I stood by and watched him turn those $3k into $32k. I was in awe and learned how the spinning roulette table worked. It seemed easy. I was a bit out of it at the time but I still was curious. In a spirit of generocity, nick gave me $1k in chips and said "have fun kid". Well I took those chips and in 25min I went from $1k to close to $10,000 USD. Nick came up to me at the table as said "what are you an idiot, no one makes 10x their money...walk away". Did I listen!?!?....no...I thought to myself..."this isn't my money...I'm just having fun anyways". Low and behold, within 2 min...i lost everything. Nick laughed the whole time as I was losing. He thought it was classic.

This was right before thanksgiving. I ended up spending the whole thanksgiving weekend telling this story over and over again for nick's amusement. At thanksgiving dinner he even had the children make "The $10,000 loser kid" name tag for me. I still kick myself for that. You know how much money $10K! is! oh god. Se la Vie

So there it goes. My only gamlbing story really. I'm not a gambler. I've taken some risks, but most of my risks were hedged. For instance, I moved to the UK but I fully knew that if it got to be too much, I had a round trip ticket and with a snap of a finger I could be back at my parents place living my old life. I moved to NY but I stayed with my sister and never really left her home until i was financially able to be on my two feet. I moved to moscow but it was nicely packaged and like the UK, if I change my mind, I'm not going to be homeless or sick or anything. I take opportunites. Isn't that what they say...opportunity is timing plus intuition. I think situations out, and experience things to keep growing. I challenge myself to new things and situations, without risking my own health or losing people I love. Or at least I hope I'm not.

After the movie we all gave pete a big hug and noticed that he was a bit shaken up. He liked the movie but was a bit into it, more than he thought he'd be. He couldn't wait to go home and check to see if tiger woods was leading the golf tourneyment he layed $80k on. Its hard for people to change, but hopefully in time you may be able to take a step back before you end up losing more than you gambled.

posted by RU ETL @ 4:57 PM