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

Chapter 4It’s How Well You Lose, Not How Well You Win, That Determines Whether You Get to Keep Playing

Owen woke up with a slight hangover. Truth be told, he wasn’t a Jack Daniel’s drinker, and he remembered now how dumb it was to order a drink you don’t like just to impress a pretty girl. It was 8:30 A.M. With all the tossing and turning he did, that meant he’d slept for maybe four hours. That’s not how he had planned to start the first day of the tournament. Today was going to be rough. He hadn’t even cracked open the David Sklansky poker book he’d brought along as a refresher on what Pitchford called “the advanced, kung-fu, special forces shit.”

It wasn’t really the first day of the tournament. Due to the large number of registrations for this year’s WSOP and the limited number of poker tables they could fit into the grand tournament room, the first round had to be divided over three days, with roughly 2,400 players per day being whittled down to 900. Technically, this was the second day of the tournament. Owen had watched some of the play the day before. To say he was not impressed was an understatement. It might be the world’s most prestigious poker tournament, but at the moment it was total pandemonium. Players going all-in on 4-5 off-suit, others literally betting every single hand or doubling the pot preflop only to check to the river and fold. Amateur hour. Maybe his day would be different.

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the World Series of Poker. On the table in ...