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

Chapter 5The Real Pros Don’t Play Every Hand

Sam hadn’t planned to watch the second day of the tournament. She wanted to get a massage—it was always a good way to relax and kill a couple of hours, and she needed a new laptop or at least she needed to start considering a new laptop—but really those were just time wasters. She was getting antsy. She’d been in Vegas for a few days now, and the Main Event of the World Series had started the day before, but she wouldn’t play her first day of poker until tomorrow.

She was determined to at least beat her lousy performance in last year’s tournament. She had at one point been in the top 100 in terms of chips, only to get a run of bad cards and be eliminated on the second-to-last hand of the first day. This time she would deliberately ease off the pedal. Not get cocky. Not let her emotions get the best of her.

But no matter how ready she was to play, today she was still a bystander. Yesterday had been unproductive. She’d gotten a massage, hung out in downtown Vegas with a friend, and even shopped for clothes—something she despised. She didn’t want her friend to feel like he had to babysit her the entire time. At least that was the justification she gave herself for staying at the hotel bar last night instead of going out with her friends. She still couldn’t figure out how she got roped into an hour-long conversation with used bike guy.

She smiled. She secretly liked Owen. His idea was god-awful, but his passion was obvious in the way ...