By Prarthana Nandwani
The following article is aimed to highlight certain parallels between emotional responses present in high stakes poker and in business. This story is entirely fictional.
There was something electric in the air today, and it wasn’t just my sleek blue Tesla Model S that I gunned down Park Ave to the office in central Manhattan. Some mornings I would have a quiet drive with just a bit of lounge music in the background. Today, however, was all fast and furious: windows down, a loud blend of tires squeaking and house music cutting through the air. Adrenaline coursed through my veins as I cornered into my personal parking spot and trotted into the building flicking through a string of good morning messages from friends and happy clients. I switched into Foxide, an encrypted program turned app that the company uses to monitor clients’ funds. Several 3-D charts jumped at the screen, each representing a unique client portfolio. I saw the familiar mix of green and red; the comfort of a highly diversified portfolio where some lambs had to be sacrificed for long term stability. Ever since ending my poker days and starting life over again as a normal person with a normal job, I obsessed over being risk averse. My life became all about trial and error: trial and error in perfecting the “balanced fund formula”. Terrible memories from the Wynn Poker Summer Classic, where I went full tilt and basically lost it all over one sitting, prevented me from ever investing in anything risky – ever.
That wasn’t the way the cookie usually crumbled in the rambunctious world of finance though, which was often nothing but a merciless race to discover the hottest high yield stock of the moment. My boss, Mr. Drakel, ironically is the perfect example – always on the look out for the “next big thing”, the “Wall Street Unicorn(s). Which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, just not my cup of tea. Now I was sitting on a multi-million dollar portfolio, managing the money of some of the sweetest clients. There was Frank, a 59 year old living in the city with his wife saving up to move to sunny Florida. They had had a tough life and needed a break. Beth: a hotshot attorney who along with her long time fiancé Jeff had spent years and years trying to pay back student debt. Shawn: A successful young entrepreneur who recently sold his business to help support his mother fight an incurable disease. My client base was the antipathy of the usual lot you’d expect – drinking their lives away in an exotic location living off of their ROI. These were honest, beyond hard-working people caught up in an unfair system that needed the wealth injection. And they had had it – at a healthy rate of 8% over the last five years.
Pushing open the frosted glass door to my office, I was temporarily blinded by the bright East Coast sun coasting through the windows. “Hello Dana!” I jumped as a familiar voice cut through the air nearby. It was Mr. Drakel. He was perched comfortably on one of the leather sofas in my office. The blood ran from my face as I recognized the gentleman seated next to him as Magician, the very same world class poker champ who I played against multiple times – the same world I cut contact with years ago.
“I believe you know each other,” Drakel continued.
“I do indeed. Although I don’t think Dana wants to admit it.” Magician’s gaze pierced through me, not unkindly, and a thousand memories exploded at once – the years spent entering and exiting the most beautiful casinos in the world victoriously, analyzing opponents’ behavior, and finally losing it all to an unethical player named Hacker right under Magician’s nose.
“How are you?” I could barely manage the words.
“We’re fabulous,” Drakel announced cheerfully even though the question was clearly not aimed at him, “And we have a proposition for you. Magician here has a big idea. And trust me, it’s going to be BIG. You know crypto, right Dana? Well our own Magician here is launching his own ICO, rNaRobotics – and we’re going all in. By purchasing an rNa coin, users get personalized medical solutions through the use of blockchain technology and an AI chat service. It’s genius!”
Magician chimed, “We are going to start the offering at $.10, and are estimating it to trade at $2 by the end of tomorrow. Tell your clients to kiss their 8% ROI goodbye, and say hello to an estimated 2,000%!”
My blood ran cold and I could feel my pupils dilating. 2,000% was an insane yield, and though my clients would be ecstatic, it was also completely unsustainable and sounded like a bubble just waiting to burst. Even though the tech sounds promising, it made complete sense that Magician would try to launch his own ICO and try to beat the finance world. And it’s essentially a healthcare coin, a complete grey area legally. It was high risk, high reward: just like gambling.
“Uh Mr. Drakel,” I stammered, “This is extremely risky and I don’t think it’s a good idea. My clients are quite risk averse, and as you know I am too. ”
“Think it over, D. You know Blockchain has taken off and people have made a killing out of Bitcoin and Ethereum. Just imagine, giving our clients a chance to invest in a unicorn platform just as it’s born! Also, didn’t you hear that Congress is about to pass a huge bill where the government will support Crypto in Healthcare? Magician’s going to launch the ICO in the morning while the bill is being passed. Our ROI is going to be so ridiculous…”
At that moment Magician caught my eye and I realized where he may have gotten the nickname. His green eyes were specked with yellow and had a hypnotic effect. It was as if the yellow crescent in his pupils spun like a vortex and opened to reveal a fabulous future just within reach. My senses heightened just like I was back in the poker room drumming the table felt, the tips of each pinky finger touching my embellished poker chips. A risk averse life was stable but boring and unrealistic, especially in business. Crypto had made people overnight billionaires – why shouldn’t my clients experience the same level of success sooner?
“All in.” I heard my own voice announce as if it belonged to someone else.
In the next hours Drakel and I excitedly phoned up our entire clientele database with the big news. Surprisingly, no one objected to the change in direction and many were actually excited. Only Frank – the soon to be retiree – seemed hesitant but he too acquiesced after learning of the Congress meeting taking place tomorrow. In the matter of just an evening, we had managed to completely modify the portfolio from a low/medium risk hybrid, to a high risk with a focus on buying into the rNa ICO. By the time we finished, fingers tingling with a mixture of excitement and clicking, there were only a few hours left until the big day.
At 9:30 AM on Wednesday morning, Drakel and I sat, bleary eyed and pumped on copious amounts of caffeine, waiting for the moments that would change our lives and hundreds of others’ as well. 10 large and small screens were set up in my office, a hybrid of stock/coin offerings and CNBC. The rNARobotics campaign started at $.10 per coin at the Congressmen were walking in to the Capitol in Washington. The sales were moving slowly, by 11:15 with no news from Congress yet, there were only a minuscule 1,000 coins sold. It was clear that this token was completely dependent on this bill. I wiped a droplet of sweat off my brow. It would be great to take a long vacation after the good news, maybe play some light poker in the Caribbean and study investing trends on the beach. Maybe I could invite Frank and his elderly wife too! We’ve all grown so close over the years, I was almost like their daughter.
I had zoned out in my thoughts and it all happened at once: BREAKING NEWS flashed on the TV, a loud thud as Drakel literally lost consciousness and fell on the ground, and every single phone on the floor started ringing in unison like ambulances shooting through traffic. HEALTHCARE BILL REJECTED. I couldn’t focus. I couldn’t breathe. This meant Magician’s ICO would disappear. This meant that Drakel’s fund, and my entire portfolio, had lost 80% of it’s value. Frank’s pension, Beth & Jeff’s future home, their kids’ schooling, Shawn’s mother’s treatment all wiped out in a risky investment. My stomach turned and I got sick right there on the office floor. Right now, this “stable job” in Finance wasn’t any better than Poker. It was worse.
prarthana90.wordpress.com 