The Professional

The inimitable Tommy Angelo offers a fiction to poker players: The Professional, who dies if he busts his poker bankroll. For The Professional, there is no recovery from professional failure. Every decision, then, not just in poker but in life, is made through the poker-survival lens. (What would I eat for lunch if poker survival were literal survival? How would I brush my teeth? What would I read before bed? Where would I bank?) I emphatically do not recommend treating poker survival as if it were literal survival, but I've used it often as a tool for thought, and it works as well for programming as it does for poker. We can't keep score as easily as poker players can, but I often think of myself as a quasi-athlete, trying to optimize a certain kind of output. In that frame of mind, it's pretty easy to imagine myself as The Professional. I find that The Professional makes different choices than most professionals do. He makes health and fitness professional concerns. He worries more…