CRAPS! I’m betting Come bets at a hot table. I’ve bumped the 6 and 8 up to $600 each and my pass line is max odds. The ammo in my tray isn’t heavy yet but these next hits are going to do it. The old man is gearing up to roll when his wife comes up behind him to say hi. Screams from around the table, ALL BETS OFF. He rolls a 7. Massive sighs throughout the table. HE WAS MUSHED screams a player. The old man scowls at his wife – that will be a quiet dinner for sure. IL MALLOCCHIO whispers another person. People cash out their chips and live to fight another day.
Being mushed is no joke. The mentality of a player, whether luck is a real thing or not, is deeply impacted by making sure they can think clearly and execute strategy clearly. Once a player has been mushed, it requires waves of lucky events to get back to zero. Today I’m going to talk about how to deal with being mushed and some tricks for beating it.
HOW TO AVOID THE MUSH
- Keep negative people as far away from you as possible. Miserable losers give you a miserable loser mindset. Negative energy distracts most people and sets you up for mistakes, except Drunkle and KEM, which somehow it makes them better players, but I digress.
- Eliminate the MUSH. If you are in the vicinity of a cooler, get away or make them get away ASAP. There was a time when coolers were considered so real that casinos employed them and paid them well to play near lucky people. I suggest watching The Cooler with William H. Macy – a great flick and case study of the cooler methodology. Avoid those people at all costs!
- Focus on small Ws. Nothing beats a mush like winning. If you can get a number of wins, no matter the size, the mush fades. A large enough wave will drown the mush out.
- Play well fed and rested. Nothing gets the bad luck off your back like a good night’s rest. If someone has passed you that bad energy, you need to get out and take a break. Go for a snack. Catch a beverage on the boardwalk. Get a massage (happy ending or otherwise, both seem to work ;). Get to the gym. Go find Jesus or Allah or Buddha or Yahweh. And if none of that works GO TO BED. Mush energy generally doesn’t last after a nap.
- Put the bottle down. Give the booze a rest. If you do decide to keep playing, don’t feed the mush. When you’re drinking you make significantly worse decisions. Exhibit A: the 20 extra pounds on my ass from eating mac and cheese at 2 AM.
- Check for The Evil Eye. Days and weeks have gone by and you still can’t win. There’s a possibility you have been given Il Malocchio, THE EVIL EYE. To find just how cursed you are, you’ll need water and cork and a couple other things. Check out if you got it and how to throw it off here.
- Go to see a Shaman. OK. Shit is real. Your luck is so bad you can’t get money out of an ATM. This isn’t some low level old-lady-pointing-two-fingers-at-you curse, this is some chicken killing, doll burning curse shit. You’re going to need a professional. You may be forced to part with a limb as well but better than being cursed for life.
- Quit gambling forever. Nothing works. You can’t win. You’re getting audited by every gov’t agency and you’ve been cancelled on social media. It’s time to hang it up, head to the mountains and spend the rest of your long, painful life wondering why the gambling gods decided to give the dealer Blackjack on your Hail Mary bet. Sorry. Them’s the breaks.
