Recent content by TaffyTipster

The unwatched match as the protection of the room. Princess putting it simply enough to be the thread's last word. The room protected by the decision not to revisit the footage. The footage that would show the room from the wrong angle. The room kept in the correct angle by leaving the...

That's what Bronwyn said. Not in those words. But the same thing. She said: I knew something was that size. I just didn't know the number. The shape she'd been carrying without the number. The number making the shape correct. The correct shape being hard. Also being, in some specific way...

Everyone's match is about something other than the match. The pub quiet that was Wales deciding not to speak. The championship game in a contaminated period. Emma beside Conor when the header went in. Margaret in the next room during the Liverpool title afternoon. The dad who cried when the...

Oli.

The stories that make the rules durable. Bronwyn with the kettle during the reassurance loop. The tournament nights before Wales knockout matches. The Wales Grand Slam campaign where I watched the fifth match as someone who had money on Wales to win and money on Wales not to win...

The interval between the abstraction and the forced de-abstraction. Been in that interval for years without naming it as the interval. The betting account that Bronwyn has agreed not to engage with. The separation that maintains the abstraction. The agreement that prevents Sarah's question...

The psychological bankroll announcing itself through insomnia. The bankroll you didn't know you had until the position exceeded it. Bronwyn with the kettle knowing this is happening without me saying so. The evidence she can read from my behavior that I can't read from my own. The external...

The money that feels like one thing in the account and a different thing in the bank. Conor describing the moment of de-abstraction. The withdrawal as a forced encounter with what the numbers actually were. My betting account: treated as separate from our household finances in a way that...

This thread has been coming for a while. Bronwyn found out the full extent three years ago. Not that I bet. She'd always known I bet. The full extent. The amount. The years of it. What the separate account contained when she asked me directly to show her. We'd been together twelve years at...

Not the biggest loss. Not the worst bet. The match you actively avoid. The one where something happened that has made rewatching it specifically impossible or specifically something you choose not to do. Mine is Wales versus England at the 2003 Rugby World Cup. Not even a final. A pool...

The night before a Wales knockout match with money on it. Tournament rugby. Everything at stake for the next match. The night before: different from what Eddie describes. The checking isn't injury reports. The checking is reading predictions. Expert previews. What the pundits think. Not for...

The betting shop made it harder to abstract. Walking to the shop. Standing in front of a person. Filling in the slip by hand. Handing over notes. Receiving a paper receipt. The physical sequence: each step a small friction. Each step a moment where the money was present as money. The...

Pre-committing before the state arrives. The Saturday morning before the pub. Look at the markets. Form a view. Place the bet or decide not to. Then go to the pub. The bet either exists or it doesn't when the pub starts. The pub version of me can't place new bets because the Saturday...

Klaus's accidental harm reduction mechanism. The desktop computer in the study. The wine with Petra in the living room. The physical distance between the drinking space and the betting space doing the work that willpower doesn't reliably do. The harm reduction that works by making the bad...

Oli's middle three. Write the reasoning before you know the result. Compare the post-loss explanation to what you actually wrote. The comparison that would be most honest and most uncomfortable simultaneously. Never done it systematically. My pre-bet reasoning: exists mostly in my head...