There are some times when we are better off failing in life, even if it's more painful at the time: shoplifting, betting a hundred dollars a hand in blackjack, making romantic advances to the boss's wife, and so on. Getting away with these things temporarily would actually lead to worse things for us in the long run. So maybe it's better if we fail at them right away. We need wrong decisions to have bad consequences. We shouldn't want to be insulated from our mistakes, for they will guide us in the right direction and in the long run this will be to our benefit. Similarly, making mistakes in poker, and then winning by this means, while momentarily pleasing, is very bad in the long run.
