Sorry if I misstated "gambling."
What I was trying to say was (is, I guess) that I won't spend money on something I can't do. If I can't beat you guys, and it's clear that I won't ever match you, then I won't continue coming. I'm not saying, "Waah, I lost bad and I just want to give up now," I'm saying "Gosh those guys destroyed me completely, I could
never reach that level of play!"
Although it's gonna take a few tries for sure to see if that is the way things are.
From the various levels of self-deprecation on this thread (DRyu and Harp), I think even if I don't get first I'll have some rivals to work towards beating.
If Ken is right, then I should expect to be thrashed at PnT (Hopefully I have a little more grit than that, but words are no substitute for 100's of hours of practice, eh?). But I'll keep coming even if I lose in the first round-- since I recall some sort of discussion about seeding the tournaments so that low level players face the top level ones.
Ghosting the forums is fun. People are kind of like, "when the heck did you know about that?"