Check back on the river- Another Poker metaphor

Controlled down days like yesterday which trigger all the "is this over" articles are the high point of my week or month-
While my daily P/L is down and the screen is angry and red at me, this is setting up a scenario where performance increases.
One of the trials and tribulations of rolling a constant core position (short VIX or otherwise) is the sorrow of closing at a profit means the new open position will be a worse entry, where if you roll early in a down move, you are locking in a scratch or smaller profit in order to enter at at better pot odds.  There is no core position situation where you have a great close and reopen in the same product.
(This should all be obvious but it's important to psychologically drop that bad entry/exit mindset and just think about the mechanics of the core position)

Anyway that's all a little background flavor but now that the waters are smoothing back out, I wanted to scribble down a poker metaphor that I wax poetic on and is pretty applicable to picking your risk-

If you've ever been check raised on the river in a big hand one of your gut reactions is to throw up because you have brought this upon yourself- you could always have checked back and potentially won, or just lost a smaller hand.

Here is one of hundreds of great river check raise clips-

 (I could spend all day posting Tony G videos but lets continue-) 

 Obviously these players have a huge hand history with each other and have a higher % of trapping and 'tricky' plays but in terms of a simple hand analysis, When you have Kings against two check calls on this board which has potential trips and flush, what hand is check calling you three streets that you beat? I would rather lock in a smaller win then add unnecessary risk on that river.

So what is the option metaphor?

To me this is like covered call/ Poor man covered call (diagonal) strike selection.  While we have been in a permanent bull market and backtested 30 delta covered calls are the best performers, I don't want a strategy based on that, and I'd rather set myself up with the best breakevens if things go wrong.
This is why I like ATM covered calls, (the 1st OTM strike).  If that is breached, I've locked in the call premium and the trade is a winner. I don't need more juice in those winning situations, I'd rather model an annual return on getting 2% or so monthly (or leveraged up with diagonals).  You are setting yourself up for more scenarios, and you are making your returns more consistent to model, being mostly premium/theta based than delta/direction based.

The nearest OTM strike is like checking back on the river in a big pot.  Like Tony G, if you have Kings you are already ahead of all the bluff hands and a tiny amount of weaker hands that couldn't call.  As Tony, you can just check back and win a smaller pot to fight the next day.  In the disaster scenario when Patrick is trapping with a full house, you aren't helping yourself at all to the downside, and as a trader , that is where I want and need the help!

A little Friday musing for you..