In Texas Hold ’Em Poker, there are forced bets that move around the table clockwise and the amount of these forced bets goes up over time. This means that the longer you play, the fewer chips you will have, even if you never play a hand. When you get low on chips, you have fewer chances to play hands and win, so you want to be more careful and conservative in the hands you choose to play. Because when you’re extremely low on chips, you are forced to play hands that you probably wouldn’t have played otherwise.
It’s like going to the grocery store and wanting to buy an apple and seeing that there are only three left and none of them are super great, but you need to buy an apple. The situation you’re in forces non-ideal choices upon you. But imagine that you brought this situation upon yourself—you were there when there were plenty of apples and plenty of good ones, and you watched everyone else buy them, thinking that there would always be plenty of good ones. And now there’s not. And you’re stuck buying a not-so-great apple.
It also reminds me of when my big bag of potato chips gets low on potato chips, I find myself eating fewer chips each time I snack, to make the rest of the bag last longer. If you want to make the bag last longer, eat fewer chips all the time, not just when you get close to the end of the bag.
The way to not get in trouble later is to not get in trouble now.