Philosophy

“If you pay attention to the wrong things, the very best you can hope for is to get lucky.”—Lou Krieger and Richard Harroch, Poker for Dummies

How did you first learn to play poker? How do people generally learn to play games?

If you are like most of us, somewhere between the ages of five and twenty-five, someone—a parent perhaps or a sibling or friend—taught you the rules and how to play the game. The same applies to any game—poker, chess, Monopoly, tic-tac-toe, you name it.

In Act I of George Bernard Shaw's famous play Caesar and Cleopatra, the two main characters meet for the first time at the foot of the Sphinx. Cleopatra, still very young and inexperienced, does not realize who Caesar is and confides to him her terror that the invading Romans are barbarians who "are coming to eat us all." Without revealing his identity, Caesar tells Cleopatra that if she behaves like a grown woman and a queen, then the Romans will not harm her, but if she continues to act like a silly child, she will be eaten.

Recall my column, Legal? Immoral? or Just Tricky? In the March 30 issue, Jim called Jill on the river. Jill announced she had a straight. Jim mucked his hand. Another player asked to see Jill's hand. Guess what. She did not have a straight! Jim would have won the pot had he shown his hand.

In response, Robert, an attorney in Cincinnati, Ohio shares his two key poker rules, commenting: "Your student might know strategy and odds, but it's also important that he know the rules."

You've sat in traffic for what seems like an eternity. What is supposed to be a fast- moving freeway has been converted into a parking lot, and you've held the brake pedal for so long that your foot is starting to pain you. Finally, you see flashing lights of police cars and tow trucks ahead of you.

Tom, a reader from Florida, e-mailed the following question:

Is anything that is legal in poker, all right to do? Or are certain things legal, but unethical or in poor etiquette, and should be avoided?

This got me thinking about some past situations I found myself in. Let's look at a few of them.

1. Anything that is legal is all right to do. Agree or disagree?

2. Playing an online ultra turbo tournament, you take all your time each hand before folding, and play fewer hands than other tables. As a result, your blind comes around more slowly.

Just a few months ago, if I was still awake at 4 o'clock in the morning it was a great sign that I was running hot at the poker tables. It either meant that I was several hours deep into a large tournament, or I was killing a cash game and simply had to keep playing to pick up more pots from the weak opponents around the felt.

Who do you THINK you are? Did someone ever angrily say that to you when you were growing up? I heard it a lot.

Let's face it. Thinking too much is high on the list of our most destructive addictions. If we stop thinking many of us are afraid we would feel lost. We meditate to help us stop thinking so that we can achieve a state of peacefulness, be in the zone. An idea can be the result of thinking, but before we can begin to act on it and create, we need to stop thinking.

Now, lets see... In my last column, I was talking to you about... codes to live by, and the secret that I have kept from Carol for about sixty years. I was saying, "Money is not heavy to carry..."

So when you come home from the poker game, always make sure you still have a large bankroll- It does not matter whether or not you won or lost-never let your wife or significant other guess if you won or lost-always be a winner when you come home!

This question searches very deeply into the essence of human life and perhaps all existence. Maybe all that really exists are feelings, and that is the answer we overlook when we ask: What is the very nature of LOVE, and what and where does it fit into what we identify as feelings?

"What is poker?" my young daughter asked. A classically innocent, seemingly uncomplicated question. But, after providing her with the barest answer: It's a card game played for money," I continued to consider it further. For those of us who have an intense relationship with the game; for whom it is a vital part of our life and identity, poker is a lot of things. It is agony and ecstasy, frustration and fulfillment, delight and despair. It'll make you cry, or wonder why; make you pray or make your day.