Life is a lot like Poker...

I'm sure we've all heard it at one point or another, with varying degrees of accuracy and depth. Lately I've been thinking about it a lot, and thought I'd start a list. 50 ways the smart folks on this forum think that life is like poker. It can be as short, long, deep, light-hearted, long-winded, philosophical or funny, however you like it. I encourage everyone to post as many as you like, but lets try not to repeat ourselves!

Oh and one more thing; I think we can all do better than "well, you gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em"!

I'll get the ball rolling. To me one of the most interesting is the way luck balances out in the long run, and how correct decisions based on a set of sound principles tend to yield the most reliable long term results. Anyone can have a bad day, week, month, year. Anyone can have a good luck streak. But it takes a disciplined, well centered person to make sure that a bad luck streak doesn't affect the rest of their decisions or outlook on life, and that their good luck streak doesn't just end up wasted and thrown away. The lottery winners who end up broke two years later, as well as hard luck stories of hard work, dedication and eventual success and fulfillment often come to mind for me in both cases.

In the long run, I truly believe that results such as success, happiness, fulfillment, (however you want to define them) come from discipline, clear goals, and some kind of set of principles you live by. Although they may backfire from time to time, I truly believe that they eventually give you positive long term results.

Of course, life is infinitely more complicated than a game of poker, and it is much harder to know exactly which is the "best decision" in general, or even at any given moment. There are no starting hand charts, no odds or outs calculations you can rely on. But I suppose I'm thinking here of universally respected values like honesty, sacrifice, discipline, compassion, selflessness, and others that in my experience reward human beings in the long term. I firmly believe that if you can find your own values and principles and stick to them, 30 or 20 years down the line you will be able to look back with a smile on your face.

I'm truly looking forward to seeing what other people have to say about this. Until then may we all find and live by the principles that can bring us results in the long term.

Cheers.

Im a commision based salesperson in my day job. And I caught the poker

bug like 2 and a half years ago I think I have to be personally responsible

foratleast 8 of my work associates now playing online. Myself and my

work mates are continually exchanging poker terms in our day to day

conversations. If we get a really juicy sale it's now "I stacked those poor

buggas" or " I won a big pot there". Im a 16 year veteran in my job and

there are a alot of young guys starting out. My fav line about our job is

"direct marketing is like the NLHE of sales you dont get swings like this

elsewhere" Im also always telling the young guys to "ignore short term

fluctuations" a classic pearl of poker wisdom from 2+2 publishing. My

chosen vocation isnt "like" poker it is its direct polar opposite. I love

poker, I love my job, and I love life! peace out.

Not many replies yet after half a day (thanks to damon789 for the post!), so I figured I'd bump with another poker-life similarity I have found. It has to do with paying attention. I find that so many of life's mistakes and mishaps could be avoided if people were willing to put their full attention to the task at hand. From driving, to studying, to raising your kids.

We've all been in a hand where if we'd only paid a little bit more attention to how our opponent has been raising/betting/folding, we would have known to get out of the hand once that K came on the turn, or we would have known that we could have gone AI with the nuts and gotten the big stack to take the bait.

Hope to see a few posts. Until then may we all remember to pay attention to the details, and not miss out on our opportunities when they present themselves.

Best,

T.

I posted a question that I thought would get a couple of responses, but it got like 50 views,and zero responses. sometimes posts fizzle like mine did so if this one does the same dont take it personally Just make another 1 or reply to someelses post. Peace out

I think you probably will end up getting quite a few responses.

Anyway, the best strategy for most of life is tight-aggressive - pick your spots carefully and then take full advantage of them.

Hmm, thought I could think of one but only 1 thing is coming to my mind at the moment, which is Shit Happens, In Life and In Poker. In poker you got that 80+% chance to win and the guy catches runner runner, or catches 1 of those 3 outs on the river, shit happens. Just like in life, yesterday I woke up to having to help my brother out cuz he blew the engine on his car, had just bought brand new tires, had a tune up, was planning on fixing some other stuff and trying to keep the car running for a while and bamm engine gone not worth fixing anymore. He thought he was good just like in poker then that one thing comes and ruins it all.

Shit happens, its how you handle your shit that matters. Ups and downs are part of both poker and life, you just have to go with the flow.