Liz L.
05-06-2003, 01:33 PM
This is from the San Francisco Chronicle:
It's not about the cards, it's about the hand
Jon Carroll
Tuesday, May 6, 2003
URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/05/06/DD104680.DTL
Last week I mentioned the very fine "Positively Fifth Street" by James McManus, a writer and amateur poker player who somehow made it to the finals of the World Series of Poker and wrote about the experience.
Also about murder, lap dancing, swimming, gangsters and the intricacies of the three-card flop. Darned fine book.
I marked one paragraph when I read it. McManus quotes from Jesse May's "Shut Up and Deal," which he calls "one of the best poker novels ever written."
Here's the quote: "People think mastering the skill is the hard part, but they're wrong. The trick to poker is mastering the luck. That's philosophy. Understanding luck is philosophy, and there are some people who aren't ever going to fade it."
"Fade," in this context, meaning loosely "get behind it" or "understand that it's true."
I have thought about poker a lot over the years. I realized early on that it was not a game of cards, it was a game of betting. A successful bettor needs to understand the people he's betting against. (Knowing various odds is also useful, but at a certain level everyone knows the same odds, so it's a wash.)
But here's the thing: Even if you know the odds, even if you know the people, you're gonna lose sometimes. That's just true. People do draw to inside straights; overbetting stay-in-every-hand players do sometimes pull a full house on the last card, and there you are, darned smart and careful and busted.
Because life is unfair. That's the point. Luck is orthogonal to virtue. Luck is orthogonal to intelligence. It raineth on the just and the unjust. The real world is littered with examples. Here's one: O.J. Simpson.
But somehow, we still think we can make a deal with God. OK, God, I'll do this and this and this, actions I have reason to believe you approve of, and in exchange you will (a) make my biopsy benign, (b) keep my car running, (c) make Sally love me, (d) give me that third king.
The trouble is, God has signed no agreements. It's strictly one-party wheedling. Some people would say that prayers are always answered; it's just that sometimes the answer is no. Other people say that prayer is a delusional act of superstition. Doesn't matter. Your belief system has no relevance. Life is unfair for all God's chillun.
In poker, it is true that the luck of the cards will even out eventually. But "eventually" takes a lot longer than is generally realized. If you really, really need for your luck to change on the next hand, chances are it won't.
In life, alas, it is not even true that the luck evens out eventually. You can start miserable and end miserable and be miserable in between. If you manage your luck, you can find a way to make the misery work for you: Edgar Allan Poe, Dostoyevsky, Richard Nixon, Toni Morrison, Janis Joplin.
Good luck is seductive, too. As Ann Richards said about George Bush, "He was born on third base and thought he'd hit a triple." Hubris is a seductive thing; hubris goeth before the fall. Except when it doesn't. That's the irritating part.
We train our children to manage their skills. We train our children to train. We tell them that right actions promote right results, that virtue is its own reward, that all things come to he who waits -- although none of those things is inevitably true.
Maybe it's time to think about managing our luck a little more. I mean, this is the only life you're going to get; if the breaks are going against you,
it's still the only life you're going to get. It's not the cards; it's the hand that holds the cards. You know?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is not new information; still, a refresher course is always useful.
It's not about the cards, it's about the hand
Jon Carroll
Tuesday, May 6, 2003
URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/05/06/DD104680.DTL
Last week I mentioned the very fine "Positively Fifth Street" by James McManus, a writer and amateur poker player who somehow made it to the finals of the World Series of Poker and wrote about the experience.
Also about murder, lap dancing, swimming, gangsters and the intricacies of the three-card flop. Darned fine book.
I marked one paragraph when I read it. McManus quotes from Jesse May's "Shut Up and Deal," which he calls "one of the best poker novels ever written."
Here's the quote: "People think mastering the skill is the hard part, but they're wrong. The trick to poker is mastering the luck. That's philosophy. Understanding luck is philosophy, and there are some people who aren't ever going to fade it."
"Fade," in this context, meaning loosely "get behind it" or "understand that it's true."
I have thought about poker a lot over the years. I realized early on that it was not a game of cards, it was a game of betting. A successful bettor needs to understand the people he's betting against. (Knowing various odds is also useful, but at a certain level everyone knows the same odds, so it's a wash.)
But here's the thing: Even if you know the odds, even if you know the people, you're gonna lose sometimes. That's just true. People do draw to inside straights; overbetting stay-in-every-hand players do sometimes pull a full house on the last card, and there you are, darned smart and careful and busted.
Because life is unfair. That's the point. Luck is orthogonal to virtue. Luck is orthogonal to intelligence. It raineth on the just and the unjust. The real world is littered with examples. Here's one: O.J. Simpson.
But somehow, we still think we can make a deal with God. OK, God, I'll do this and this and this, actions I have reason to believe you approve of, and in exchange you will (a) make my biopsy benign, (b) keep my car running, (c) make Sally love me, (d) give me that third king.
The trouble is, God has signed no agreements. It's strictly one-party wheedling. Some people would say that prayers are always answered; it's just that sometimes the answer is no. Other people say that prayer is a delusional act of superstition. Doesn't matter. Your belief system has no relevance. Life is unfair for all God's chillun.
In poker, it is true that the luck of the cards will even out eventually. But "eventually" takes a lot longer than is generally realized. If you really, really need for your luck to change on the next hand, chances are it won't.
In life, alas, it is not even true that the luck evens out eventually. You can start miserable and end miserable and be miserable in between. If you manage your luck, you can find a way to make the misery work for you: Edgar Allan Poe, Dostoyevsky, Richard Nixon, Toni Morrison, Janis Joplin.
Good luck is seductive, too. As Ann Richards said about George Bush, "He was born on third base and thought he'd hit a triple." Hubris is a seductive thing; hubris goeth before the fall. Except when it doesn't. That's the irritating part.
We train our children to manage their skills. We train our children to train. We tell them that right actions promote right results, that virtue is its own reward, that all things come to he who waits -- although none of those things is inevitably true.
Maybe it's time to think about managing our luck a little more. I mean, this is the only life you're going to get; if the breaks are going against you,
it's still the only life you're going to get. It's not the cards; it's the hand that holds the cards. You know?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is not new information; still, a refresher course is always useful.