Very nice post.
On a tangentially but-only-slightly related note, I
tried to explain "calling stations" to the readership of DailyKos in response to David Mamet's editorial implying that the Democrats don't know when to raise and either get bluffed out or just call down to the river and lose every hand. (I'm Libertarian, not Democrat, in case someone wants to start an off-topic political discussion.)
At any rate, the point is that a lot of people are calling stations. But poker, and politics, are bad career choices for those people.