Does Military Service Incline One to Be a Bad Player?

[Pocket77s]

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Less than ten percent of all poker players make money, military or civ.

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[img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

Then why the heck play poker anyway if the the other 90% are long term loosers??

[xniNja]

People like to talk about how only x-10% of poker players are winning players, as if it's incredibly difficult to win at poker. They forget that only x-10% of people in life are successful. Play to win. Someone has to lose, but it doesn't have to be you.

[Guthrie]

Your thinking is flawed. Military training is actually very good for poker. You learn to execute operations that have been tested over time, whether you believe them or not. You also learn that once you get into action, you can modify the procedures to fit the situation, not blindly follow doctrine. A Marine sniper would make a great poker player.

[Larimani]

[ QUOTE ]
People like to talk about how only x-10% of poker players are winning players, as if it's incredibly difficult to win at poker. They forget that only x-10% of people in life are successful. Play to win. Someone has to lose, but it doesn't have to be you.

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Where the hell did that 10% come from? my PT database shows 40% of players are winners.

[ZenMusician]

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Then why the heck play poker anyway if the the other 90% are long term <font color="red">loosers??</font>

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Loose or Lose?

[malo]

Thinking about the infamous story about Richard Nixon. Learned to play poker in the Navy, and actually financed his first congressional campaign with the money he won from fellow officers during WWII.

He then went on to downplay his poker playing to the public.....fearing it would be perceived badly.

[scar_face]

i dont think that there is a direct relationship between military service and being a poor poker player. however i do think that other factors may play a role, such as alcohol abuse. however, this is also a problem for the general population.
Does anyone have any info on rates of substance abuse and/or gambling addiction in the military (ex-military) vs. the general population?

[AZnuts]

I say it comes down to this . . .

Military folks are by occupation trainable and disciplined. If the effort is made to APPLY those quality traits to poker, they can make a good player like anyone else.

If there is no effort to learn poker, then they will fail like 90% of everyone else.

(then again, a military friend of mine is almost too nice of a guy and never wants to bluff his friends, it's like lying I guess - but bluffing isn't really all that critical in low-limit, limit games)

This is an interesting idea, but you need to be more specific than simply saying "suitabliity for military service." Being a computer programmer in the USMC isn't the same as being an infantryman in the 82nd Airborne Division.

[Jimmy The Fish]

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Thinking about the infamous story about Richard Nixon. Learned to play poker in the Navy, and actually financed his first congressional campaign with the money he won from fellow officers during WWII.

He then went on to downplay his poker playing to the public.....fearing it would be perceived badly.

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There was another career-military man who made it to the White House... name of Eisenhower... who was, by all accounts, a pretty good poker player.