The ideal "religion" for a poker player.

[The once and future king]

Buddhism.

Why. It requires no leaps of faith as there is no God or Soul in Buddhism. Also Buddhism is fundamentaly about practise or meditation.

There is nothing better for the poker mind than meditation.

The goal of practise is equanimity, if you have through practise established a good grounding in equanimity then poker with its fluctuations ups and downs and horrible bad beats just washes over the mind leaving it unruffled and able to carry on making the right decisions.

Meditaion also results in much better situational awareness.

In short Buddhism is +EV.

[Figge]

Sounds about right to me...

/F

[Shaman]

There is a prayer called "the Serenity Prayer". I don't know which religion it comes from but whatever that religion is, it should be the ideal religion for poker, IMO.

"God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference."

[The once and future king]

I personaly cant do religions with a God.

Also whilst that prayer may calm you down slightly meditation will work on the root causes of your agitatation allowing much greater serenity.

[Shaman]

It doesn't have to be "God". In the serenity prayer, you can replace "God" with anything. It can be the "Universe", your "Subconscious Mind", "Self" or whatever. Doesn't have to be "God". For me its God but that's just a personal choice.

[belowpoverty]

You are 1K% correct about meditation.

I highly recommend "Autobiography of a Yogi" by Paramahansa Yogananda. If you can handle the "extreme" metaphysics, his organization offers practical lessons in yoga meditation for just about the cost of mailing them to you.

But it's certainly not for everybody. The book has sold many millions of copies and is available at most libraries and used bookstores. If you pick up a copy and start reading, it won't take long before you will know whether it's for you or not.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

If you haven't already, read "Zen and the Art of Poker" by Lawrence Phillips

[Malarky]

Tao Te Ching isn't a bad book for poker.

[Duke]

The ideal way to think for everyone, in my opinion, is to take the best of everything you come into contact with. Sure you'll never have any hard line opinions on much of anything, but you'll rarely be dead wrong and bullheaded about it either.

Why would it ever make sense to hold onto ideas that you later see to be flawed?

Why would it ever make sense to prevent yourself from ever seeing those flaws?

Ignorance may be bliss, but it's still ignorance.

~D

[The once and future king]

What ideas am I hanging onto exactly ?