Serenity Now
Whether you are religious or not, there are undeniabe good things to come from faith. I believe Reinhold Niebuher’s Serenity Prayer is one of them.
Now I’m going to apply said prayer to poker, which may be blasphamous…but probably no more blasphamous then my previous posts about the “Poker Gods.” If I don’t post again by this time next week, assume I was struck down–probably by lighting.
Grant me the serenity to accept the hands I cannot win; the courage to play the hands I can; and the wisdom to know the difference.
This is a mantra of mine that I now pass to you. Let me break it down: not every hand is winable (i.e. you can’t bluff someone off the nuts.) The sooner we can accept this the sooner we can fold and move on. The courage this “prayer” speaks of is the ability to the bet when when you know you should. This is obvious, yet exteremely hard at times. When you have missed your draw but have put your opponent on a fairly weak hand, to risk a large sum or your hard earned money on a stone cold bluff takes bravery. If you have the wisdom to know when your rival will fold and at what price, the course of action should be clear.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 7th, 2009 at 3:23 am and is filed under Poker Life Lessons. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Grundy April 8th, 2009 at 3:49 am
Well, it is ironic that a prayer most known for helping with addiction (in AA meetings) is applied here to another addiction (gambling.) But I know serious card players read this blog and not gamblers.