♠ Wednesday, November 22, 2006
The Personality of a Poker Player
A book that hasn't impressed me much (Larry W. Phillips, Zen and the Art of Poker. New York: Penguin Putnam Inc., 1999) has been relegated to my bathroom reading. In the midst of such unique advice as "don't tilt," I found this gem (pp.146–147), which somehow appeals to me:
(I'm re-editing this so that what is a long paragraph in the book is a numbered list here, in case I find I want to talk about specific points of the list. He also does one of my pet peeves—singular they—and I'm fixing that, too.)
The Personality of a Poker Player
It sometimes seems to be the case that people who are attracted to poker have lives that resemble (or parallel) a poker game. A list of these parallels might read like this:
- The suffering of some kind of slings and arrows,
- some brand of persecution;
- being ground down by events,
- yet having an occasional big triumph and rising above them;
- not terribly fond of physical work;
- a belief in the power of the rational mind to succeed, or make money (as opposed to back-breaking physical labor);
- believers in the analytical, problem-solving approach,
- but one also that contains a certain dash of flair;
- a person who likes to reduce the whole complex world to “the felt” (a small area taking place in front of [him]);
- a “simplifier,” a reducer of life's complexities;
- an escapist;
- a person with thick skin;
- yet a believer in hopefulness, possibilities,
- and good fortune, even last-second miracles;
- but a dark side, too—an occasional desire to “punish”
- (or to be punished);
- a belief in cameraderie;
- membership in cultural subgroups of one kind or another;
- societal mavericks or outcasts.
In short, their lives have actually been a poker game, and when they come across the game of poker itself, well … Eureka! They found a home … it was something that exactly mirrored their [lives].
All the time I've spent formatting that, and I find that I mostly want to let it stand on its own. If I talk about this post much, it will be in a future post, probably reaction to people's reaction to it. For now, though, I'm headed to Michigan City for some poker.
