What Is Poker
Put simply poker is a card game played for money. But I thought about it recently and as I started digging around in my subconscious I realized that there’s a lot more to it than that.
For some it’s a lifestyle, it’s a hobby, or a habit, or all three. But there are some of us out there, we gamblers, who have a very intimate relationship with the game, and I’ve decided to try to put into words what the game is to us.
For those of us truly passionate about online poker, it’s a mistress and wife at the same time. It’s our love and our hatred all bottled into one chaotic little package. We are fulfilled by it; we are frustrated by it; we are satisfied and left empty and fill voids with it.
It’s a vile game, a loner’s sport. It’s a game of survival, a viscous game of having to hurt another person to make your own life (bankroll) better. Such a cruel nature to this addiction of ours.
It’s also a puzzle, so enigmatic that even a lifetime of training wouldn’t clear up all the mysteries. It’s a game where one has to be aggressive, but cautious at the same time. A game where in order to win you have to take risks, you have to wager, but you have to wager carefully. A careful risk, such a paradox.
It is enjoying the bouquet but not drinking the wine. A game of skill mixed with a little bit of chance, and if you slip up and drink that wine and forget about the flowers, you may end up, as Romeo did with his Love, poisoned by the intoxication, never to be let go.
It is something to be revered and disdained, as it is our livelihood as well as our misfortune. That’s what playing poker online is to us.