JediHog's Poker Musings

Why I like poker

This morning, I was thinking about why I like to play poker. In no particular order, here are the reasons that came to my head...

1. Competition. I'm a highly competitive person, and am always looking for a way to compete. Just the other night, my brother and I competed to who had the lowest blood pressure using one of those home jobbers you get from Walgreens. Poker provides a very easy and reliable way to compete. It also has a WIDE range of competition from folks who have no clue, to folks who are 10x better than me.

When I play golf, I tend to play with those who are at the same level or worse than me (because I'm not very good) In poker, I'd rather play with folks that are better than me, so that I can learn and get better.

2. Money. Too often I compete with nothing on the line. Money makes your decisions a lot harder and more important. I'm not playing poker to make money (as an income producing machine, that is), but having money on the table creates a different "high" than that of playing a game for the next "drink" :-)

3. Thinking. In high school and college, I loved to play chess. It made me think, hard. Most of the things that we (Americans) busy ourselves with, do not require thinking (such as television). Playing chess allowed me to think bigger and better than my opponent. In the same way, poker makes me think, and requires me to think bigger and better than my opponent in order for me to win (which is the ultimate goal, right?). Actually, in some regards poker requires more thinking than chess, because you're playing against up to 9 other people and their unknown cards, opposed to 1 person and a known board (chess).

4. People. I like to read people and try to figure out what it is that they are thinking and doing. I also like to figure out why they make the decisions that they do, and what drives them. Poker provides a window into people by how they make their decisions and why. This really only applies to playing live poker.

5. Fun. Poker is fun, period. Throwing chips around over a couple of beers on a table that you built from a couple of sheets of plywood is just plain fun. Getting together with 8 other dudes and taking their money, is fun.

posted by jedihog @ 7:17 AM