Is Poker Worth the Effort?
Anyone can learn poker rules quickly enough, online access and interface are easy, and there really is no reason not to try. Online poker is vastly successful. There isn't a gambling site online which does not offer poker games. A dedicated player becomes part of a community, acquires friends, and perhaps even his livelihood.
All or most poker game varieties are available for download for free. They offer safe practice for the novice. You get to try your hand against p.c. opponents and may adjust difficulty so as to easily experience successive winning, feeling the pleasure of addiction spread through your system like a shot of good liquor.
All online games are played with you cozily in front of your computer. You don't have to worry about minimalizing your body language or reading the faces and posture of some ten human opponents, each with his or her make up, ticks, and poker-face tricks. But despite this fact, the mild fun of perfecting your strategy against software is rather like doing your best at tennis against a wall or shooting up cardboard targets - it is not really comparable to live action. Technically, there may not be much similarity between a gun fight and a game of poker, and you can depend on a professional not to have a sawed-off shotgun pointed at you at the other end of the table, unless you are shooting a Robert Rodriguez movie. But the parallel is warranted since both gun fights and poker for real (as opposed to virtual) money involve a constant sense of danger.
And this is precisely what makes games against a human opponent not merely lifelessly fun, but eerily fun, - the kind of fun which makes for the most powerful addiction. Somebody who has never handled anything more dangerous than Spider Solitaire on their laptop in the lecture hall may well wonder whether poker is anything more than a game of patience. And it is important that he or she realize that besides skill, chance (or luck, however you might choose to evoke this deity) is the essence of the game. And hence, a live poker session without the possibility to reset, and only the possibility to Fold, is pervaded by danger.
This is precisely what turns many people off. But which also makes as many people feel irresistibly "alive" while betting on the value of their hands. You must have the money, the time, and the energy to spend - but these are controllable factors. You had better be willing to make the effort to learn strategy, but you must also have a lucid and refined appreciation of the element of Chance. A player who does not, and who perhaps approaches the game simply in the crude hope for a few good quick wins will loose and will grow tired of trying. The taste of danger then is sour and one wishes to rinse it out as quickly as possible.
To the real player danger is delicious. That's why he is at the table/computer. The player knows his stuff and his bluff, knows what is practically within his power, and does not indulge vain fantasies. He or she is there for the chance just as the rock climber is there for the sheer height. One must learn to hear the music of chance in the game; then, even an unlucky session will have been worth the effort.
About the Author:
The author is a successful limit cash game player and has played poker full time since 2005. He currently plays poker and recieves Rakeback at Cake Poker.
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