Is Poker Worth the Effort?
Poker rules can be learned by anyone quickly enough. There is really no reason not to try, as online access and interface are easy. The success of online poker is vast. Every online gambling site offers poker games. His livelihood, and friends are acquired by a dedicated player and he becomes part of a community.
Nearly all poker games are available for free download. Safe practice for the novice is offered. You may adjust difficulty as you try your hand against p.c. opponents so as to easily experience successive winning. The pleasure of addiction can be felt coursing through your veins.
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.
Many people are turned off by this. While others feel irresistibly alive while betting on the value of their hands. The controllable factors are having the money, time, and energy to spend. Learning the strategy is an effort you must be willing to make, but to the element of chance you must have the lucid and refined appreciation. A player will lose and grow tired trying if they do not, and instead approach the game simply in crude hope for a few quick wins. One wishes to rinse out, as quickly as possible, the sour taste of danger.
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.
The author of this article began playing poker seriously in 2000 and has played full time since early 2005. He currently makes the majority of his income from online poker and Poker Nordica Rakeback.
