Poker as Life

This is something I wrote for a class once, poker as a metaphor for life.

 

            Throw one chip away, and the others all follow. Lock them up and slowly they’ll chip away. No pun intended.  

            We’re all like poker players in a sense. We love to live on the edge. We love to take big risks in order to achieve something better; even when what we already have is good enough. We all love to gamble. As the stakes get higher, we have a harder time folding. We are inclined to play hands we wouldn’t normally play. And because of this, we bust out. We lose. Though we talk a lot of trash, we’re not upset with our maker. We’re mad at ourselves. We know that we made a dumb call, but we couldn’t just let it slip away. But in fact, that is exactly what we did. We often let our emotions get the better of us. In the poker game of life, the weak ones are always on tilt. Hurt them once, and they will most likely hurt again. And eventually, there will be nothing left to hurt.

            But the strong can handle themselves better. A good player can lose half his stack on one hand but he will not lose control. He will fight hard until the very end. These are the players that always prevail; players that can last a long time while short stacked. And slowly, but surely, they make their way to chip leader. It’s happened before. ‘A chip and a chair’ is the old expression; as long as you have chips, you have a chance. And once a good player’s up, it’s hard bringing him down.

            Smart players know when to pick their spots. They don’t bluff away all their chips when they don’t need to. They don’t bluff or gamble when they know they’re beat. Winners know when to fold. Sometimes folding and giving away just a few of your chips is better than calling and risking all of them; because if you lose, it’s all over. And from then on, you’ll be on a slippery slope to disaster. You need to know when you’re beat.

Author's Note

This is not a poem, but I didnt know what else to characterize it as.