Poker and real life

A few days ago, I USED TO BE having dinner with some friends of mine when an overly interesting debate arose concerning the metaphors on life that will originate from our behaviors on the felt, and vice versa. The controversy led us to investigate some similarities which might be common to the 2 sectors which, after an intensive examination, don't look as different as they may have at a primary glance.

Setting aside for a moment all technical-behavioral dynamics that may connect our game to our everyday lives, (for example, factors just like the aggressiveness emerging on the table, the time employed in taking decisions or the share of risk that we elect to just accept in every fold/call, etc.), I LATTERLY tried to investigate the explanations why our minds, our way of life, our cognitive and intellectual skills, lead us to like a game like poker.

Luca Pagano: Life imitates poker and vice versa

I am not a game psychologist and hence I WOULDN'T have the required abilities to make a radical analysis of this issue. Moreover, this will likely not also be the correct place to make such analysis. So, I simply analyzed my career from its first actual moments, bearing in mind everything that has include it and focusing my attention at the key questions: where will playing poker lead me and what is going to it bring me?

In general, you start to play to know whether, throughout the game, it's possible to regulate the thirst for competition, the need to overcome your opponent, and that of succeeding depending on your individual skills instead of counting on the mere "good luck". Obviously, the chance to reach all this while "having fun" assigns a fundamental and decisive point to poker.

In addition to this, it need to be said that during most cases on the beginning, after the primary successful results (probably due to fortuitousness), you already know that commitment, study, strain and humility (let alone the remainder dozens of features that jointly or separately result in succeed or failure) are paths that should be followed to succeed in the abovementioned personal fulfillment.

Undoubtedly, lots of you who're now reading this text have considered the earnings, the profit that will come from the fairway felt and the variation between a typical"" job and that of a poker player.

Though, in the event you recall to mind it for a while, real life too presents obstacles going beyond the wealth that may be achieved, only after having fixed personal limits and definite rules regarding your behavior. I BELIEVE of the entrepreneur attending a gathering within the Office so one can provide him with the required authorization to proceed with something, or the graduate who spends his nights studying. I FEEL of plenty of professionals who, to thrive in a competitive market, want to stand up an hour sooner than others.

Things are almost the similar for poker.

One of the chums present at that dinner made a robust statement that made me think. He said: "TO TRULY start gaining in poker it's a must to stop enjoying yourself".

Do you actually need to stop enjoying yourself?

Personally, as I'VE already stated in a up to date interview, I FEEL that fun is a fundamental section of poker which makes it a very special job. The need of getting fun within the right way, mixing pleasure with a sequence of "sacrifices" that during the long term will decrease in number and become the need to be competitive, proving to oneself and to others that you simply understand how to do what you're doing!

I think that success in poker, as in real life, can't be separated from passion. For those who lack passion and rise up within the morning with the concept what you may be doing during your day is heavy, or in case you take a bath lacking the need to begin a brand new day, then poker, as some other activity you are dealing with, isn't your path.

Nobody can prevent you from diving into another fantastic adventure.

Good luck!

Luca Pagano is a member of Team PokerStars Pro.

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