{"id":9348,"date":"2021-06-08T08:43:10","date_gmt":"2021-06-08T08:43:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.coinpoker.com\/?p=9348"},"modified":"2024-09-24T14:28:17","modified_gmt":"2024-09-24T14:28:17","slug":"when-i-understood-life-is-like-poker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coinpoker.com\/when-i-understood-life-is-like-poker\/","title":{"rendered":"Once Upon a Time: When I Understood That Life is Like Poker"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>Last time in <strong>Once Upon A Time <\/strong>Isabelle reflected on the changes that the poker game had suffered during recent years. Now, in this edition, she draws the parallels that bring the poker game and the game of life together.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Today&nbsp;in class&nbsp;I am offering you a subject for an essay: &#8220;What is life?&#8221;. You have three hours&nbsp;to prepare your content and&nbsp;it\u2019s&nbsp;prohibited&nbsp;to copy from your&nbsp;neighbor, physical distancing required. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Okay, I&#8217;ll be nice and spare you some deep introspective thinking on this subject: I&#8217;ll give you the answer. Life is&nbsp;like&nbsp;poker! No need to summon Bergson, Kierkegaard, or even Kant to pass the test successfully. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If we had to choose one, we would take Descartes, but we&nbsp;can&nbsp;even do without him to support our argument.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Like in poker, in life you don&#8217;t choose which cards you&#8217;re given. Indeed, when we swipe our cards, we are faced with chances. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A promising pair of aces or a disappointing 7 and 2, we have no choice but to accept it. Same thing in life.&nbsp;We may be born&nbsp;in a wealthy and benevolent social environment, like a pair&nbsp;of aces or in a hostile environment that stinks,&nbsp;like&nbsp;7 and 2. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Still, in the same way, that I have already seen&nbsp;a&nbsp;7 and 2 cracking a&nbsp;pair of aces, it is possible to succeed no matter where you start from.&nbsp;Where you are born and what assets you have as a child&nbsp;are only one parameter of the equation. Their value matters as much as what you can do with them.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">See you tomorrow at the tables! GL all \ud83d\ude42 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/0SQCm9IYPX\">https:\/\/t.co\/0SQCm9IYPX<\/a><\/p>&mdash; \ufffcIsabelle Mercier \u26a1\ufe0f\ufffc\ufffc\ud83d\ude80 (@IsabelleNoMercy) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/IsabelleNoMercy\/status\/1398648825712197639?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 29, 2021<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Importance Of Taking Risks<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Like in poker, in life\u2026 you have to take risks. If you sit down at a poker table with the strategy of only playing once you have \u201cmonsters\u201d in hand, chances are that&nbsp;you are more readable than a&nbsp;classic Arial font. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Taking risks&nbsp;doesn\u2019t mean&nbsp;opening&nbsp;with&nbsp;80% of your hands, it&nbsp;doesn\u2019t mean to throw in a huge bunch of chips at the pot to get your opponent&nbsp;to fold, nor paying the opponent&#8217;s stack on the river because you&nbsp;were&nbsp;unable to let go of&nbsp;your&nbsp;top pair. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>No, taking risks is less about being in&nbsp;aggro&nbsp;mode than being able to seize opportunities when they arise, even if they take us out of our comfort zone.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Starting&nbsp;your&nbsp;own business&nbsp;in real life with all the &#8220;risks&#8221; that&nbsp;it&nbsp;includes,&nbsp;or 3-bet squeezing&nbsp;when you&#8217;re not used to doing it: it&#8217;s the same thing.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/coinpoker.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Isabelle-CoinPoker.jpg\" alt=\"Isabelle CoinPoker\" class=\"wp-image-9352\" title=\"Isabelle CoinPoker\"\/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Discipline and Consistency <\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Like in poker, in life &#8230; it takes discipline and consistency. It is clear that the professional players of the circuit who last and who&nbsp;accumulate performances&nbsp;are&nbsp;far from degenerates who run on gin-tonic&nbsp;as soon as they wake up at 5:00 in the morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This goes against the clich\u00e9 stereotype that the general public often has of poker players: inveterate gamblers who drink and smoke while laughing very loudly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When I started my career, the few players who dared to c-bet had a huge edge over their opponents. This is no longer the case today. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2021, to have an edge, you have to work your ranges, review your hands, work on your mind (no coincidence that many pros have coaches), and be in physical shape to get through 14 series days with 12-hour sessions without having a stroke.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Accept When You Get Beaten And Try Again<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Like in poker, in life you have to be lucky and&nbsp;to&nbsp;accept bad beats. Whether at tables or in life, there is a cold and relentless constant: you never control your destiny&nbsp;at&nbsp;100%. Ask any player:&nbsp;in order&nbsp;to win a tournament, you need&nbsp;luck,&nbsp;and&nbsp;you need to win&nbsp;your flips. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We can go all-in just with AA and KK, if we take a bad beat, we&nbsp;bust out. You need a certain dose of luck and knowing how to accept the kicks of fate, as well as doing so&nbsp;with philosophy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The same thing in life: you are never 100% safe from an accident. You have to know how to cash in, get up and become resilient, otherwise, you will not end the game. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cDesert crossings\u201d exist in Hold&#8217;em as well as in our daily lives. Same thing with good times. Deal with that!&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Life Is a Game to Share<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Like in poker, in life\u2026 you need friends. It\u2019s a solitary game, but it\u2019s a game to be shared. Play a home game, go to an associative club,&nbsp;talk&nbsp;with his friends on&nbsp;recent&nbsp;games, go to&nbsp;the&nbsp;strip in Vegas to play a WSOP tournament (<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/coinpoker.com\/going-back-to-las-vegas\/\">2021, here we come<\/a><\/strong>!),&nbsp;swap shares, do sessions online with&nbsp;friends&nbsp;on the webcam.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/coinpoker.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Isabelle-and-friends.jpg\" alt=\"Isabelle and friends\" class=\"wp-image-9354\" title=\"Isabelle and friends\"\/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p>All of this is why poker is more than a solitaire card game. It&#8217;s about the human bond, it&#8217;s an experience that is shared, it&#8217;s the human condition: we are seated at&nbsp;the same table, with our fellow human beings and we do not know what&nbsp;tomorrow,&nbsp;or the next hand will look like. Poker is so much life.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The bells&nbsp;rings, we collect the copies. I play\u2026 therefore I am\u2026 all-in!&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Meet me at the tables on CoinPoker to practice your skills and enjoy the action. Open yourself a <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/coinpoker.com\/download\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">CoinPoker account<\/a><em>\u202ftoday.&nbsp;<\/em>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-right\"><strong>Isabelle \u201cNo Mercy\u201d Mercier<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-right\"><strong>WPT Winner &amp;&nbsp;OFC \u201cProgressive\u201d World Champion<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last time in Once Upon A Time Isabelle reflected on the changes that the poker game had suffered during recent years. Now, in this edition, she draws the parallels that bring the poker game and the game of life together. Today&nbsp;in class&nbsp;I am offering you a subject for an essay: &#8220;What is life?&#8221;. You have <a href=\"https:\/\/coinpoker.com\/when-i-understood-life-is-like-poker\/\" class=\"more-link\">&#8230;<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  Once Upon a Time: When I Understood That Life is Like Poker<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":8248,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[189],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-strategy"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coinpoker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9348"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coinpoker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coinpoker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coinpoker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coinpoker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9348"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/coinpoker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9348\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88157,"href":"https:\/\/coinpoker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9348\/revisions\/88157"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coinpoker.com\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coinpoker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coinpoker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coinpoker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}