Poker

I’ve been playing poker periodically with some high school friends and it’s gotten me into it. We just play for fun (pennies), but the poker world is fascinating. Recently I’ve been watching the World Poker Tour on the Travel Channel and it’s totally absorbing to me. Once you start to understand the game you see the full gamut of human psychology. You see who’s patient, the mavericks, when people get desperate. It’s a little psychological war on a table.

I have this coworker who actually plays poker at those card clubs regularly and he was saying how you can witness the full range of human emotion at a table in the course of a few hours. Extreme joy, complete devastation, rage, depression, jealousy, fear. The only emotion you don’t see is love. Which is telling I guess. I dunno, I find it fascinating but I could never get into it. Gambling’s just too evil. But for no stakes among friends, I dunno, it’s pretty fun.