Keep the faith

This year’s Main Event winner – the inescapably likeable Jerry Yang – played like a man possessed on the final table. And that’s because in a way, he was. Yang was often seen praying at the table and, according to an interview he gave after his victory, in front of a toilet during the breaks.

In his exit interview Yang told a reporter, ‘I give all the glory to God. He really helped me. I’m victorious today because of him’. If that’s the case, it was hardly a fair contest…

Even as an atheist I’d have second thoughts about playing against someone who felt there was a he/ she/it out there manipulating the odds in their favour as part of a divine plan. Yang certainly felt there was. But what if he was up against someone equally convinced that they were playing for the glory of God? Would it end up being a stalemate with split pots and a tournament director forced to make a ruling that the two players would have to chop the first place prize money. Or would the person who’d prayed just that couple of seconds longer or subscribe to the ‘correct’ religion win it?

There was a glib, yet funny, article on www.wickedchopspoker.com, which joked that Jerry Yang’s God was more legitimate than Hevad ‘Rain’ Khan’s because he won the Main Event and Khan didn’t.

While I’m not going to comment on whether there’s any truth in that, it got me thinking that poker would be a great way to answer that age-old question: which is the one ‘true’ religion? Imagine, a 12-heat televised tournament like the Poker Premier League, with the winning head of faith claiming the accolade that they must be the follower of the one true God/s.

Just think what an incredible poker show it would be! A sit-and-go featuring leaders from the entire spectrum of world religion. You’d obviously have to invite Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and Taoists, but with room for some of the world’s smaller religious groups like Wiccans, Scientologists and Rastafarians. It would make for fantastic viewing.

Each week you’d tune in for Poker SuperGods, The Poker Church or High Priest Poker, to see Pope Benedict bitterly complaining that the Dalai Lama should have folded to his check-raise on the turn, after he’d sucked out on him on the river.

And forget about cowboy hats and hoodies – there’d be cassocks, robes, wands and staffs. It would be so much more dramatic when entire belief systems are at stake rather than just another huge pile of cash for a Vegas high-roller. The fear, anguish, concentration and jubilation would be multiplied many times over.

Non-starter

Unfortunately none of these shows will ever come to pass as, let’s face it, most religions don’t exactly condone gambling. And even if they did I can’t imagine a divine being wanting to lie (bluff), or cheat by manipulating the turn of a card.

Anyway, in poker it’s better to take responsibility for your actions because there are no special poker gods that are going to come to your rescue. The chance turn of a card will create hands that laugh in the face of statistics often enough to make you feel that a malign spirit might be out to get you. Get over it. If you went in with the best hand and got outdrawn, take solace in the fact that four out of five times you would have taken all your opponent’s chips.

More importantly, if you lose a coin toss, before complaining that you never win a race, look at what you called or pushed with and ask yourself whether you expected to be much more than a 50/50. If you didn’t, you were willingly walking into a gamble.

New world champion Yang’s belief gave him the confidence to play hard and fast, capitalising on the other players’ nerves at the final table. In the same exit interview he said, ‘When I sensed that my opponents were weak I raised with nothing to take the pot.’ Although he may pass the glory onto a higher power it was the faith he put in his own ability that won through a field of 6,358 players and saw him enter the record books alongside past poker greats.