Years ago a friend explained the game of Texas Hold’em to me. There were conceptual reasons and metaphors to be considered in the context of the conversation at that time. And they also said I would probably make a good poker player because I was really smart.
In many tangible ways my brain does work somewhat like a poker player – but probably more like a chess player.
I have high conceptual strengths in both games but one of my weaknesses is memorizing card hands, certain rules of flow and hands which trump other hands, keeping track in real time of all variables and possibilities, and retaining and memorizing lesser known chess moves.
I’ve only played Texas Hold’em with real people (as opposed to a fun and relaxing computer program I used to fiddle with years ago in my downtime) a handful of times at corporate Christmas parties.
In these few live games, most of the time I seemed to hold my own or even do a little well – perhaps in part since my cheerful, playful and seemingly innocent (but truly needed to some extent) requests for reminders of the hands and rules coupled with my very strong understanding of the concepts, enabled me to win at least a few rounds!
Since the setting was a Christmas party and the Casino entertainment brought in had the goal of making things fun, I did get an amount of help from the dealer, all the while scrutinizing the game itself and those at table with me. As far as recreational games go, I did find it fun.
As I sometimes say in various contexts, “I’m really not as stupid as I look, or seem!“
There’s a fun and quirky romantic comedy called Honeymoon in Vegas which stars Nicholas Cage. Basically, he and his girlfriend take a trip to Vegas with the intent of marrying one another. Clearly he’s an amateur poker player and he gets sucked into a horrible setup game in which he believes he is holding an unbeatable hand.
Of course, in the darkness of real Vegas casinos, the house always wins. And in this movie he finds himself at the mercy of owing (at threat of dire consequences) an outstanding, jaw-dropping loss which could only, apparently, be mitigated by allowing his fiance to spend 24 hours with one of these casino bosses who had his eye on her.
It’s actually a pretty sweet and humorous story (as far as movies go and certainly not the main entre of this expression) and of course it follows the pattern of every romantic comedy out there. The middle part is problematic but things always ends the same way!
__________
Getting back in movement toward the deeper seriousness of my expression here, but still, linking focusing a bit more on my lead-in metaphor.
As I understand things, in Texas Hold’em, you aren’t simply playing with the cards on the table (the flop, the turn card and the river card) but you are playing the odds of what you know you possess in your own hand and your risk assessment of what others possess.
I suppose that is what makes Texas hold’em quite a complicated and layered game and sets it apart from chess in terms of some types of control and strategies.
There are a lot of variables to manage and navigate in both games, but in Texas Hold’em there is the element of randomness in the sense of cards dealt to all players (and multiple opponents), whereas in chess there is an equal starting place and more fixed, limited options, and simply between two opponents.
Both games can be considered zero-sum games (with the exception on occasion that the spoils in Texas Hold’em might be split between more than one player).
Baseball, for example, is not a zero-sum game. Winning at baseball is shared with the opponent, somewhat, and I suppose the closeness of scores in this sport and others can be what makes that type of game so suspenseful and thrilling.
A match between two worthy teams provides more substance and analysis than a match between a very strong team and a horrible team.
__________
So why am I even thinking this morning about poker, chess, baseball and winning or unbeatable hands?
That’s a fair and understandable question.
I seem to have found myself in some seemingly unending life-season where every morning as I arouse to consciousness I find my mind assessing, dreading and strategizing both my overall situation and the moves which are before me each day.
During the past 20 years at different points, in very real life difficulties, I have unfortunately found myself daunted for various lengths of time in the similar spiritual, emotional and pragmatic dilemmas. But of all difficult life-seasons I’ve ever been in, this seems to be the most difficult and deepest of them all.
I am forced to make various difficult little and big decisions as I keep assessing overall situations, risk management and damage control, of sorts.
The terms “winning and losing” are poor linguistics in such scenarios since they fall short of the best articulation and run risk of implying things I am not intending. Surely I do not mean to convey any ideas of interpersonal or situational “game playing” in the sense of unhealth or dishealth. I should clarify that my goals are personal survival, true flourishing for myself and others, and achieving win-wins in various relationships.
I am simply re-framing the very real battles not only for my own survival and health but for those whom I deeply love care about and am accountable yet, in some ways, before God.
I struggle within one of my life themes/challenges of the idea of the Pyrrhic Victory.
I will now switch metaphors yet another time and say that what I might consider the healthy and desired goal post or finish line (as in football, soccer, track, swimming…) 20 years ago, 15 years ago, 10 years ago, 5 years ago, 5 months ago, 5 days ago and even 5 hours ago seemingly keeps being extended further and further from my reach.
I find myself asking will I ever enter the promised land of my life’s aims and personal/spiritual investments? Will I be given the reasonable fruits of my own hands and will my various life works be shown for what they truly are? And, that, raises questions as well.
This is exhausting and requires of me a lot of what some might name as downright foolishness to what others might name as downright faithfulness.
I could go so much deeper into metaphors of all sorts or comparison to biblical stories and texts or films of all sorts.
But I suppose I should leave space here for the reader to deeply take this metaphorical ball and run with it in their own life and tribulations.
As I compose this by dictation while drinking my coffee, among my various thoughts as I prepare for yet another day, eventually move from ideas of awareness of what we hold in our own hand to the deepest spiritual truth that we are all held in the (unbeatable) hand of God.
Being uncertain whether this expression should stand alone or somehow be linked to the next chapter commentary in the book of Job, is in my mind for consideration.
I am uncertain what chapter I am on or the context, but I think with fair certainty I could somehow link these thoughts to wherever Job is in his contentions with Satan that seem to be directly manifest, after the initial outward assaults of Chapter 1, through his trusted friends.
Anyone who knows the book of Job generally knows how it ends. Ultimately God wins. God rules over all things in all ways including over Job and his seemingly treacherous friends and especially, over the enemy of our souls (Satan and his dark forces) that seek our destruction and downfall and the dismantling of the works of God, the fruits of our hands and the Shalom of the one true God, our Creator’s, good creation.
From my vantage point, knowing the ending, I humanly ponder how Job’s misfortunes were ever fully restored. It is hard to grasp how losing (almost) everything and everyone that Job held dear (he did not lose his wife, his life partner, technically) could have somehow found some balm in the ending of this somewhat enigmatic story, but, I suppose (and am challenged to believe) that somehow in the ultimate sense of God’s purposes and rule, it was truly not in the category of the ‘Pyrrhic victory’ but exists in some other realm of ultimate truths.
But for now, in this Chapter 6, Job is quite in the thick of things, being still in the first of three rounds, which I know, based on loose memory, is only about to escalate.
One of the most difficult things about being in the middle of deep personal and spiritual battles (both inward and outward) is having no real understanding of when, if and how the difficult season will come to its end.
John 10:27-30 CEV
“My sheep know my voice, and I know them. They follow me, and I give them eternal life, so that they will never be lost. No one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father gave them to me, and he is greater than all others. No one can snatch them from his hands, and I am one with the Father.”
Job’s Reply to Eliphaz (Chapter 6, CEV)
It’s Impossible
6 Job said:
2 It’s impossible to weigh
my misery and grief!
3 They outweigh the sand
along the beach,
and that’s why I have spoken
without thinking first.
4 The fearsome arrows
of God All-Powerful
have filled my soul
with their poison.
5 Do oxen and wild donkeys
cry out in distress
unless they are hungry?
6 What is food without salt?
What is more tasteless
than the white of an egg?[a]
7 That’s how my food tastes,
and my appetite is gone.
* 8 How I wish that God
would answer my prayer
9 and do away with me.
10 Then I would be comforted,
knowing that in all of my pain
I have never disobeyed God.
11 Why should I patiently hope
when my strength is gone?
12 I am not strong as stone
or bronze,
13 and I have finally reached
the end of my rope.
My Friends, I Am Desperate
14 My friends, I am desperate,
and you should help me,
even if I no longer respect
God All-Powerful.
* 15 But you are treacherous
16 like streams that swell
with melting snow,
17 then suddenly disappear
in the summer heat.
18 I am like a caravan,
lost in the desert
while searching for water.
19 Caravans from Tema and Sheba
20 thought they would find water.
But they were disappointed,
21 just as I am with you.
Only one look at my suffering,
and you run away scared.
What Have I Done Wrong?
22 Have I ever asked any of you
to give me a gift
23 or to purchase my freedom
from brutal enemies?
24 What have I done wrong?
Show me,
and I will keep quiet.
25 The truth is always painful,
but your arguments
prove nothing.
26 Here I am desperate,
and you consider my words
as worthless as wind.
27 Why, you would sell an orphan
or your own neighbor!
28 Look me straight in the eye;
I won’t lie to you.
29 Stop accusing me falsely;
my reputation is at stake.
30 I know right from wrong,
and I am not telling lies.
Thank You For Reading
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