Poker777

[suds]

Poker can be and has been used as a metaphor for other times in life or other aspects of life such as the similarities of the game and business, relationships and politics. The most recent article of wide distribution which has drawn comparisons between government and gaming was published by the National Journal and graced as the cover story. The piece was a feature piece which went into a deep examination of American President Barack Obama and his tenure in office and draws some comparisons in regards to his political decisons as a leader and his game play when it comes to poker. The national Journal has been around for 40 years and is published weekly with coverage of the United States national political scenes and the trends in policy which are forever emerging. The magazine is read mostly by those of political interest in Washington. The feature article written by Englund starts with his personal view of how the game of poker imitates life. He stated that "If there is a single game that comes closest to recapitulating modern existence- that both mimics and informs the logic of cluttered, challenging, bewilderingly complicated, less-than-all-knowing, partially comprehensible human society- it is poker."
Barack Obama is not just a metaphorical poker player but he is also an avid fan of the game with card sharks and fellow politicians referring to the presidents game as being cautious and patient and also conservative. The in depth analysis of Barack Obamas poker skills includes a discussion of some botched bets and hands which were certainly misplayed and also gives some predictions about just how the decision making will come across in a strategic manner from the president in the future. Overall, the article gives praise to the game by naming it as a great way to enhance and sharpen the skills of critical thinking.

[Gregn]

Personally i would have found the article much more enticing and attention grabbing if it had of consisted of more about the Presidents poker play rather than the political paralells to his game, I was interested but the article was only able to keep my attention at the sections which discussed poker itself and not politics or strategies of politics of present and past political identities, I pretty much skimmed through the lot and stopped every time that i read the word poker, hand, table, cards or chips.

Yes i read the article to and found myself feeling the same way, although they did make a few references to poker in the article it wasn't really the amount that I expected and it was more loosly used rather than actual topical conversation about poker. I was hoping that it would be an article purely about the president and his thoughts and feelings on poker, the poker variant or variants he plays and enjoys, the ones he doesn't enjoy and whether he plays in a casino or online or other interesting facts such as that.

[sleuthy]

Although I will admit that i myself, just like the rest of you it would seem, was disappointed at the fact that i had allowed myself to be lead to believe that there would be quite alot of poker conversation with the president Barack Obama only to find that instead it was a piece written on poker imitating life in some peculiar and yet at times even obvious manners. It did however, in defence to some extent of the article, outline that maybe, just maybe, if you know how the man (or woman for that matter) leads his or her life, the kinds of decisions they make in day to day and in tough situations, can really tell you alot about their poker game, may come in handy one day playing against them.

[Trina]

Although i do understand their correlations between poker and all different situations or scenarios in life in which you may find yourself in, i do not believe that they can really attribute Barack Obamas skills and abilities in leadership, decision making and risk taking as the President of the United States of America all to how he plays his poker game. I have met a whole lot of people who are terrible at these kinds of life skills and seem to just completely lack them in general and yet they play a very mean and hard to beat game of poker, so I don't believe that this article they have written really speaks much truth but that's my opinion as i think it was written more as an entertainment and attention grabbing piece rather than one of any real established fact.

[aussiegirl]

I think that what you have mentioned is debatable. I can see how they would be able to correlate his decision making etc with how he plays his poker game, but at the same time i think that something such as how the country is run is much more important and has much higher stakes than you would ever find in a poker game, so in that instance i think that it is an unfair assumption that his decisions and abilities as the President of the United States of America are all direct results and giveaways of how he chooses to play his hands when it comes to poker.

[Avenge]

I have not yet read the article and i don't really have any intention to anytime soon, don't get me wrong, i think that Obama is great but at the same time i am really not that into politics or anything like that so i was kind of devastated when they made one single article about two subjects that i would have picked up and taken the time to read about if they were written about in an article each, so if they wrote an article on obama and just him then i would have read it, if they did one on poker and only poker then i would have read it, but the combination of the two into one article, no, it's like a contamination of the fun of the game by adding politics into it, there has been far too much political stuff surrounding poker lately.

[DhD]

You are right, the combination of the two wasn't that great. I think that they tried to make it rather seamless but instead ended up making it just a whole heap of thrown together facts, disappointing considering the author of the piece is such a great writer and this is by no means his best work to date. Im sure that there are just as many people who do enjoy the article though but more likely for the political aspects of the piece rather than the references to poker that are found within it.

[Marianna]

I actually have not even read the article yet so can not provide any real feedback on it at all but after reading about here i neither feel the need to read it nor feel any particular amount of desire to read it because it all seems to be rather boring and not what most of the poker people would have been expecting. Maybe the article has more of an appeal to those people who are interested in politics more so than those who enjoy the game of poker. I personally do keep up with politics when it is something of significant importance but i do not follow it so closely as to care what the president does in his poker game that determines or points to his decisions as a leader. I know a few people who are high up in companies and make good decisions at work but are terrible at poker, can't judge a book by its cover or it's poker game.

[cindy2010]

I read it and i nearly fell asleep unfortunately to say, but that was probably because all of the political talk does not really have any type of appeal to me at all. I skimmed through it trying to find the poker parts and although they were making poker references here and there they weren’t really giving much away to the reader. If i pick up a magazine or newspaper because of a headline that i see then i have the expectation of being able to read an article that is all about what the title made it appear to be, this wasn’t the case with this article at all in my opinion. Don’t misconstrew what i am saying, i am not saying that the article was terrible or anything like that at all, i am saying that i did not like it, it wasn’t for me. There would have been plenty of people out there with more of an interest in politics who would have loved it though and i think that was the aim, to lure heaps of us in and then spit us out when we found out that it wasn’t what we thought it would be.

[skylarking]

I also read the article but i actually would have to say that i did enjoy it very much. In all honesty though i am interested in politics as well as poker so it was probably more suited to me than someone who just has an interest in poker alone. I would have to agree that the title was somewhat elusive and that it was made out to be something that it really was not it was still something that was entertaining to read and showed us yet another side to our president. The article did have a couple of bits here and there that gave me a bit of a laugh, good to see a little bit of humour being added into the mix to make the article still fun and have a feeling of being light and carefree rather than being one that was too serious, even though there was plenty of political information in there.