In a Bluff magazine article Illari Sahamies(Finnish) is quoted as saying “People are realistic in Finland, They(Fins) don’t believe so much in God or luck or magic… but the reason why there are so many good poker players among a population of only 5 million? I don’t know...I guess it’s a kind of miracle.”

It got me to thinking about religion in that part of the world and after looking up religious statistics in Sweden on Wikipedia I found this ,"Despite a high formal membership rate in the Church of Sweden, several studies have found Sweden to be one of the least religious countries in the world, with one of the highest levels of atheism. According to different studies, between 46% and 85% of Swedes do not believe in God."

Does lack of Religion in your culture and up bringing allow you to become more fearless at the tables? Does being brought up with a religious background disable and restrict you from being a world class poker player? Is there an inverse correlation between being devoted to your religious beliefs and success in poker?

op believes in fairy tales

I don't think religion (or lack of it) plays much of a part in it - Scandinavia (cue debate about how Finland is not part of it) have very good social security where you almost can't go truly broke the way you can in other countries.

You and your family is still guaranteed food, a home, health care, high level education etc almost no matter how broke you are, so the fear of going broke, or losing a big amount of money, is not going to be as high in these countries. It's by no means fun to be broke, you'll have to go without a lot of stuff and make sacrifices on many levels, but it's not as big a crisis as it can be elsewhere.

Yeah I definitely think that as a culture they are tough people and more fearless so maybe this has something to do with it but definitely nothing to do with Religion, thats absurd. I'd say more than anything though that it is just how many players from there learn the game as everybody plays more aggressive so they learn aggression from the beginning and develop their skills around this.

I think it's the strong social safety net and high taxes that make them more fearless and aggressive. The safety net means the consequences of being busto are lower, but the high taxes mean you really have to make a lot of money to buy nice things.

Vikings are aggressive

this... their great great great great great grandpa was beowulf n sht

Is there any reason you think those things would be related?

How many people did they ask? 12?

What, fearlessness and religion?

*Generous loans grants a lot of spare time to students.
*Higher education for all. University or similar is like rare not attending.
*Less belief in superstition.

I think one reason is that scandinavians love to compete in general (alot of the times versus eachother).

This in addition to economic stability has produced a lot of world class athletes and it might be a reason why many good and aggressive poker players come out of scandinavia.

That and the fact that it is cold as hell half of the time

It was mostly the norwegians. The danes after that and then the swedes. The fins were never anything else but a farmer people getting sodomized by Sweden/Russia until they cooperated with the nazis and finally liberated themselves.

If anything, it's more of a starving alcoholic farmer culture. Very aggressive because little to lose that's in our blood. We've only had it good for 50 years.

lol god

I dont know how the rest of europe is but i thought this was 2010, i mean i dont know anyone who would considered to be religous or believe in god or stuff like that.

But i dont think it has anything to do with the "fearless" play though

Higher wages, easier to get a job = money has lesser value comparing to ppl from less wealthy countries.

well, we dont believe in God here really, its all about Thor, Odin and so on. We still kill chickens, cows and sheeps to please our Gods. So we are used to being agro in life, so we do the same when we play poker...

Viking gene

We sacrifice animals to ancient viking gods for the rungood.

I think one of the possibilities is also just that the finnish winter is very cold and long compared to other countries, so we're more likely to stay indoors longer during that time = more time on PC = more likely to play a game like poker.

1. op must be american (and yea lol americans)
2. what about those raping priests? to me it didnt seem they feared any consequences
3. lol religion

Do you mean apart from the completely obvious ones?

Poker is a game where logic and critical analysis (among other things) are rewarded with success. Religion is a game where critical analysis and the ability to challenge irrational conclusios is actively discouraged and in some cases forbidden.

In Poker, we see non-sensical lines and we remain sceptical of any information put to us; in Religion the same treatment would've got you burnt at the stake for being a heretic throughout history; now you're only threatened with eternal torture.

No you're right - no relationship at all :P

off to grinding...

One must first lose the belief in god, in order to truely believe and achieve the godmode.

I'd say this is pretty accurate.

No, obv you don't know how the rest of Europe is. And obv you don't know many people either.

And you didn't get why atheism would produce stronger players either. Not much you get in life is it? Din jävla fjant.