I don't wanna come off like an ******* saying athiests are smarter than religious people, because theyre are plenty of great religious poker players, and smart people, but I think many atheists see the world from a much wider scope than religious people, which may lead to more creativity and problem solving at the table. the fearless thing isnt true imo because Brazilians are fearless too, but have a huge religious population

Wait... Nazis were involved in 1918 when Finland was declared independent? I must slept through that class...

lol

finland also has some of the if not the highest suicide rate

Life is so boring sometimes, so cant be wrong to make it a bit shorter. Quality instead of quantity ftw!!

Obviously there are correlations between being more intelligent and better educated, and winning at poker.

Similarly being more intelligent and better educated correlates with increased atheism.

Atheists, on average, will do better at poker than Christians because they are smarter. And a decent number of them are in Scandiland.

there smart and dont care to much if they go broke, no wonder they crush .

this is a pretty myopic view of both religion and poker. In your vast knowledge of those stake burning days, were you aware that people of faith were essential in maintaing the wisdom that mankind had amassed.

as to the question as to the reason scandies are good at poker; imo if there is a connection:

it isn't that not believing in god makes an individual more likely to succeed in poker, its the reasons, that they don't believe in god, that contribute to some underlying cultural development that lead to good poker players, and the fact that the populations are fairly small and isolated helped maintain conformity within the region or at least not diversity

That socialism = good at poker is probably not true because of social security or because of high education levels (cause good poker players are usually not that into school to begin with), it may however increase the level of play for example in Norway where poker is illegal - just by the fact that to play poker you cant just walk into a casino, you actually have to seek out an underground enviroment, which excludes the worst players and make the good players have to adjust solely against other good or semi-good players.

Its probably got nothing to do with atheism, all though alot more people here dont belive in silly fairytales from the mideast obviously..

most of the time it's dark and cold. people got to be tough growing up there.

I think Scandinavians have a mentality that is different as the rest of the world. They are less emotional in general. This makes a good poker player as he's less likely to tilt or make bad mistakes when not feeling optimal.

To say that non-religion or social security is the reason Scandinavians are good in poker is probably not right. It's not just Scandinavia where the far majority of people do not hold any religion, it's all of Western Europe. This has been a trend for a long time. My grandfather always tells about the time where his whole village went to church etc, nowadays most churches are empty. All countries in Western Europe also have a similar social security system as in Scandinavia.

+1

I work with quite a few people from the different Nordic countries and they are, on average, WAY less emotional than other Europeans.

lololol... That's actually the answer you want to run with? :> Religion has been the single biggest cause of wisdom being lost / destroyed / delayed / hidden in history, and it's not even close.

I just had to chime in and say that the title really made me laugh. What does religion have to do with poker and aren't Scandinavian countries Christian?

put the flag down

This.

Beat: I'm Finnish and stupid as hell.

Tell that to the millions of allied troops that died fighting to prevent the spread of Nazism.

I think OP is on to something here.

Aggressive and fearless play often means that you are representing a stronger hand than you are actually holding. Thus, you are lying about the strength of it.
And since religious people are more likely to have gotten raised properly, it doesnt come natural to them to lie.

brazilians are fearless ?

less religiosity is an indicator for a well educated society, I think one could build a relation.

It can be argued that well developed social safety nets are linked to atheism. The idea of the individual's responsibility for his own fate - widely held in the US - is historically and philosophically connected to Christianity, i.e. every individual is responsible for his own salvation, and that events in the world are Gods Will. A more socialistic approach presupposes that an individual's fate is a result of the social structure, and that people are capable and responsible for creating a social structure with less inequality - as no god can be looked to to decide one's fate or ease human suffering. So in that sense; less belief in religion equals better social safety net.


But any socialist disposition is quite likely not a factor in becoming a good poker player. Poker is an almost purely capitalist and competitive endeavor, and success in it is rather in spite of than because of a social-democratic society. A more realistic trait to look at is emotional reserve, but this again can be seen as linked to a pietistic religious tradition. . . But great scandi players like Ziigmund and Isildur aren't exactly posterkids for emotional control.


Maybe this could all be decided with a "Religious vs Atheist" Poker after dark show?

It's the Antonious effect, his fore-father's dna is in the Scandinavian gene pool.

It was the Soviets who attacked Finland not the Nazis, There was actually plans on the table for allied forces to bomb Soviet targets but it never happened. It was said that one of the deciding factors in Hitler deciding to invade Russia was that he was less than impressed with the Soviet performance in basically fighting the Finns who were not exactly a huge power to a virtual stalemate in the "Winter War".

Sorry, to clarify my point; by preventing the spread of Nazism, the allied forces helped the people of every nation from then until this day. It's naive to think that Finland would not have come under Nazi influence or direct rule at some point had Germany won the war.