I just see rake and skill being the last of your worries... I haven't got it in behind on party in a year it seems, and i'm 2k down in tournaments. Like, I run like a god when it comes to coolers in tournaments. I never get coolered, but i also barely ever cooler anybody. I got it in 70-30 at worse at PLO on GG for a year and i'm -2800. I don't know when my edge will matter. Will it ever? I literally need to play poker to escape this malpractice 12 years destroyed ****.. because i had my 25-35 years stolen, and i got no options except hoping never getting coolered will be positive in tournaments at some point.

in my personal opinion when reading your post, it sounds like poker just isn't for you whether or not god is against it or real or whatever. It sounds like you lost your way at some point and if you do believe in a god I'd say by losing your way you also aren't seeing things clearly in the eyes of your god either.

Poker can be played for fun, but don't do it for a living. It's an idle waste of your life, and you are not seeing the situation clearly.

Seek out God. Jesus is waiting for you. Have you been baptized? Do you read the Bible or go to church?

Not long ago we do human/animal sacrifice to the god of thunder Zeus as it was believed hes the one that - when mad - sends lighting, thunder and rain upon us. Later in history we discover that those are only weather phenomena and suddenly Zeus got demoted from god to fiction figure. This happened to every single believe when in lack of a scientifically explanation. Now we have proof of evolution (Darwin) and we know how the universe started (with proof and empirical data), and soon we will know much more (JWST). I wonder when you and all people will stop believing in whatever god you believe in the same way you dont believe in Zeus anymore. Also, what people believe after all is a PERSONAL god. If the god you believe do something for you it means that god is a complete CARELESS god. Why? Because 9 million kids die every year due to malnutrition, million of others are killed or sexsually abused and if god were to do something for you and nothing for them it would be a colossal JOKE, ence the use of the word PERSONAL god. Thinking that you run bad because of god or any related religion reasons is simply naïve. Being religious took away precious time from your poker strategy / mental game study. Some solid scientific knowledge on human evolution, genetics and astrophysics sure will not hurt. You dont need much to read in order to stop believing in Santa Claus after all. Also, is practice that upon every major scientific discovery, all religion alike need to adjust their narrative to fix what the evidence shows. Christianity is the best one at it. Science is eating piece by piece every religion 1 discovery at the time until there will be nothing left. The opposite is not happening.
Now, you want to keep believe in those fairy tails? Suit yourself bro, but if they not saving starving kids and they save you, that would be.... mmmm.... i dont even find the right word for that....
Sorry for my english, im Italian.

Nothing personal bro but...
Can you tell your Jesus guy to have a quick look in Africa, south Asia, south America as a start, instead of waiting for a guy that runs bad at poker?
If god is everything and everywhere whats the need to go to Church?
....also at last... reading the bible is the perfect way to push people away from Christianity so is better off not reading it bro!

https://www.quora.com/Why-do-many-pe...ding-the-Bible

It can be done. Don't let it become a vice and don't let it fuel your passions. It's actually a good tool to learn to control your passions. You instantly know what frame of mind your in. It can quickly turn to "sin" when tilt shows up. I find poker like life. You constantly have to learn to control your thoughts and emotions. As a game, it's harmless and actually beneficial in some aspects of life.

Love this topic! Here's a video I made on it.

Am I missing something here? The OP mentions nothing about Christianity or religion, and the only thing it says about god is "running like a god". I have no idea what he is looking for here.

However, based on the thread title alone, it's an easy decision: choose poker.

Read the Title of this post!

...Although u right, in the first OP rant there is no mention of religion but i assume he runs bad therefore he thinks (his) god is punishing him for playing poker.

kinda silly....

The original OP sounds like a kid who lives as a victim and just wanted some forum strangers to validate him.

Par for the course these days.

If OP is really saying he thinks he is running bad because God is punishing him for playing poker, that makes no sense even if we grant that God actually exists and that he actually cares whether we play poker or not. OP is running bad, hence he is losing. Since OP is losing, someone else must be winning as a result. Since that person is winning, by OPs logic, Gis must be rewarding him for playing poker. Why would God punish some people and reward others for the very same behavior?

Of course it’s all much easier to understand if we just realize that it’s all just randomness and has nothing whatsoever to do with any deity.

I'm a Christian and I sort of don't know what to think about poker. People can get into trouble with it, but what can you do if you just want to play? You can play for play money, but wagering real money is kind of an aspect of it. If anyone thinks it's a sin I wouldn't mind hearing your reasoning.

Some speculation on this topic:

Christianity morality is based on "Love thy neighbor" and some other principles so,

1)If a person cheated at poker, it would be a sin
2)Intentionally playing with someone who you know is temporarily mentally impaired from substance abuse and who you know is playing at stakes way over his net worth might be a Christian sin
3)Making poker a greater priority to yourself (spending too much time on it) than taking care of your family members might be a Christian sin
4)Borrowing money for poker that you have no real intention to pay back anytime soon or knowingly have no firm way to pay back soon might be a sin

What's probably not a sin?
1) playing recreationally for small stakes in small doses . Recreation is fine at a small cost.
2) playing professionally for profit by treating it as a serious business venture.

Playing poker professionally is most definitely a sinful life. All professional gambling (player and commercial side) is extraordinarily evil.

The only time Jesus became violently angry was when the money changers were using the Temple for profit. Considering the human body is the real temple, how much more punishment will the person face who uses his life to hustle money out of others?

We are called to build each other up, not think we are smarter or better than other people to try and hustle them out of their money.

I had to repent.

Let's hear the reason why it is okay, even holy and righteous, to kill every child and fetus on earth ... yet immoral to win money.

That's what I thought.

I'll try. We're born in a fallen state due to Adam's sin, so even children sin all the time (possibly even fetuses too - they kick in the womb, just saying). The state of mankind was that every inclination of the human heart was evil, so I guess it would be the case that children were this way too. God regretted making man and so killed everyone save a few. From God's perspective things might have only gotten worse for the children, they definitely would have gone to heaven if he killed them, and he hated how things were enough to do it in the first place so yeah, I see what he did as holy and righteous. He hates sin. Winning money puts other people in a bad situation for your own gain, seems immoral to me. I guess there might be an exception, like when two people fully understand the consequences and communicate this to each other and do it anyways, but even then, the outcome is the same, it might still be immoral.

Sorry, but if a newborn (or an unborn) baby is so sinful that it’s okay to kill him or her, why is it immoral to exploit an adult, who is consenting to risk his money, for financial gain? Is your poker opponent not also a sinner? Doesn’t he have his loss coming to him for his sin. Seems like a lesser punishment for that sin than killing children, no?

I don't understand your reasoning. Exploiting someone is wrong.

What are you gonna do when someone is just all-in on a blatant fairy tale? A fetus kicking in the womb is against the will of god, a sin, a transgression of the divine will. As to the intent of that fetus -- a necessity for sin -- well, I guess that's just that evil nature. Never mind that it can't develop without moving and kicking, and stillness is a sure sign of trouble, because we aren't worried about science, we are worried about wives tales of religion. God hates sin while loving the sinner ... so he kills them. Likewise, if we are loving like him, we kill those we love in the name of righteous, holy vengeance when they do wrong because we just can't stand it ... right?

Every business is competitively taking money from others.

When we are running our moral paradigm through a magical fantasy of ancient superstitious peoples, we run into a lot of trouble with simple reality.

Eating a fruit in the garden brought down the entire species. This is a rational, well reasoned, morally righteous idea.

Eating a fruit in the garden brought down the entire species. I believe that because it is in an ancient book.
Eating a fruit in the garden brought down the entire species. I believe that because it is in an ancient book.
Eating a fruit in the garden brought down the entire species. I believe that because it is in an ancient book.
Eating a fruit in the garden brought down the entire species. I believe that because it is in an ancient book.
Eating a fruit in the garden brought down the entire species. I believe that because it is in an ancient book.
Eating a fruit in the garden brought down the entire species. I believe that because it is in an ancient book.
Eating a fruit in the garden brought down the entire species. I believe that because it is in an ancient book.
Eating a fruit in the garden brought down the entire species. I believe that because it is in an ancient book.
Eating a fruit in the garden brought down the entire species. I believe that because it is in an ancient book.
Eating a fruit in the garden brought down the entire species. I believe that because it is in an ancient book.


Amen.

God isn't a man. If he has reason to kill someone he can do it. It doesn't detract from him being holy or righteous, it actually shows that he is. According to the Bible we're not the way we're supposed to be and I think it's reasonable to think we're continuously doing things we shouldn't. God didn't get what he wanted in a sense because of Adam's fall and if someone is continuously going down the wrong path I think it's hard to argue that God is not within his right to kill someone if he truly doesn't like what's going on. He almost killed Moses for not doing something if I recall correctly. The way I reason it out is that we're truly that despicable to him compared to what he actually wanted, so yeah, if enough happens he can go, "you're out". He wants what is best for us obviously, but we're not really capable of going in that direction at all. The Bible says that there is not one person who does good. Paul wrote what if God desiring to show his wrath endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction so that he could make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy? There were angels in the beginning that rebelled because that's what they wanted to do knowing everything they knew about how loving God is and what life was like, they literally could not have done anything else though, because that's what they wanted to do, the same goes for us, except we are tilted in the direction of sin, we literally can't do anything else, because it's what we want to do. It's not what God wanted though, so even though we can't do anything else he still hates it, so yeah, if he wants to he can kill us and it wouldn't be wrong. We are not the same.

Most businesses are probably wrong for how they gouge customers to make as much money as possible.

I have no idea if fetuses sin, I was just throwing that out there. I don't think you need intent to sin. You could obliviously do something that's wrong, you still did something that's wrong though.

I have no problem believing what I believe. I've had a lot of experiences that lead me to believe in Jesus and I have no problem accepting the rest of the Bible. There's nothing evident in history or anything I've read that would give me reason to believe it's not true. Just lots of seeming grey areas where things can be inserted but nothing contradicts the Bible in an incontrovertible way, whether it be a supposed old earth, abiogenesis, evolution, or etc. My Biblical worldview remains and these things seem like theories to me.

Yes, but so is killing someone. Yet you justified killing people because people are inherently sinful. So it’s ok to kill someone, but it’s a no-no to financially exploit them?

It's wrong to financially exploit someone and it's also wrong to kill someone, yes. God is God though and can kill someone if he wants to, our souls belong to him. If he has reason to kill someone he can do that. He is the moral arbiter so if he think something is wrong enough he can take action. I guess you either believe that or you don't, I don't think it's worth debating.