Rather than write a long essay, I'll just pose a topic and let the conversation carry from there, yeah?

From my personal experience, Poker is a great training tool for Insights on dharma and attaining an elevated level of spirituality, which ultimately leads to mental wellness and happiness.

Poker can simulate suffering so that we can use the experience to better understand suffering, ultimately understanding the Four Noble Truths. Once we understand the Noble Truths, we can then begin to pursue the 8-Fold Path, which is the point of life I'm currently in.

The charm of Buddhism is that "it is all on you".

Start there and everything follows, "A is A".

Everything is practical, like exercising. Spirituality and mental wellness isn't a belief, but can be systematically practiced and attained; surprising, through poker!

Vito is the best poker floor in Vegas, period. Wonderful staff there at the GN as well, players too.

...off topic comment.

Since I’m new to the topic per your recent advice I’ll just tell you what my first impression is. I sense that dharma would be similar to poker in the sense that (okay now I realize I’m super tired and am going to have trouble articulating this)...hmm, yea, I need to revisit this tmrw.

I will say this much, I think the topic has merit.

Poker is a Zen game; how can you be aware of the universe around you when you are distracted by the Self.

Poker is a Tao game; you've got to be in the right seat.

Poker is about balance - the Tao - the Middle Way.

Once you gain insight on what optimal and balance really means, your life will start to work itself out.

Just realized something earlier in this session I’m currently in the middle of...

I think Dharma is fitting for a season, but it’s absolutely necessary to be aggressive to the point of homicidal at times in poker (at least for me). That doesn’t seem to go hand in hand with Dharma.

Poker is about getting as much money out of other people as possible. With complete disregard what this does to them (or yourself).

I'm not sure where this meshes with Dharma.

Disagree. One could say the same thing about any business, but it is only true when it is true (which is usually, of course)... not necessarily always the case. And it this spiritual perspective OP is referencing which can lessen unmitigated greed. That is, if you aren't trying to fill a hole in your core with raging avarice, then you might be accomplishing that via a spiritual path. Spirituality is about what that core is connected with ... if nothing, unbridled greed usually rules and is exaggerated precisely because it is a compensation for core emptiniess.

Any business that does not strive for this will more than likely be put out of business by those competitors who do apply this attitude.

This is the gist of a guy who councils new startups impressed upon us at a seminar: In all his decades of helping people set up shop he's seen many reasons why someone wants to go into business for themselves: To have free hours, to no longer have to take orders, to follow a dream, to create something they have always wanted, to make the most money, ...
...and almost all of the above - with the exception of the "make most money" type of businesses - go busto within the first 3 years.

Note that I personally think that this "money first" attitude stinks to high heaven -but that's just the way societies (particularly capitalistic ones) operate.

You can do all kinds of spiritual things on the side. Sure. But if you try to bring spirituality to the table and let it influence your decisions about maximum EV play in any way people are gonna take your money.
Fast.

If you aren't robbing them they will rob you.

There are many layers to poker outside of the card game itself. If we want to refer to the actual game of poker, then yes, each player must make the most optimal decision to maximize his profit. That is also business. What most people do not fully comprehend is the concept of 'Optimal' because in Poker, there isn't always a right or wrong answer, but there is usually an optimal answer. In business, the optimal business is one that creates the most value, not necessarily the most Bottom Line.

But the layer we want to talk about is above this one; the layer of Metagame, Metaphysics, Mysticism, such as:

-Rather than phoning through your Facebook Feed, we use our time at the table to observer our emotions and thoughts
-Rather than judging a player based on their actions and behavior, we try to understand their thought process and their state of emotions
-At the deep core, poker is a tool that you can use to train the mind for Mental Wellness (perception, observation, logical deduction, self-knowledge, self-awareness, emotional balance, higher state of consciousness), which is the essence of Spirituality.

"The Observer is the Observed."

This is one of my favorite Thought Process that I got from reading J. Krishnamurti.

There is a True Self behind all of us, hidden in our myriads of Thoughts every day. If we can observe ourselves from an Impersonal perspective, we can start to perceive ourselves and reality in a much different and more healthy way. But that is easier said than done, until Poker....

While playing Poker, we get the chance to envision ourselves as a railbird, observing the entire table (The Observer), including us as one of the player (The Observed). This practice of Observing at the poker table will strengthen your ability to maintain that Observation throughout your day. You will slowly find that as you observe everything from a 'Railbird' point of view, that all the things you get emotional about, are really unnecessary.

Please share your thoughts.

How does this require a spiritual bent? This is poker basics 101.
Poker trains you to deceive others (and expect others to try and deceive you). Training your mental wellness should be focussed on not taking your poker skill to any place away from the table.

In learning anything, there are 4 stages, ranging from:

1. Unconscious Incompetence: I don't know that I don't know (no-game)
2. Conscious Incompetence: I know that I don't know (C-Game)
3. Conscious Competence: I know that I know (B-Game)
4. Unconscious Competence: I don't know that I know (A-Game)

Poker is a systematic and practical game that anyone with enough discipline and diligence can learn to beat. The problem is that most players are too ignorant of their incompetence - they don't know that they don't know. If you don't know that you are making a mistake, how do you go about even correcting it? What if at the beginning of your poker experience, you won every time you went All-In preflop with KK versus AA? You would soon assume that it's the correct play, regardless of whatever anyone else explained, or the logic of math behind it.

In Life, many of us take illogical assumptions and beliefs as facts, and live according to them, never realizing that we're making a mistake. The assumptions and beliefs were in-grained in us by family, culture, and society, many of which are inverted and twisted - but we take them as hard truth, never questioning the thoughts, or our personal reasons for thinking the way we do. We just don't know that we don't know.

Crossing the schism between not knowing, and knowing is very difficult, in both poker and life for the following reasons. We can make the wrong decision and be rewarded, and conversely, be punished for making the right decision. So how do we know when wrong is wrong?

The answer is, in-depth observations of others, ourselves, and our thoughts, followed with clear perception obtained from solid reasoning and through deductive reasoning. All of these will help remove our ignorance.

These skills do not come overnight, but takes practice. And no where can you practice these skills more so than at the poker table. GL!

You're bringing to light something very profound here. What I would say is that you are perhaps missing an important point.

"The observer is the observed" is an action not a quote or a concept to analyse. In the very perception that the entity within the mind that is observing i.e. the observer is within the same field as thought an effortless awareness is brought about.

Another way of putting this is that the image maker, the commentator is linked or within the same mental construction field to the images and words (thoughts) being produced.

The issue with making any of this into a concept or an idea or a quote is that it immediately enters the field of knowledge which blocks the effortless awareness from occurring.

When it comes to poker, I understand what you're getting at here with your description and how incredibly profound this all is. However, care has to be applied when turning this into some form of practice with a reward. As this again blocks the very thing that is necessary from occurring.

You're absolutely right that any attempt to manifest these types "Experiences" into Thoughts, let alone Words, will be a fail given that experiences and feelings go beyond thoughts. Even talking about 'Experience' and 'Thought' may not be insightful to many, unless they can 'experience' the concept we're discussing. But how can we manifest something so deep and profound into a simple way that beginners can understand?

I don't think anyone would argue that poker represents a microcosm of life in terms of the metagame and metaphysics. In the world of poker, we can actualize some of these experiences that is very difficult to manifest in every day life. Let's take the best example, Suffering. How can you actualize Suffering on someone, without doing any harm to them? How about 3betting or sucking out on someone? Some people suffer so much they lose control of themselves when you inflict those 'pains' on them.

I can go very deep into conscious suffering, etc... but my goal was to show that through poker, we can manifest experiences that are hard to conceptualize and get people to understand. From there, I think the doorway opens up to a lot of Mental Wellness opportunities that we should explore.

To answer your first question, yes it difficult to do in an understandable way on a forum. As different people have different levels of understanding all of this. And it is not the same as having, say, a dialogue from which an understanding can occur together in a step-by-step way.

And yes I see what you are getting at here: that through the rather unique nature of poker one can experience various stimuli that lead to suffering.

This is in fact, what I, personally, have been incredibly interested in and have been looking into for the past 18 months-2 years:

The possibility of this suffering not occurring. Or at least occurring in a limited 'manageable' way.

This is also my central pursuit of discovery. I'm not sure where it will end up, but my read is:

1. We can definitely use Poker to increase Mental Wellness
2. We can definitely use Poker to Increase Intelligence
3. We may be able to treat PTSD and ADHD is a holistic manner

Definitely enjoying where this thread is going. Let's keep it going.