“In life’s game of poker, the optimist sees the pessimist’s night and raises him the sunrise.” – Robert Brault

Poker, like life itself, has its defining moments. There are both highs and lows. Sometimes you just have to go with your gut, push it all out there and go, “All in” as they call it in the poker world. Then again sometimes you have to fold a hand or two and wait for a better hand. In both life and poker, intellect and intuition can provide input into making the correct decision.  In poker sometimes logic is correct, and at other times intuition is correct. Sometimes they agree; sometimes they don’t.

In life, however, you generally have more options than check, bet, call, raise, or fold. Life is more open-ended, and when logic and intuition disagree, sometimes it’s best not to choose sides but to listen to both and seek out a third alternative.

When my logic and intuition seem to disagree, I try to step back and see the situation from other perspectives. In the past, I’d usually favor my logic, only to find that my intuition was right. Then I’d slide too far the other way, and pay the price of ignoring my intellect. Now I know that both inputs provide information, but they do so by acting upon imperfect data.

In poker you’re limited in how much data you can gather. But life offers other extra opportunities for peeking at the cards. You can ask for expert advice while you play. You can take in new information to augment the data your logic and intuition are processing. You can wait for clarity before acting. You can even dive in with your best decision, see what the next card looks like, and adjust the course afterwards. 

One of my favorite songs is The Gambler by Kenny Rogers.  As the song tells us, “You got to know when to hold’em, know when to fold’em.” I think this might be a good time to “fold” my latest blog – my DynaVox and I have a poker game to get to.