Poker & I Ching: Gambling, Divination & The Traveler’s Trades

The few times I have played poker, it has been with family while on vacation for very small stakes. I’ve never really messed with online poker, partly because the in-person social aspects of the game are really what make it so compelling for me. The monetary component is not really quite as intriguing when compared to the sheer thrill of playing. It really is a microcosm of life: in order to walk away from the table with money, someone else has to walk away with less. Contemplating up-coming long-distance trips, it occurs to me that games like poker may be useful on-the-ground skills for road-weary travelers and towards that end, perhaps poker tips would be in order. Although that calls to mind a quote from hexagram 56, the wanderer:

A wanderer has not fixed abode; his home is the road. Therefore he must take care to remain upright and steadfast, so that he sojourns only in the proper places, associating only with good people. Then he has good fortune and can go his way unmolested.

And from another source:

Because much of this environment is foreign to you, you must exercise only the best judgement. You don’t know the custom here, and it’s too easy to cross a line you don’t know is there. Because you are the foreigner in this setting, you have no history to acquit you. Watch, listen, study, contemplate, then step lightly but decisively on.

Does the I Ching count as a form of gambling? Would be interesting to map patterns of change within card games like poker to traditional divination systems like the I Ching. But more on that some other time.

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This entry was written by happy thanksgiving, y'all!, posted on March 26, 2009 at 4:14 pm.

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One Comment

  1. The New Tim Boucher
    Posted March 27, 2009 at 12:32 am | Permalink

    For 1,000 days, rising well before dawn, Fujinami embarked alone, rain or shine, on his journey, running or briskly walking more than 50 miles — that’s almost two marathons — each day as the trial neared its climax. Along with his white robes, his only gear was a pair of straw sandals, a long straw hat, candles, a shovel, a length of rope and a short sword.

    The rope and sword weren’t for survival — if for some reason he could not complete his daily trek, he was to use them to kill himself.

    http://www.seattlepi.com/national/319159_monk09.html

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