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Maryann Guberman has been a writer and editor with many gaming publications, including Sports Form, Card Player, Poker World, Player's Panorama and Systems and Methods. She also has written and edited numerous books on gambling.

Oct. 27, 2007

The Eleventh Commandment of Poker

It seems the original Ten Commandments (which Microsoft Word insists has to be upper case) that came from the heavens to Moses have (or is it has?) served folks pretty well over the ages. That list is so universally known and accepted that untold numbers of activities try to live by the direction of ten. We have a list of ten commandments for team teaching, for system administration, for living boldly, for investing, for pet owners, for a stress-free life, for selling your business. We have the commandments of research, of good golf, of home recording, of dysfunctional families, of time management, of cell phone etiquette, of email, of egoless programming.

As you might expect, the Vatican got into the mix with its own updated commandment list, not related to the official God version. In June of 2007, the seat of the church issued its 36-page document that expanded on the ten commandments of the road covering all kinds of driving sins! (Go ahead. Google it.)

Most of us who were raised with some kind of conscience try to live by most of the original commandments almost instinctually. No matter what our religious upbringing was, we kind of know you don't want to covet your neighbor's wife or kill your own. These commandments tend to be a universal source of good and advantageous behavior, which is likely the reason so many people emulate them with relation to their own fields of interest. Sometimes it's a stretch (Does a database programmer really need 10 rules?), sometimes it's humor (Check out www.blazersedge.com for the Portland Trailblazers), sometimes it's completely off the wall (Yes, some of the commandments break the commandments. but for what it's worth, there are always ten of these suckers.

Nick the Greek had his for gambling and, yes; we have the same number of commandments for poker, perhaps several different versions owning to several different authors.

Well I'm about to preach to the choir. I'm about to tell you that when it comes to poker, all ten of the commandments should obeyed but that's where we digress. I think the Ten Commandments of Poker should be identical and summed up in the eleventh one. It should be upper case, bold, and always the goal. It should be from one to eleven, TAKE A PROFIT!

In fact this should be the Golden Rule, the Eleven Commandments, the Rule of Etiquette, and the total Tao of your game, your way of life in any form of gambling.

Don't believe the hype from the degenerate types who try to convince you that your game isn't about money, that it's just a way of keeping score, that it's all about the thrill, the competition, the victory.

Remember this: none of that nonsense -- the score, the thrill, the competition, the victory -- none of it exists if you don't take a profit and have the wherewithal to come back and play again.

I see it almost daily, in the poker room, at the slot machines, on the crap table and I hear the complaints constantly. ÒIf only I'da quit when I was ahead; why didn't I leave earlier; what a dope I was for going to the ATM.Ó

It's not a good feeling, I'm sure, to absorb all that negativity when you lose. Worse yet, if you Ògive backÓ the money you've won and the bankroll you started with, you almost always will go home kicking yourself, calling yourself stupid, wondering how you could be so arrogant to think you couldn't lose. (Actually, you are not stupid; you just did a stupid thing.)

It is a good feeling, I know, to get home with more cash than you left with. The way to do that is to obey that eleventh commandment of poker: take a profit! Got to the restroom and tuck it in your bra or jockeys, in your socks, or better yet, take it out to your car, lock it in your glove box and then decide what your next step is.

And, unless you really like beating yourself up and being broke, the next step should always be TAKE A PROFIT.