Picture this. The poker room is just cranking up for the day. A few games are in progress that held over from graveyard. A five-handed $20-40 limit holdem game starts and the chips are flying into the pots like lemmings on their way to the ocean. One player goes bust and leaves a lockup. Another player takes a walk to the sports book. The other three continue to jam in silence. An announcement comes over the loudspeaker, “Immediate seating in 3-6 limit holdem.”

Player A says, “You know that’s a limit I never could beat.” Player B responds, “Me neither.” During the play of the next hand, Player A continues, “It bothered me so much that I talked to God about it one time. God said, “Don’t worry son. I can’t beat it either’.”

Which god are they referring to – the god we ask to forgive our transgressions and bless our daily bread or the Poker God?

The poker table is separated from the “norm” that we experience in the rest of our daily lives and social contacts. It’s practically the only place in the world where you can lie to your best friend, steal from him, and take his last dollar and not only is it accepted, it’s expected.

Does the Poker God approve of this kind of behavior from us? Of course, it goes with the territory. But can we expect help from this questionable deity or are we on our own when we sit down at the green felt?

Ever play poker with the guy who swears he played 5-card stud with God . . . and beat him? He was last seen playing in a $3-6 limit holdem game in Montana. Kind of makes you wonder what the stakes were in that one. Why not one universe or realm against another or control of all of the souls of poker players? Or better yet, the ability to bring a truly bad beat to someone you want to get even with when they’re one of the last 8 players at the final table of the World Series of Poker and have over half of the chips? The possibilities here are endless.

Ever sit at the table with a player who lines up their lucky charms or figurines? A few of them build an actual barricade around their chips and positions. Perhaps they’re claiming their table rights . . . file a claim, improve your property value and it’s yours . . . homesteading. A few players even go so far as to handicap poker dealers just like they would a horse race. Could they possibly believe this superstitious hocus-pocus? This issue should be addressed as follows: Dear God, if we could only have a few of these players in every game, we would be eternally thankful. Amen.

There are days when your timing is perfect. You play all the right hands. You know exactly where your opponents are in each hand. Those days you feel a special kinship with God. You are in control, stacking the chips, smiling and relaxed while you chit chat with your congregation, whom by the way, sit gathered around you and keep giving you their money. Sweet!

There are also days when everything you do is wrong at the perfect time and everyone keeps drop kicking your Aces into the nickel seats. You wait so long for a playable hand that 4-5 suited starts to look like a big duke. You raise every hand you play at the wrong time and if you have one caller, the flashing sign on your forehead reads, “PLEASE TAKE MY CHIPS.” And of course they do.

At this point in time you would swear on a stack of Bibles that even God couldn’t beat this game. No matter how many angels sat behind Him as sweaters and what resources He used, you would bet against Him if He took a seat.

Then a seat opens up and a new player sits in, winning the first hand dealt with 7-8 after taking every raise in a three-way action pot. The next hand is raised and reraised and the new player wins it too, with Q-9 off. The next hand finds this same player, stacking and raising, capping it off when the bet comes back around. Aces of course. The Aces are beaten by K-Q suited and the new player moans in anguish, “There is no God!”

God! Your own belief is what’s important here. If the luck of the draw or the turn of a card was a god thing, wouldn’t we all spend more time on our knees praying that the deck would run over our face? The best part of the big picture is . . . why would God pick you over the other players?