Do you pray for the right card to come?

[CommanderCorm]

Although we like to define ourselves as rational human beings, our concious constists of a constant fight between calculation and emotion, in every day life and especially at the poker table. Different individuals experience and handle this conflict in different ways. It is the reason many of us begin to pray or root for the right card to come in some especially exciting situations at the poker table, even if we are experienced players who have been in similar spots already many times.

When I find myself with a drawing hand in a big pot, the first thing I do is calculating the chances that I will hit my draw and my decisions are based on that. I´m sufficiently used to calculating the odds so that vain hope will not distract me from making the right move in most cases. But when I decide to make the call, I will not be able to oppress a feeling of hope that the poker gods will pay me off this time and let the desired card hit the river. This voice of hope will sometimes turn into a request, prayer, or instruction, depending on my mood (and pot size). I may find me saying in my mind something like "Please, let that flush card fall on the river", and many hand posts on this forum (especially in BBV, of course) are accompagnied by the same kind of equally useless, harmless, and natural behavior.

I wonder how many of you people at this forums experience this kind of emotion at the poker table from time to time, and how many are completely free from that behavior, so I decided to make this a poll. Also think of situations where you have a made hand and pray for your opponent not to hit his draw, or holding KK preflop hoping for no ace to hit the flop. Also, if this has been done before, feel free to ignore this post (Unable to handle the search function).

[smoore]

I don't pray in a religious sense but I do the mental version of Mike the Mouth every time I or my opponent is all-in so I chose very often. It doesn't seem to work very well.

"One time, baby.... ONE TIME!"

[Stereolab]

I don't pray but I will the cards to come my way. You could say I have a telepathic relationship with binary code.

[CommanderCorm]

Wow. You must make s***tloads of money that way.

[mindflayer]

I pray to make the right decision based on the cards that come....


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[Stereolab]

[ QUOTE ]
Wow. You must make s***tloads of money that way.

[/ QUOTE ]

ZeeJustin ain't got nothing on me!

[VickreyAuction]

I don't pray to a specific diety ("Please God, give me a diamond"), but in a huge pot when I have a draw to the nuts, I definitely do say stuff like "Please, let that flush card fall on the river" because it would be so cool to win a huge pot like that.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

"I hope I get there, but I never pray..." Jackson Browne, "Song for Adam"