How is business like the well-known card game of poker? Let’s take a look.
1. Both have rivals
In a game of poker, just as in business, you are not alone and you don’t depend only on your own play. However good you are, if your opponent is better, they win.
2. Everyone has a card to play
In poker the winner isn’t always the player with the best cards, but the one who knows how to play them best. A straight flush doesn’t always take the pot; sometimes a simple pair of sevens is enough. Translated to business, we would say that a company’s limited resources, combined with a good strategy, can sometimes get a good result against a better-prepared competitor that is complacent about its position.
3. You can lose hands and still win the game
In poker, as in business, you will lose some battles, and that doesn’t stop you from winning the game in the end if you put in the effort. In both games, every defeat teaches you a little more and helps you get to know the market and your opponent. The game is never over as long as there is money on the table and you have a capital reserve in your pocket.
4. There are safe bets (investments) and risky ones
In both poker and business you are constantly investing. As a general rule, the smaller the investment, the lower the return, and the bigger the investment, the higher the return, but also the greater the risk of losses.
5. There’s no such thing as luck
Contrary to what many people think, poker is not a game of chance. That’s why you see practically the same faces at the finals and semifinals of the world championships every year. What some people think about poker, others think about business, when the two games are alike. Everything comes down to skill, strategy and knowledge. Even so, in business as in poker you can hit a long losing streak. When that happens you need to stop and be clear that stepping back isn’t giving up, but gathering strength to start again at another time. Pulling out in time gives you the chance to win many more battles later.
6. The sucker
In business as in poker, if you get well into the game and still can’t tell who the sucker is, the sucker is you. As the saying goes, a business succeeds or fails even before it is created, because the energy, passion and confidence with which you set out more or less predict how it will end.
7. Some differences between business and poker
In poker there is bluffing, and in business there isn’t: you don’t announce what you’re worth or hint at your value, you simply prove it as you go.
8. Both need to be online
Interest in poker has grown thanks to how easy the internet has made it to play. In poker and in business alike, for your business to be more profitable, it has to be online.
9. A piece of advice
If you’re in business, for your own good, don’t play poker 🙂
Further reading
Featured image: Images Money, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr.
