To master the art of poker, a player needs intellectual prowess and focus. Of course, this shouldn’t be a surprise given the game’s clever blend of logic, psychology and mathematics. As a result, regularly enjoying the game can allow players to practice and thus progress their minds further in these areas. This means that, by playing poker regularly, players can stretch their perceived mental and emotional limits. Not only does this effectively train the mind during adulthood but well into the later years of a player's life. To learn more about the specifics of how poker can improve your mind, read on!
Recall
One of the core benefits of the mind to playing poker is the opportunity to practice mental recall. Throughout the course of a poker game, players not only have to remember the various potential hands, rules and strategies but also, who has played which cards. Remembering these cards hand and hand can become increasingly difficult. Therefore, it takes a mass amount of practice to excel in this area. Once someone is proficient in his area, they can use it in everyday life.
Mathematics
Mathematics is one of the core pillars of poker and crops up regularly in everyday life. Each game consists of math challenges such as calculating odds and probability. In poker, mathematics is a great tool for analysing multiple situations and thus, informing your decision-making process. In terms of everyday life, this form of mathematics is used to predict several scenarios. These include routine elements of life such as traffic, politics and even the weather! What’s more, if you have an interest in investments, you would use probability to assess how likely it is that a certain investment will pay off. For example, you might determine that there is a 1% chance that the stock of company A will increase 100x during the upcoming year. Based on this probability, you would then decide how much of your net worth to invest in the stock. Being adept at calculating probabilities isn’t as surefire as predicting the future but it’s the closest we mere mortals will ever get.
Emotional resilience
Beyond the rationale and logic skills you’ll build through playing poker, you may also discover your emotional health improving. More specifically, your emotional resilience. There are many dramatic, emotionally charged highs and lows throughout a game of poker. For many, this kind of stressful situation can cause negative emotions to rule their actions. Yet, if you react like this to a stressful game, you’ll quickly tip off your opponents and it will negatively impact your winnings. Longtime players have gained the ability to be more patient in stressful situations. It’s not hard to see how this can be beneficial to your private and professional life where complex and high emotion scenarios crop up daily.
Confidence and Decision-making
Most people find it difficult to take centre stage or control of a given situation. Yet, in poker, players often have to thrust themselves directly into the spotlight of other people's notice. Whether it’s to pull off a fantastic bluff or uncover the strength of a rival's hand, players have to sometimes have the confidence to steer the game in their preferred direction. There’s no doubt that building confidence like this will have a positive effect on daily activities. Whether it’s having the courage to build new relationships or to go after a more ambitious goal in your career, having more confidence leads to more fruitful opportunities.
Additionally, if you’re someone who spends days jumping back and forth anxiously between options, poker may be the tonic to what ails you. Given poker’s fast-paced nature, players often have little time to make important decisions. Their ultimate decision could affect the outcome of their overall game so, naturally, there’s immense pressure in these high-charged moments. Many would (and do) crack under this kind of pressure. However, poker provides the perfect playing field to practice these skills. Especially social poker games like KamaGames’ Pokerist app. In this instance players get all the thrill of the high stakes and decision making, yet, none of the financial risk. What’s more, long term poker players have an acquired ability to live with their decisions - even poor ones. Unlike someone who torments themselves with “what ifs” and “should haves”, a skilled poker player has learned to live with their mistakes and move forward.
Social Ability
Ultimately, poker is a social game - that’s why it works so well in the casual and social casino landscape and why KamaGames works so hard to build genuine human communities in our apps. After all, it’s impossible to play poker by yourself and just slightly boring playing with only one other person. To have a truly thrilling game, you need a group of people to interact with - be it online or in-person!
Whether you’re practising casual conversation at the tables or using chit chat to size other players up, this activity will benefit you. After all, we spend every day communicating with the outside world in some form or another and having a high standard of social skills can improve every area of your life. What’s more, through this communication at the tables, players make and maintain long term friendships through a shared hobby. This means that you’ll always have fun at the tables when playing with friends, significantly improving your overall mental health and wellbeing.