The chorus is probably the most popular part of the song. I’ve always interpreted it as follows:
“You’ve got to know when to hold 'em” - when to stand pat and stick to your principles;
“Know when to fold 'em” - when to quit when youre ahead, or especially, behind ;);
“Know when to walk away” - when to get out of a bad situation;
“Know when to run” - when to get the hell out of a bad situation;
Does anyone have personal stories that illustrate the chorus in action?
Although I’m still trying to get exactly why you shouldn’t count your money while you’re sitting at the table.
Because there’ll be time enough for counting when the dealing’s done.
(sorry couldn’t help it)
I’ve always assumed that counting your money at the table is:[ul][li](if you have a lot) rubbing it in the face of those from whom you’ve won it or [](if you have only a little) a show of weakness []another way of counting your chickens before they’re hatchedirrelevant because you don’t leave the table until you’ve won it all or lost it all.[/ul]Personally, I take more wisdom from the statement:[/li][ul]…the secret to surviving
is knowing what to throw away and knowing what to keep.
'Cuz every hand’s a winner, and every hand’s a loser,
and the best that you can hope for is to die in your sleep.[/ul]In other words, wherever you are in life, you will be better off than some (a winner!) and worse off than others (a loser!). But in the end we all end up equal (dead) anyway.
If you’re talking about life in general, “You don’t count your money when you’re sitting at the table” means that you don’t assume that the current situation is going to last forever. You have to plan for the future, but you won’t necessarily see what’s coming. In gambling, you don’t count your money at the table because the $100 you have now isn’t necessarily going to be there at the end of the evening. In life, the same goes for your job, your health, your relationships, etc.
“There’ll be time enough for counting when the dealing’s done” means that everything will be summed up when you die. This is pretty much explicity expressed when the gambler “breaks even” (dies) during the song.
Ultimately the song is about learning to accept whatever life gives you, understanding that some of it’s going to be good and some of it’s going to be bad, and you’re going to die anyway.
As an occasional poker player, I’ll jump in. I don’t think the song is especially deep (at best it’s “the table of contents to the guide to life”) but I’ve always liked it so I’l go ahead.
No, holding is when you stick with the cards you were dealt instead of asking for replacements. The analogy bit is that you should be able to recognize when you’re doing OK and not just change things because you can.
Folding is just bowing out of a hand instead of matching a bet or raising, you’re not leaving the game and you’re always coming out behind on a fold (but not as badly as raising on a wimpy hand). I think the meaning is more ‘realize that what you’re doing doesn’t work and try something different’, since folding is pretty much waiting for a better hand to come along.
This one is really the ‘quit when you’re ahead/behind one.’ Walking away is just leaving the poker game, you might leave because you’re down a lot and want to cut your losses but you’d also walk away if you’ve done really well and are ready to cash in and not risk the rest. It doesn’t mean you won’t be back around next time.
That fits, although strangely I’ve never felt the need to ‘get the hell out’ in my penny-ante and chips only poker games. There’s a whole different connotation to it than walking away, though; walking away would just be ‘I’m done with the game’, running away means you’re in some kind of danger (sixguns being drawn, Fat Tony eyeing your gold teeth, etc.).
Because you haven’t cashed out yet; you might be up a hundred bucks, but you shouldn’t count on that hundred to pay your rent until you actually quit. If you need the money that you have at the table, that’s one of those time you need to know when to walk away.
If you have a bad hand, you might be able to bluff out the leaders. And if you have a good hand, someone just might have a better hand.
An example from Omaha (wherein you use exactly two of your four cards with exactly three of the table’s five cards to make your hand):
The widow: AH JH 10H AC 6D
Your hand: AS AD 7D 3C
You have an almost certain winner with four aces. BUT, there is a chance of someone holding the heart royal flush. What order were the cards shown in? How did everybody (including you) bet? Who are you playing against? Probability says that the chance of someone holding the royal flush is very tiny. Life isn’t all probability; there’s other elements to consider.
To wit: If the three hearts were turned up first, someone holding KH QH would have stayed in. If 10H AC 6D were turned up first, they might have stayed in hoping for a straight… or might have folded against aggressive betting. And their winner would also be a losing hand.
And if JH 10H 6D were turned up first, YOU might have folded against a possible flush or straight (which are very common winning hands in Omaha).
Does anyone else here remember the Letterman show from around 94-95, where he had a taped bit with him playing poker with Kenny Loggins, and Dave couldn’t do it right, and Kenny kept angrily giving him advice from lines in the song?
