Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don’t know we don’t know 
Donald Rumsfeld
There is a great article from The National Journal by Will Englund called When Is Obama Bluffing? The President Approaches Issues with a Poker Player’s Sensibility, Learned By Playing the Quintessentially American Game; which has been re-printed on the Pokerati website. In it Will Englund draws the analogy of poker being a metaphor for political decision and basically claims that Obama is tight passive, where as people such as Donald Rumsfeld was loose aggressive. This ties in nicely with my assertion that in poker you need to have a slight bit of extra sensory perception especially if you are playing online.
obama the poker player
When Donald Rumsfeld came out with the quote reprinted above he was mercilessly ridiculed for a big massive ‘foot in mouth’ situation. But if you re-read it, now that he has left his job and has gone into history as one of history most deluded foreign secretary ever, his famous saying does make sense. Think of a online game of Texas Hold ‘Em game, take the lines:
- ‘..there are things we know we know…’ = the flop.
- ‘..there are some things we do not know…’ = the future turn and the river.
- ‘..the ones we don’t know we don’t know…’ = the dealt hand pre-betting.
Obviously as information is revealed via betting or messages typed in by the players things become clearer, however, with a little E.S.P you will already know the result of the game before showing the cards. 😉