Playing poker can make you feel like a God.  But not when you win.

No, it starts to happen around 4 a.m. and you’re ready to leave the table.  Even though you’re doing pretty well, you’re old and your leg has a piece of embedded shrapnel from fighting overseas wars; it always begins to ache if you stay up too late.

(I made up that last part, but that would be cool.)

Anyway, to leave a poker table you have to go “all in"--wager your entire mother lode against everyone at the table.  Technically, you could win the entire game right there.  What’s more likely to happen is that you lose your chips in a few simple rounds, giving you a graceful exit.

However, going “all in” is like a meteor striking Earth, causing upheavals and volcanoes and tidal waves.  Nothing is the same afterwards.  The next day, when you talk to the players, you realize that a lowly life form that had only a few chips to her name had risen from the muck to become the dominant species of the game--the ultimate winner.  And someone who had enough chips to start his own financial empire was blasted from the evolutionary chain.

You are like a God, and all of your subjects regard you with appropriate emotions--awe, fear, gratitude, and revulsion.  And it was all because you wished to effect a massive redistribution of wealth.  Come to think of it, maybe you’re more like Ralph Nader.