King Me

Everyone wants to have fun. And poker is not a fun game when played properly. With correct play, only two to four hands an hour are usually playable.

But if you have only a single evening to play with your friends, most people want to play many hands, and that involves bluffing. Therein lies the death of their game.

So only play great hands that you believe are the best, bet your fullest, and then watch as your bluffing friends bet till the end and lose all their chips. If you have a pair of nines and the other players raise, save your money and just fold.

This is similar in the stock market to not putting all of your hopes on an earnings call or one court ruling or one customer remaining loyal. Rather, a safer strategy is to look for companies with great balance sheets, strong cash flows and potential for growth, instead of those stocks that can live or die on one FDA trial.

Chess, Please

This is a harder one to advise on, because I spent many wasted years in my youth trying to master this game.

But the one simple trick I can offer if you're playing a casual game is that for every move, make sure all of your pieces are protected by at least two other pieces.

This was basically the ultradefensive technique of 1960s world champion Tigran Petrosian, who was famous for rarely losing a game. This is similar to investing, where you would seek out stocks that have a backdoor in case your initial investment thesis didn't work out. For example, if you were buying a stock based on a merger-arb deal, you'd make sure that if the deal falls through the company has enough asset value to still support its current stock price or higher.

Of course, there are countless other games to consider, from cards (gin rummy, hearts, crazy eights) to classic board games like go, checkers, Chinese checkers and even Connect Four.

Card games all have their particular tricks, so I will leave those alone for now.

	Another Petrified Opponent

But for all of the board games -- and this works equally well for each of the games listed above -- a good rule of thumb is to always move toward the center and leave the wings to the opponent.

With Chinese Checkers, only move to the center and build a ladder from your triangle to your opponents. Leave the sides alone.

Even in Connect Four, stick to the center -- avoid the side columns at all costs, unless you have to block a four-in-a-row -- and have as many three-in-a-rows as possible.

At the end of the game, you will find that you are the lucky one who can put four-in-a-row in many different places.

And when you're basking in the glow of victory, you can always remind the other stunned players of the old chess saying: Only the good players are lucky.

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