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HE CALLS himself a “pretty good” poker player. Barack Obama’s poker-buddies, including Illinois politicians who played with him weekly when he was a state senator, tend to agree. Quizzed by profile-writers, they have described a cautious, canny card player. Mr Obama would bluff only if he had halfway-decent cards, they recalled. When opponents bet high, Mr Obama would not engage unless he held a strong hand of his own. As president, he is said to favour a more demure card game, spades. That may be just as well. At a bumpy moment in history, Mr Obama is strikingly, even confoundingly, reluctant to bluff. When needs must, Mr Obama can summon the language of superpower resolve. Speaking on September 3rd in Estonia—an ex-Soviet republic reborn as an eager member of NATO and the European Union—the president struck a stalwart tone. “You lost your independence once before. With NATO, you will never lose it again,” he told young Estonians in Tallinn, their capital. Mr Obama backs plans