May 28, 2004
Poker in the Washington Monthly
Doing my daily check of the blogs, looking at Kevin Drum's Political Animal, I saw in the sidebar that the Washington Monthly has a feature article about the poker boom: Jack of Smarts, by Justin Peters.
It's nothing special. Justin Peters, fresh out of college (perhaps a newly-minted J-school grad; his bio says he is "a writer in Washington, D.C.") breathlessly documents the growing popularity of the game:
These days poker – specifically Texas hold 'em, the best version of the venerable game – is enjoying an unexpected renaissance among Americans in general, and twenty-somethings in particular. It is newly ubiquitous on television: The World Series of Poker, a single event which took place last May, is replayed on ESPN with obsessive frequency 10 months after it ended. The World Poker Tour, another set of tournaments located in casinos around the country, got picked up by the Travel Channel last year. In the fall, Bravo introduced its heavily promoted "Celebrity Poker Showdown" program, betting on viewers being riveted by a fifth-street showdown between Timothy Busfield and Coolio. But perhaps anecdotal evidence speaks louder: Three years ago, when I was a sophomore at Cornell University, there wasn't a game to be had. By the time I graduated, I could choose from several different games every night of the week.
It's a familiar story: World Poker Tour blah blah blah online casinos yadda yadda Chris Moneymaker blah blah blah Rounders. ... Poker isn't just gambling, Peters tells us, it's a game of skill. He projects an image of jaded knowingness. At the same time, he boasts of having won $140 in a single game, and writes with amusement about the regular in his game who has lost "several hundred dollars" since he began playing. That's small potatoes, even by the standards of the Oaks' 2-4 stud game where I first made my bones in public cardroom poker.
Peters misses a fundamental point. Poker isn't a show of masculinity, it isn't merely a game of skill; it's a game of predation, of exploitation. The ur-skill of poker isn't tell-reading, or even using knowledge of the odds; it is game selection: finding a game that is weak enough that you can beat it and win the money.
Rounders, the World Poker Tour, and the growth of online casinos have all been very good to poker, by bringing in new generations of players ... who don't yet know how to play. Some of them will learn and become winners; others will lose and give up in frustration; but plenty of them, bless their hearts, will learn just enough to turn their personal losses from a flood to a trickle and spend the rest of their lives keeping the games afloat. I wonder which category will claim Justin Peters? I have a guess.
Posted by abostick at May 28, 2004 06:28 AMAre there ever times when you want to select a game that's above your skill level?
I could see trying to improve your skills by doing that. Not by playing with someone who is far far better, but by playing with people who can beat you 60 or 70% of the time. Or doesn't poker work that way?
Cool post. Thanks for linking up that article.
Posted by: Pauly at May 30, 2004 07:46 AMLynn: If one doesn't develop one's skills, then one is vulnerable to the other person who is developing her skills.
There are reasons to play above one's level. Ego for one thing: "Look, here I am, playing with the big guys." And playing with better players can develop one's own skills.
And you can have it both ways. Often it takes only a single live player to make a tough game worth playing. I wouldn't mind at all playing at a ten-handed table where two of the players can hand my ass to me on a platter, three of them are generally better than I am, three of them are on my level, and one guy is, in the jargon, "throwing a party". But when the party is over, I'm usually out of there.
There are in fact non-predatory, non-monetary reasons to play poker. There had better be; otherwise the prey would all stay home and there would be nothing for the predators to do but steal the blinds and antes from each other.
Posted by: Alan Bostick at May 31, 2004 08:41 AMhistory major at cornell.
Posted by: n. at June 6, 2004 09:05 AM
