JV'S KILLER POKER: BUZZ

BY: John Vorhaus

"There are two kinds of problems in this world," granny used to say, "My problem, and not my problem." For some people, for example, it's a problem to "just say no" to poker. They want to play all the time. Others have no trouble with this. They play lots and lots (and lots and lots!) of poker, but still manage to enter every session with top consciousness and top concentration. They play because they want to, not because they have to. Maybe they play because that's their job. Well, whether poker is your profession or your secondary revenue stream, if it's not your obsessive compulsion - if it's something you can take or leave alone - then more power to you, and you can write off this whole ensuing discourse as not your problem.

Or can you?

Can you honestly say that the only reason you ever play poker is to earn money? And even if that's your sole motivation, can you honestly say that you don't derive secondary benefit -- psychic income -- from playing the game well and dominating your opponents? Do you experience no special thrill when that third spade hits the board on the river, giving you the nut flush? Do you get no visceral kick out of raking a huge pot and stacking all those chips? Do you experience no flash of pure pride when you're lugging three or four heavy racks to the cage, with all those admiring (and jealous) eyes upon you as you pass?

Okay, then, you're the purest-motivated poker player who's ever drawn breath. Just one problem: You're not human.

Face it, we get off on poker. We all do. You do. I do. Everyone who plays the game gets off on it to some degree. If they didn't, they wouldn't play. Why would they? There are so many other enjoyable, and profitable, things they could do with their time.

Look, I'm not trying to talk you out of playing poker, and I'm not trying to kill the joy you feel when you play. I'm just pointing out that, no matter how pure we think our motivation is, there are hidden rewards that draw us all to the game.

Take a moment and think about the dividends of pleasure that poker pays you. Above and beyond the obvious reward of money won, how does poker float your boat? Call this introspection your dividend list, and really take the time to write one up.

I get to be a bully. It's a mental workout; I find the challenge deeply satisfying. Poker makes the mundane problems of my life disappear for a while. It feeds my greed. I experience pleasure when the cards break my way. I get to feel superior to other people. I enjoy being tricky and deceptive. There's often interesting conversation. Food and drink are cheap or free. It kills time. No one from my "real life" can find me there. I experience camaraderie. I feel proud when I play well. I buy pretty baubles with the money I win. I can be king of the hill.

Looking at my dividend list, I note two crucial themes. First, poker is important to me as a diversion and a time sink; second, I like to push people around, and poker offers an outlet for that urge. Looking at your dividend list, what themes do you note?

Once I watched as two small boys tried to walk on the top of a split-rail fence. It quickly became clear that they were engaged in a competition to see who could go farther, faster. I found myself wondering why boys as young as six or seven would be so caught up in competition. Perhaps, I mused, it's genetically encoded, a survival characteristic. Competition, after all, keeps us striving, growing, moving forward, as individuals and as a species. Without it, we'd still be living in trees wondering where our next banana was coming from.

So then it may be that the kick we get out of playing poker is simply the kick of winning. When we win, when we're rakin' and rackin' that big pile of chips, endorphins flood our brains. We receive an immediate and direct chemical reward for having won the game. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the buzz of poker. And that's what brings us back for more.

Some sad sacks seem to have gotten their cranial wires crossed, so that they receive a direct chemical reward not for winning but for losing. We know these people as compulsive gamblers, or even compulsive losers. They seem to take pleasure in peeing their money away. How is this possible?

The answer lies in something called "defense of worldview." Certain people, it seems, have fixed ideas in their heads about how they should be treated by the world. Many of these ideas are planted within them in early youth. A child who is the victim of abuse, for instance, comes to acquire the worldview that "I am a victim." Absent psychological counseling or some other form of consciousness raising, this child may become an adult who actually and actively seeks out opportunities to be treated like a victim. This reinforces his worldview, justifies his self-pity, and gives him the strange satisfaction of being able to say (to himself or anyone who will listen), "I told you I'm a victim, and now you see I am!"

You see a version of this victim mentality all the time in the realm of cardroom poker. When someone tells you a bad beat story, he doesn't want your pity or your sympathy, not really. He just wants to confirm his deeply held (and perversely cherished) belief that he is a loser; he's someone who deserves to lose. I don't know why this is. I honestly can't fathom the mindset of someone who would want to lose. But the evidence is all around us. Some people just love to lose. We can thus parse the poker world into two types: Those who see themselves as winners and take pleasure in winning; and those who see themselves as losers and take pleasure in losing.

Which raises a delicate subject. If it's true that the poker world is filled with compulsive losers, what moral responsibility do the rest of us have? Should we save them from themselves by not taking their money? Should we tell them to quit playing, even though their gain is our loss? Should we encourage them to gamble even more, knowing that their twisted pleasure is our profit? Should we try and teach them to play better so they don't hurt themselves so badly? Should we go on bleeding them dry, rationalizing that, "If I didn't do it, someone else would"?

I can't resolve this debate, and it's not my place to try. All I can say is this: If winning at poker rewards you in your soul, then you're fine. But if losing at poker rewards you in your soul, you'd better change to checkers.