JV'S KILLER POKER:
Disapproval

BY: John Vorhaus

A lot of people draw no distinction between poker and gambling. This can cause a certain amount of grief to those of us who know and appreciate the distinction because, viewed in a certain light, we poker players look like degenerate gamblers to our friends, family or disapproving strangers.

Poker qua poker fights this uphill battle in its quest for respectability. So long as poker looks (to the unknowing eye) like the clash of human slot machines, our efforts to make poker be seen as a competition or even a sport seemed doomed to failure.

Many is the time I have explained the difference, only to be met by dull, uncomprehending stares. "Look," I say, "if you could beat Vegas, Vegas wouldn't be there. If you play slots, blackjack, keno, craps, you're playing against the house and the house can't lose, not in the long run. But if you're playing poker, you're playing against other players, not the house, and you can make money on the differential between your skill level and theirs."

Like I said, dull, uncomprehending stares. Because if you don't know any better, poker looks like gambling; the two are indistinguishable. If you don't know any better.

Part of me wants to say who cares? Who cares if the unwashed multitudes don't understand why I do what I do? But another part of me realizes that their disapproval, even if completely unjustified, can infect my mindset and affect the way I play.

I might pass up a juicy opportunity to play in a tournament with a fat overlay because I don't want to hear someone's tsk, tsk, he's been playing an awful lot of poker lately. How is that good for my game?

Of course if you're playing too much, and playing compulsively, then you do have a gambling problem, but I'm going to assume you don't. Probably what you have is a people-around-you problem. To solve this problem, you need to put your activity in the proper context so that, at minimum, you don't have to worry about what Your Loved Ones think. Have you done this? Have you convinced your mother, father, spouse, friends, kids, co-workers, priest, rabbi, shrink or dog that poker isn't gambling, and that just because you spend every waking moment working on your game and honing your skills, that doesn't make you a wastrel? Have you? Can you? I think you can. Here's how:

Have your Doubting Thomas or Thomasina flip a quarter, and bet you a quarter on the outcome. (Maybe they won't even bet - some people are just congenitally afraid of a wager. It doesn't make them bad people, but it does make their lives somewhat less colorful than yours and mine.) After you've bet that quarter back and forth a few times, they'll see what they understand intuitively: that you win about as often as you lose.

Next, offer them the proposition that for every time you win, they pay you a quarter, but for every time they win, you'll pay them 50 cents. (You have the worst of it, I know, but don't worry. The cost of the demonstration is worth its weight in insight.) Once they start seeing their quarters pile up, explain (if they don't know) that they're now getting 2-1 odds on an even money proposition. This is called having the best of it, and they will now see with their own eyes that they can't lose, not in the long run, with this kind of statistical edge.

Now they will also understand the essence of poker as you understand it: getting paid more than the wager is worth, over and over again, for as long as you choose to play. Poker isn't gambling, not when your game is all about seeking, finding and exploiting that consistent, definable edge. Poker isn't gambling; poker is putting your money in the pot when the reward outweighs the risk. Over and over and over again.

Will this argument convince them? Possibly... if they're open-minded and clear-eyed. Then again, maybe not. After all, everyone filters reality through their own perceptions. Like the man said, "What you see depends on where you stand." And if they stand on the (false) assumption that poker is no different than keno or lotto or slots or the Flip-it machine, then, alas, no amount of facts or real evidence will ever make them change their minds.

So if that doesn't work, try this: Teach them to play poker. Yes, yes, I know poker is gambling, and gambling is bad! That's what they think, and that's what you have to overcome. Simple solution: Don't play for money. Introduce them to skills and strategies of the game, but leave the money out of it.

I know, I know, I know... poker is meaningless without money. Hey, for the sake of proving your point, I think you can let that attitude go. Or try this: Set up your demonstration tournament-style. You both start out with 100 chips, and whoever gets the other hundred first wins a trinket-sized prize. A frisbee. A cup of coffee. Whatever. Pretty soon the reward won't matter, because pretty soon your adversary will see that what does matter in poker are decisions. Pretty soon your friendly foe will become caught up in the complexity and the subtlety of those decisions, and he or she will become hooked on the same thing that hooks you: not the gamble, but the challenge of playing well.

Call it poker outreach. Call it self-interest. Call it anything you like, but at the end of the day I think you have a real responsibility to try and get those around you to see poker as it really is: a game of skill, not a game of chance. Do it for yourself. Do it for us all. Do it for the good of the game. In a very real sense, the future of poker is in your hands.