Poker - is it a sport? |
14 Comments |
After Reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad’s post on poker being a competitive sport, I found myself writing a comment. It soon got a bit longer than I had intended, so decided to make a post instead.
I may agree on the competitive aspect of poker, but I’m not so sure I’d agree on it being a sport. Usually I consider sports as being played by athletes. Webster’s online defines an athlete such as “a person who is trained or skilled in exercises, sports, or games requiring physical strength, agility, or stamina.” I’d through “coordination” in there as well- I don’t know why they didn’t have that. I’m not sure if a poker player qualifies as an athlete as I don’t really see the physical aspect of it. I can imagine Stephen Hawking playing it, for instance.
I see poker as gambling. There are professional gamblers that bet on horses and football games. They are all competitive in the same way that they use their their judgement as their advantage. If a great gambler plays long enough and has a way to make the math work out for them in the long term, it’s not really a game of chance.
I’ve seen complete novices (who have just learned how the game is played) knock out fairly experienced veterans (people who compete at local tournaments). I don’t play a lot, really just about 5 times ever and I’ve seen this twice with different novices and different veterans. I’d say that like anything, there’s a portion of luck and a portion of skill. For many, the portion of luck in gambling is high, while in other sports the portion of skill is high for almost anyone playing.
I wonder how many novice basketball players would beat a veteran in one-on-one
I can’t imagine a scenario where I could beat Shaq in basketball, but I can imagine one where I beat Moneymaker (or whoever the champion is now) in poker.
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July 2nd, 2008 at 2:02 pm
I think there is enough skill in poker that if a group of players play regularly over a long period of time the same winners and losers will keep appearing. Still doesn’t make it a sport though.
January 10th, 2007 at 4:12 pm
I am a cash poker player, albeit not a pro. Several of my friends are pros. Poker is gambling and ‘luck’ can make winners out of the worst players. Pros don’t mind this fact, because if people didn’t think they had a chance they wouldn’t play and the games would be much, much tougher.
Serious online players continually study and improve their game. We read books, get coaches, and form study groups. We have poker software that analyzes every hand we have ever played. We use this software to spot mistakes and review our hands for mistakes. Poker players are not immediate results oriented. Instead, we take the long term view and know whether we made the optimal play or not. On the internet, one can play multiple tables and the hands go quickly. We play literally thousands of hands every month. With such numbers, variance ( or ‘luck’, as some call it) is minimized and that’s how we have solid win rates at the end of the month.
The bottom line is that luck swings both ways, skill doesn’t. Poker is a combination of both. Luck/Variance evens out long term, but skill doesn’t and that’s where we make money.
To any aspiring players out there I will tell you right now that making any kind of decent side income playing poker is *tough*. It takes a lot of study and reassessment. It is harder than it looks.
October 29th, 2006 at 11:01 am
It’s funny you wrote about this because I was actually just talking to a friend about this very same thing about 3 days ago. I used to play poker a good bit, but decided to give it up because it’s so frustrating.
The game is made up of so much luck that I find the skill level to not matter very much. Obviously, skill is a factor, but luck is so rampant in poker that I just couldn’t take it anymore. Phil Hellmuth had a great line in one of the tournaments a couple of years ago. He said something to the effect that if skill was involved he would win everytime.
When I have pocket Aces and go all-in pre-flop, I expect to win against a queen-ten offsuit. I continued to find myself getting beat when I had the best hand pre-flop. I’d slow play and get beat. I’d play strong and get beat.
I’m sure that some would say that it sounds like I’m a bad poker player. Truth be told, I’m pretty good. I honestly think that I’ve made money throughout the years. It’s fun to play, but so frustating when you lose against some people that have no idea what they’re doing.
I basically got to the point where I just got sick of losing to novices against stupid hands. Obviously, there’s a lot more detail that I could go into, such as how you handle the loses and going on tilt, but I’ll end it for now. Just wanted to give everyone my opinion on everything.
While I thoroughly enjoy playing poker with friends, I got fed up and decided that I won’t be playing nearly as much as before.
October 25th, 2006 at 9:03 am
1. Poker is not a sport, it is a game.
2. The luck component of poker can be quantified to some extent by measuring the standard deviation for each game’s win rate. Some games have a greater or lower standard deviation. For example, limit Omaha (to the extent that such a game is ever spread), would have a high luck component to it due to the enormous standard deviation. Limit holdem has a much lower standard deviation comparatively, and thus is more “skill based.” No limit and pot limit holdem give the “skilled player” the greatest edge, since he can manipulate the pot size in a way that fixed limit game players cannot.
3. As somebody else mentioned, tournament poker has a greater luck component than cash game play, because the ability to rebuy in cash games allows the skilled player to continue in the action even after suffering a bad beat. In tournament play, if you get it all in the middle with the nuts on the flop, a good amount of the time you’re still going to be outdrawn by the river (e.g., nut str8 on the flop against nut flush draw or a set).