"Gambling" is Blissful Ignorance

My sportscasting mentor, good friend, and intermittent student NOEL ZARATE keeps a blog on the yahoo sports pages.  His recent posting entitled "The Sport of Poker" mounted yet another thoughtfully written presentation of why Poker must be stripped of its gambling tag and be considered a sport.

I had the privilege of being quoted as part of his presentation.  As he wrote his blog entry, Noel asked me to name 5 skills that make poker akin to a sport.  In my reply, I said that the first step of the presentation of poker-as-sport was to talk about TRAINING.

GAMBLING activities are luck-driven.  That means no amount of intention, attempt at understanding, or manipulation can affect the outcome.  Nothing we do affects the outcome.  All we can do is pray for good luck.

Hey buddy, that's not very "skilled"

SPORT pits the players' SKILLS against each other.  To quote JOE ROGAN:  "It's not a sport if there is no defense!"

In a SPORT, your opponents' skills get in the way of your chances to be successful.

Spin a roulette wheel - no one can "defend" against your choice.  you will either win or lose and there is nothing anyone can do about it.


A KEY DEFINITION is this:  If you cannot intentionally lose, then you are gambling.

I cannot intentionally lose at Bingo.  But I can easily blind myself out of a poker tourney.  I can muck the winning hand.  I can call down seven-high and play the board against a 3-barreler.

If you cannot even intentionally lose, then that is proof that nothing you do can affect the outcome.  It is all LUCK.




In my Poker Training Program, one extremely important basic understanding that one cannot possibly continue without is this:  LUCK CANNOT BE TRAINED.

So let's go back to talking about training, because that is what makes poker a sport:  You CAN get better at it!  You can improve your SKILL!  I dare you to say the same about flipping a coin.

Having established that poker requires skills that are trainable, I proceeded to give Noel his 5 examples, which he then thought to be good enough to cite in his piece:

My good friend and Asia Poker Academy coach Ron Regis interprets it this way: "Poker players require endurance (like in Marathons and endurance races), situational awareness (like an NFL quarterback or an NBA point guard), betting lines (like moves in Chess), bet sizing precision (like swinging at a curveball or cutting in a shot in billiards) and reading opponents (like in combat martial arts or boxing)."


I thought we made a pretty good case.  (Noel admits he cannot defend Cash Game Poker as a sport - which hurts our case unnecessarily, because I can defend it easily.  But that is something we can walk through later).

Unfortunately, as good a case as presented, there remained the usual (vast) amounts of comments - which I can all summarize as all being like this:

"Ah, basta, sugal yan."

One counter-commenter in defense of Noel's piece simply stated:  "The only gamble here is whether people like you can actually read."


Ah, frustration.  Why do we waste so much time on the ignorant when they are not willing to open their minds? One particular reply made me run to the nearest Handiman so that I could purchase a crowbar and open his mind up for him:

"nice explanation but obviously not convincing. life is so simple if you just walk as straight as possible. let me go straight to the point, any sport if you call it sport, if you bet in terms of cash or equivalent that is obviously gambling. even the simple requirements is just to pay entrance that still a gambling simply because your still trying your luck or maybe you simply convincing yourself that your smarter than others or let say skill if you want, but anyway my point is YOU STILL BET and BET is a form of GAMBLING. if not? sorry i probably don't know, what is the definition of gambling."

"obviously not convincing"...?!?  This reader was "obviously" in-convincable.  If there is such a word, say it like Vizzini from the Princess Bride.

So, crowbar.

gam·ble  (gmbl)

v. gam·bled, gam·bling, gam·bles

v.intr.

1.

a. To bet on an uncertain outcome, as of a contest.

b. To play a game of chance for stakes.

2. To take a risk in the hope of gaining an advantage or a benefit.

3. To engage in reckless or hazardous behavior

1a) poker players do not bet on an uncertain outcome.  they use bets to create outcomes.
1b) poker as we discuss it is no longer considered "a game of chance"

2) well, that just described our daily lives at the home, playground, and office.

3) poker players are extremely "the opposite of reckless" - we are cautious and consider more angles than my highschool geometry teacher.



Ah, but why do I bother?  Why am I bothered?  Why do people like these refuse to open their minds?


The answer is BLISS.  Whether willingly - stubbornly - or unwittingly, PEOPLE WOULD PREFER TO REMAIN IGNORANT.

I'll tell you why:  Fear.

What are these people afraid of?

Ignorance is a defense against responsibility.  We all need some excuse to not be held accountable for our actions.  To not be the cause for the effects in our lives.  We want it to never be "our fault."

We all have a friend who runs into some "bad luck" in their lives and says "Bah, what could I do?"

What you could have done, my tragically blameless eternal victim of a friend, is you should know better.  You should make an effort to know better.

Change of scenery:  Let's pretend we gather up some people for a game of Golf (barely a sport, which is why I use it as an example).  Let's pretend absolutely none of these "players" have ever played Golf, or read much about it.  They are all blissfully ignorant.  They play 18 holes.  Who wins?

It's an absolute goddam crap shoot.  And whoever wins, every other player will say "he was lucky."  And of course he was.  All things being equal (skill advantage to none), "luck" in the form of the winds, and the sheer randomness of muscles spasming accidentally correctly, determines the winner.

They were all gambling.  The entire field was blissfully ignorant.

Now let's put that same bunch together - say a month later.  Some of them went to a driving range and practiced.  Some of them read books and stayed awake through entire Televised Golfing shows.  Some of them could not be bothered till the day of the reunion.

They play 18 holes.  Who wins?

Not quite the crap shoot it was before.  I still cannot say for sure who wins, but I can say for sure who has no shot at winning:  The blissfully ignorant.

People want to remain blissfully ignorant - they close their minds - because they want to hold on to their favorite excuse for failure:  "bad luck"

Lost at poker, bad luck?

Missed the game-tying free throw, bad luck?

Foot died and car crashed at a Le Mans race, bad luck?

Fired from the job, bad luck?

Girlfriend found somebody she liked better - someone who was nicer to her and listened more...bad luck?


So yes, go ahead and continue to believe that poker is gambling.  Refuse to train any skill.  Hell, refuse to play, for all I care.  It is your loss, and do you know why?

Because how you play is how you live.  Good luck, my friend, good luck.

ride the donkey, or the donkey rides you.  the one being ridden is the one who needs the horseshoe.

ps, my comment on Noel's blog, in brief(er) response to one of the unconvinced:

"you, sir Leo, have inspired me to present the idea in more detail. i posted it on my blog, which i cannot link to here, but here is one excerpted phrase you might want to consider: "poker players do not bet on an uncertain outcome. they use bets to create outcomes." perhaps you are misled by a limited interpretation and contextual usage of the word "bet" - and, i think, by a limited understanding of the definition of gambling, as you said. I can only hope that those who are similarly "obviously unconvinced" can find it in their minds to examine the convincing (and readily available) information. Wait, I can actually do more than hope, which is why I post here. If I just sat at home and hoped without action...well, that, Sir, would be gambling."