Poker No Chance
Introduction
Rather disappointingly we will be entering the New Year without a final resolution to the on-going problem just how legal is online poker in the USA. Until the decision from Congress is made all of us internet poker players are still pretty well in a state of limbo, whereby we can continue to play online poker – only because the authorities have no real appetite to test it out in the courts. One of the key points surrounding this debate is, of course, the old chestnut of whether poker is a game of skill or mere chance?
Comparing poker with other card games
I’m not too sure what her poker skill might be?
The single biggest problem for poker being seen as a game of skill is that it is all too easily associated with casinos and casino card games. This immediately sets up a barrier between poker players and the rest of the population, who can only see casinos as dens of vice and trickery. Leaving aside the fact that all too often those who are against legally opening up online poker to the nation have never played the game or been inside a casino, it isn’t just online poker that they want to ban – but all online card games. That is, all online card games that you’d normally associate with casinos – but not strangely gin rummy or bridge. Now then, correct me if I’m wrong but how often are they played in casinos? Quite simply they aren’t, but they are played in the genteel and middle-class homes all over the States. Those two card games are determined to be games of skill, and there’s no argument here about that. But, why is poker discriminated against just because it is played in casinos? You can’t really argue that a casino card game like Blackjack really is a game of chance – but poker?
The skill in poker
A key fact as to why poker should be seen as a game of skill is that even in a casino the ‘house’ doesn’t share in the winnings. The ‘house’ is simply paid a buy-in fee for each round thereafter both the house and the dealer have no interest in who wins what and, most significantly, the house or its dealer cannot win from the table. In that circumstance alone, a poker game is entirely between the people playing the game who have the sole interest in its outcome. Secondly the very rules that govern poker gives all the players around the poker table with a statistically equal chance of winning before the flop. Thirdly and finally for now, poker is a game that not only requires skill but skills that are used alongside a strategy, making it more like chess and bridge, than a mere game of chance. If that were not the case, and all was just down to pure chance, then why hasn’t a rookie yet won the WSOP?