How appropriate that a mathematics graduate won the most lucrative individual tournament prize in the world. In Las Vegas on Tuesday night (Wednesday morning in India), Pennsylvania’s Joe McKeehan destroyed a final table of nine players culled from a starting field of over 6,000, each of whom had shelled out $10,000 to compete in the World Series of Poker’s main event. I followed the 24 year-old McKeehan’s progress to the $7,680,021 first prize through live updates on the WSOP site while trying to catch a few cards of my own in a Diwali poker game.
While teen patti remains a dominant favourite for gamblers during the festival of lights, people interested in adding a bit of skill to the mix have turned to poker. It is a niche pursuit in India, but recent court judgements legalising the game in Karnataka and Bengal promise to widen the player base. Outside of those states and casinos in Goa and Sikkim, the legality of poker, even when played at home, is muddled. Although the police don’t bother with gambling during Diwali any more than they bother with drug-taking during Holi, they’ve been known to raid homes at other times following tip offs. Their intent, without exception, is to extort money rather than enforce anti-gambling laws.
Should poker be classified as a form of gambling or a game of skill? It’s a difficult question, and one that has divided judges in different countries, because it is clearly both things. On the one hand, it involves money, betting and luck; on the other, it requires calculation and hand reading skills which win out in the long run. The long run, however, can be very protracted indeed. Even excellent players who don’t manage their bankroll well can endure downswings that leave them broke. Bad players addicted to poker will certainly end up bankrupt if they play at stakes where a big winning or losing session makes a material difference to their net worth. Though I love poker, I’ve seen enough people lose their shirts – good people who happened to be bad players and lacked the objectivity to understand how bad they were – to be conflicted about its essential nature.
The stuff of legend
That nature itself has morphed over the decades. Poker used to be a game of hustlers and hard-bitten gamblers played in saloons in the wild west or on Mississippi riverboats. The refrain of Kenny Rogers’ most famous song,The Gambler, sums up the edgy spirit of early poker:
There’s a hand in poker known as the dead man’s hand consisting of two black aces and two black eights. The legendary lawman Wild Bill Hickok was said to be holding that hand when an embittered gambler whose money Hickok had taken in a game the previous night shot him.
These days, the image of a poker player is no longer of a grizzled veteran who walks with a swagger, wears a cowboy hat, drinks whiskey straight from the bottle, and carries a gun in a holster at his belt. It’s a guy (still a male, women form a minuscule fraction of successful poker pros) in his twenties wearing a T-shirt and boxers, eating pizza, while staring at two large monitors filled with a grid of virtual tables. He will play more hands online in a day than old-style professionals managed in a month, meaning that his long downswings are over much quicker. He understands complex mathematics and has a very quick reaction time, allowing him to calculate the best move in multiple games almost simultaneously and make the play in the brief time allowed for each bet.
Career prospects
If this young man drops out of university, it is because he’s already making more money playing poker than he would in a job.The problem is that, unlike one’s salary graph, winnings from poker do not go up regularly; if anything, as competition gets tougher, the edge good players enjoy keeps decreasing. I’m a much better player than I was five years ago, but the general standard of play, while still far weaker in India than it is in the United States and Europe, has improved at a quicker pace. Enthusiastic youngsters discovering the game through Zynga’s free version or through YouTube videos can spend hours studying the latest advances and trying them out online.
Even those youngsters usually find their earnings graph flat lining quickly, or even declining. They might still be able to make a comfortable living from poker, but I’m not sure how sitting for hours each day staring at a monitor is any less tedious than a 9-to-5 desk job. The advantage is that one has nominal control over one’s schedule, but that usually means one spends more time working than one would in a salaried position. The drudgery of the online grind makes most poker pros turn to a more conventional living by their mid-twenties, and certainly by the time they hit thirty. That is of course, unless they hit pay dirt the way Joe McKeehan did on Diwali.
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While teen patti remains a dominant favourite for gamblers during the festival of lights, people interested in adding a bit of skill to the mix have turned to poker. It is a niche pursuit in India, but recent court judgements legalising the game in Karnataka and Bengal promise to widen the player base. Outside of those states and casinos in Goa and Sikkim, the legality of poker, even when played at home, is muddled. Although the police don’t bother with gambling during Diwali any more than they bother with drug-taking during Holi, they’ve been known to raid homes at other times following tip offs. Their intent, without exception, is to extort money rather than enforce anti-gambling laws.
Should poker be classified as a form of gambling or a game of skill? It’s a difficult question, and one that has divided judges in different countries, because it is clearly both things. On the one hand, it involves money, betting and luck; on the other, it requires calculation and hand reading skills which win out in the long run. The long run, however, can be very protracted indeed. Even excellent players who don’t manage their bankroll well can endure downswings that leave them broke. Bad players addicted to poker will certainly end up bankrupt if they play at stakes where a big winning or losing session makes a material difference to their net worth. Though I love poker, I’ve seen enough people lose their shirts – good people who happened to be bad players and lacked the objectivity to understand how bad they were – to be conflicted about its essential nature.
The stuff of legend
That nature itself has morphed over the decades. Poker used to be a game of hustlers and hard-bitten gamblers played in saloons in the wild west or on Mississippi riverboats. The refrain of Kenny Rogers’ most famous song,The Gambler, sums up the edgy spirit of early poker:
"You've got to know when to hold 'em,
Know when to fold 'em,
Know when to walk away,
And know when to run.
You never count your money
When you’re sittin’ at the table.
There’ll be time enough for counting
When the dealing’s done."
There’s a hand in poker known as the dead man’s hand consisting of two black aces and two black eights. The legendary lawman Wild Bill Hickok was said to be holding that hand when an embittered gambler whose money Hickok had taken in a game the previous night shot him.
These days, the image of a poker player is no longer of a grizzled veteran who walks with a swagger, wears a cowboy hat, drinks whiskey straight from the bottle, and carries a gun in a holster at his belt. It’s a guy (still a male, women form a minuscule fraction of successful poker pros) in his twenties wearing a T-shirt and boxers, eating pizza, while staring at two large monitors filled with a grid of virtual tables. He will play more hands online in a day than old-style professionals managed in a month, meaning that his long downswings are over much quicker. He understands complex mathematics and has a very quick reaction time, allowing him to calculate the best move in multiple games almost simultaneously and make the play in the brief time allowed for each bet.
Career prospects
If this young man drops out of university, it is because he’s already making more money playing poker than he would in a job.The problem is that, unlike one’s salary graph, winnings from poker do not go up regularly; if anything, as competition gets tougher, the edge good players enjoy keeps decreasing. I’m a much better player than I was five years ago, but the general standard of play, while still far weaker in India than it is in the United States and Europe, has improved at a quicker pace. Enthusiastic youngsters discovering the game through Zynga’s free version or through YouTube videos can spend hours studying the latest advances and trying them out online.
Even those youngsters usually find their earnings graph flat lining quickly, or even declining. They might still be able to make a comfortable living from poker, but I’m not sure how sitting for hours each day staring at a monitor is any less tedious than a 9-to-5 desk job. The advantage is that one has nominal control over one’s schedule, but that usually means one spends more time working than one would in a salaried position. The drudgery of the online grind makes most poker pros turn to a more conventional living by their mid-twenties, and certainly by the time they hit thirty. That is of course, unless they hit pay dirt the way Joe McKeehan did on Diwali.