The 'A' Word

What is it about online poker that makes us want to play it to the point of needing to play it? It's not the money. It can't be the money. If it were, the sensible majority of us would long ago have turned to more reliable revenue streams, like insurance fraud or selling the contents of our closets on eBay. It may be the sense of community. Or, it might just be a matter of competition. Winning is a rush, this we know.

But no, I don't think so. I think the buzz of online poker, the buzz of all poker, in fact, lies in the cards to come. While we're waiting to receive them, our heads fill with questions. Will I get a playable hand? Will I pick up a monster? Will I face a tough decision? Will I maybe make some money? Will I get to be involved? If the answer to these questions is yes, the promise of poker's baseline buzz is fulfilled. If the answer is no, we must fold (if we're disciplined and smart) and wait patiently for the next hand.

But here's the thing. If you're playing poker in a cardroom, you get the baseline buzz of those next two cards maybe 20 times an hour … broadly diluted over time. Online, you get that buzz much more frequently - maybe a hundred times an hour. If you're playing heads up, the buzz comes at you almost constantly. This, I believe, is why online poker is so addictive. It delivers such a highly concentrated version of the poker buzz. Those next two cards keep coming and coming and coming until we're saturated, stimulated, and ultimately overstimulated by all the decisions we get to make.

At the risk of calling attention to the elephant in the living room, I call your attention to the "a" word … addiction … and encourage you to contemplate your real relationship with online play. To that end, I've contrived to re-purpose the warning signs of alcohol addiction for online poker. I've removed a few from the list; I don't believe anyone has ever awakened from a night of online poker and not known where he was - though I suppose it's possible. Anyway, look, I'm not trying to ruin anyone's day with this, and I'm not trying to invent a problem where there is none. I'm just saying, if there's an elephant in any of our living rooms, the one thing we should do is note it, and observe it, and stroke its leathery skin.

Of course I took the test myself, to see if there was an addictive streak running through my own relationship to online play. Not that I'd be surprised to find one, for I'm compulsive by nature, and online poker is a compulsive person's paradise. Expected outcomes aside, I tried to answer as truthfully as possible, and here were my responses:

Q: Do you lose time from work due to online poker?
A: No. It is my work - or at least writing about it is. OK, then, yeah.

Q: Is playing online making your home life unhappy?
A: No. Not unless you count how I stomp up and down the halls of my home when I lose.

Q: Is online poker affecting your reputation?
A: Enhancing it, weirdly.

Q: Do you hide or disguise the amount of online poker you play?
A: Well, yeah.

Q: Have you ever felt remorse after playing online?
A: Yes, when I play stupidly or without self-discipline. And of course when I lose.

Q: Have you gotten into financial difficulties as a result of your online play?
A: No. But that's only because I restrict my play to recreational sums.

Q: Has your ambition decreased since you started playing online?
A: No. And my ambition to beat stupid "IKallYerBluff" has increased A LOT.

Q: Do you crave online poker at a definite time daily?
A: Yes. At the end of the workday - if I wait that long.

Q: Do you want to play again the next morning?
A: Yes, win or lose, I'm always ready for more.

Q: Does online poker cause you to have difficulty sleeping?
A: Only if I stay up too late playing - or lie awake wondering how that nimrod IKallYerBluff could MAKE THAT CALL!

Q: Has your efficiency decreased since you started playing online?
A: Yes. I constantly interrupt the flow of my writing to "take a breather" with some online play. My output of words has dropped considerably. Though in fairness, if it weren't poker, it'd be Second Life or sudoku or something. A man needs his breathers.

Q: Is online poker jeopardizing your job or business?
A: No. If anything, it's abetting my business. But I have an odd business.

Q: Do you play to escape from worries or troubles?
A: Oh, yeah.

Q: Do you promise yourself or anyone that you'll cut back?
A: When I feel like I'm overdoing it, I remove all the online shortcut icons from my desktop. That at least forces me to make a little effort to open the program files. Slows me down. Makes me think.

Now it's your turn. Contemplate the above questions and answer them truthfully for yourself.

I'd be surprised to find that you found yourself with a serious problem on your hands. If you were really that far gone in the gamble, you'd probably have quit reading this column as soon as you figured out what it was about. However, I'd also be surprised if you didn't find yourself answering "yes" to a couple of the more problematic questions - those having to do with productivity or sleep patterns, say. This doesn't mean you're hopelessly hooked, but online poker does make a powerful argument for itself, and if you find that the argument is costing you too much money, time, or peace of mind, you might want to take a step back.

Just don't trip over that elephant.

John Vorhaus is the author of the Killer Poker book series and the new poker novel Under the Gun, in bookstores now. He resides in cyberspace at vorza.com, and blogs the world from somnifer.typepad.com. John Vorhaus' photo: Gerard Brewer.