Sport of Kings

Whenever I hear poker described as a sport I laugh. Or cry. It is almost beyond the ridiculous and into the absurd. Is it really right to compare the zeniths of sporting achievement, like for example, the tumultuous, emotionally strewn Federer—Nadal Wimbledon final last year, to a bunch of pasty faced Scandies and overweight, overloud Yanks sat around a table with green cloth on it, gently moving pieces of paper and colourful circles of clay?

Here are my views on how poker is like a sport:

You Can Behave Like a P@ick

Year after year the ESPN coverage has highlighted some truly terrible behaviour at the World Series of Poker. When they were “on their backs” back in the day, before the TV came, it used to be that there was a tightening of the lips, a grimace, and a firm handshake. Now we can watch the likes of Mathias Andersson roll around like an epileptic contortionist crossed with a hillbilly/porcine coupling, whilst the impassive “Saint of Cowboy Murderers”, Chris Ferguson, shows not a trace of emotion in the foreground.

You Get an Audience

People watch you. Millions of people watch you. However, the same is true in the U.S. for such luminaries as “dog jumping” and “crazy golf”. We must be so proud.

You Can Take Drugs

There have been recent exposés on performance enhancing drugs, in the U.S. especially. There are plenty of drugs in poker, also of the performance enhancing kind. Or at least some players “think” that a quick toot of “Nicaraguan Marching Powder” in the dinner break improves performance.
And that’s it, really.

On why poker isn’t like a sport:

The Luck Factor Does Not Dominate the Skill

Imagine a Wimbledon where everyone in the quarter finals of the men’s event is not only unranked, but a club player. Then imagine that in the final a guy from the crowd barges his way onto the court and wins the title. Then watch 90 percent of any of the televised events, my all-time favourite being the World Poker Tour Reno event all the way back in Season 2. Dreams do come true. If you go out in a storm, you may be hit by lightning. Being particularly conductive and tempting to the old “bolt from the blue” is not really a skill. It is now called poker skill and can result in a career as a minor celebrity.

Experience is Not Easily Overcome

Any master sportsman not only has genetics as an advantage over his amateur counterparts, but literally a lifetime of preparation, grueling training, and countless experience. The greatest in every sport train remorselessly. Johnny Wilkinson, easily the best rugby union kicker in the world before his calamitous run of injuries, used to train for three hours a day just on kicking, the very ability he was already world beating at. On the holidays.

When that holiday was in fact Christmas Day. Even if you are literally a sporting genius this massive weight of experience and commitment cannot be easily overcome. You have to put in the hours. That is unless you take up the “sport” of poker, in which case a few books, a bit of thought, maybe six months of play, then you’re in with a chance.

The Players Benefit From the Media

Beside the ability to play $5,000 to $10,000 tournaments every month I struggle to see what the poker pros have gained from their “sportification”. Besides exposing their game plans. Proper sponsorship and added prize money simply haven’t materialised in any significant way. And this is many years later. It is even debatable how much value has been added through the extra players, as they seem mostly to want to play games — tournaments and no-limit cash — that in the long-term will destroy their own, probably far-to-small, bankrolls.

The Sport and TV Negotiate

“We’ve decided that football is a bit boring, so we’re going to get rid of goal keepers. Any problems?”

Poker’s negotiating position to TV seems trousers around the feet, ankle’s firmly gripped. Higher antes, shorter rounds, no logos, rights waiving, speed poker.

I will leave the last word to Steve Badger, an auld favourite of the originator of all poker forums, rec.gambling.poker. Steve was the first person to give me a public slap on a forum for talking garbage and although could be abrasive, often hit the nail right on the head on matters poker related:

“(TV poker) is marketing to its own target market, definitely not the “casual fan”. The target demographic is 18-34 year old males, and to be blunt, specifically the dork/loser element of that demographic. People who go into a frenzy over the result of a game that they themselves don’t participate in, and even call talk radio to yell at other people about such games … they can’t relate (much) to Doyle or Howard. They can relate to someone about their age making idiotic trash talk, just like they do.

“It is basic sports TV marketing, and is partly why ESPN loves poker. Poker has people very similar to their prime market. Major sport personalities are not nearly as relate-able to. The viewers can’t say ‘I could do that’ when watching Barry Bonds, but they could look at any of this crew and think ‘that could be me’.”

David has played poker all over the UK for the better part of a decade. Originally a tournament player, now focused on cash play and almost entirely on the Internet for the last three years, he makes a healthy second income playing a wide range of games. David is also an Omaha instructor for CardRunners.com, a leading source of online poker instructional videos.