America’s Love of Bluffing

It happened to me again, just before I sat down to write this very column. “Oh, you’re a professional poker player?” my new acquaintance said. “You must be good at bluffing.” This is the everyman’s understanding of our game — that poker players are good bluffers, good liars who could probably take an odd job as a con artist. The public’s fascination with bluffing is mostly harmless cocktail party banter. Where it potentially becomes dangerous is when it rears its head in our justice system.

Recently a court decision came down, in the case of U.S. v. DiCristina, that verified what we all already knew — poker is a game of skill. But at least federal Judge Jack Weinstein did, in fact, rule this way. Believe it or not, in the recent past other courts wouldn’t even grant that skill predominates in poker’s long run. To Weinstein’s credit, his decision cites expert studies, one of which shows that a pre-identified group of strong players had better results than a pre-identified group of weak players when they got dealt the same cards. Not that we needed proof, but that’s exactly why poker is a skill game — because good players can maximize their value.

Where Weinstein’s decision begins to sound less convincing is when he discusses the mechanics of the game itself. “By bluffing,” Weinstein writes, “players can overcome the power of chance and win a hand despite holding inferior cards.” There they go again.

Every non-poker player the world over is enamored with bluffing. (Disclaimer: I don’t know for sure that Weinstein doesn’t play seriously. I’m making an assumption based on the quote above.) From the woman I met at the party, to the distant relatives I see at weddings, to my dentist at every regular checkup — they all say the same thing: “what do you do, bluff better than everyone else?”

Look, I like to bluff as much as the next guy, but bluffing is but a small part of the great fabric of our game, and probably less important than value betting or hand reading. As I explained to the woman at the party, I’m usually not bluffing when I bet, which is why when I bluff it sometimes works. Everything is connected.

To be fair to Weinstein, other judges before him have been seduced by the same reasoning — that the best hand sometimes folds before the showdown, and therefore poker is a skill game. Why does the bluff carry so much weight for these guys? It’s not as though bluffing is the magic bullet that makes poker a game of skill.

Here’s a quick thought experiment. Imagine a poker game where you aren’t allowed to bluff. The rules are rewritten so that if you bet and your opponent folds, the bet is returned when you have a worse hand than your opponent. (Ignore that this game would be too impractical to play — this is a thought experiment, and inherently impractical.) Let’s think about the river. How good a hand would you need to bet? If you bet, your opponent can opt to not call, and still go to showdown. In order for him to call, then, he needs a pretty big hand — a hand he thinks is a straight-up favorite over the hand you’re betting. You, therefore, need a monster hand to bet yourself. So, is this modified version of poker still a game of skill?

Of course it is. The best hand is always going to win, but good players will win more with it. Put another way, bad players will lose more than they’re supposed to with second-best hands — which is exactly how most pros make their living in real poker. Obviously poker with bluffing is a much better game, but poker without bluffing would still be plenty skillful.

Bluffing, your honor, does not allow a player to “overcome the power of chance.” I’ve spilled a lot of ink in these pages railing against that very idea. No one can overcome the power of chance. That’s not what poker skill is about. The best players understand how to manage chance — how to assess risk and reward using all available information, and make the best decision possible. Sometimes an unskilled player will make a poor decision to bluff with garbage, and a skilled player will make a strong decision to fold a medium-strength hand. Even if it works this one time, a bad bluff will cost money in the long run. That’s where the game’s skill is evinced.

If you love poker, then doesn’t it bug you that we have to rely on people who know next to nothing about poker to decide its fate for us? In the DiCristina case, the government put forth an “expert” — a Dr. David DeRosa, a man who, according to Weinstein’s decision, “neither has any personal experience with poker, nor has he independently analyzed the game” — who contended that because so few players win money, skill cannot predominate over luck in poker. Think about that for a second. The government argued, in a federal court, that because it’s hard to become a winning poker player, it must be therefore impossible. Wait, it gets better. DeRosa also argued that we shouldn’t use long-term data to look for skill in poker, but rather “the relative frame of reference” (again, quoting Weinstein’s decision) should be a “single hand.” It’s jaw-dropping. But given the qualifications of the “expert” witness, should we really be surprised? The logical argument won out, sure, but forgive me if I don’t jump up and down.

I know this column was more cynical than you’re used to from me. Sorry about that, but it bothers me that poker players are denied their right to play by so many poorly considered laws, and so many indifferent government bodies. But never fear, next issue I’ll be back. We’ll discuss blocker bets, value raises, tournament circuit stops, or whatever else happens to be going on in the poker world — where all those pesky pros keep insisting on applying their skill. ♠

Matt Matros is the author of The Making of a Poker Player, and a three-time WSOP bracelet winner. He is also a featured coach for cardrunners.com.