Comparing poker to golf or chess is not the best choice of examples. Yes, I agree that in many ways a chess tournament is just like a poker tournament. You pay to play, and if you are one of the last players knocked out, you win more than your buy-in.

That said, what many examples miss is that poker is a long-term game. Yes, you can take a beating playing poker, even when you're playing well, over 10 or 20 or more tournaments.

The best sports comparison is baseball.

If you're a good poker player, you will have downswings (and upswings) but you're very likely to make money if you play a lot, and play very well, over the course of a year. I expect weeks where I will lose money, but I also expect to make a profit in 2017.

Baseball is a long-term sport. It is played over a 162 game season. There will be winning and losing streaks (just like poker) but the team with the best pitching staff is very likely to make it to the playoffs (baseball's final table.)

Let me put it another way. Mike Sexton is still getting good results and has had been making it to WPT final tables each of the last few seasons. Would anyone say that's he's just been lucky for 40 years?

Poker is a game of skill, not a game of chance. I didn't study roulette or craps for the four hours before typing this--because those games can't be studied. I studied poker. With roulette and craps there is no skill involved and that's the difference.

I don't gamble. I don't play the lottery or any other game where the house has an edge. I don't do NCAA bracket bets or Super Bowl squares. The only reason that I would even go in a casino is to play a poker tournament, and when the tournament is done I will leave.

Few people would take a job where they don't get paid. I am a Professional Poker Player, that's the Department of Labor job title for what I do, and I get paid for doing it.

It's both. There is a very significant element of chance that you cannot avoid and you can use skill to highly influence your EV.

Yes you do, I don't see a reason to deny that. Gambling isn't something that should be associated with something negative.

Golf has more variance than you want to admit. For example, the last player to tee off may be playing in very different weather conditions than the first player in the clubhouse.

It is worth noting that golfers who have a lot of skill (Nicklaus, Palmer, Woods) often have consistently good results over a period of years.

Poker is not much different. Think about all of the players than have been winners for a long period of time. Negreanu and Hellmuh are two great examples. Brunson won a WSOOP bracelet at age 76. Mike Sexton is in his 60s and making WPT final tables. That's not gambling, that's skill.

what's so difficult about the concept of mutual exclusivity?

No, that's not what I do at all. I'm not trying to win at showdown. I make a lot of plays, knowing that I'm probably going to lose the hand, or the tournament. I made a profit in March playing about 80 online tournaments and 27% of my net cashes came from one tournament. Most of the time I didn't cash, and that's what is supposed to happen.

I know that in a large percentage of my tournaments I'm not going to cash. What I'm doing is making the mathematically correct decision based on the expected value of that play. I may incorporate information other than math, such as what I know about that player, but either way, it's analysis, not gambling.

If "it might not work out" makes something gambling, then everything (driving to work, going on a date, raising a child) is gambling and the word means nothing.

Fun fact---When the Bible mentions gambling, it's always in the context of a zero-skill game, for example, casting lots.

Still gambling.

Are you putting a wager on any of those outcomes? I mean me and my friends are sick so often we do but that's not the point. You're not putting up $100 against whatever the odds are that you won't get in an accident that day. You are however betting money that your cards win.

And obviously there are quantum fluctuations that cannot be predicted so nothing is determinant but we've arbitrarily put a definition on the word "gambling" which I quoted a bunch of posts ago. Now whether you should include some other activities where people place bets on non-determinant outcomes should also be considered gambling is a different matter. Poker fits the definition, regardless of how much additional skills can help you.

Yeah, fortunately we don't live in a world where that is(/should be) of any relevance to our lives.

But what makes poker a game of chance while the games it is being compared to in this thread are not? All of these games include factors outside of the players' control which effect the outcome, except maybe chess tournaments with deterministic pairing algorithms.

When played for money, backgammon, gin rummy, poker and casino war are all gambling because the games include elements of chance, but games like golf or baseball also include elements of chance, they are just not as obvious because they are not in the form of dice or cards.

Are you betting on golf or baseball? If you are youre gambling

Your response was interesting, but I must admit that I don't worry much about whether I would have won that big tournament if the quantum fluctuations had been different.

No, I don't get involved in any wagers regarding poker. No last-longer bets, no prop bets, nothing. I played a slot machine in a casino once because my wife wanted us to do that, but we didn't spend any our money on it. We were on a chartered trip where free machine tokens were part of the package. It was a freeroll,

I don't even like all those little side things that IMO aren't really trying to win a poker tournament (chopping the pot, I'll show one if you show one and all that silly stuff.) I just want to do my job and bring home the money. Nothing else matters. I actually turn my phone off during a tournament, as shocking as that my be to some who read this.

The only thing that I was gambling with at the slot machines was opportunity cost of my time. I would rather have been doing something else than playing slot machines, but sometimes you do tings to keep your wife happy.

The majority of quotes in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations come from just two sources--The Bible and Shakespeare. The more you understand both, the more you can understand and participate in Western culture.

Think about how often we reference, hear, or read about The Bible and Shakespeare in our daily lives:

If it keeps raining we'll need an ark. Romeo and Juliet. The love of money is the root of all evil. Parting is such sweet sorrow.

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree about our different approaches and perspectives.

I do not bet on any sports and never have.

Just needed to be re-quoted. Why are we trying to change the definition of a word? We don't bet in poker? Considering one of the actions is "bet" that would be rather hard to argue against. Is this some religious thing? Honest question, I'm not seeing given the definition of the word gamble how poker can be considered not gambling. I don't see it as a negative, it is what it is.

....

By the definition of gambling, which I assume we aren't debating, poker is gambling. You're betting money in a cash game with an uncertain outcome. You're paying an entree fee for a tournament with an uncertain outcome in the hopes of winning money.

Can you point out how poker is not gambling?

The only thing worth debating is if some other activities should also be called gambling. This one is settled before it even started.

PC,,,, the word you incorrectly try to insert for "uncertain" is likely. Your word is the reason that a good/great player can win over the long haul. You bet when you are "likely" to win the hand. But it is still a gamble that you WILL win the hand.

You can not factor in "the long term" because of variance... ((ex. you are supposed to win 65 out of 100 times in a particular situation. Pretty sure the likelihood that you win EXACTLY 65 times is remote-to-nil.))

While both words can be used correctly in the sentence, neither removes the component that makes poker a gambling game. The element of chance....a major component of ANY recognized definition of gambling.

I am a Christian. When I first watched poker on TV I immediately recognized that it was a game of skill and my religious beliefs did not factor into that. Two guys with PhDs playing a hand was a pretty good clue. However, it took some time to convince my pastor that my poker playing was not an addiction.

I honestly think that the Bible and Shakespeare are integral parts of our culture (The Bible is by far the best-selling book in the United States after all.) If I was going to live for some length of time where Muslm or Buddhism was the dominant religions, I would want to learn the language and understand the culture, and I would read the Koran or whatever.

Actually, since I only play tournaments, I guess you could say that I don't bet (with money) while I'm playing poker. I buy into the tournament and then do my best to make good decisions, just as I do when I play a chess tournament.

do you buy in with your own money? do you lose that money if you don't cash? do you ever not cash?

jfc I really don't how it can be so hard

Pretty much all games include elements of luck and skill. Where you draw the line (i.e. at what point it becomes "gambling") is not particularly important apart from a regulatory perspective, as this argument is often used to decide whether something is legal or not.

Whatever helps you justify it is obviously up to you, but it's hard to say poker isn't gambling. It seems to me that the bible doesn't actually prohibit gambling though and all references to it seem to be against the coveting of money and the wish to not work. If you play poker for the thrill of the competition and the skill then I don't see a problem.

Poker is an addiction though for some people, how do you rationalize taking money away from those people?

You're risking money on an event that has either a positive or negative outcome with high uncertainty. It's way beyond the point where you might argue that the luck is negligible and not call it gambling. Justify all you want for yourself but it is in fact gambling; it's in the definition word for word.

Again I am not saying that is it is a problem but you need to call a spade a spade. Playing poker for money (tournament or cash game doesn't matter) is gambling. If that makes you uncomfortable then that's no reason to try to work around a rock solid definition and create a world where poker somehow isn't gambling.

Not sure what's going on in this thread, but poker is most definitely gambling. Efforts to "minimize variance" or "take the gamble out of poker" will just hurt your winrate in the long term; the exception being that true beginners should play tight at first in order to minimize losses.

Kelvis, we can actual see why PC is having a problem with the standard definition. It would definitely go against his belief in his God and in the Bible as the definitive authority. Justification is his means of circumventing his God's law. Here on earth, God's Laws do not apply in the US and many other countries. We abide by a set of man made rules. In the US the Rules are complex..... at times the term "Under God" is written. BUT....there are no laws that definitively say "And God said there will be no spitting on the sidewalks so we (as the lawmakers) say there is no spitting on the sidewalks." There are customs, but no laws written that way.

In his terms, PokerClif alone will stand before the Pearly Gates and will be asked to justify his play in a gambling game. Doesn't matter what his preacher/rabbi etc opined of the topic. He may win that argument at The Gates, he may lose that argument. That is PC's ultimate gamble, don't you think?

That's just cruel.

Thats debatable, tennis has fallen on hard times.

FWIW, people might have an argument when they are talking about the "long run" in cash games that negates the luck factor at least to some degree.

But in tournament poker, it's not only about gambling and getting "lucky" to win single hands, but also about when you are getting lucky.

Very easy example: Over the last ten years, I met a lot of people through poker. I could make an argument that the strongest cash game players I met are probably also among the biggest winners. On the other hand, one of my poker friends is a recreational tournament player and I highly doubt he is one of the 50 strongest players I know personally. But he's among the 10 biggest winners. Why? Because he was chip leader in one of the anniversary $215 Sunday Millions at the time of the chop. That netted him close to a million. I'm pretty sure he's a small winner other than that, but that one tournament accounts for >90% of his net profit. How is that much different from winning the lottery?

How is that much different from venture capital?

I doubt you'll find anyone in VC who truly believes that seed to unicorn is much more than a crapshoot.