grunch.

because you've lost all your money?

I got my first real taste of this recently. Overheard two guys (one of whom I vaguely knew) talking seemingly knowledgeably about poker and joined the conversation. Once it emerged that I was a winning player (small stakes) one of them clung to me for the next hour talking about how he got really close to the bubble in a $150 tournament last week and watched pros play for "seriously tens of thousands" on Full Tilt HS rooms, before giving me a detailed history of his worst bad beats* and trying give me strategy advice about limping aces** and raising suited connectors***. Nice guy and all, but I don't go to a party to talk to a single stranger for 60 minutes.

*"Can you believe that my aces got beat by a king on the river?" "That's, uh, fairly improbable. Happens though." "Yeah but then on the next hand I get tens and some guy calls my all-in with jacks!"

**"You should always limp with aces 'cos then you can reraise someone if they raise you!" "I usually just raise them. What if nobody in front of you raises?" "Then you've got five people in a pot who think you've got average cards when you've actually got aces!"

***"If you raise suited connectors you look really strong so you can bluff nearly every flop." "Yeah yeah yeah, clever play, I'm gonna get another drink though so I'll catch you in a bit mate."

i refuse to listen to bad beat stories.

It's my new motto.

I was at a NYE party, some dude found out I played for a living (400NL), then proceeds to say I 'can't make very much, cos you arent wearing 5k suits', I LOL'ed in his face.

He then went on to say blackjack was the most profitable game in the casino, even more so than poker..........

I'm in the wrong job.

There are basically three definitions of gambling that get tossed around in these forums. And that is why some people (including me) refer to poker as a "skill game"--it depends on your definition.

The three definitions are:

1.Life is gambling. Another way to put this is that we gamble (take risks, with our money or our life) every day. Driving a car is a fairly risky activity, but most of us still do it. We decide that the reward (for example, driving to work to make money) is worth the risk of dying in a auto accident.

2. Any game or activity that involves a wager is gambling. You could call this the dictionary definition of gambling. Under this definition, the office football pool, slot machines, and playing poker all fall under the heading of gambling.

3. Any game where money is wagered, and where luck is more important than skill in deciding the outcome, is gambling. This is how many state laws are written, often differentiating between games that are "predominantly skill" or "predominantly luck".

Some argue that any card game is mostly luck. After all, it depends on what cards you get, right? But that can't be true, unless a lot of top bridge players are deluding themselves about what their results and tournament ranking points mean.* I'm not aware of any serious person who would say that bridge and roulette both equally belong under definition #2.**

So, the PPA and others are arguing, state-by-state, that the relevant state law should be written to, or already does, consider poker as a skill game.

The "Is poker a skill game?" argument unltimately affects US income tax law as well. Since a professional poker player is considered a "gambler" by the IRS, that player has to jump through several hoops that others who are self-employed don't have to deal with.

For example, a poker player can be asked to prove that "gambling" is indeed his profession. The usual tests are whether gambling is his primary income, and whether gambling takes most of his working hours. Someone who is self-employed, but not classified as a gambler, could have several different part-time businesses that don't meet any of the "professional gambler" tests.

So, is poker gambling? Like everything else in poker, it depends--in this case, on which definition you are using.



*And of course in duplicate bridge, there are pairs (2-person teams) that rise to the top of the rankings WHILE PLAYING THE SAME CARDS AS OTHER PAIRS IN A TOURNAMENT.

**While bridge isn't really comparable to a poker cash game as far as wagering, both bridge and poker tournaments are played to win cash prizes. The are also tournaments with cash prizes in chess, Scrabble, and many other skill games.

I don't understand this question at all. If an associate in a law firm works 60 hours a week so that he can become a partner, does that mean that he is addicted to the law?

wuut

I lold

I know this belongs in a different thread, but this isn't correct. For some people (Fish, or bad players) it would still be considered gambling as they don't have the skill set to have a steadily climbing profit chart. Actually, they may even have better odds to play Blackjack or some other pit game instead.

"Gambling" can simultaneously correctly qualify vastly unrelated situations. The term has negative connotations attached to it in some contexts, which makes for broad shades of meaning and multiple definitions which can heavily depend on the speaker's views on risk, probability, and games of chance.

- Gambling may refer to any activity or behavior with uncertainty or risk involved.
- Gambling may refer to the wager of money or items of value on an outcome.
- Gambling may refer to any activity characterized by a randomizing element of chance.
- Gambling may refer to wagering money in a casino game with a house edge.

Since poker involves plenty of money wagered on uncertain outcomes, it is most certainly gambling according to some of the above range of definitions. That is not in dispute here. What the poster really means by 'not gambling' is that he feels the chances of this result for this person over time are beyond qualification by even such phrases as "exceedlingly likely". It's a tongue-in-cheek way of saying the guy consistently crushes.

The topic becomes a center for debate so frequently in this forum that it is sometimes helpful to immediately mention which definition of the word you are referring to if your use of it inspires a reply.

This word is actually one of the better reasons not to tell people you play poker. It is the nature of the game and its relationship to money that inspires so much wonder, awe, and gross misunderstandings.

Person: What do you do for a living?
DRybes: I play poker for a living
Person: But where do you get the money to gamble and how do you pay the rent?
DRybes: people just ship me 99 cents on stars, DRyyyyyybes

I'm not really a solid poker player... yet. This means that I am determined to turn into a decent player. Anyways, that is besides the point. I am done telling people I play poker! Heres why:

1. Parents think I am going to lose all my money. Meanwhile, the money I have put in is extra money that I have left over after paying my small amount of bills and stuff. Its extra cash

2. girlfriend thinks I am addicted because I been reading lots of books and stuff over the past month

3. Everyone calls it gambling and when I tell them poker isn't gambling, they think I am an idiot. I say, poker can be profitable unlike other gambling games. They don't believe me and look at me like I'm an idiot


The End

Another definition, used in many state laws, is that gambling involves playing a game that is "predominantly luck" rather than "predominantly skill". That is one of the main reasons that "gambling" is such a tricky word in these forums.

The PPA is fighting in US courts, state-by-state, to prove that gambling is preominantly skill, not luck, and therefore is NOT gambling under the applicable state law.

I think you mean 'poker' but yes. Excellent post, and the most important definition I missed. I left out a plethora of other more specific definitions of gambling as well... our position would be a much easier one to demonstrate if the word "gambling" didn't mean something a little different to everyone.

when people tells me that "you win fast and you loose fast" "you will end up having a big debt playing poker"

and they dont seam to understand that i cant loose anymore than whats on my roll.

also parents ignoring that I make good pocketchange and calling it gambling

lol, laqst year in my uni apartment, a painter came round to repaint the roof after soem water damage through the ceiling , saw me grinding online poker and asked me what i was doing, i proceed to tell him im winning today blah blah........

his response "yeah i bought a scratch card the other day won myself £5".........

with the "doubters" as to whether im a winner, i just direct them to my sharkscope page, which soon settles the matter........

"but how much did u lose"
(points to the word profit, ensuing silence)
"its all a game of luck u will lose it al eventually"

fortunatley my parents are cool about ti, mainly because ive explained the situation thoroughly including variance etc and they seem to accept it and just go with what i say........

o and if one more person says can i start an account and u play it for me..... i may rip their fingernails off...........why the **** they dont just buy shares in specific mtts is beyond me.......

Some answers I get:

"Really? Show me your pokerface"

"I heard poker is really addictive... how do you know you don't have a problem?"

Hehe. Read the several posts directly above yours. This kind of thinking on your part can be a big part of the reason your parents don't accept something they currently don't fully understand. Don't come out implying it's not gambling when you can explain that it's skill based +EV gambling (and bonus points if you've got a nice sample to show it).

Your dumb if you tell someone thats too stupid too understand the concept, just skip them and give them a "im self employed" until you get to know them better. Then give a detailed explaination and reasoning later, at least hats how i do it. Works alright for me, if you got money they understand..lol.

this may have already been said - but im seriously curious as to what percent of ppl ITT who claim to have such difficulties explaining their poker genius to the other mere peons of society are actually winning players.< 20%, maybe...

Yes, I meant that POKER is a skill game. Good catch.

I can explain it so some people but not all. I explained it to my father-in-law who is in his late 80s, and he didn't say anything for a while. Then he told me that he won his first car in an army poker game.

However, his son (my brother-in-law) is married to someone who has a gambling problem, which led them to shut off their internet service.

So even in the same family, some people will accept my explanantions of the math, etc., and others, who have seen a gambling addiction up close, will be dubious at best. And how well I "explain my poker genius" isn't going to change that.

If someone's loved one has a gambling problem, it's inevitable that they'll blame the internet rather than that loved one. You saying that it's possible to beat poker sounds to them like you're saying their loved one has a flaw (i.e, that they're addicted to something that not everyone is)

with the amount of knowledge and exposure and volume of players around the world up to this date it is still mind blowing at some people's incompetence when it comes to poker, talking to people about poker that don't really have a clue about it can seriously be so life tilting sometimes