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Is Poker as Intellectual as Chess?
The following year, 2007, entries declined to 6,358—the first year-on-year drop in the WSOP’s four-decade history—thanks to the shamefully opportunistic legislation introduced by then-presidential hopeful Bill Frist on the last Senate vote before the 2006 midterm elections. The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, cynically attached at the last minute to the wholly unrelated, antiterrorist Safe Port Act, against which no one was going to vote, made it illegal to transfer funds from banks, credit cards, or other financial institutions to online gaming sites.
American players have found ways around it, and many sites are brazenly dealing on, but the dizzying rate of poker’s global growth this century was significantly slowed. A congressional riposte launched last year by Rep. Barney Frank, H.5767, shows little sign of going anywhere very fast, and the issue is scarcely the top priority of the first poker-playing president since Nixon.
Hence the need for a global governing body for poker to persuade governments in the U.S. and beyond that the game is not just another form of gambling, and so should be detached from antigaming legislation. Poker is played against other human beings, not (like all other casino games) against a house with a built-in statistical advantage. At poker, if you know what you’re doing, you are wagering favorable odds rather than the decidedly unfavorable ones offered by all other casino games, not to mention racetracks and lotteries.
And so, in Lausanne, Switzerland on April 29, the International Federation of Poker was established to fight for this cause and win poker its overdue recognition as a respectable—and legal—"mind-sport" throughout the civilized world. The seven founder-member nations (U.K., France, Holland, Denmark, Russia, Ukraine, and Brazil) did me the signal honor of electing me the IFP’s first president for an initial three-year term. A bilingual report of this momentous occasion, including a rare sighting of your correspondent in a suit and tie, can be found here.
Lausanne was an appropriate venue for the ceremony, being the home of the International Olympic Committee as well as countless other international sports federations. As it argues the international case for poker as a game of strategic skill, the IFP has already held encouraging talks in Paris with the International Mind Sports Association, which mounts the Mind Sports Games alongside the Olympics every four years. If the IFP can achieve membership, it will be a huge step toward legalizing poker everywhere, boosting its legitimacy as an intellectual pursuit, and eliminating the restraints imposed on the game in many countries beyond its birthplace.
During the last month in Vegas, when not playing poker, I have advanced negotiations with some 20 other nations (including the U.S.) on the brink of joining the IFP, with the aim of reaching a critical mass of 75 to 100 member countries during my first term in office. This would place poker on a level of respectability with such other mind sports as chess and bridge, with whom we plan to travel to the U.K. in 2012 for our own Mind Sports Games alongside the London Olympics.
At his annual WSOP news conference last week, Commissioner Pollack described the IFP as a "blue-chip" organization approaching its task in a "very smart" way. "We are interested in learning more about it," he went on, "and exploring whether there are things we can and should be doing together." Talks will continue when WSOP makes its third-annual visit to London in September.
Two months later, in mid-November, I will report back here on the IFP’s progress, while revealing the $8.5 million winner of this year’s WSOP main event. If it turns out to be Phil Ivey, his impressive record of eight WSOP titles in 10 years might just help—at last—to persuade our maiden-aunt legislators that poker involves rather more skill than luck.
Anthony Holden is the author of the poker classics Big Deal and Bigger Deal, as well as a strategy manual, Holden on Hold’em. An award-winning journalist and author, Holden has also written biographies of figures from Shakespeare to Tchaikovsky, Laurence Olivier to Prince Charles, and romantic poet Leigh Hunt to Mozart’s librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte.
John Talks Joe
Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
Poker's Young New Superstar
Anthony Holden is the author of the poker classics Big Deal and Bigger Deal, as well as a strategy manual, Holden on Hold’em. An award-winning journalist and author, Holden has also written biographies of figures from Shakespeare to Tchaikovsky, Laurence Olivier to Prince Charles, and romantic poet Leigh Hunt to Mozart’s librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte.
Poker Returns to the White House
Anthony Holden is the author of the poker classics Big Deal and Bigger Deal, as well as a strategy manual, Holden on Hold’em. An award-winning journalist and author, Holden has also written biographies of figures from Shakespeare to Tchaikovsky, Laurence Olivier to Prince Charles, and romantic poet Leigh Hunt to Mozart’s librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte.
It isn't chess, but it is a game of skill. managing odds takes a mind attuend to mathematics.
Reading people takes a mind attuned to people.
Poker requires both.
Therefore, it is a game of skill.
But it isn't chess.
This comment has been removed by The Daily Beast's editors.
Not even close. You can not buy pots (victory) in chess as you can in poker. You run out of money in poker, but brain power only runs out against a superior player.
You can't compare poker with chess. Chess is a game of exact information where everything that is going on is visible at all times to the players. Poker, like life, is a game of missing information where no one knows everything about what is going on however we're willing to bet that under this particular situation... These are completely two different games.
And please, chess and poker are games, not sports.
Poker has far too many elements of chance to be compared to chess.
Chess requires the ability to outwit your partner on a visual level due to needing to spatially understand what is going on, that is tough. Poker, no headache, but get a real headache playing chess which is much harder on the brain!
I belonged to a chess club for a while, I think there are similarities, but I think Chess has a lot more to do with knowing what your opponent will do, and knowing the best move you can do if he does what he does. But both players have the same chance of winning, winning depends on skill of each player to out-think the other.
Of course in Poker, you are playing to win a prize, in chess, most people are trying to win to get higher up in the ladder, only at the top, you might win a prize. Most people play chess, just for the experience of playing and developing your skills, not to bluff your way into winning a prize.
In poker, it is much more about luck, what cards you are dealt, then your skills come next, and how well you can bluff.
I think Poker is alot more like politics.
Thank you.
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