The Poker Chronicles

I've been following this argument a little, and since it seems clear that nobody is going to budge, I write merely to offer my opinion rather than to change anyone's mind.

As far as I can tell, the fact that you can make a living playing poker suggests that it contributes to society. If you can find something that people are willing to pay you for, that by definition is something of value. In the case of poker, bad players are paying for entertainment. Lots of bad players want to play poker, and pros provide them with a game. Of course you can find examples of potentially destructive things that people are willing to pay for, like drugs and alcohol, and for some people poker/gambling can be a huge problem. But most people want to play in moderation, and they should be allowed to.

From that perspective, professional poker players are just another type of professional entertainer, no more and no less valuable to society than a pro basketball player or a comedian. Do you think that Michael Jordan ever stopped to wonder whether his line of work was making a sufficient contribution to society? I doubt it. Sure, you can make the argument that people in some other occupations make much larger positive impacts, e.g. GOOD public servants, doctors, and teachers. But I don't think that enough people fall into that category to make the professional poker play feel bad about what he does. And just for the record, I'm a molecular biologist, not a pro poker player.

"Not if taxes are paid on that $5. You can only pass it a finite number of times before it is all spent building roads, etc."

Even if the government ends up with it, there is still only 5 bucks. Once again this is just a transfer. It is not "productive" in an economic sense which is the perspective I have been taking in my arguments.

"I guess we do differ on that. We have far too many widgets already in my view, increasing the number of them isn't really helping. In many cases it hurts. There are more than enough chairs in this world, increasing the number of them doesn't make life better for anyone"

If it didn't make life better for anyone or everyone had one that wanted one, no one would buy them. Because everyday people are buying chairs obviously there are not enough chairs, so making them and providing them for people to purchase is productive.

"I just found it ironic that someone giving me an economics lecture couldn’t spell "paid"."

I can in fact spell paid. Oddly, I don't proofread or put forth my best writing effort in internet arguments rants. Also I imagine spelling has little correlation with the ability to understand or enlighten others on economic principles.

"Also I didn’t block you from commenting. My spam protection uses a Bayesian filter that updates from a central server. I would guess the string RonJer has a high probability of occurring in a spam comment. If you posted any comments at all recently I never saw them."

The message I received said I had been "blocked from commenting" or something along those lines. Good to know about the filter.

"I believe makign chairs advances humanity, making spreadsheets that allow widgets to be made. It all goes towards producing goods or services. That contributes to a net increase in wealth. It may not be curing cancer but is contributing where poker playing is not."

I had a big long comment written out before I realized it came down to this:

Does increasing a countries wealth help humanity? They are not the same thing. Does working in an assembly line for coca-cola do more for "advancing humanity" than playing poker? And let us not forget that Matt wrote a book.

Everybody is forgetting that the poker boom is creating a lot of jobs and making money for various owners/shareholders.

Poker is similar to options trading. There is no wealth created between parties, but there is a broker commission (rake) which pays for employees and generates cash for the owners.

Matt, or any consistently winning player, is merely providing a service to the other players at the table. You can debate the relative merits of that, but in the end its a service like any other and he's compensated accordingly.

Without poker, the bodog booth girls at the WSOP wouldn't be able to put food on the table.

"If it didn't make life better for anyone or everyone had one that wanted one, no one would buy them. Because everyday people are buying chairs obviously there are not enough chairs, so making them and providing them for people to purchase is productive."

So if you market cigarettes to kids and then sell them... you are morally superior to any poker player. Oh. Now i get it.

If you have ever worked in the service industry you realize that the vast majority of the time, you realize that everyone thinks of the customers as an 'enemy' who you must appease.

That Domino's delivery guy isn't bring that pizza over to your house because he wants to make your life easier and more enjoyable thereby contributing to society. He is bring the pizza over because he (through tips) and the Domino's owner are capitalizing on your inability to pick the pizza up yourself and/or your laziness (not wanting to make your own pizza or to get in your car and making the drive to the store).

It's economic theory that people do what they must --not what they should.

And that's where the service industry garners much of its profit. A poker pro (or a profitable player) capitalize on many of the same human characteristics as service industries do: laziness, stupidity, impatience, etc..

The only difference is that they don't pretend to like their customers.

I completely understand your point Ron Jer. Mine is just that there is practically no difference between society having $5 and society having $5 and a chair. People make chairs because people buy chairs, but people don't buy chairs because they need them. They buy chairs mostly because they want them. Two people live in my house but we could comfortably seat 15, and most people I know could seat more.

Take yachts for example. People make yachts because people buy yachts, but certainly nobody needs one. A lot of people believe that humanity has an underlying purpose, whether religious or simply to ensure the survival of our species, but very few people would find yachts to be a part of our master plan. Their production wastes valuable time and resources.

Depending on your beliefs the engineers who design the yachts could better serve humanity by studying God's word or working on technology to help us colonize Mars. But instead they spend their days designing multimillion dollar floating distractions. Nobody would tell the yacht engineer that "I wouldn't want your job because you spend your days helping to produce a product that doesn't better the world." So why should they say that to a professional poker player?

I realize most people who say such a thing do so simply out of jealousy or an attempt to rationalize their continued existence as a programmer, which is why my point in the original post was that that particular reason was bullshit. There are plenty of good reasons why one should seek another profession, that just isn’t one of them.

Matt,

I've read your blog for a few months now but have never posted before. I have a question. I've seen you talk about rake back before but I really don't know much about it. I play probably around 15,000-20,000 hands a month at $10/$20, all on Party Poker. Is there a website or a place you would recommend I look at for more info? Thanks

Brian