DRAFT – DO NOT QUOTE WITHOUT AUTHOR’S PERMISSION
APRIL 16, 2009
Poker is a Social Game
A Review
Grant Friedman
The birth of Poker
has been convincingly dated to the first or second decade of the 19th century.
It appeared in former French territory centered in
A friendly game of poker is seen to give each player with a momentary role which enables them satisfactions limited or unfeasible in the social world outside. It gives a person the ability to lie with little consequence. “Personal interactions before, during, and after the poker game are sketched, emphasizing the social-psychological benefits.”[2] As David Hayano positively states, because poker is a sport or game it means that “deception and lying are acceptable strategies” and sometimes encouraged. The ability that poker provides a person with is a secondary behavior pattern chosen by the player to gratify social-psychological needs that are usually incompletely fulfilled by the more dominant and lasting roles regularly enacted in everyday life situations. Gambling permits the participant to get away from the routine and monotony of modern industrial life in which the sense of creation and instinctive workmanship has been lost. Taking a chance destroys routine and hence is pleasurable. A player can do this with certain aspects of the game, such as competition.
COMPETITION and SKILL
Competition can have both beneficial and detrimental effects. If competition is handled the right way and within the proper parameters, then it can really be valuable. Many evolutionary biologists view inter-species and intra-species competition as the driving force of adaptation and ultimately of evolution. This is similar to sports and the game of poker. Competition involved money, but more importantly accomplishments of skill, daring, and bluffing. However, without the competition, there would be no will to bluff, no strive to deceive ones opponents with a daring bet. Zurcher says that, “Several other observers have reported that competition in gambling, whether against others or “the system” provides individuals with opportunities to demonstrate self reliance, independence, and decision-making abilities which for some reason are unavailable to them in their major life roles. (Ephemeral, Zurcher)” For people within the working world it may be that jobs get in the way of this type of competition. Poker is the kind of game/test that people who have histories of athletic competition love because it is the same type of competition without the physical damage. Within a game of poker, people can carefully script for themselves a satisfactorily and safe experience. For Lee Evans, a man who was once the fastest runner in the world at 400 meters “Competing was like the seasoning you put on a good meal to bring out the flavor so you can really enjoy yourself.” A competitive event draws on all disciplines, focus, knowledge, training and skills to perform at ones best. It is a high regardless of who wins the hand, but to know that competition was done to the best of the player’s abilities means that people are bringing out the best in each other. The way a person competes is specifically through way he/she displays skill. A person decides how to play a hand based on the way he/she see others playing. The ability to compete and show skill enables to player to make big decisions and enjoy the game. Poker, like other sports has consequences if a player becomes too involved and competitive. There are certainly emotional tolls and risks.
TILT
The concept of tilt is an advanced way of describing the process of losing control in the gambling situation. Tilt is a poker term for a state of mental confusion or frustration in which a player adopts a less than optimal strategy, usually resulting in the player becoming over-aggressive. Tilt causes people to continue while losing for different reasons. Basil Browne writes that people tilt for multiple reasons, the first being the progressive disorder of impulse control. This is “The disorder of the gambler to become emotionally attached to the activity in front of him/her, therefore interfering with his normal functioning.(Browne, 2)” If a player also loses a big hand, specifically on an unlucky beat, than that person will practice what is commonly known as “chasing.” This is the various ways that a player will try and get even usually being over-aggressive due to frustration which leads to severely detrimental game play. When tilted, players ability to make smart value bets goes out the window and they often bet more than they can afford to lose. This leads to people’s defective relationship between a strategy of play and managing ones bankroll. Browne describes the process of tilt, “Being on tilt means that a gambler's play has changed for the worst because he or she has lost control. Some players do play wildly, but most players do not deteriorate to that point. Rather, their play gradually deteriorates as they struggle to regain control. A player's game is not the only visible evidence that that player is on tilt; a period of intense internal emotion struggle is often visible. Tilt can be broken down into three phases: first, encountering a tilt-inducing situation; second, an internal emotion struggle to retain control; and third, the deterioration of the player's game if he or she does not retain control. How one handles a tilt-inducing situation, in large part, determines whether or not a player will become a problem gambler.” A bad beat is not the only reason a player can tilt. Alcohol and drug use commonly induce tilt or heighten chances of tilt. Also playing very long hours and losing despite playing well will lead to tilt much of the time. The last and most forgotten reason for tilt is that another player’s attitude or habits will induce tilt out of players. Many times if there is fighting at the table over rules, then this can cause a player to tilt. Also if a bad player wins a pot against a good player, it can cause the good player to tilt. If a person can learn when to leave the table and control emotions then they are on the road to becoming a competent poker player. If one is able to clear their mind and control tilt, then they will be far better off.
COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCY
David Hayano studied what it took
to be truly competent at the poker table. He knew that a poker player had to
know how to read people, but he also figured out that a true poker player would
know how to keep from leaking tells by disguising and distorting channels of
communication. Poker players refer to a “Tell” (short for “telegraph”) to mean
an unplanned spoken or unspoken signal which reveals either information about
the actual strength of a player’s hand, or a player’s intention to act. A “Tell”
is a form of communicative leakage or clue to deception. The classic, most
obvious tells are positive or negative affect displays, such as when amateurs grin,
tap their noses, sit up straight when they are ready to bet a strong hand, or
slump down in their seats when they have a losing hand. Tells are also
indicated by overly strong or cautious betting actions, general attention, an
increase in discussion, gaze direction, position corrections, the use of self
and object adaptors, and an overall interest in the hand in play and the size
of the pot. Many amateur players reveal their plan to act by grasping chips in
their hands, holding cards firmly, or
looking attentively at players on their right. These tells of
intention indicate that they will call, raise, or open. To take advantage of
these tip-off moves, many pros will pause a second or two while looking at
their cards and, with peripheral vision, scan the players on their left by doing
this they can estimate who and how many others plan to play in the pot. To discover and
analyze tells most players first develop a sense of the baseline patterns of
opponents.
In everyday social interaction it is generally
expected that a person’s communicative style will be relatively unambiguous,
since inconsistent messages tend to create negative impressions and problems of
interpretation for the receiver. In poker, the major problem of the
interpretation of deliberately confused or hidden messages is that players must
apply a truth value to nonverbal or analogical forms of communication. So much
of what poker is as a game is explained through nonverbal and verbal
communication, and these types of communications can explicate much of human
behavior. Hayano says that what separates the pros and amateurs apart is their
communicative competency. Communicative competency encompasses three types of
skills. The first skill is the overall body, facial, and limb management and
protection against leakage of information and “Tells.” The second skill that
communicative competency encompasses is the encoding and the active ability to
disguise and distort levels and channels of communication. The last skill has
to do with the abilities of a player in decoding and reading others and their
hidden cards.