What Is Poker? Can A Rich Man Ever Truly Play The Game?

Can rich nerds like Gates and Buffet ever know what it's like to play real poker?

I posed myself this question the other day: "What is poker?" See, it might seem an easy question to answer with a stock reply such as "It's a card game where gambling is involved", or "a card game involving both luck and skill" etc... But this sort of answer would lump poker in with the other games of our world, when it is in fact a game that stands alone. It's not just a game of cards, it's the money game. 

Let's get a little abstract. Is playing 1cent-2cent poker with a $1 buy-in, poker? Simple answer is yes, obviously. Yet, if I was playing such a game I would feel it devoid of some of the elements I deem fundamental to the game. Namely, the prospect of winning or losing sums that are significant to me. I wouldn't be "gambling" because I couldn't win or lose anything. It wouldn't feel like real poker. Playing poker for no money just isn't poker in my book. It's a mock version of poker played for fun that doesn't retain the most important aspect of the real game, which is that sums of money which are significant to the player can be won or lost. 

At a kitchen table game with a $5.00 buy-in things swing drastically in a different direction as people with small net worths are now competing for spendable cash. A winner likely earns enough for a round of drinks, and still has some left over to afford a decent meal. Surely, this type of a game is a real poker game... But how do you think Phil Ivey would feel playing in it? With the swings of the game being completely inconsequential to the player, he or she becomes removed from the game. I don't think you're playing poker if you don't have "something" on the line, a stake that means enough to you for the game itself to have meaning. Perhaps this lays bare the truth of my lack of surety about what poker really is. If the game has no meaning to the participant, than it just doesn't feel like real poker.

If Michael Jordan tosses a crumpled up piece of paper across the room into a waste-paper basket, and nobody even sees it, is he really "playing basketball"? I think it's reasonable to conclude that when the game is stripped of intended meaning it isn't really the same game anymore.

Many people reading this right now probable think I'm wrong, and that "poker's poker". But let me ask you something, is video poker, poker? Is the Caribean Stud Jackpot house game, poker? They use the same hand rankings, yet, they are not the same game. If you played poker with a monkey who was trained to raise every bet would you consider that poker? Defining what real poker truly is, is a question with a bit more depth. Not only is there the consideration of skill, but also the issue of perspective.

I'm not saying that if a serious pro player sits down with a rich guy to play heads up holdem that it isn't a real poker game. Quite the contrary, the pro would in fact be playing one of the realest of the real forms of the game. His business, his income, his LIFE are kinda in the balance here. A huge score in such a game could boost his confidence and his bankroll enough for him to genuinely increase his station in life, and to improve his career prospects (bigger bankroll = bigger games with more earning potential). That's real poker. But what about the business man? Is he playing real poker? 

The businessman may be getting a kick out of the game, and even taking it seriously. Still when it happens that people play so far below their means that the financial outcome of the game bears ABSOLUTELY no significance, the game changes shape from the perspective of that particular player. Let's say our businessman is worth 1 billion, and the buy in for the game in question is $5000, so 0.0005% of his net worth. From his perspective, it ain't real poker, it's just messing around playing cards. The game might as well be Parcheesi. For him to truly feel what it feels like to play poker, he would have to call up Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and the boys and fire up a $50k-$100k NL game with a 10 million dollar buy-in :)