For this week’s critical play, I played poker with some of my high school friends. We have played pretty often together in the past, with a variety of buy-ins ranging from $10-$50. This time, we decided to go with a $10 buy-in, which led to a less stressful, more social environment. In our previous games, I have found that the amount of lighthearted banter is inversely proportional with how high the buy-in is, which led to an extremely talkative experience this time around.
The entire group, myself included, attributed far too much of our respective individual success to skill, even when there were hands that were clearly won by a stroke of luck.
This was exemplified in a couple of turns specifically. My friend Steve, who historically has not performed super well in our previous games, exclaimed “I’m too good!” after winning a fairly large pot against our friend Alex. However, Steve had a bad hand at the start, and was trying to bluff Alex into folding. When the river card was turned over, the last of five on the table, Steve suddenly had a straight and was able to beat Alex’s two pairs. Relying on a certain card to appear on his last chance is not necessarily a skillful strategy, but Steve ending up being rewarded with the exact card he needed and celebrated accordingly. Alex had another bad beat a few turns later, and screamed “Come on give me something!”, blaming the random order of the cards for his lack of success.
However, Alex regularly left our games with a profit in his pocket, and was viewed as the top player in our friend group. Because of this mentality, he bought in twice more after losing all of his virtual chips. This behavior showcased how easily a game such as poker can put people at risk for addiction. Alex believed he was more skilled than all of our other friends, and therefore thought that he “can’t keep losing all night.” Alex’s previous success led him to believe that it was impossible that he keep losing, and that if he played long enough he would earn his money back. In this case, he lost a mere $30, but it is very clear how this mentality can lead to a severe addiction and losing significant amounts of money. While Alex did not play that differently as he continued to lose money, I have seen examples in the past where players are more prone to high raises when they are in a deficit, in an attempt to quickly break even. However, this has often led to rash decision making, and rapidly increases the player’s deficit. This shift in strategy also highlighted how easy it could be to become addicted to a game such as poker.
I think poker separates itself from other games that involve probability and chance by how it punishes losing parties. Poker is one of the few games that I regularly play that has a financial punishment associated with losing. Inherently, nobody likes losing, and piling on a financial loss makes the feeling even worse. On the other hand, receiving a few extra bucks in addition to the pride associated with winning a game is another differentiating factor of poker. Theoretically almost any game could be played for money, but with poker this has become the norm. I have played poker at the casino a handful of times, and it is clear that some people at the table are not playing to have fun; they are playing to make money.
