Champion of Poker

This is one argument that can you always start at the bar and get good debates going. In fact you can start the debate at the bar, go away and have a drink and come back and they will still be going at it. This is because poker has many elements of what a sport demands but also many elements missing that many consider essential to sport. The term “internet poker” paints a picture of the participant sitting very still for many hours playing a computer based game. It does not have you picturing this player breathing heavily, sweating, and with their pulse racing although when a key moment in a large Sunday poker tournament comes about with lots of money on the line this could happen!

The dictionary.com definition of sport is “an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature” which looks definitive at first because poker is certainly not an athletic sport. But Sport is also “a diversion, recreation, or pleasant pastime”. Entertainment is, of course, anything one enjoys and many bizarre things can be classed as entertainment if you enjoy doing it so poker is certainly entertaining to most, if not all people who spend their time playing it. The real debate is whether or not it is a sport.

My personal belief is that poker is not a sport but a game that players find very entertaining. For me I must focus closely on the first definition of sport and interpret the athletic element of sport as using cardiovascular endurance with which to participate in it. This allows me to make a clear distinction between games and sports; otherwise the two become very confusing. A game is something that is entertaining but involves more mental combat than physical ability, e.g. chess, backgammon or poker and sport demands mental skills plus endurance e.g. running, football, and tennis. These sports could be classed as games, but the endurance element to them defines them specifically as sports.

That pretty much seals it for dictionary.com, but other dictionaries use the phrase “A specific diversion, usually involving physical exercise and having a set form and body of rules; a game.” Now it gets a little more complicated. The use of the word “usually” means that sport could “sometimes not” use physical elements. Examples of this are Pool, Snooker, Golf and motor racing (yes I know this is hard but you are still just sitting there it is the car that moves quickly!). An interesting debate on its own is golf. Considering you walk between shots to your ball is this part of the game or do you simply play golf when you swing your club because if not you also walk around the pool table before you make a shot although obviously not as far.

Poker is primarily a mental challenge. You are playing pots to try and outwit and outplay weaker opponents to get their chips. In a large poker tournament luck plays a part but overall a good tournament player can perform well given average luck. You could argue that maintaining focus for 90 minutes in a soccer match is hard but poker players do this for twelve hours at a time during large poker tournaments for days on end!

To conclude, whilst I appreciate poker is not a classic sport the mental focus that is required is far in excess of what an endurance athlete is required to maintain. They are therefore very different and challenging in different ways. A poker player may struggle to run a marathon, but a marathon runner may struggle to play poker for five days straight for twelve hours at a time. Perhaps it does not matter if it is a sport, but it is a challenge that offers rewards in excess of the money available in many sports if you are successful. There is no reason why you cannot play poker and other sports and enjoy the challenges of both types of mental and physical engagement.

Now go and break up that debate at the bar because it is still raging!

By Malcolm Clarke