Poker News

John Vorhaus

You’d have to have spent the last few years or so in a coma not to notice how phenomenally popular poker has become. The World Poker Tour is rating its ass off. Punters are dumping mortgage payments into online games much larger than they’d ever dare to play live. The article you’re reading now, and others of its ilk, contribute to the ever-broadening stream of public poker interest. Taken as a whole, this stream has earned the name (okay, didn’t really earn it, just got labeled it by me): poker porn. I call it all poker porn because when we encounter it, any of it - the books, the magazines, the television shows - it doesn’t make us want to do anything so much as go play poker.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. And it’s not necessarily a good thing. (Subjectivist that I am, I refuse to assign a value judgment to this or any other pop phenomenon.) (Avoid value judgments, I say; value judgments are bad.) But it’s worth noting that the proliferation of poker porn has an impact on you, and on the single most meaningful decision you can make as a player: Whether or not to even play at all.

Consider: You’re sitting there in your living room watching the World Poker Tour on your trusty hi-def TV, just kicking back… hanging out. You watch some poker studs make some deft and adrenalating moves and, man, that sure looks good to you - almost sexy, in a metaphorical sense. Next thing you know, without an instant’s premeditation or preparation on your part, you’ve logged onto some internet poker site or scampered down to the local club, and jumped into a game. Why? In a word, action. You saw all that action on TV and your atavistic soul said, “Yeah, I want some too.”

Are you prepared to bring your best game to the table right now? How could you be? You didn’t even know you were going to get in a game right now. Under the stimulating influence of poker porn, you took you by surprise.

I’m not saying you’ll fail to do well. One consequence of poker porn is that it’s bringing swarms of new players to the game, and, if they’re even less premeditated or prepared than you are, you might make some profit off of them. But preying on the ignorant or weak should in no way be confused with playing top-drawer poker. Let’s be very clear about that.

And let’s be prepared. Whether it’s poker porn that’s driving us to play or just, you know, our own desire to see some flops, we should always have a system for knowing we’ve got game. Try this: Next time you go to play - in fact, every time you go to play - run through a pre-flight checklist, so to speak, and make sure you have your ducks in a row.

Are you sufficiently rested? Check.

Adequately funded? Check.

In good health? Check.

Chemically unimpaired? Check.

Possessed of a positive mental attitude? Check.

Good. You’re good to go.

What other items might you put on your checklist? Take some time to think about it now. Take some time, also, to search within yourself for warning signs that you might be a poker disaster waiting to happen. If you detect within yourself any hint of anger, resentment, arrogance or fear (to name some negative emotions) you’d be better off giving the game a miss and just staying home with your poker porn instead.

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