Is poker a profession?

[pokervintage]

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Then neither should athletes,

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Athletes normally do not seek out weaker opponents to play against. But I agree that atheletes might not be considered professionals but for other reasons.

pokervintage

[Monolith]

do you think that baseball teams can win just because their opponents play badly? can a cpa succeed simply because his competition is bad at filling out tax forms? Yes, to both questions. And, as an aside, Sklansky would kick your ass at the tables...

[JH1]

OP this is completely absurd. First of all politicians and the IRS do not create definitions based on dictionary definitions and logical reasoning. They decide on a desired financial outcome and their own agenda and create their own definitions to that end.

Secondly, even 'professionals,' such as medical practioners, with all of the professional training and associations still practice based on not making mistakes - playing the odds, if you will. Surgeries and treatment are performed based on success rates. They win and lose based on how many mistakes they make according to their odds.

So the skill involved in poker is quite similar and would lie in not making mistakes, just the same as any other 'profession.'

Stop playing meta-word-games and use some reasonable logic.

[pokervintage]

Aaron,

Thank you for your thoughts, Sklansky said that there were smart people on this forum. Seems I`ve found one. Makes posting here worthwhile. If you are at the WSOP this year it would be my pleasure to meet you and talk a bit over lunch. On me of course. I only told Sklansky I couldn`t come up with $20 for some humor. Didn`t work with this ban crazy bunch up here. I`m not surprised that other newbies do not want to talk poker here. But with people like you posting they would be advised to so for your +EV comments.

pokervintage

[tiltymcfish0]

Vintage,

This is my first ever post on 2+2 and I want to thank you for starting, what I believe to be, an entertaining thread.

Still I can't help but ask... why are you so bitter? What happened recently? Was it that Nash Equilibrium bet that you couldn't call? Ouch. Yeah, I was an econ major myself but it's a toughie, isn't it? Too bad you couldn't take down DS though - he's only got like a PhD or something like that... no biggie.

Good luck with your next challenge... and, oh - a lot of people regard "professional" as either by the historical definition, as mentioned previously (doctor, lawyer, psyhcologist, even accountant, etc.), or (fill in the blank) who does a certain activity as primary means of sustenance... and at the root of the word "professional" is "profession". So... I have actually heard of the term "professional chimney sweeper" - I would argue that it's perfectly valid.

[AaronBrown]

I go early in the WSOP, but clear out long before the craziness of the main event. I mainly go for the reunion aspect, catching up with people I know who don't make it to New York often. If you're in town, look me up.

[ALawPoker]

This is like arguing about what qualifies as a "sport." Different people sometimes have different opinions. You can throw up some technical definition, but who cares. Obviously anyone who thinks differently just disagrees with the definition in the first place.

When people consider themselves "professionals" they mostly mean that the game is their livelihood. Not that poker necessarily fits a technical definition of the word "profession." Who cares? What difference does it make? If you do something for a living, it makes sense to think of the activity as your profession. If you could find a way to make money by skipping rocks, then you'd probably think of yourself as a professional rock skipper.

[AaronBrown]

I think there's more to discussions like this than word definitions. For example, "sport" to me, at least in the sense of "competitive sport" which is what people mean when they apply it to poker, implies that the goal is to do better than the other players. That is true of tournament poker, and may be true of some cash game players who care about the competition rather than the money. Other players are recreational, they do it for fun, whether they win or lose is not important.

But there is a class of players, including me, who want to make money. We don't care whether we do better or worse than anyone else, we're not trying to "win" and certainly not trying to be the last surviving player with everyone's money. We're not interested in bracelets or prizes or getting famous. We just want to walk away from the table with more money than when we arrived. To us, poker is a profit-making activity, perhaps even a profession (although I would not apply that word to myself, because I have other sources of income, and pokervintage would deny it to anybody for other reasons).

I think this kind of thing is can be a useful discussion, not just arbitrary definitions of words. For example, is a professional athlete engaged in sport or profession when she plays? My guess is it varies from person to person. It's clearly not pure sport, because money matters. But it's also clearly not pure professionalism, some players at least care far more about winning or losing than can be justified by any effect on their income.

Similarly, I think there are poker players out for the sport, recreational poker players and professional poker players, and it's important to know the difference before you sit down with them.

[Optisizer]

I just thought this was too funny and let the first quote from you stand uncommented...

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Poker is not a profession. Winning at poker is possible not because you are a professional skilled at playing poker. Winning at poker is possible because your opponents play bad.


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What kind of profession is that? It`s not a profession.


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Who the hell cares? It seems like the perfect profession to me. I mean following the logic from your first quote, can life get any better than you having a profession where you don't have to be any better than your competition as long as the same competitors play worse than you...

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It`s just a game and as such should be treated as one.

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Great, to each their own. You go ahead and treat it like that and see you by the tables...

[pokervintage]

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Too bad you couldn't take down DS though - he's only got like a PhD or something like that... no biggie.

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I`ll lay 5 to 1 that Sklansky does not have a P.H.D. For that matter I`ll bet he doesn`t have a masters. H.S. diploma...o.k., yeah he`s got one of those, maybe.

I do not see why you think I am bitter about anything? I couldn`t tell a Nash equlibrium from a diet coke. I was trying to pull Sklansky`s chain. Get a reaction from him. Maybe you haven`t noticed but Mr. Sklansky rarely, if ever, replies to anyone on these forums.

I like to challenge myself. I wondered if he would reply to a toungue-in-cheek insult. He did. Now I`m still not sure that he can actually do the problem he claims he can do. I love David Sklansky. He`s helped me quite a bit in my poker life. He is the best author(ity) on poker that there has ever been or ever will be.

But that doesn`t mean that he knows everything he claims to know. We shall see. I am secretly working on a counter proposal to his 20k bet. I am going to seek out AaronBrown at the WSOP and solicit his help in structuring the problem. I`m looking at making it a one Person event in which I present Sklansky with the Problem and he has a set amount of time to solve it. I think that it would be a great openning for the 50k HORSE event. I`m considering asking Mike Caro to judge the results and determine the winner.

My god I can`t wait!


Pokervintage