Poker Perambulation

Lizzy Borden took an axe and…

The most recent hatchet job though comes from the fine folks at CBSSports and one of their writers named Doyel – not Doyle. He is a weird looking duck with a blond buzz cut above his ‘I’m big enough now to grow hair.’ black goatee. But, lets not make fun of the odd balls after this Harry Potter weekend.

Doyel isn’t shy with his view:

High-stakes gambling is for addicts and idiots, which makes the World

Series of Poker a celebration of the sad and the stupid. Watch this

train wreck for yourself. It’s available live on the Internet and will

come to free television later this year thanks to ESPN, which can next

build on this viewer experience by televising a DUI checkpoint or maybe

a crack house.

He goes on to share those jaded statics that the born again crowd have their congressional assistant work up into charts and powerpoint presentations. He also mentions the poor results my crowd of aging loser add to the mix.

The guy is right. But there is right and there is RIGHT. There are always two sides to every issue and he’s spouting on without bring anything new or terribly interesting to the table. But, as a blogger expected to produce blogs, I can sympathize with his problem. Lord knows my pearls only float to the surface occasionally through the normal dreck.

Like I’ve often said, there are always two sides to every issue. Is the WSOP what he claims? For some, it is. For the rest of us it is a study of eternal optimism. Optimism is often misdirected but, as Harry Potter shows us, it is a worthwhile part of the human condition. This is especially true if we can maintain a sense of humor and avoid hubris. And those are traits that most poker players and bloggers have little difficulty maintaining.

One of the assignments my L102 (Lit) professor assigned was to take two stories from the paper that discussed the same story and contrast the approach. It ended up being one of those important lessons that I got in my education. It isn’t hard to find two impassioned discussions on a wide variety of topics. Two respectable journalists – which may or may not be an oxymoron — look at the same situation with dynamically opposite results and data that backs up their view. And we too quickly embrace the view that is closest to our own.

So, does our fuzz chined friend have a point. Sure, but is it complete? No, but neither will the other sides be so. Our job is to try to seperate the two views without imposing our prejudice in the process.

The article tries to make a single point: Poker/gambling is an addiction. Well, it can be. I have a friend in that boat and it isn’t a pretty picture. As far as I know, he has never played poker – online or the boats. But, it reports that affects about 3% of those who gamble. Well, similar statistics exist for drug use. We’ve legislated against that without great results. We have statistics on heart disease, TB, and other illness that are similar percentages. We aren’t going to legislate those away either.

The article doesn’t extrapolate. In rough numbers: 3% of 6000 people at the main tournament could easily be described in Mr. Doyle’s statistics — that would be around 180 people. The question that isn’t being answered is how beneficial to society it is to penalize the other 5800 on behalf of those people is. Addicts of all stripe seem willing to ignore legislation and peer pressure. So, Mr. Doyle can mention the facts but, like so many activist, doesn’t really come up with a solution. Data – in and of itself – never gives out solutions. It is only a sop to those who agree that any solution can provide an answer. That’s hardly the boon to mankind Mr. Doyle’s view leaves us with. Other bloggers can rebut such articles. MeanGene did it well in a recent blog. I just wonder if there is a need to refute it. I am happy to agree with all his data; I just can’t reach his conclusions and am happy to leave it there.

ADDENDUM:

And the winner is: Herly

Chose 789 and was the last to enter.

Second place and also a book: Ken (Different last name people!!!)

He had the second highest value: 777

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 24th, 2007 at 5:09 am and is filed under Journal, Poker Other. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.