AUTHOR: Jerry "Jet" Whittaker
TITLE: Who plays Poker?
DATE: 8:02 AM
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BODY:
<p class="mobile-post">Who plays Poker?" a young newspaper journalist asked me. She was writing an
end-ofthe- year feature about how "modern Americans" were spending their
time and money. "All kinds of people play poker," I answered, "the smart,
the slow; the sick, the sane; the poor, the prosperous. They may not all
play for the same reasons, but they share a certain fascination and
frustration, delight and despair unique to the game." A highly democratic
pursuit, Poker attracts people of all nationalities, religions, levels of
wealth and wackiness. Everyone has vote as long as they have a chip and a
chair. People who play poker come in all shapes and sizes, attitudes and
attributes. The game's got winners and whiners, losers and boozers, heroes
and zeroes, champs and chumps. There are professional poker players and
there are professionals (doctors, lawyers, accountants, architects, etc.)
who play poker. The former favor the latter; the latter fear the former.
Most are recreational players. They do it for fun. How dedicated they are to
playing the game well ranges from serious to seldom. There are those players
for whom poker is primarily a social activity. They play it with friends,
family and fraternity brothers. Such games are usually wild, weird and
wonderful. Each player gets lots of cards, there are at least two ways to
win, and plastic chips are commonly used. Today, a lot of young players are
TV trained or Internet instructed. Sometimes the poker room looks like a
Unabomber convention. I don't know where Elvis went, but Jesus Christ and
his Disciples play in every tournament. A lot of young players have
discovered live cash combat is far more exciting than anything the X-Box has
to offer. Reality can be more challenging and thrilling than virtually any
computer game. Women, too, are discovering the game. After all, they've been
playing Hold'em and Leave 'em since the dawn of time. Although the majority
of players are male, Poker, like so many other traditional male sanctuaries,
is going through "The Change" as women have enthusiastically embraced the
game in recent years. If they can land a combat jet on a carrier, run a
corporation, be a Senator (or President), then they can certainly learn when
to hold 'em and when to fold 'em. Today, Ms. and moms, grandmas and
girlfriends have discovered they don't have to set the table. Now, they can
have a seat at it! If "Life is a Cabaret, O' Chum", then poker is a
carnival. It's got high flying stars, animal acts, magicians, dare-devils,
and clowns. Poker players are performers. Every hand is a new scene; some
have a happy ending, others are a tragedy. A player reads the cards,
determines the proper role to play, assesses the cast of characters, and
acts accordingly. If fate follows the script, it'll be a money-maker. Poker
is a perfect model of Free Enterprise Capitalism. Each individual seeks a
return on his or her investment through wit and wisdom, luck and pluck.
Every player is Horatio Alger! Poker is competition, confrontation,
contradiction, and cash. It doesn't get any more American than that! Who
plays Poker? Paupers and Presidents, the weak and the wealthy, the good, the
bad, and the ugly. Afterall, we're a nation of poker players! To the players
and personnel of Poker, to readers and railbirds, short-stacks and long
faces, to the cowboys and Indians...</p>
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