Why not quote my post explaining where you are clearly wrong and type in where you think that I am wrong and why. Because you are so far off as to not be believed.
1st Argument: "A rose by any other name..."
Argument: you are "betting" for cash, therefore it is gambling.
The way I read this argument, you are simply saying that since "no set amount of any bet or wager towards the final outcome is ever [always] made" that therefor it is not gambling. You make the argument by not-so-cleverly replacing the word "wager" with "wager-move" "But it is a wager-move. Not a wager." You continue that "Thus there never is a set amount of any wager towards the outcome. A bet or wager of a set amount made on the overall outcome outside the game is gambling. You are betting on the outcome, thus gambling." So it appears that your definition of gambling, at least in this argument, is determined by whether the bets are made on some outcome. But what do you mean by outcome? Certainly, the general consensus of poker players is that the "outcome" is the end of each hand. Each hand in poker is a completely separate game that is played between all the players. Thus, by betting to try to win that hand...you are betting on the outcome of that hand.
And as you admit... betting on the outcome is gambling. This should be very clear in regards to cash games but what about tournaments? I agree that in a tournament, the main outcome is of course where you place in the tournament but with regards to the cards and the game of poker, the outcome is still the outcome of each hand. A tournament can be thought of as a collection of
poker games, similar to a bracketed basketball league. Although the final outcome matters, certainly each individual game (or poker hand) also has an outcome. It is these cummulative outcomes which determine the winners and losers in the tournament.
The argument also seems to be saying that since the betting is in stages and multiple bets can be made on any given hand, that it therefore MUST NOT be betting on the outcome. This is flawed. No matter what bets are made...there is always an outcome to the hand. All in preflop and everyone folds...the outcome is that you win. All in preflop with one caller and you see all the cards... the outcome is determined by who has the best hand. Even if you check your BB all the way to river and win the hand....there is still an outcome. Also, the outcome of the hand IS ALWAYS preceded by SOME BET. No matter where the hand ends...there is a bet or call (which is a bet) that preceeds it. Thus, every outcome of a hand is the result of betting. (not that the
hands are determined by the betting, just that it is IMPOSSIBLE to have a hand in poker where there is an outcome and no betting.) Your argument here just tries to redefine the outcome as the end of a tourny rather than each individual hand. But even if you assume the end of the tournament is the only outcome....THAT OUTCOME TOO IS PRECEEDED BY A BET/CALL. So even if every hand in the tournament is not part of the outcome, 1 hand (the very last hand) MUST be the outcome of the tournament and if this hand is gambling...then poker is gambling.
It should also be said that your theory that betting in stages somehow makes it not gambling is flawed in that there are several other casino games which are gambling and involve betting in stages. First,
blackjack....there is not only one bet in blackjack. You can double down. Tricard poker...another game where there are multiple betting opportunities throughout the hand.
These are just two examples...there are plenty more.
Conclusion: Changing the word wager to wager-move and applying your own arbitrary definition of what a wager-move is does not change what is really happening. You are betting on the outcome of an individual hand.
Next you claim that chips have no monetary value and are just place-holders essentially for your wager-moves. This too, is flawed. First, certainly in cash-games chips have monetary value. When you buy in there is a direct relationship between the money you pay and the chips you receive. Similarly, when you cash-out there is (hopefully) the exact same relationship when you
exchange your chips for money. Therefore, in cash games, chips DO have monetary value. You even admit that this is true:
you can buy into a cash game for $300.00 and get $300.00 in chips to wager-move with.
As for tournament chips, your initial buyin may or may not represent the amount of chips you have at any given time, you are right. However, similar to cash games, there is a direct relationship to the number of chips you receive at the beginning of the tournament and the tournament buyin. Simply because they arent 1:1 ($300 for 300 chips) does not mean they dont have the some value.
Argument 2: "There is no chance in poker...lols"
Argument: it is just "luck." Luck = gambling.
Your argument here seems to be that since SOME amount of skill is involved in poker, that luck isnt involved in poker at all. This, again is flawed. Although skills such as"using the
odds of probability, knowing your opponent, what he might do in a certain situation" may make you a more profitable poker player, these skills DO NOT eliminate the element of chance that is involved in poker. While I do agree that skill can play a significant role in poker, it cannot be said that chance is completely eliminated from the game. Despite your skillful play,
you can still lose. Luck is a part of poker. Simply because you are applying the odds and probability does not mean there is no chance. In fact the opposite must be true..if you are applying the odds and probabilities there MUST be some sort of chance. Again, I will use the examples of many other games of chance which are considerd obviously gambling. You can certainly
play blackjack knowing the probabilities of which cards will fall. You can play roulette knowing the probabilities of where the ball will land. In fact, EVERY GAME of chance involves these types of calculations and any player can become skillful at those games. But in the end, all of those, just like poker, are games of chance. The fact that you are calculating the probability of unknowns obviously means its a game of chance.
For instance, if you play a hand face up lets say and you have AcAs and your opponent has 7c2s. Since its faceup, everyone has ALL the information...but do they? 72 goes all in...certainly the best, and only, play here is to call. But even if you call...make the right call...there is still a (roughly) 10% that 72 will win. Although its face up, neither player has all the information. Poker is a game of incomplete information even if you play with the cards face up...because the cards on the board (or whatevers left) are YET TO BE DETERMINED.
You also state that since you had at least some idea of the probabilities that the outcome is therefore not luck. This is not true. Although you may be able to PREDICT an outcome...that outcome is not determined by your prediction...it is determined by something independent from the players..the random order of the deck. You even hint at admitting this:
Of course you can simply luck out with them, yet you are defying the odds when you do."
Defyin the odds = luck.
"If you succeed after applying the odds of probability that is not just random luck as it was calculated. So even if you do throw your money in with no thought as to how or why and you win, those same odds can explain why you won."
"If you succeed after applying the odds of probability that is not just random luck as it was calculated."
Knowing WHY you won and knowing THAT you will win are two different things. Notwithstanding playing perfect poker that always conforms to the most positive EV play, there are still times when a negative EV play or really just a horrible play can win...even against a player who made the best play. (see AA vs 72 above). When 72 wins, the odds dont explain that playing 72 was the "right" move...in fact the odds dictate that it was a horrible move (assuming hes not getting 10:1 on his money). But in the end, 10% of the time the bad play will win out. This can go the other way too, you can make all the right moves and in the end it may be YOU who gets lucky.
Playing AA vs 72 face up again...but this time with a flop of 772 and a turn of K. Whats the play here? You have 2 outs and roughly a 4% chance of winning. Certainly the best play is not to bet and fold the hand, but lets say that you dont and BOOM miracle A on the river. You win, but not because you made the right move but because you got lucky. Simply because the outcome worked out for you does not mean that your play on the turn was correct...it means, quite simply, you sucked out.
You are actually no more "lucky" when an ace hits and "saves" you than you are "lucky" when a chess player fails to move a pawn that prevents his knight from moving onto that square and then that fails to prevent your attack.
The distinction here, as I outlined above, is that one is dependent on a PLAYER's action and the other (poker) is independent of the player and is based on the randomized deck order. This is outside the players control and therefore is a SIGNIFICANT difference.
Comparison to Chess: As many have said before, your comparison to chess is...well, weak. Chess is completely different from poker. Chess is NOT a game of chance. Everything that happens in chess is determined COMPLETELY by the players. Poker, on the other hand, involves not only the
players but the deck and the cards that may or may not come. You say that the probabilities of a chess player making a certain move are the analogous to poker but they are not. In poker, although you can think about the probability of a player making a particular move, the outcome (at least in those hands that end in a showdown) is still determined by the cards that come or do not come...by chance. You may use skill to IMPROVE your odds of having the winning hand but in the end the cards determine the winner...not your plays. As I said above, poker is a game of incomplete information while chess is a game where the players have ALL THE INFORMATION. There is nothing in chess that is a mystery or determined outside the players' control...each player at any given point has ALL the information that any other player has about the board. In poker, although the players may have all the same information (like in the example above where the hand is played face up) there is still MISSING INFORMATION concerning the cards that have not come yet.
Conclusion: Although I agree that skill can play a large role in poker, chance is NOT completely eliminated. Therefore, poker is still a game of chance. Simply because you can predict what will happen does not mean your prediction will occur. Even if you make the right play, you can still lose. Even if you make the wrong play, you can still win.
Argument 2...part 2
"I do not believe it is gambling since you can control the majority of it."
"In order for it to be gambling, poker would have to be just that; a crapshoot."
Here again, you seem to be arguing that since poker can be composed of SOME skill, that therefore there is NO CHANCE or luck at all. This is a misconception. A game of skill and a game of chance are not mutually exclusive. A game of chance may have skills which can improve your odds but the game is still a game of chance. Simply because there is skill involved does not eliminate all chance involved. IN fact, a significant part of the skill in poker is calculating the CHANCE that certain cards will come. There are plenty of "gambling" games that can be skill based yet are still considered gambling. Sports betting is a game where skill can be a big factor but in the end, its still a game of chance (sports betting that is, not necessarily the sport).
And in no game do you have absolute control over the outcome. Does that mean that every game you play is gambling?
It is not whether you personally have control over the outcome but whether the players as a collective have complete control over the outcome. Lets take your example, chess. In chess the entire game is completely controlled by the two players. There is no other involvement by any independent mechanism. Poker, however, does have an independent mechanism that does not allow the players to have complete control over the outcome. Even when played face up, the players have, to some degree, less than absolute control over the outcome. The outcome is determined in part by the players plays and in part by the cards. Since the cards are organized in a random manner, chance is involved and therefore the outcome is at least in part controlled by chance.
the unexpected can always happen. If you want to consider that bad or good luck, fine. I cannot argue it being called that in that example. But that is nowhere near the majority of the game.
Certainly not enough that it is "gambling".
Again, gambling is betting money on a game of chance. You agree that chance is at least some part of the game. To be gambling this chance must be something that is completely outside the player's control. Unlike in chess where if you get unlucky because of player's move which is entirely WITHIN the players' control.
And that luck you do see often is not luck at all. You can go back and look up the math, the odds explain what happened and why.
This quote doesnt even make sense. Let me show you why. Again lets take the AA vs 72 with 772K board. Your odds of winning are 4%... you call and lose. You look back and see wow my odds were 4%, this explains why I lost. Next hand...exact same thing: AA vs 72 with 772K flop...despite what you learned before you call again... and BOOM, A on the river. You go back and look and the odds STILL SAY 4%!! How can the odds explain what happened and why in the first hand and ALSO explain what happened in the second hand? They cant because probabilities do not EXPLAIN why something happens...it only predicts the chane that a particular event will occur. Every move is like this because every move (assuming you dont have the stone cold nuts prior to river) can have two outcomes...one probability cannot explain both outcomes similarly.
Conclusion: Since chance is involved (however small) and the players as a whole do not have complete control over the game, poker is a game of chance. Simply because you control the majority of it does not mean it is not gambling. If any chance is involved, and chance is certainly not an insignificant part of poker, then the game is a game of chance and betting money on it would make it gambling.
Argument 4 - "The Secret"
Also, IMO, if you just keep it in your head that poker is heavily weighted towards "luck" you will not be nearly as successful as you would if you believe that it is heavily weighted towards skill and proper use of the odds (pot, hand, probability). This is a clear "glass half empty" vs "glass half full" issue; If you always see it as half empty, this affects you in a negative way. If you see it as half full, this affects you in a positive way. This is partially how our brain works. It finds reasons to justify your beliefs.
If you are always convinced the fish will suck out on you, then they will. Once I realized that, I was able to find ways to defeat them being so weak and obvious. Sure, they still "suck out" on me, but far less.
They wrote a book on this decades ago. Its called the law of attraction. However, it is merely a self-help fiction that, granted may have application to one's dating life or self-esteem, has absolutely NO EFFECT on poker probabilities whatsoever. Although it may APPEAR to you that your belief that you are better or that an opponent will suck out on you has an effect on the chance of cards coming...it does not. It may have an affect on your play, but it does NOT affect the independent chance of the randomized deck.
I challenge you to back that up with more than just your opinion. Prove me wrong, if you can. Since I am using math, this should be easy.I have proved my thesis.
Finally... lets address just the absurdity of your posts in general. The first thing should be obvious...where is your math? Where is your proof? Do you understand what a proof is? Not a single argument you presented used math at all! In fact, the majority of your argument is based entirely on changing the definitions of terms to suit your argument. It seems very counter intuitive that to prove that poker is not within the definition of gambling you change the definitions of all the vocabulary of poker. But you were right that it was easy... that should have been obvious from the countless people before me who told you that you were wrong.
But lets not stop there...you also decided to attack me. Lets address that.
"Maybe you are taking that cheap shot because the math and the proof are over your head. So do
not assume I have a gambling problem because of your ignorance of this topic."
Again, what math? What proof? Maybe it is over my head because I didnt see a single math equation or proof of anything. I am not assuming you have a gambling problem at all...I merely suggested that that may be a reason why someone would come up with arguments why poker is not gambling. However, based upon your vitriolic reaction to it.... you know. =/
And come on...name calling? Seriously? How old are we. You claim Im a troll (and thats not the worst name you called me)...and by definition maybe I am. Meaning I didnt intend to troll you but you sure had a very negative reaction to my comments, you seemed to be very agitated by them and even cried to anyone who would listen...even though those people explained to you that...well, they didnt agree with you that I was trolling. I guess 'troll' is just another word that you only possess a weak-tight understanding of...
I'll end with wise words to describe your arguments:
"Maybe you need to accept you do not know how to back up what youre saying with anything other than a cowards unsubstantiated ramblings and childish accusations with no proof whatsoever."
-Lobster
