Omar Alfayez Mr.

Borrero ENGL 1101 25/4/2012

Pokerists Dude, if I can afford a plane ticket, I would go to Vegas right now! Thats what my roommate told me last week, while we were watching the final table of the world series of Poker 2011. From the small casino in New Orleans where poker was played for the first time in the U.S (McManus 50), the game had been improved over the 19th century (Brandreth 107), and it has been attracting people all around the world, and has become one of the most popular card games in the world with millions of players. Poker can be played by anyone who has passion in card games, whether rich, poor, old, or young. Just as my roommate was passionate about poker, so was Richard Nixon the former president of the U.S was actually a good Poker player, and successful players learn from him (Spanier 72). Is poker a gambling game? Is it known as a casino game? Of course yes, but does that make it exclusive for casinos, and it cant be played for fun? Of course not and I will discuss that. First, we have to learn the origins of the game, and the basic principles of its rules. Poker is not a hard game to learn, and while its easy to learn its basic rules, it gets harder and harder to go deeper. Albert Morehead and Geoffrey Smith explain the very basic rules of Poker in their book Hoyles Rules of Games in an easy way. It says in the Poker section: Players. Two to ten; best for five to eight...Each plays for himself. Cards: a regular pack of 52, occasionally with the addition of the joker. The cards rank: A(high),K,Q,J,10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2Poker is

almost invariably played with poker chips of various colors, each color having a different value(Morehead, Smith 34,35) Also, Gyles Brandreth, the author of The Worlds Best Indoor Games indicates to the object of the game and says: The objective of the game is to win the highest possible stakes by betting as to which player holds the best hand. This involves calculation and bluff-the winner is not necessarily the player holding the best hand ( Brandreth 107,108) According to James McManus, the game Poker had been adapted originally from an old Persian game called as nas (McManus 50) He also pointed out that Poker is kind of similar with a French game called Poque which it was popular in France in the 19th century ((McManus 51). The current version of Poker went through many changes and additions that took place during the 19th century (Bjerg 454). Ive been playing Poker for the past two years. A lot of Hollywood films about poker have attracted me to be a Poker player. At the beginning, I had believed that observing the players facial expression to determine if a player has a good hand or not is an important skill to be a successful player, but unfortunately, I was wrong and I admitted I was wrong and I admit that Ive been bluffed by movies and here is the truth. I interviewed Jack Gibbs the President of the Poker club at UNCC about the need of observing the players body language and facial expressions and he said: Many people have this misconception in Poker, that they think you read someones face, you just look at them and you know what hand they have, but that is not how you play at all. Any decent Poker player you will get nothing from their facial expression, and sometimes they can make their facial expression just to fool you, and even if they are trying to fool you, you dont know if they are doing that

because they want you to call or its just bluffing I wasnt very confident that Jack was right, but every book Ive read about Poker, they assure what Jack has said. Andy Bellin in her book Poker Nation says: Yes, its true that there is a lot of feel to the game of poker, and a lot of idiosyncratic subtleties like body language that make your hand transparent to a skilled opponent. But all strategy and pop psychology aside, poker is in its essence a mathematical game (Bellin 43) To observe a poker players community, I went to the poker club at UNCC. Since gambling is illegal in North Carolina, the players in the club were not allowed to talk about any cash games during the meeting time. Honestly, you cant find a poker group if money is not involved, so it might be hard to find a lot of places like this club. The club meets every Thursday with around 12 members. When you look at the website of the club, you notice that the information and pictures are old, and the latest update was 3 years ago. So I asked Jack Gibbs, the president of the club about this issue and he told me that the administration of the club has been changed, and they lost the contact with the former president, and he told me that they are on the way to establish a new website and a group on Facebook. I went there 10 minutes earlier than the meeting time, and I just found two people. I found out that one of them was the vice president of the club named Christopher Towey who gave me a lot of information about the condition of the club. They meet from 7 to 10 P.M, and they play two games with a 30 minute break between them. I asked him if they play just for fun or there is a kind of motivation for the players to win, and he told me that they count points in every game they play and every player gets a certain amount of points that helps him/her in the final tournament at the end of the semester. People started coming, and after 15 minutes, we became 9 people besides me. I was expecting more members in the

club since Jack told me that the members who have paid the club fees are just 12 people. People seemed close to each other and it was obvious that they have spent a long time together. I asked them to join the game and they welcomed me very nicely. While we were starting the game, they were making jokes of each other about the way they play and strategies and techniques that some of them use. Of course there was no a specific dealer. So first, everyone chose a card to determine the first dealer, and then, we alternate dealing. During the game, the three most common words you hear are: check, fold, raise and sometimes you hear: all in which it gets exciting that time! The word Check in Poker means I pass which it means that the player doesnt want to raise the bet. When someone raises, that means either one of two things; the player might have a good hand and they want to get more money, or they bluff the others to make them fold. When someone goes all in, which means the player is pushing all their money into the pot, hoping to win the hand. The game gets more exciting by the time, because every 10 minutes, the blinds goes up which means a player has to pay more than before in order to enter the hand. I lost all my chips very soon because of my stupid way of playing, but at least, I was glad that I participated. Finally, and before I got out of the club, I asked Jack Gibbs about the materials and stuff that the club needs to get improved, and he told me that basically they just need more members in order to get more money so that they can make big tournaments. In conclusion, Poker is not necessarily a gambling game, and the poker club at UNCC is a clear proof. The members of the club enjoy their free time to practice their hobby and feed their passion. The members play Poker for fun and that doesnt mean they are bad players. Christopher Towey the VB of the club, besides his obsession with Poker, he told me that this club is a useful tool for hanging out with friends and making new friendships.

References
1. McManus, James. Cowboys full : the story of poker New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux,
2009.

2. Brandreth, Gyles. The worlds best indoor games New York: Pantheon, c1981.

3. Spanier, David. Total Poker Harpenden, UK 2002

4. Morehead, Albert and Smith, Geoffrey. Hoyles Rules of Games New York : New American
Library, c1983

5. Bjerg,Ole. Poker phases: Draw, Stud and HoldEm as play-forms of capitalism 2011

6. Bellin, Andy. Poker nation: a high stakes, low-life adventure into the heart of a gambling country New York: HarperCollins, Publishers, c2002.

7. My interview with Jack Gibbs, the president of the poker club at UNCC

8. My interview with Christopher Towey , the vice president of the poker club at UNCC