DEFINING POKER

DEFINING POKER

by Bob Ciaffone

    I know all of you think= you know what poker is––especially if you have been playing it for = over a half-century, as I have. But it is one thing to feel you “know it w= hen you see it” (as one US Supreme Court justice said regarding pornograp= hy, which failed to satisfy those looking for a precise definition, and brought= the Justice some derision). It is another thing to put a definition into writing that will avoid any legal disputes.

The legality of certain gambling games, and how = each should be defined, is a frequent subject for courtroom battles. Here are so= me topical questions. What constitutes a lottery game, as authorized by the la= w of a given state? If a video terminal is used for playing a game, does that ch= ange the character of that game? How should the game of “bingo” be defined, and how much bearing does a law have on it that was passed many decades before bingo was invented? I really dislike to = see a lot of money and effort spent on litigation of such issues, stemming from legislators passing badly worded laws, or never updating old laws. I hope t= his does not happen too much with our game of poker.

Let’s talk about poker and decide what qua= lifies a game as being “poker” and what does not. We will start by loo= king at who would want to get under the poker umbrella of a law accepting poker,= and whether they should be admitted.

    The first “applicant” for the poker category would undoubtedly be casino games that call themselves poker, such as Caribbean Stud Poker and video po= ker. These are casino gambling games that use the ranking of poker hands to determine wager winners. Anyone drawing up a law to approve or regulate pok= er should be precise in the law that it does not apply to casino gambling game= s based on poker hands. It is clear that the essence of poker is competing against other players (and not the house).

    We should be aware that= it is possible to have a “casino gambling game” where the house is not competing against the player, meaning it is unaffected by the outcome of the game. In such a game, a person (or even a coalition of people) will accept = bets as the house would be doing in a typical casino game. One sees this at games like blackjack, for example, where the players take turns acting as the hou= se, or one player acts as the house for that session. The players are charged a= fee for the ability to participate, and the house does not derive any monetary income that varies with the result. Such a method could of course be used f= or one of the casino gambling games based on poker. So the way a casino gambli= ng game is excluded from a poker law should not be based solely on whether the house has a financial interest in the game.

Perhaps we could say, “Casino gambling gam= es based on poker have not been made permissible by this law.” Unfortunately, it is not completely clear what constitutes a casino gambling game. (Poker is a gambling game that is often played in casinos, so using t= hese words is a bit ambiguous.) We should define poker in a manner that a casino gambling game cannot qualify, no matter who actually conducts the game.

    I think these concepts = form the essence of poker. First, the players compete only against each other. Second, they have one or more personal cards that only they can see. Third,= a player wins whatever is at stake by either making a wager no one is willing= to match, or showing a hand after the betting is over that is the most valuabl= e, as determined by a ranking system that assigns a value to a hand based on t= he frequency of its occurrence. My suggestion is to write a definition of poker that incorporates these three concepts. Here is a try. “Poker is a ca= rd game where each player can bet his own hand is of a higher rank than that of any other player, and wins whatever is at stake by either making an unmatch= ed bet or showing the most valuable hand after the betting is over.”

    Do the players have to = use a physical deck or cards, or can the cards be simulated? I do not know anyone= who is willing to say that “internet poker” is not poker. Yet such = poker has its own set of governing laws. But in my opinion, players in the same physical location should be able to play in a poker game where the “cards” are generated by a computer, so long as playing poker w= ould be legal if physical cards were dealt by a flesh-and-blood dealer. Internet poker derives its character by the fact that players in different locations= are able to play in the same game, and not by the fact that the cards are simul= ated in some fashion.

Does a poker deck need 52 cards for the game to = be considered “true poker”? I think a stripped deck (one where the lowest-ranking cards have been removed, as taking out deuces through sixes)= , is definitely poker. Remember that the joker, or even two jokers, is used in s= ome poker forms. If you can add cards, you can subtract them as well.

Would the game still be considered poker if you = use less than five cards? I don’t think so. For example, when I was in Kathmandu in ’92, we played an Indian game a = lot like poker, called “flush.” The betting was in some ways simila= r to poker, and had hand rankings like straights, flushes, and trips. But you got only three cards. For me, poker is the traditional American game where the = best five cards is used to determine the ranking of h= ands.

I am sure you regular readers know why I have ch= osen to write this article. Now is the time to take advantage of the wave of pok= er popularity and write some sensible poker laws. To write good laws, one must know exactly what the law covers. “I know it when I see it” did= not work for porn, and will not work for poker.