Poker
- Thread starter Willieck
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People have been playing poker for the fun and competition of it for ages. I can remember when I was little and my parents were still young and trying to get by, they would get together with other friends in similar possitions to have poker nights at one another's houses. It was a fun, but cheap form of entertainment for all involved.
Also, and look, I definitely fall on the 'no money' side of the Trek universe, but there may be some never-mentioned credit system in place that they tally up after the game (I certainly play poker for money, but it's never on the table at the time!) I personally think they are just playing 'for fun', but we can't discount the idea that, if there is some kind of credit system in the Trek universe, they are playing for 'real money', as it were.
That said, i agree with the OP, playing Poker without real stakes totally drains the game of fun.
That said, i agree with the OP, playing Poker without real stakes totally drains the game of fun.
I can't understand the idea that a game could only be fun if there were profit involved. If you do something with profit as your primary goal, that's not fun, that's work. I mean, I write for profit, but I mainly write because I love it. Doing something only for money, with nothing more meaningful to gain, is hollow, a chore. It's certainly not fun.
And if you need something to be at stake? Well, in the Federation, and particularly in Starfleet, people are motivated by the pursuit of experience and accomplishment, not just material gains. They seek achievement and personal betterment. So what's at stake in a poker game, I imagine, is pride in their skill as players, and the experience and insight they gain as they hone the skills needed to win, such as reading people and evaluating probabilities. More simply, the stake is winning as an end in itself, rather than merely a means toward the end of acquiring trinkets symbolizing material value.
And if you need something to be at stake? Well, in the Federation, and particularly in Starfleet, people are motivated by the pursuit of experience and accomplishment, not just material gains. They seek achievement and personal betterment. So what's at stake in a poker game, I imagine, is pride in their skill as players, and the experience and insight they gain as they hone the skills needed to win, such as reading people and evaluating probabilities. More simply, the stake is winning as an end in itself, rather than merely a means toward the end of acquiring trinkets symbolizing material value.
See, this is where you miss my point. You're assuming that the only thing anyone could possibly value is money or material possessions. My point is that there are more meaningful things that one could seek to gain. I mentioned experience and skill. There's also sheer competitiveness, the desire to win. That's got to be a strong urge in go-getters like Starfleet personnel. The gain is victory, the loss is defeat. Just because those aren't petty material things doesn't mean the gain or loss can't be meaningful.
As others have already stated, I only play for matchsticks or pennies, and still get the "gambling rush" as it were.
I'm not a gambler myself anyways, so if my friends wanted to play poker with money, I wouldn't play.... if it was just for chips and for the fun of it (Socializing) then I'd probably play.
I play decent poker on the computer and play decently with friends/family when they want to play, but other then that, once money is involved, I'm no longer interested.
For some reason, a couple of friends absolutely hate when I play because I'm always throwing in half my chips or all of them on one hand (or the maximum allowed bet) I don't know all the styles of play and I'm not very technical with the game, but I seem to do pretty good.
I'm just not a gambler.
You don't know what will happen without money either.... you can still win or lose.... you could be the first or the last one out of the game.... and when the games over, you're not stuck with no money in your pocket and no way home.
I understand enough about the appeal of gambling..... I hear about it everyday where I live, where the government gets all kinds of money from VLT's and the casinos from people who are down on their luck and think they can get some extra money by gambling..... but they only end up losing their unemployment cheque and going home broke...... all because they think that next hand or that next play will make back all the money they lost.
It's a wonderful system the government has..... hand out the meager unemployment cheques to the down and out, advertise via the internet or commercials and sway them to spend all that money with the slim chance of getting more back.... they lose it all and the government gets their money back.
I play decent poker on the computer and play decently with friends/family when they want to play, but other then that, once money is involved, I'm no longer interested.
For some reason, a couple of friends absolutely hate when I play because I'm always throwing in half my chips or all of them on one hand (or the maximum allowed bet) I don't know all the styles of play and I'm not very technical with the game, but I seem to do pretty good.
I'm just not a gambler.
You don't know what will happen without money either.... you can still win or lose.... you could be the first or the last one out of the game.... and when the games over, you're not stuck with no money in your pocket and no way home.
I understand enough about the appeal of gambling..... I hear about it everyday where I live, where the government gets all kinds of money from VLT's and the casinos from people who are down on their luck and think they can get some extra money by gambling..... but they only end up losing their unemployment cheque and going home broke...... all because they think that next hand or that next play will make back all the money they lost.
It's a wonderful system the government has..... hand out the meager unemployment cheques to the down and out, advertise via the internet or commercials and sway them to spend all that money with the slim chance of getting more back.... they lose it all and the government gets their money back.
It's been said that a state lottery is an undeclared tax on people who don't understand mathematics.
The thing is that with poker the amount of the wager is an important part of the game. It's not just that you wager on the outcome of the final result--the betting is an integral part of how the game is played.
And the players at times seem to act like there really is something on the line, saying things like "too rich for my blood" when they fold.
I think it's more inconsistency on the part of the writers than any post-currency, more evolved way of looking at the game. These are the same writers who had Data supposedly read every book there was about poker, but then be completely gobsmacked that Riker bluffed his way to a hand. Every standard poker book, from Sklansky's Theory of Poker to Brunson's Super/System, deals prominently with bluffing. It would be like someone watching every episode of Trek and then being amazed that, in a fan fic you wrote, the ship was able to travel faster than light.
I consider the poker games not necessarily as an accurate depiction of how people in the 24th century would gamble, but as a way for the writers to get a bunch of characters around a table in a friendly, but competitive, game. It's a bit more accessible to viewers than 3-D chess or Stratagema.
And the players at times seem to act like there really is something on the line, saying things like "too rich for my blood" when they fold.
I think it's more inconsistency on the part of the writers than any post-currency, more evolved way of looking at the game. These are the same writers who had Data supposedly read every book there was about poker, but then be completely gobsmacked that Riker bluffed his way to a hand. Every standard poker book, from Sklansky's Theory of Poker to Brunson's Super/System, deals prominently with bluffing. It would be like someone watching every episode of Trek and then being amazed that, in a fan fic you wrote, the ship was able to travel faster than light.
I consider the poker games not necessarily as an accurate depiction of how people in the 24th century would gamble, but as a way for the writers to get a bunch of characters around a table in a friendly, but competitive, game. It's a bit more accessible to viewers than 3-D chess or Stratagema.
So? Just because they aren't playing for real money doesn't mean they don't treat the stakes as real for the purposes of the game play. When you play Monopoly, for instance, the money is fake, but the relative quantity you have, or the size of the gains and losses at stake, is important to gameplay. Or how about chess? The pieces in a chess set aren't necessarily of any monetary value to you, and you don't actually lose ownership of them when they're taken off the board, but it's still vital to the gameplay that you keep as many pieces as possible, particularly the powerful ones that are more valuable to your play. And so it can feel like a genuine, serious loss if your opponent captures your queen, say.
Another analogy would be yardage in a(n amateur) football game. Yards are intangible things, something that the players can't physically possess or take home with them, and yet they place immense value on the acquisition of yards, to the point that they're actually willing to risk bodily injury merely in order to gain a precious few more.
So again it's important to avoid assuming that monetary value is the only possible value a thing can have. If your goal is to win a game, then the assets that can help you win that game are of great value, and the cost of losing them is genuine. The perception of loss or gain can be just as great even if the loss or gain isn't something that affects your bank account.
After all, in a sense, "real" money is nothing more than a symbol itself, a mere token in the "game" we play every day whose stakes are food, shelter, clothes, possessions, comfort, prestige, and success. Money is just printed paper or discs of metal or numbers in a bank computer. We only perceive it as valuable because it symbolizes value under the rules we all play by. So it's not intrinsically different from the "imaginary" tokens of value in a more literal game. It's just a matter of context and degree.
In order for the game to be acceptably interesting to me, there has to be some sort of wager involved that the players value whether it be money, a dare or whatever. Player for "fun" just can't compare since the players are just too eager to take risks or go all in since the wager is something they do not value.
Although it never says exactly what they are wagering, it is possible that the chips have some sort of Latinum value. The only problem is that if they are latinum it would contradict Picard's statment in the movie first contact: "The economics of the future is somewhat different. You see, money doesn't exist in the 24th century... The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives. We work to better ourselves and the rest of Humanity." However if the currency was not Latinum based, then how can you explain where Will Riker got the Latinum to start gambling at Quarks when Jadzia had to loan him 3 strips of Latinum because his "winning streak went dry". (DS9 "Defiant")
Any way you look at it it's a contradiction of some sort.
I agree, it would be like showing people from the 17th century a round of starcraft 2 and expecting them to understand it.
Although it never says exactly what they are wagering, it is possible that the chips have some sort of Latinum value. The only problem is that if they are latinum it would contradict Picard's statment in the movie first contact: "The economics of the future is somewhat different. You see, money doesn't exist in the 24th century... The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives. We work to better ourselves and the rest of Humanity." However if the currency was not Latinum based, then how can you explain where Will Riker got the Latinum to start gambling at Quarks when Jadzia had to loan him 3 strips of Latinum because his "winning streak went dry". (DS9 "Defiant")
Any way you look at it it's a contradiction of some sort.
I agree, it would be like showing people from the 17th century a round of starcraft 2 and expecting them to understand it.
Christopher
Those are all valid arguments except that all the games you mention last for some time and there is pleasure to be gained from actually playing the game. A game of poker on the other hand lasts for minutes at the most and the sole object is not winning the "game" but gaining the reward.
My original point hinged on the argument that it seemed strange, to me at least, that grown adults could take such a game as seriously as they appear to do when there is in essence nothing to play for.
Those are all valid arguments except that all the games you mention last for some time and there is pleasure to be gained from actually playing the game. A game of poker on the other hand lasts for minutes at the most and the sole object is not winning the "game" but gaining the reward.
My original point hinged on the argument that it seemed strange, to me at least, that grown adults could take such a game as seriously as they appear to do when there is in essence nothing to play for.
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