To think more about how bluffing changes the world, let’s take one more hand—the final hand of the night, in which you decide to play no-limit. We’ll pick it up after the turn:
For the last hand of the night, the betting has been slow. While the game has been pretty even, your stack is a bit shorter than the others. So, when the Prof ups the ante, betting 100, you consider your cards: a pair of 7’s, with a 1/5 chance for a flush on the last card. In the hope of stealing the pot, you semi-bluff—going all-in, more or less doubling the Prof’s bet. While Mastercard folds, the Prof calls, and so do Two Pair (after a long reflection) and Dynamo. The bluff failed. You’ve got one chance left, and hold your breath.
On the river, the dealer turns over the A, and Two Pair goes all in. Dynamo, to save lunch money, folds, while the Prof calls. You reach for the pot—you’ve got your flush—when Two Pair turns over a pair of pocket A’s, giving him four of a kind. He had slow-played, deceiving all of you as to his cards (and going against his pattern), until he had you where he wanted you. He wins the hand, and will be called “Four Aces” from now on.
This brings us to the other side of bluffing: while your bluff helps you seek the truth, when others bluff, your knowledge becomes uncertain. There’s a limit to our ability to know the truth. However much we seek to control others’ access to the truth, our power is limited, and the best-laid plans can be defeated and deceived. As Socrates taught, at the beginning of philosophy, the pursuit of wisdom begins in humility—the recognition of our ignorance.
Outbluffed, you turn to the Prof—“You know you can’t know what’s going to come up,” you say. “Ah, Socrates, the height of human wisdom,” he says, smirking. “Just remember that he was killed for saying that, and it’s dangerous to quote a dead man in a game where players often carry guns.” Yes, an important part of seeing the invisible is knowing who has concealed weapons. But in poker, seeing the invisible, above all, means understanding the situation and oneself as fully as possible, and learning to play and live in the humble pursuit of the truth.5
________
1 David Sklansky, The Theory of Poker (Henderson: Two Plus Two, 1999), pp. 17–18.
2 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980), p. 34 [NE II.4; 1105b5].
3 See, for example, Sklansky’s discussion of such a hand, The Theory of Poker, p. 24.
4 Edmund Husserl, Cartesian Meditations (Dordrecht: Nijhoff, 1960), pp. 108–111, 116–18. Translation into poker-speak is my own.
5 This chapter would not have been written without the contributions of Chad Fogleman, James Masterton, the WIMPS (Women and Infants’ Hospital Medical Professional Spouses) Poker group, Andy Sherman, and Ethan Borg. Errors remain my own.
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Poker and the Game of Life
STEVEN M. SANDERS
So I spent two hours playing . . . winning, losing, in complete freedom of body and soul . . . enjoying the present and snapping my fingers at the future and at all those who are pleased to exercise their reason in the dreary task of foreseeing it.
—Jacques Casanova
The poker player is often likened to the shark: to remain still is to die, so he or she never stops moving—winning pots, recouping losses, and staying ever alert to the tempo and dynamics of the game. We face similar challenges “playing” the larger game of life, where inattention to detail or an impassive retreat to inaction may bring discouragement and defeat.
We have goals, roles, expectations, and competitive interactions in both poker and life. In life, our behavior is constrained by laws and most of us try to live by the principles and standards of morality. In poker, our play is constrained by the rules of the game and we may try to abide by the less formal constraints known as “good sportsmanship.” Most significantly, we have philosophical outlooks and comprehensive “life plans” to guide the actual conduct of life; so too in poker we need a game plan to guide us through the minefield of competitive play.
We can focus on gamblers’ fallacies and the ethics of bluffing to see obvious examples of the relevance of philosophy to poker. A broader view of how general philosophical outlooks apply to life will furnish additional examples of such relevance, and to overlook this application is to forfeit an advantage in both poker and life. So, what lessons from the game of life might we apply to playing the game of poker? How might the significance of poker be illuminated by philosophical reflection on the meaning of life? To understand better how our philosophical outlooks can enhance the playing of poker, let’s look at two such outlooks or approaches to life that we can call the “Rationalist” approach and the “Existentialist” approach.
The Rationalist Approach
The Rationalist approach gets its name from the movement in Western European thought that placed great emphasis on the powers of human reason, the inevitability of progress, and the possibility of human perfectibility. Rationalist philosophers from René Descartes (1596–1650) to Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) and Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) believed that the use of reason could transform not only individual lives but also all of human society, and the period from the 1680s to the 1780s saw powerful reforms in politics, law, and education as well as stunning achievements in science and philosophy by Newton, Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, and others. In general, the Rationalist approach tells us that a meaningful life can be found through the rational co-ordination of goals, plans, and purposes; through planning and hard work; through the maintenance of oneself as a rationally-grounded person, and through the effort, persistence, and patience that are necessary to do these things.
The optimism that supports the Rationalist approach can be found in Leibniz’s principle that nothing takes place without a sufficient reason. Leibniz believed the universe was created by a perfect God who “doesn’t play dice with the universe,” in Einstein’s well-known phrase. Therefore, nothing happens in the universe without a “determining reason.” If we had sufficient knowledge, we could predict the future in detail, but because of our human limitations we have to accept something less than a complete understanding of the workings of the universe. As our knowledge grows, we can improve our understanding. We can apply the calculus of probability and make it “a guide to the rational conduct of life in an uncertain world,” and, by analogy, a guide to the tactics of wise gambling.1 In fact, it is largely due to the efforts of such seventeenth-century thinkers as Leibniz and Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) to “domesticate chance” in the service of reason that the poker player of today can draw upon a knowledge of probability for “the rational management of luck.”
The Existentialist Approach
Existentialism was one of the great sea-changes in philosophical sensibility, reflecting the personalities and styles of its nineteenth-century founders Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855) and Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900). The movement coalesced in Germany and France in the 1930s and 1940s and gathered intensity in the post-war years as it traveled to America. The Existentialists were not only philosophers but also novelists and playwrights. It therefore shouldn’t come as any surprise that Existentialism involves considerable reliance on the imagination to depict the human condition. In Existentialist thought there’s a strong tendency to see things in terms of possibility, as Kierkegaard does when he expresses the prospect of future personal transformation through the vague anticipation he refers to as “dread.” According to Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980), “existence precedes essence.”2 This means there is no ultimate, objective standard by which life should be guided, and thus no alternative to choosing the values by which we must live our lives. For Sartre, our willing, acting, and experience of “being in the world,” are manifestations of our inescapable freedom. There’s also a distinct willingness among Existentialists to engage in self-dramatization—for example, when Albert Camus (1913–1960) announces a defiant attitude toward the absurdity of the human condition by declaring: “There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn.”3 Existentialists accordingly call
attention to our individual freedom from middle-class expectations and lifestyles. It’s small wonder, then, that Existentialist philosophers recommend the gambler’s perspective, and the life-is-a-gamble aspect of Existentialist thought may explain its appeal to the many poker players who pursue the game at the tournament level for its potential to produce dramatic life transformations.
Styles of Play
We shouldn’t expect either the Rationalist or the Existentialist approach to solve the highly specific problems that arise in the circumstances of particular games of poker. But it’s fairly easy to apply these approaches for insights into how in general the game of poker should be played. In tournament play, the indications of philosophical approach are very much a matter of a player’s attitude and style, in tandem with the situation-specific “know how” acquired in the course of countless hours of play. In recent years, the skill level among poker players has risen dramatically because so many have incorporated the knowledge and read the books of the veteran players like David Sklansky, Doyle Brunson, and T.J. Cloutier. Or they’ve logged on to the Internet sites associated with such celebrity newcomers as the eponymous Chris Moneymaker, who took in over a million dollars by winning the World Series of Poker in 2003.
From the sketches above, we can see how differences between Rationalist and Existentialist poker players are revealed and what constitute major challenges for each. For the Rationalist poker player, the problem is to avoid the “paralysis of analysis,” the blockage that threatens when one thinks too much and lingers at excessive length on the possibilities for choice, thereby missing opportunities that may arise only once.4 For the Existentialist player, who stresses freedom and spontaneity, the problem is letting impulsiveness overwhelm caution and playing on tilt after losing a big pot.
The Rationalist poker player is calm, restrained, not given to emotional highs and lows. A Rationalist player will be methodical, precise, sometimes even professorial in the manner of poker theoretician and tournament competitor David Sklansky. His command of logic, strategy, and applied mathematics makes his books required reading at various options-trading firms. Then there’s World Series of Poker winner Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, who wrote his UCLA doctoral dissertation on game theory, probability, and Artificial Intelligence.5 Howard Lederer is another Rationalist model of sober calculation, deferred gratification, and prudence. His efforts to “domesticate chance” and stabilize the pervasiveness of risk at the poker table did not, however, prevent the strict vegetarian from once winning a ten-thousand-dollar bet simply by eating a cheeseburger (Positively Fifth Street, p. 165).
Rationalists expect the application of rational techniques to increase the likelihood of the best outcomes, and they approach poker systematically on several levels. They use mathematics and probability to help them calculate odds and they employ fundamentals of game theory to maximize gains and minimize losses. Rationalists are also inclined to make use of psychology to better identify other players’ tells, to bluff with enough frequency to remain unpredictable, and to randomize their own tactics to throw others off balance.
In contrast to the Rationalists’ reliance on technical mastery and rational methods of calculation and control, Existentialists adopt a style that transcends the rationality of methods and general rules. Existentialist poker players believe we must sometimes simply commit ourselves to playing a hand in a particular way without having adequate grounds. This approach to poker mimics, on a smaller scale, Kierkegaard’s “leap of faith” to live the most authentic life, which for him meant being a Christian despite the absence of knowledge or proof of God’s existence. What matters is one’s “subjective certainty”—one’s passionate commitment when there’s no decisive evidence. This is precisely the approach of a fearless and totally unpredictable player like Gus Hansen who exploits his table image and shows his willingness to live the risk that comes with the uncertainty of outcomes and the utter contingency of victory and loss. When Antonio Esfandiari confronted Hansen’s Existentialist approach in a recent World Poker Tour event (“Bad Boys of Poker”), the results were spectacular. Hansen, holding a 10 high, called Esfandiari’s $334,000 all-in reraise. The dumbfounded Esfandiari kept asking Hansen, “I don’t get it. Have you lost your mind?” Hansen then hit two 8’s, beating Esfandiari’s pocket 7’s and eliminating him from the tournament. James McManus, the journalist who made it to the final table of the 2000 World Series of Poker while he covered the event for Harper’s magazine, exaggerates only slightly when he writes that “pros have learned since childhood how to do this by feel, making shrewd leaps of faith about what move will work best in a particular situation as it comes up, often flying directly in the face of the odds” (p. 112).
Predictions and Intentions
Poker players apply the ideas of both Rationalists and Existentialists to situations that inevitably arise at the table. One of these ideas derives from modern Rationalists Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) and Karl Popper (1902–1994). It can be illustrated by the case of a player’s prediction of how an opponent will react if the first player behaves in a certain way (“If I raise before the flop, I can get her to fold”). The second player may decide to behave differently if she comes to know this prediction (“This guy’s trying to steal the pot, so I’ll reraise preflop”). To deal with the fact that knowing his prediction can change its outcome, the first player may try to supplement his original prediction with a second prediction in which the other player’s reaction to his knowledge of the first prediction can be taken into account (“If I raise before the flop, she’ll know it’s because I think she’ll fold, so I’ll checkraise instead”). But, now, the same problem will arise in connection with this second prediction if it becomes known, and so a third prediction is needed, and so on. As long as a player knows (or has a reasonable expectation of) the prediction of what he or she will do, alternatives open up that can’t themselves be predicted. Since there’s always this dimension of unpredictability in a player’s behavior, we can’t play poker exclusively by means of rational principles of explanation and control.6 This increases the need to sharpen our awareness of our opponents’ intentions so that we can at least make educated guesses.
Sartre recognizes that our knowledge of someone’s intention can modify its outcome. His descriptions of the multi-leveled states of awareness involved in human interactions bear an uncanny resemblance to typical scenarios in tournament play.7 As poker players, we’re participants in a game involving strategies of concealment and deception and therefore we have a stake in knowing what our opponents intend to do. By recognizing their intentions, we can modify our actions in ways conducive to winning or at least to minimizing our losses. Of course, our opponents are trying to recognize our intentions so that they may act in their best interest.8 This “hall of mirrors” phenomenon, so common in high-stakes tournament play, can become complicated quickly because not only must you be aware of what your opponent intends, you must also be aware of whether he or she is aware of your intentions, and, moreover, whether he or she intends that you recognize that he or she is aware of what you intend. (“Since Jon assumes that I think he’s bluff-raising, maybe if I play my flush draw he’ll think . . .”) This is the challenge to anyone trying to get a read on another player, and, for the tournament observer, the occasion for witnessing (in the words of author-commentator Michael Konik) the almost preternatural ability of players like Phil Ivey and Johnny Chan to sense weakness in their opponents.
These tensions between skill and chance, between the science of probability and the unpredictability of luck, between the patterning of a player’s behavior and his or her quirkiness at just the opportune moment, between the temptation to cash in for a quick gain and the will required to hang in for the long haul, lie at the heart of poker and are what make playing the game so meaningful to so many.
Poker and the Meaning of Life
To understand how Rationalist and Existentialist approaches provide insights about the meaning of life and
how these in turn can be applied to poker, we need to understand why questions about life’s meaning arise in the first place. As we’ve seen, Rationalism is based on reason, scientific inquiry, and the quest for new knowledge. Its belief in the transformative power of reason encourages optimism. Existentialism largely rejects the authority of tradition, religion, and conventional moral standards. Its belief in the undeniable fact of human possibility and freedom also encourages optimism. But the optimism of both Rationalists and Existentialists has been clouded over by the darkness and disorder of our own troubled era, with its wars, genocide, terrorism, and natural catastrophes whose toll in suffering and loss of life is barely comprehensible. Given these conditions and events, it is easy to understand the erosion of our confidence in human reason and freedom to help one find the meaning of life. How does philosophy help one to live a meaningful life?
Obviously, “living” isn’t a specific activity like knitting a sweater or tuning a guitar. Philosophers aren’t in the business of answering how specific activities like these should be done. Nor do they necessarily assume there’s a single correct way to live, or a single model of a meaningful life, any more than they assume there’s a single correct way to play poker. Instead, philosophy can help us to identify the general threats to meaningfulness in life, and thereby the pitfalls to avoid and the obstacles to overcome. Since a meaningful life necessarily involves individual choice at a fundamental level, we can increase the likelihood of success by the way we make our choices. We can choose with foresight and understanding, as Rationalists urge, and we can take personal responsibility for the exercise of our freedom, as the Existentialists insist. To be sure, there are no guarantees as there would be in a system governed by a perfect God—“No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn,” says Jim Morrison of the Doors. That means that if our lives are to have meaning, it’s up to us to give them meaning, and we ignore these possibilities for choice at our own peril.
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