On Fear and Love
Being the “nice guy” as the caretaker of a state or at the poker table, might win friends but it will not keep your position secure. People might like you but they will not be afraid of you. One of the more famous Machiavellian concerns is “whether it is better to be feared or loved.” Machiavelli argues that it would be best to be both. However, since it is almost impossible to be both feared and loved, it is much safer to be feared. Why? Convenience. While love is a stronger emotion, it is both hard to acquire and hard to maintain, while fear is easier in both respects.
Brunson’s friendship with Sailor Roberts has been well documented. Together, they traveled Texas in their early days in search of action. But friendships are cast aside at the poker table. “When I play with Sailor, I do my level best to cut his throat and he tries to cut mine” (p. 26). Put simply, the player who is loved rather than feared doesn’t have a tactical edge going in to the game. Fear is easier to use and much easier to maintain. The first time you outwit a player and relieve him of his chips, a message is sent to the other players, warning them that you are not one to toy with. Brunson believes that his aggressive style can make “my opponents constantly fear me and therefore make it easy for me to pick-up numerous pots without a contest. . .” (p. 436).
Fortune: The Real River Queen
Some would say that luck rules us all; it can make a bad day worse or a good day better. Machiavelli says that Fortune is the arbiter of half the course of events, while human action and virtù6 is the arbiter of the other half. And according to Machiavelli, Fortune favors those who are adventurous. She favors the young, who are brash and quick to action. “And it is seen that she allows herself to be mastered by the adventurous rather than by those who go out more coldly” (The Prince, pp. 116–17). In the realm of politics, Machiavelli does not believe luck is the sole determiner of fate. Luck doesn’t do anything on her own. She bolsters those whom she favors with good outcomes, weaker foes, and good timing. A bad beat is a bad beat. When “Dama Fortuna” favors a person, the cards will always be fortuitous. When a player loses her favor, it will become most difficult for that player to win.
In poker we are not entirely bound to fate. Indeed we have considerable control over our destinies. Still, Machiavelli’s Fortune is a factor. It can compel that fourth King to hit on the river, but it cannot determine how much we will bet on it, nor what we will do with the money once we have it.
Consider this true story. A friend of mine is playing in a Texas Hold’em tournament. The deal comes around and my friend sees that he is holding K-J. The flop brings another K. At this point he is holding a pretty solid hand. His opponent is holding a 9-10 off suit. The flop also brings a 7, but the odds are that his opponent is not pulling the straight. Before the river, my friend has over a ninety-percent chance of winning the hand. The smart opponent would have already folded but this one stays in, foolishly raising the pot. This nut eventually pulls his inside straight against enormous odds and wins the pot. My friend is not to blame, of course. Fortune simply wasn’t with him. No one has to tell a poker pro about Fortune. Brunson, for example, almost never plays A-J in the hole, though he has no problem going all-in on a 10-2. You’ll also never catch him eating peanuts at the table. Call it superstition, if you will, but it’s a rare poker player indeed who scoffs at Fortune.
Machiavelli tells us that Fortune is akin to a river (pp. 114–15). Usually, the river is beneficial but once in a while it floods, and if one is not prepared, the river can wash away all. Preparing against the deluge with dams and sandbags, though, can prevent a disaster. In this respect, the person can survive Fortune’s worst.
Poker players know that the cards will turn against them. It’s almost inevitable. No one can keep turning Aces. The smart player exploits a good run of cards to accumulate chips and bolster his position. In this way, the good player can survive a run of bad luck with only slight loss. “Yes . . . the deck’s been stacked against me at various times in my life,” Brunson readily admits, “but I’ve overcome every ‘cold deck’ I’ve faced” (Super System, p. 2).
Poor preparation against a turn of bad luck caused the downfall of Machiavelli’s model for his prince, Cesare Borgia, son of Pope Alexander III. After many battles Borgia had carved out the papal protectorate of Romagna. Ruthless as he was cunning, Borgia relied extensively on the power of the Church for his own glory. When his father died, Borgia no longer had the power of the church on his side. He attempted in vain to bribe the College of Cardinals to elect a pope favorable to him. Instead, he should have tried to prevent his enemy from becoming Pope. Borgia also tried to ply a cardinal with gifts to make him forget the injustices that were done to him by his father. This move proved an error. “He who believes that new benefits will cause great personages to forget old injuries is deceived” (The Prince, p. 36).
Even a powerful ruler like Borgia can be overcome when Fortune turns against him. Rather than lamenting the defeat, Machiavelli chides him for not preparing against it. Likewise would he criticize any poker player who wastes the stacks of chips that Fortune has helped procure only because that player did not prepare against the inevitable turn of luck.
Showdown
If you think it’s wrong to deceive and destroy opponents, then why are you playing poker, or why are you in politics? Conflict is conflict. Machiavelli’s theories, meant for the cut-throat politics of Renaissance Italy, can be applied to a friendly (or not so friendly) game of cards. Reputation, the will to do what is necessary, and the preparation to face Fortune are important in poker.
For all one can learn from Machiavelli, just reading his books is not sufficient. It takes the will to be cold, calculating, and ruthless to win. Take it from Brunson. “It comes to a point where you have to take a chance . . . you can’t play a solid, safe game. You must get in there and gamble” (Super System, p. 420). Machiavelli never said it better.7
________
1 Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince (New York: Everyman’s Library, 1992).
2 http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=machiavellianism
3 Super System: A Course in Power Poker (New York: Cardoza, 1978), p. 26.
4 The Art of War (New York: Ballantine, 1993) p. 104.
5 Niccolò Machiavelli, The Discourses (New York: Penguin, 1983).
6 This concept of virtù is unlike our concept of “virtue.” For Machiavelli subscribes to the Roman rather than the Christian ideal, as he says in The Discourses: “It (the Christian ideal) has assigned as man’s highest good humility, abnegation, and contempt for mundane things, whereas the other (the religion of the Romans) identified it with magnanimity, bodily strength, and everything else that conduces to make men very bold” (p. 278).
7 Special thanks to Laura Wysocki, Nina Pryor, Jeff Runokivi, and Eric Bronson for their help in composing this chapter as well as to the workers of the cigar shop where I spent most of my days writing this thing.
15
Why My Daughter Plays Poker (and How I Learned to Deal)
MARK J. HAMILTON
One evening my seventeen-year-old daughter Tess came home later than usual. When I asked her what she had been doing, she nonchalantly replied, “Playing poker, Dad.” Now she has always enjoyed games, but poker? I was befuddled. Sure, everyone plays poker these days, but seventeen-year-old girls? When I was a kid my father taught me how to play five-card draw, but I never dreamed of teaching my daughter to play poker. Euchre or hearts yes, but poker?
Despite the unease many people have with gambling, millions of people are saddling up to the poker table. What are the reasons for poker playing, and should the motive for playing enter into the moral evaluation of the game? There seem to be three primary reasons why someone like my daughter might play poker, all of them related to the pursuit of pleasure: 1) the pleasure of competition, 2) the pleasure of spending time in a recreational activity with friends, and 3) the pleasure of profit-making through winning.
The Pleasure
of Competition
I am not in competition with anybody but myself. My goal is to beat my last performance.
—CELINE DION
Women, like men, enjoy competition. The sports world has been captivated by the meteoric rise of stock-car racer Danica Patrick, tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams, and the growing popularity of the WNBA. Competition is no longer a man’s domain. It’s no wonder, then, that women would eventually find their way to the poker table. Is it a good thing to encourage more people to be competitive? That depends on how we understand the moral worth of competition.
Poker is a game of chance, but betting introduces a great deal of skill and psychology. Poker is a vying game, a game where the players bet on who holds the best cards by progressively raising the stakes until a final showdown, or until all but one give up. Card games go way back in history, but the adoption of the draw in the 1830s turned poker from a simple gamble into a competitive game of skill. The draw elevates skill, drives competition, and makes bluffing essential to vying.
Competition is popular because it produces pleasure, whether it is in sports, jobs, academic performances, or in game playing. Many prefer a life of competition with the possibility of winning or losing to a life without competition. We often think the only pleasure derived from competing is winning but there can also be great pleasure, almost addictive pleasure, in the activity itself. I continue to compete in a men’s over-fifty fast pitch softball league, not to win (though I still enjoy winning), but because I find pleasure in the competition between pitcher and hitter. I love the game, but I also love the sense of competition even in a lighthearted context. I do not enjoy playing poker or board games if I am tired because then I am not alert enough to enjoy the competitive challenge presented. I want to have a clear rested mind when I decide whether to fold or bluff with a pair of deuces. There is something exciting or even invigorating in the competitive effort of matching wits with opponents in this type of contest.
Many professional athletes seek out new areas of competition soon after retirement. Joe Gibbs was into NASCAR between coaching stints for the Washington Redskins, running back Walter Payton raced cars, and Michael Jordan played baseball when he tired of dominating basketball. Who could have possibly bet against the fiercely competitive Jack Nicholas on that meaningless final putt on the last hole in his final British Open in 2005?
But competition has also been criticized for having little or no moral worth, driving athletes like Pete Rose to live compulsively on the edge. Competitive activities like poker are usually zero-sum activities in which one person’s victory is another’s defeat. The internal goal is to defeat the opponent and win. This attitude can reduce the opponent to a non-person, a mere obstacle to be overcome. Some poker players only know how to compete to win and are very unhappy losers. Take Phil Hellmuth, for example, whom Gabe Kaplan calls the “John McEnroe of poker.” Kaplan describes Hellmuth as a nice guy away from the tables but not while playing. “He’s a good winner,” says Kaplan sarcastically. Hellmuth, who is not proud of how he acts, states, “I wanna win more than any other poker player in the world.” But we have to ask, at what cost? And it is very difficult to morally justify this perspective. It’s different from saying, “I want to be the best poker player in the world.” Watching Hellmuth is different from watching an old-time legend like “Dolly” Brunson. You can’t help but root for Brunson because of his classy charisma and his respect for others and the game.
What then makes competition moral? An ethical competitor refuses to humiliate the opponent or destroy him. Respect for persons must be maintained in moral competition. “Victory, the principle value of competition,” writes sport philosopher Robert Simon, “. . . lies not in winning but in overcoming the challenge presented by a worthy opponent.”1 These opponents should be treated with respect. Good competitors treat each other as equals. Simon believes that each competitor must respond and react to the choices and actions of fellow competitors—actions that showcase skills the participants have chosen to develop. In other words, we should understand competition as a mutual quest for excellence. Therefore the opponent is not an obstacle to be overcome but rather “a person whose activity calls for an appropriate response” (Fair Play, p. 35).
Competition provides an opportunity for testing one’s skills and there can be great joy and pleasure in mastering a skill and doing it well in a competitive context. Generally, we think of competition as something that matches you against somebody else, but it is easier to morally justify it when one competes against oneself or competes to excel. Playing well, meeting the demands of the challenge, and mastering the skills do not make winning insignificant, but they can stretch us in the pursuit of excellence in a way that morally justifies competition. If my daughter Tess enjoys the pleasures of competing against herself and others around the poker table, then I say ante-up.
The Pleasure of Friendship
There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship.
—THOMAS AQUINAS
The pleasure of the company can motivate people to step up to the poker table. Poker is often played by friends who want to spend time together and enjoy one another’s fellowship. Spending a night with good friends was Tess’s incentive for taking up the game.
Before the recent renaissance of poker, one place where poker survived and flourished was in men’s service clubs. When I was growing up, my father would regularly go to the VFW where he would hang out with other WWII veterans and play penny-ante for the pleasure of fellowship. His poker buddies were of the same generation and shared a common history; they were raised in the Depression and faced death in the War. Most were conscientious family men who seldom spoke of the War to their families. But over a good poker game, they could renew their common bonds and speak of life, their families and communities, and their War experiences.
When I was in college in the 1970s, card games were a regular occurrence. The purpose of the game was fun; it was a recreational diversion with friends. It was not played because of the money, but the money certainly added to the pleasure. We played poker for the fun of it. The game would not have been the same if some of the players were out to get rich or were not well liked by the others. If one of the players saw the game as a way to make easy money, the rest of us would have quickly tossed him out.
The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle (384–322 B.C.E.) believed that friendship is one of the necessities of the good life, yet it’s something that most people overlook and take for granted. Aristotle divides friendship into three types. The first is friendships of utility, friendships that evolve over time because they are of mutual benefit or value. C.S. Lewis, the author of The Chronicles of Narnia, writes:
Friendship must be about something, even if it were only an enthusiasm for dominoes or white mice. Those who have nothing can share nothing; those who are going nowhere can have no fellow-travelers.
He adds, “Lovers are always talking to one another about their love; Friends hardly ever about their Friendship. Lovers are normally face to face, absorbed in each other; Friends, side by side, absorbed in some common interest.”2 Poker, among friends who have this common interest, can give value to life and open the possibility to furthering the friendship. Friendship is a slow-ripening fruit, says Aristotle. It takes time to develop and poker can provide that opportunity.
Aristotle’s second type of friendship is built on pleasure. Often a common interest or utility will lead to a realization that great pleasure is experienced in the company of this friend. Lewis describes the emergence of this type of pleasurable relationship from casual companionship to true friendship.
Friendship arises out of mere Companionship when two or more of the companions discover that they have in common some insight or interest or even taste which the others do not share and which, till that moment, each believed to be his own unique treasure (or burden). (The Four Loves, p. 78)
Friendship selects people from the collective by twos and thr
ees.
Talking about a game among friends can be as pleasurable as or even more pleasurable than the contest itself. Friends strategize and speculate about what would have happened had the next card been an Ace. Should I have folded or continued my bluff with only a pair of 4’s? Should I have called? Remembering past games helps strengthen bonds. “Do you remember the time you pulled the King on the river and stole the pot with a lucky trips?”
The third and final type of friendship is one that helps shape moral character. Of course most people will admit we need friendships, but few realize we need friendship to become virtuous. Nineteenth-century philosopher John Stuart Mill writes of his friendship with the woman who became his wife:
I formed the friendship which has been the honor and chief blessing of my existence, as well as the source of a great part of all that I have attempted to do, or hope to effect hereafter, for human improvement . . . . Her unselfishness was not that of a taught system of duties, but of a heart which thoroughly identified itself with the feelings of others, and often went to excess in consideration for them by imaginatively investing their feelings with the intensity of its own.3
Enlightenment Philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) believed friendship helps to present the world “as a beautiful moral whole in its perfection.” Moral friendship is possible but rare. Kant says it is “the complete confidence of two persons in revealing their secret judgments and feelings to each other, as far as such disclosures are consistent with mutual respect.”4 It allows us to share our inner thoughts with someone we trust. Such friendships of course are rare.
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