Poker and Philosophy

by Bronson, Eric

  When Brunson was diagnosed with melanoma, and was given four months to live, his wife Louise and his old poker buddy Sailor Roberts stood by his bedside around the clock, willing him back to health. I do not believe that this type of friendship is often found among professional poker players though it is much more common around a casual Friday-night game. The game provides time together with close friends. There’s value in the companionship of those talking shop or who regularly see one another tested.

  In our transient, isolated, computer-geek society we can attribute some of the revival of poker to the need to be with others, to find a common bond of activity, and rediscover companionship. Other generations have understood that friendship is one of the happiest and most fully human of all loves. When two or more companions discover something more, then friendship may arise and a poker player may discover, as Lewis did, that friendship “has no survival value; rather, it is one of those things which give value to survival.” It is the most profitable kind of poker playing.

  The Pleasure of Profit Making

  In the state of nature, profit is the measure of right.

  —THOMAS HOBBES

  The pleasure of competition or companionship is much different than the pleasure of making money, which can cause significant harm both to oneself and others. Gambling is unlike other competitive activities because more than the satisfaction of winning or the disappointment of losing is involved. Though there can be immense pleasure in profiteering through gambling, there can also be great misery in financial loss or in creating poverty in others.

  Today so much of poker is for high stakes; it’s become a tournament money game. What is gained and what is lost? Watching today’s high stakes poker, I find little fellowship or camaraderie among the participants. Clearly these are great competitors, but their goal is to win because of the enormous cost of losing and massive financial benefit of winning. And competing to win for profit is not easy to morally justify by itself. These are professional players, and just as those who watch professional sports dream of emulating their heroes, so the amateur player believes he can emulate his hero. It all looks so easy. But he will be quite shaken when he loses his shirt or ends up thousands of dollars in debt. This risk is great, especially where there is no limit to the pot.

  Poker presents two very realistic dangers. First is the threat of great financial loss, and second is the potential addiction to the behavior. Poker differs from other competitive activities like baseball and football since there is no negotiated payment made to all participants (poker is similar to tennis and golf in this way). The professionals are paid to perform in other sports, regardless of whether they win. In these sports, the players are paid contractually prior to competing. Thus there is no real personal risk involved except to play for future contracts or bonuses. A player cannot lose what he has already accumulated.

  In professional poker tournaments one may pay a fee to enter, but the amount lost or won is not identical to the number of chips provided. For example, one might pay $5,000 to enter the tournament and then be given $50,000 in chips. Then one either places “in the money,” and wins a set amount or one loses all $50,000 in chips which is really only the initial $5,000 investment. This puts a cap on the amount lost. It is quite different than playing an uncontrolled unlimited pot where one could literally lose everything. The no-limit game provides opportunity for exploitation and many have suffered irreparable harm. How can such a game be morally justified?

  For most recreational poker players like my daughter, gambling is fun and a form of harmless entertainment; for four to six percent of gamblers it can become compulsive and pathological. And there is growing evidence that addiction is rising rapidly among poker players. Experts say that adolescents are the fastest growing portion of the gambling public. “The Ohio Council on Problem Gambling says teens are two to three times more likely to be problem gamblers than adults. About forty thousand Ohio teens are likely to be addicted to gambling, the council says.”5 Pathological gamblers can experience tremendous emotional and financial problems that require immediate attention. They have a much higher suicide rate than those addicted to alcohol or drugs. They are addicted to the action, not the money. It is a seductive high that can ultimately become destructive. The American Psychological Association calls it a “disorder of impulse control.” These gamblers usually go through three phases:6

  1)They experience the euphoria of winning, leading to an optimism that the winning will continue. A rush will come from that first big win along with any subsequent wins.

  2)A kid may begin playing and believe she can make easy money. And with so much money available this can escalate rapidly into something more than just penny gambling. Then love of competition or the game is no longer relevant. One can become hooked simply by winning a first big pot, creating an attraction to the money and the rush associated with it. This euphoria gets her coming back for more, but what happens when her luck runs out? An addict will start to chase her losses and believe the next game will correct everything. The nearly addicted gambler says that it is simply a run of bad luck so she keeps playing.

  3)Finally there is the desperation phase where more time is spent gambling and thinking about gambling. Larger bets are made. Debts increase and feelings of despair creep in. This has become a greater danger among the girls and boys who have begun playing poker. Gambling on poker is on the increase among adolescents and “it is clear that youth are at a greater risk of experiencing gambling related problems as adults.” It is also a concern that “rates of problem gambling among youth are considerably higher than the rates for adult problem gambling.”7

  Few competitive activities have the addictive or obsessive side-effects that gambling does. It is an activity which can be fun but it can also be an area where the motive and the behavior can become compulsive and destructive.

  Even with a significant amount of money at stake, though, poker can be positive for the person who knows her limits. Dr. Mark Burtman, who has written numerous articles about his experiences on the World Poker Tour, claims to have an obsession but not an addiction. He believes addicts will go to any extreme including self-destructive actions. On the other hand obsession involves “immersing oneself in something or some activity and devoting oneself fully to that activity.”8 In this case self-control is never abandoned. Burtman believes his hatred of losing has kept him from moving from obsession to addiction (note that his motive has remained competition and not profit). This drive has led him to master the game. In response to people who believe he has a problem with gambling, Burtman writes:

  They are so off the mark, as winning poker in my life is a combination of self control, intertwined with good judgment, insight into the play of others, knowledge of the game, and proper execution. Losing is usually a breakdown in one of those areas. Constant success in all those areas requires nothing short of an obsession, but it cannot coexist with the loss of self-control inherent in addiction. (Burtman, p. 3)

  Poker is attractive to young people because it creates a romantic vision of wealth without sacrifice, and many believe that becoming a professional poker player is easier than becoming a professional athlete. Playing your way to the top seems doable. Poker, once relegated to smoky back rooms, is now in living rooms all across America, causing concern as a new generation of gambling addicts is created. The desire to play or compete for profit in a contest where losers suffer more than just the indignity of defeat creates moral complexities that must be addressed.

  Can playing poker be morally justified? I contend that the motive for which one plays can determine the moral nature of the contest. Poker is morally justified if done for the motives of pleasure found in competition or fellowship rather than profit.

  Competition provides an opportunity for testing oneself and for pursuing excellence. The return to old fashioned card playing in a time of incredibly sophisticated computer games provides occasion for more human contact. Even at the World Series of Poker tourn
ament there will be those who will shake hands or even hug at the end of the contest. There is a social dynamic that is more beneficial or more positive than just interaction with a computer. It provides the possibility of deeper human interaction that can lead to friendship. But playing for profit can leave behind a number of lost souls on their way down the Vegas Strip, seeking poker heaven (or hell).

  Everybody Loves Poker

  I’m not the first father to worry about his child playing poker. Back in 1996, Everybody Loves Raymond ran a great show in which Ray’s dad (played by Peter Boyle) doesn’t want his son to play in his regular poker game.9 Ray is insistent and predictably loses all his money . . . to his dad. In the end, Mr. Barone bails his son out, teaching viewers about the strength of family ties. I’d do the same for my daughter Tess, of course, but if we ever played poker together, I think I know who would need the bailing out.

  ________

  1 Robert Simon, Fair Play (Boulder: Westview, 2004), pp. 26–27.

  2 C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves (London: HarperCollins, 1960), p. 73.

  3 Autobiography, www.john-mill.com/works/autobiography/6.html, Chapter 6, p. 1.

  4 Lectures on Ethics (New York: Harper and Row, 1963), p.471.

  5 “School Gambling Raises Concern,” Cleveland Plain Dealer (1st August, 2005).

  6 Dr. Robert Custer, M.D., has developed this Three-Phase Model, http://www.addictionrecov.org/aboutgam.htm#threephasemodel

  7 Matthew Carlson and Thomas Moore, “Adolescent Gambling in Oregon,” http://www.gamblingaddiction.org/adolescent/default.htm

  8 Mark Burtman, “Obsession Is Not an Addiction,” http://www.pokerpages.com/articles/archives/mark-burtman19.htm, p. 1.

  9 “Win, Lose, or Draw,” (Episode #9609), 1996.

  PART IV

  Three of a Kind:

  Texas, Vegas, and

  Hollywood

  16

  Jewish Philosophy Wins the Pot: How Stu Ungar and Emmanuel Levinas Corralled the Texans

  PHILIP LINDHOLM

  Gambling has captivated America. High-stakes tournaments are being broadcast on television and radio, novices are flocking to casinos, private competitions are popping-up in homes across the nation, and overall spending on commercial games continues to reach new heights. Perhaps all this results from people increasingly seeing games of chance as tantalizing reprieves from the daily rat race, from “cubical culture,” which has been a recurring motif in the media in recent years. Three notable examples include the British, and later American, sitcom The Office, and two 1999 films, Fight Club and Office Space, the latter of which revolves around the tagline “work sucks” and climaxes with a group of stiff-necked squares rabidly beating an office printer with a baseball bat (whereas in Fight Club they just beat on one another). Healthy doses of risk may be able to check such lashing-out sessions, which would then extol the inveterate gambler who thrives on the risk of the game, even if it is hidden behind an indifferent poker face.

  It is precisely risk and uncertainty that philosopher Emmanuel Levinas (1906–1995) admonishes people to accept in life. Some degree of both is impossible to avoid, which does not then provide an excuse to stop living, to stop deciding. We must decide to live our lives; we must decide to decide. This lesson is wonderfully embodied in gambling where it’s impossible to escape decision. In fact, at its highest pitch, the intensity of making a choice can reduce all of a gambler’s hopes and dreams down to a symbol residing on the underside of a small plastic card, and Americans are all-in. At this rate, the World Series of Poker (WSOP) might one day come to rival the World Series of Baseball in vying for the hearts and minds of the American public. The hats and bats of America’s past heroes may increasingly give way to the smokers and jokers of its future legends. One of the first of such poker legends no doubt emerged in the spring of 1980.

  “The Kid” Strikes It Big

  In his first ever attempt, Stu “the Kid” Ungar took the Texas Hold’em Championship from veteran Doyle Brunson at just twenty-six years old, making him the youngest champion in history (an honor now held by Phil Hellmuth). To further obliterate Brunson’s pride, Ungar had only been playing hold’em for a few months. Like a thief in the night, he absconded with Brunson’s title with all the mystery one would expect from an unknown underdog. He was stoic, discreet, and caught everyone by surprise. Perhaps this gives credence to the notion that there are only two rules for the successful poker player: 1) Never tell everything you know, and 2).

  The Jewish kid from New York was known for his card playing long before coming to Vegas, but that was with respect to gin rummy rather than hold’em. At just ten years old, he won a local gin rummy tournament and eventually dropped out of school to play full-time in larger games. Stu’s father, a bookmaker, had brought him up in the (in)famous gambling milieu known as the “New York Goulash” where “the kid” flourished. And yet, even after demonstrating natural talent, winning the 1980 championship, and having an IQ rumored at 185, Ungar was given forty-to-one odds of a repeat victory in 1981. Strangely enough, though Ungar agreed with the odds makers, just as he had the year before when he bet heavily on Brunson to win the championship and put nothing on himself. However, what Ungar did have on his side was an uncanny ability to accept risk, which is a highly desirable trait according to philosopher Emmanuel Levinas.

  Levinas on Philosophy as Temptation

  Levinas was born in Kaunas, Lithuania into an orthodox Jewish environment consumed by intellectual fervor. Along with the influences of the Hebrew Bible and its rabbinic commentators, the young Emmanuel came to appreciate the rich heritage of Western philosophy, even to the point where, as a teenager, he began to leave Judaism behind. It was not until after living through the Russian Revolution in 1917 and the Second World War as a (captured) French soldier that he would reclaim the tradition of his forebears. From 1947 to 1951, Levinas studied under the renowned Mordechai Chouchani (who also tutored Elie Wiesel), and thereby rediscovered what he called his “dormant Judaism.”1 Ever after, his thought would be steeped in the texts, traditions, and history of the Jewish people.

  In December of 1964, Levinas delivered a lecture entitled “The Temptation of Temptation,” in which he discussed the very characteristic that led Stu Ungar to fame—the willingness to decide in the face of risk. The point of departure for the paper was a commentary on Exodus 19:17 recorded in a portion of the Jewish Talmud known as Tractate Shabbath. For Levinas, the “Temptation of Temptation” is philosophy, because, in favoring knowing over doing, it immobilizes, prevents one from taking action. “We [philosophers],” declares Levinas, “want to know before we do . . . We do not want to undertake anything without knowing everything. . . .”2 The philosopher refuses to act until all the results are in, and therefore, because all the results are never in, he or she never gets around to doing anything. In this way, the philosopher wants to “live dangerously, but in security, in the world of truths.” By never acting, the philosopher attempts to be guarded against the chance inherent in decision, and thus the possibility of making the wrong choice.

  Levinas is keen to demonstrate that this mode of philosophical inquiry in no way has the trump card over actually making choices and standing by them. Philosophy cannot win the game without playing, as it were. So, while one is told that “Any act not preceded by knowledge is considered in an unfavorable light: it is naïve,” and moreover that “Only philosophy takes away naïveté,” Levinas argues that it would be irresponsible to live life without taking action (Levinas, p. 35). In fact, it would be naïve to think one can know before one does. The right course of action always involves an initial decision to decide.

  The gambler, like Ungar, embraces the very uncertainty that Levinas finds wanting in the philosopher.3 The gambler understands it to be part of the deal, and must do so because in poker, unless one is of the same mold as Edward Norton’s cheating persona Lester “Worm” Murphy of Rounders fame, no amount of skill can overcome the chance inherent in either the tur
n of the next card or the strength of the opponent’s hidden hand. One can make an educated guess, but it remains a guess however educated it may be.

  And They’re Off!

  If the odds makers had guessed right, then Stu Ungar should have kept his $10,000 entry fee and steered clear of the 1981 Texas Hold’em Championship.4 As always, the stakes ($375,000) were high and the competition stiff. The first player was eliminated in just an hour and a half, which prompted one spectator to remark, “Hunnerd an’ eleven bucks a minute.” Ungar also experienced difficulty in the early stages and was forced to go all-in on three occasions at the first table alone. Such close calls continued to plague him into the third day of play, but then his resilience began to pay off as he found himself amongst a small elite group of six players. Of those remaining, three were “Texans”—Ken Smith, Gene Fisher, and Bill Smith—and three were “Jews”—Stu Ungar, Perry Green, and Jay Heimowitz. The crowd quickly realized this point and shouts of “Keep it in Texas!” started to pervade the room. Bets were even made on one side against the other, and, with the ethnic sides drawn, play marched on.

  At 4:30 p.m. on the third day, Ungar eliminated one of his own as Jay Heimowitz, a tall business man from Monticello, New York, scampered away with $30,000 in prize money. Ungar then broke the Texan Bill Smith with a flush, and, $37,500 richer, the latter’s drunken body slowly staggered out of sight. With a pair of Texans and Jews left, the game broke for dinner. The stacks of Ungar and Green far outmatched that of their Texan foes at this point. Ungar led with $340,000, followed by Green at $220,000 and each of the Texans at $95,000 apiece.