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Maryann Guberman has been a writer and editor with many gaming publications, including Sports Form, Card Player, Poker World, Player's Panorama and Systems and Methods. She also has written and edited numerous books on gambling.

Sep. 29, 2007

The Sky is Falling in; Poker is Dying ... News at Eleven

So here we are, several years after the start of something big. Everyone involved with poker -- from cardroom personnel to professional players, from theorists and authors to recreational players, from publisher of poker material to experts looking for new dead oney -- looked forward to one thing - the commercialization of poker. And it happened.

It's weird, though, isn't it? Now that we are experiencing what was wished for, many of the aforementioned group have begun to question whether or not poker is dead, has reached its peak, has nowhere to go but down.

What's up with these people? Do they have some kind of poker death wish?

I'll be the first to admit that I don't think the poker craze is ALL good mainly because some people can't handle the gamble part of the game -- and no matter how good you are, you are still gambling when you play poker. But, for those who like the mental challenge (It is easier than the Rubik's Cube for most.), almost hyperventilate at the thrill of risk (without potential physical damage, of course), appreciate the ability to earn money by investing money (just like the stock market, whether the Wall Street Journal agrees or not), or are fond of lording their powerful talent over others (That ego/power thing exists everywhere, doesn't it?), poker will always satisfy some needs.

Surely these same rewards can come from other sources but those other sources often require additional expertise that many cannot find within themselves. I, for example, enjoy watching extreme sports but I don't think I could see myself at any stage of my life trying 98 percent of them. I am happy to see my friends reap returns from investing but for me the poker return is about as long as I want to wait to see my money grow (or not). And, while I am quite fond of word challenges such as logic puzzles, anagrams and Bookworm, the solitary nature of these doesn't compute very well in my brain.

On the other hand, part of poker might be dying, partly because this might have been a self-fulfilling prophesy from the start. From the department of you-get-what-you-wish-for again, who didn't want a big entity like the World Poker Tour or Harrah's to provide the kind of hype poker needed to draw new people to the tables? But neither one of these outfits did the deed for the good of poker. They did it for the same reason most companies do things - to build their image and turn a profit.

There's nothing wrong with that unless you come from a background that doesn't believe in this kind of economy.

Assume that the spotlight begins to fade (and it has in the past for all genres the media has adopted). Who will remain to play poker?

It's simple. Everyone who fell in love with poker for their own reasons will still be in love with poker.

Forget that Lady Luck jilts us, deserts us, abuses us. It's part of the mystique. We can't divorce the game. We want to talk about what happened to us when we went out on the bubble last night; we want to discuss the minute details of ace-king offsuit against any other hand. We want to be acknowledged for bluffing the old codger in Seat No. 4. We want to carry that rack of chips proudly from the table to the cashier. We want to crush the you-know-whats of the smirking egomaniac who had our number most of the night.

I think we can dismiss the doom and gloom of impending-death predictions and accept that the game will last a long time, even if TV finds another media darling to fascinate an easily entertained public.

Here's the real scoop: It's the eleventh hour for maybe half the players in the game today. They are the ones who will run out of money before they come to their senses and realize they should have invested in something else. They are the ones who can't handle the circus-like antics of the new crop of players. They are the ones who have scraped the bottom of their addiction and entered rehab. They are the ones who bowed to a higher power (that could be God or Wife or Hubby) and stopped spending their nights in the cardroom or staring at a computer monitor.

But it's just the dawn of another day in poker paradise for the remainder. And, oh yeah, about the sky? It's not falling in ... yet.