Community Cards: Poker as a Sport

Poker in Popular Culture

Topics: Community Cards, Poker in Popular Culture

Historically speaking, several factors have affected the status of our favorite card game in popular culture.

One is a long-standing association of poker with vice and/or activities of dubious legal or moral standing. As a game frequently linked with outlaws and ne’er-do-wells since its introduction in the early nineteenth century, such a legacy continues to influence opinions about the game even today, despite poker’s popularity.

Another factor affecting poker’s cultural status -- especially legally -- is the extent to which it is associated with other gambling games. Here debates over the relative importance of skill and luck in poker hold sway, with the game’s defenders insisting upon a difference between poker and other casino games in which skill is of little or no significance.

More recently, a third way of looking at poker has emerged, one influenced largely by televised coverage on ESPN and other major networks, namely, the notion that poker could somehow be regarded as a sport.

Much like these other associations -- with vice or lawlessness, or with chance-based gambling games -- the idea that poker is like sports, or is indeed worthy of being considered a sport in its own right, provokes debate. Reasonable people can certainly disagree on this one. However, I think it’s worth pointing out that any talk of poker being a sport (or like a sport) is generally going to have a positive influence when it comes to encouraging the game’s acceptance in the culture at large.

Sports occupy an important place in American culture as well as around the world. And while a few -- the “spoil sports” (pun intended) -- object to our dedication to sports as a not-always-healthy obstacle to productivity, many recognize the social value sports can have for both players and spectators.

Therefore, while not everyone is going to accept that poker is a sport, those who are at least willing to entertain the idea are probably also going to be more accepting of poker, generally speaking.

The connection of poker with sports was evoked once again just a couple of weeks ago when the International Federation of Poker staged an event in London consisting of both an invite-only World Poker Championship and something called “The Nations Cup.” The latter was a duplicate-poker tournament involving players from eleven different nations plus a twelfth group representing the virtual “nation” of Zynga poker.

The Nations Cup consisted of two days of play -- including one in which players competed in cars on the London Eye along the River Thames -- and culminated with the team from Germany taking the title. Both poker events were part of a larger series, the U.K. Mind Sports Festival, in which other games including chess, Go, bridge, draughts (checkers), and Xiangqi (a Chinese board game with affinities to chess) were contested as well.

Not unlike the Epic Poker League, the IFP is an organization interested in staging tournaments and compiling rankings of players that will serve “to reinforce the element of skill involved” in poker “as well as the talent and determination required to succeed” (to quote from the IFP website). Created in 2009, the IFP is a member of the International Mind Sports Association to which also belong world-governing bodies for bridge, chess, draughts, and Go. Anthony Holden, English author and authority on opera, the royal family, and poker – he wrote the legendary Big Deal and several other poker books - is President of the IFP.

A spokesperson for Mind Sports Partners -- the marketing group charged with helping publicize the International Mind Sports Association’s message -- recently reiterated the connection between these intellectual games and sports. According to Patrick Nally, Managing Director for Mind Sports Partners, games such as chess, poker, and bridge “are real sports which demand many of the characteristics and qualities of physical sports including self-discipline, competition, training, stamina and fair-play.”

Of course, even some of poker’s most ardent defenders scoff at such attempts to characterize the card game as a sport. I’ll admit I’m more comfortable referring to poker as a game than a sport, although having played as well as reported on numerous poker tournaments I can appreciate the several ways poker can be said to resemble a sport, including those listed by Nally.

Longtime poker tournament reporter B.J. Nemeth has noted how fans watching an event live or on television or reading reports online often experience the tournament in much the same way as when following a sporting event. Nemeth has also noted how as one reporting from tournaments, he, too, believes “the closest analogy to my job description is as a sports reporter.” It’s a comparison with which I tend to agree.

Televised coverage of poker tournaments continues to evolve, with increasing emphasis on live (or nearly live) coverage, the graphical presentation of statistics and results, and other elements that might be described as familiar narrative building blocks of live sports programming. One could say that the EPL’s effort to create a professional poker league along with the Global Poker Index similarly provides additional ways to explore parallels between poker and other sports.

In other words, we’re amid something of a trend here. Where it will lead, it is hard to say. But it’s safe to say that at present the association of poker with sports has never been stronger.

I think fans of poker and players who wish to see the game enjoy greater cultural acceptance should probably welcome characterizations of poker that liken it to sports -- or, to employ the IFP’s term, “mind sports,” a phrase that evokes both affinities to athletic competitions as well as the game’s intellectual component. Even if it seems odd or incorrect to do so.

Like I say, I’m not necessarily one who would instinctively agree with calling poker a sport. But it sure sounds better than some of the other things poker sometimes gets called.