Poker As a Sport: The Debate Continues

What is it, exactly, that makes a sport? Is it competition? Referees? Scorekeeping? Teams? Large Prizes?

Is Poker a Sport???

If all sports have these elements, then you may like to count poker as a certifiable sport. Most of these criteria seem obvious enough. Competition is inherent, especially when money’s involved. Dealers and floor men may as well be referees or line men. And if you don’t look at your bankroll as a way of keeping score, then your ignorance will make you pay in the most literal sense. But if the rule is only one player to a hand, where do we see teams in poker?

Teams in Poker

In the sense of team sports, poker is most closely related to the Olympics: team effort with individual glory. Here though, the team is defined merely by the advertising and brand imaging that nearly every poker room on the internet uses to legitimize themselves. Most claim a stable of high-profile players who play exclusively on whicheverpokersite.com. PokerStars snatches up World Series of Poker winners so quickly that their marketing reps follow right behind the security guards holding the winner’s money. But with players like Chris Moneymaker and Jamie Gold who are otherwise indistinguishable from the writhing masses of amateurs trying to break through, even WSOP champions aren’t what make a good team.

So what do we look for in a good team? As in any other sport, high scorers are a good place to start. Of course, no full-fledged poker team is going to trounce around players who aren’t millionaires by way of poker exploits, and often those exploits have to be in the form of tournament earnings, where fact-checking is easy and legitimate. But further from the advertising sense of exclusivity, there is a matter of quality.

How do you determine quality?

By how well a player specializes in a game? No, because the best players are only marginally more or less awesome based on the specifics of the game, the stakes, the limits, and the structure. I think a quality player is someone who can comment on a game (or games), innovate on multiple levels, and distinguish themselves—which often comes in the form of specialization. If I had to pick any one team to win—tournaments, cash games, hearts and minds—it would be Team Full Tilt. Big surprise, I know. Evidently you’ve seen the shrine I have to Jennifer Harman in my closet.

Picks For My Fantasy Poker League

I admit it, I’m completely biased. But I’ll give you an extra special reason for why I’m biased towards each of the 11 members of Team Full Tilt:

Ultimately, the question of whether qualifies as a sport as opposed to a ‘parlor game’ or ‘waste of a retirement account’ is up to the individual. What’s not up to the individual is how awesome Jennifer Harman is.

Understood?

- Luke Phillips