Something I love and enjoy is playing the classic card game, Poker. I like all forms of it. I can play your classic 5-draw, and, if you can refresh me of the rules, I can play a game called "Omaha Hold'em." Now, some aficionados might be saying, "It's Texas Hold'em, silly g00se!", but they are two separate "Hold'ems" and I enjoy them both. I actually haven't played Omaha Hold'em that much, only once or twice. If there was only one kind of "Hold'em", would it be necessary to say "Texas... Hold'em"?
The beauty of Texas Hold'em is that you can play it with a lot more people than you can other forms of Poker. 52 cards, after a certain amount of people, you're gonna run outta cards. Fact of life.
In this, something that I never do is bet money. For me, it is morally wrong. You can draw your own conclusions. I wouldn't play at a Casino, because then that's just saying "Goodbye" to my money even if I didn't get attached/addicted to the danger and thrill of winning.
I want to someday go to some sort of Poker tournament though. My question is "would this be bad?" I want to, by the time I'm done writing this post, develop an idea of where I stand on this.
Here is something I considered and discussed with one of my friends; Let's say a race car driver enters a race and pays an entry fee. If he wins, then he gets a monetary reward that is made up of a part of all the race car drivers' entry fees. If he loses, then he goes home with the good memory of doing something he loves, and doesn't feel like he threw his money away with the entry fee.
Now, technically, could someone say that this is gambling? Most people, I believe, would not say that, because of the fact that he's just paying money to see how his skills line up with other competitors, and then as an afterthought there's the chance that he'll win more than what he paid if he does well.
If there was a Poker Tournament, where people paid a certain fee to enter and weren't able to buy more chips as they went, very similar to the race car scenario two paragraphs ago, then would it be bad to enter? If the only difference between the race car scenario and this here Poker Scenario (Poker makes me want to talk like I'm in the Wild West), is that the skill being tested is playing cards instead of racing.
(This next sentence is pushing it) arguably, because race car driving could be more dangerous than playing cards, wouldn't there be a little more at stake in that contest than in a Poker Tournament?
Again, if the contender leave the event without taking home a prize, neither the race car driver nor the Poker player feels that he has wasted money.
Imagine with me if you will, I have a line with a dot on each end. One of the dots represents what I know to be gambling, and the other one represents what I know to not be gambling... I just have to decide where I draw my line in the gray area.
For now, I'm content with holding poker parties with my friends and defeating my College age brother and his friends when they play poker. I see your bet and I raise you 10.
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3 comments:
I hate betting. Not because I think it's morally wrong (I never understood that) but I just can't get this mindset of "expecting to lose money and just enjoying the game." I don't enjoy an extremely complex game full of chance, lying, immeasurable complexity and more jargon than anything else I can think of. One time I lost 20 bucks on a cruise because some friends ensured me I'd enjoy the experience. I played some game I didn't even understand explained by a cruise employee with a very thick british accent that I wouldn't have understood if he spoke in 3rd grade american english. I lost half my money on one hand and was extremely frustrated and pissed off.
I even got mad trying penny slots in vegas. I only spent a dollar! But the game was so confusing and poorly explained that I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. It was like throwing a dollar in the trash, penny by penny. The game was not at all enjoyable for me because I didn't know if I was doing well or not and I didn't know how to play it at all despite reading the instructions 3 times over.
Gambling SUCKS. I will never gamble with real money ever again even if it's for a dollar. I have played texas hold em with chips though and it's pretty fun for a poker game.
I'm just not into doing all the same old crap that everyone else does like getting together to sit on the couch and cheer for people playing football that wouldn't even attend your funeral if you died, eat way too much meat cooked on a grill with assorted other garbage, playing poker, drinkin lots of bud light, etc. I'd rather get up and actually DO something like go hike and marvel at God's creation, get a workout, and have an adventure. Or go for a peaceful bike ride on a trail. Or go camp. Or surf, wakeboard, skateboard, ski, waterski, rollerblade, anything to get off the frickin couch where almost every person I know sits and rots and wants to sit with other people too.
/rant
I applaud your rant (and you know that I know ranting!). I think that what everyone truly wants is that.
There's a book called Wild at Heart that I think you would like it. I was going to say a bunch about it here, but then I remembered that I made a blog post about it! http://sdtektiv.blogspot.com/2007/01/book-wild-at-heart.html
I lended it a friend at school and I told CrimsonAssassin about it and they both said it was really good!
I was surprised when the friend at school said, the day after I lended it to him, that he was halfway done and that he was going to read it again after he finished!
second try at link... yay! A working link!
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