Is Money All There is to Poker?

There's More to "Win" at the Table Than Long Green

It's hardly going too far out on a limb to state that there's more to poker than money. Yet, interestingly, if you say something like that to many poker players, they'll look at you as if that were the stupidest thing they'd ever heard. The fundamental principle, stated endlessly, is that it's all about money. Win the money. Get the money. Maximize your gains. Pocket that change, take no prisoners, and screw everyone. The late, great Jack Straus once said, famously, "If my grandma sat down in my game, I'd break her."

While this cutthroat position may indeed be the one that the typical poker pro stands by, it is actually not the reason that most folks play the game. Poker has long-term negative expected value (EV); not many people make money playing the game in the long run. As long as there are time charges, and pots get raked, more money goes on the table than comes back off it. Winning players first have to beat the cost of playing the game and then take their profits from the losing players. There have been various estimates (guesses?) about what percent of players actually make money, long term. The ones that ring truest are in the 5% to 10% range. In short, no matter how loudly or often the "get the money" anthem is sung, the vast majority of poker players are not getting it.

If this is true, and it most certainly is, then there has got to be more to poker than money. From a psychological point of view, there are many theories about why these people keep playing even though they keep losing. When the typical poker player "keeps score," whether he knows it consciously or not, he actually has two bankrolls. In one goes the folding green, in the other the emotional or psychological cash. It is actually the total of these two bankrolls that captures the true coin of the realm in poker.

There are lots of ways to accumulate this dual form of coinage. Sometimes, of course, it comes in the form of raw cash, as when you hit the jackpot on a slot while waiting for a seat to open; sometimes it comes in culinary form when gourmet dinner at the casino's best restaurant; sometimes it comes in psychological forms, such as when you play a hand of poker so exquisitely that the satisfaction that comes from bathing in your genius is worth more than the mere profits on the play.

Of course, both of these bankrolls can also get hurt. If that slot vacuumed all the loose cash out of your pocket, you are definitely somewhat the poorer. If you had a miserable time on your trip because it rained the entire week and you caught the cold from hell, it won't matter that you actually beat the $20-$40 game; your combined bankroll shrank. So, you see how this works. The real "bottom line" is going to be, for most of us, a gentle blend of cash, creature comforts, and psychological payoffs.

Yup, there are a lot of reasons to play poker.