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Message: [QUOTE="SYWTWAF, post: 2001111, member: 77923"] Every consistently winning poker player (and probably many of the ones who aren't winning) knows that poker involves something fundamentally different from fixed-odds casino games. I am personally mindful never to refer to my poker playing as "gambling", and I agree with you that the association has a part in harming poker's image. However, I think the big picture is a little more complicated than that... I think the "gambling" association isn't truly at the root of poker's problems; it is, rather, a convenient piece of rhetoric that every party that has a stake in poker's viability (or lack thereof) has come to strategically deploy. The crackdowns, the restrictions, the condescension (on the part of governments/the DOJ) are that much more palatable to the public because it can be made to appear to be about a bunch of dumb gamblers being purged of their vices. Imagine the public uproar and sympathy that would have ensued had Black Friday, instead, involved confiscating land from farmers, burning down shops of business owners, etc. But nooo... because the sphere in question can be couched in terms of "gambling", it becomes unimaginable that perfectly upstanding livelihoods and innocent pastimes were destroyed. And yet, though it is difficult to state with certainty the exact cause of it, I would bet my ass that online poker restriction and Black Friday have little to do with genuine ethical concerns about "gambling", or the "well-being" of the individual gambler (just look at all the brick and mortar gambling purveyors where you, you poor little gambler, are more than welcome to quench your pathetic addiction), and much more so with the financial interests of certain parties. However, I must concede that poker players also have a two-sided agenda in affirming or disavowing their relationship with "gambling". We will shun the label when seeking legalization or lauding our own accomplishments, but we most happily welcome to our games precisely the sorts of people who [I]do [/I]see poker as being about luck and gambling, and thus are unlikely to hone their skills. The poker economy for us, calculated risk takers, thrives on the involvement of clueless gamblers--and we are perfectly happy to keep up the image of poker as a gambling game for them. We're all a bunch of self-interested hypocrites, almost every one of us. :) [/QUOTE]

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