Poker is a sport…

Declared by Russia in 2007, the first and only known country to do so,  it was retracted at the latter half of last year due to regulation problems.  Meaning, those who ran casinos in Russia went on ahead and exploited this ruling and built a number of game rooms beyond what the government wanted.  They wanted it concentrated on 4 specific places , their version of Las Vegas and Atlantic city (only it’s in Russia, of course).

Poker, was not at fault, but rather the rules that governed it and the ramifications of a popular sport being exploited unregulated by those who want to profit from it.  It’s no different from the mushroomed billiard halls of the late 90s and early 2000 when Efren “Bata” Reyes popularized the game of 9-ball and billiards as a whole.  No different from the streets that became makeshift basketball courts during weekends when PBA’s popularity exploded.  Locally, it’s been likened to “Lechon Manok” phenomenon, whenever products like this hits a frenzied popularity, where everybody wants a piece of the pie, or “Shawarma “ or designer coffee, or cellphone repair shops or lotto outlets or whatever pop culture fever hits the populace.

Longevity is its true test.  How it survives the test of time.  Darwinian on some levels, “survival of the fittest”, to prove its mettle.  Poker by definition, not just by popularity or its current marketability, fits well to what “sport” means.  Webster defined it as:

(1)  physical activity engaged in for pleasure (2) : a particular activity (as an athletic game) so engaged in

I’m sure they didn’t have Poker in mind.  Since poker then was too busy battling out its reputation amidst sharks and cheats in its shady riverboat history in the USA.  The material is available around the web and will survive even after the Hollywood bump that made the game go mainstream.  Its history is as rich as any other sport not unlike UNO or Monopoly.

Poker is a sport…

It ranked 11 in a poll by Turnkey Sports, an internationally trusted name in the business.  It beats out chess and bowling.  Comparatively, these are sports that test the strength mind more than the physical aspect of the game.  All sports require a certain amount of luck.  It just varies on how lucky/good you think a Daniel Negreanu is or a Neil Arce to come up with those scintillating wins because they read the situation right versus how lucky/good a Kobe Bryant and/or Lebron James at crunch time because they read the situation right.  What we can both agree is that they are all risk takers.  One is lucky and good because of the outcome, but the process is the same.  They all prepare and take risk at a given time, for that moment!   Sometimes it pays dividends, sometimes it don’t.  But at the times that it does, that’s what people remember.  That’s a moment we all want.  There lies its greatest appeal.

Poker like any other sport generates excitement to a specific demographic, not all.  Poker is boring to some as Soccer is boring to most Pinoys.  Athletes are fit only now but not during the time of Babe Ruth.  The only argument valid is that Poker is a sport that put its money upfront as part of the game.  It is something that culturally we are only starting to deal with a level of maturity.  As we begin to accept the betting odds that is part of the news report with Manny Pacquiao’s fight as a reinforcement of how good he is versus his opponent.  That level of maturity towards money is a different blog for a different time.  Truth is only in the Bond movie “Casino Royale” can you wager a car (well,  the antagonist placed the key of his car on the table, the dealer called it as good) in a poker game.  And we cannot over emphasize that anything that is taken in excess is bad, even vegetables.

But does it really matter if we declare poker as a sport like those petition wanting to include poker as an Olympic sport to the 2012 Olympics?   Bowling never did.