By
grapsfan |
Published
Sep 05 2008, 08:28 PM
I’m consistently amazed at how good people can get at poker. It’s such a complicated game, with layer upon layer of thinking and deception. Mike Sexton’s catchphrase “a minute to learn, a lifetime to master” is true for people of any age. So when mastery comes in just a few years, and emerges in someone still in his or her teens, I am impressed, jealous, and a little saddened, all at the same time. There are hundreds of kids out there who are better at poker than I will ever be, with more coming around every year.
In an open, capitalistic, competitive society, nothing matters but your ability to do the job, to win or lose, to succeed or fail on your own merits. Sounds great, doesn’t it?
Unfortunately, this ideal doesn’t exist in any aspect of our lives. There are always rules and regulations. I could write perfect computer software, but if I don’t graduate from college, it will be very difficult for me to make a living. Industry states some jobs require a degree. There are mandatory and optional pre-requisites for every profession, which have evolved over time and may take years to change. The NBA took 25 years to allow players straight out of high school, then another 35 to decide to establish the minimum age of 19.
Governments, in conjunction with societal standards, define other pre-requisites for what we can and can’t do. I may have the greatest hand-eye-foot coordination in the world, and raced go-karts and dirt bikes since I was a kid…but in the United States, I can’t get a license to drive a car or motorcycle until I’m 16. Similarly, I have to be 18 to vote, 21 to legally drink alcohol.
As with private enterprise, societal standards take generations to evolve. After the repeal of alcohol prohibition in the United States, approximately 50 years passed before the drinking age was changed from 18 to 21. A conservative movement in our society worked with a sympathetic president and Congress to drive the change.
OK, by now, I hear you saying, “geez, Graps, get to the point already.” So I will.
The gambling industry, and specifically online poker, is under similar attack from a conservative movement, with the ear of a sympathetic president and Congress. The acceptable age for gambling, throughout most of the world, is 18. Anyone caught playing at a younger age is breaking applicable laws. It doesn’t matter if they’re a master card counter, ready and able to “beat the dealer” at blackjack. It doesn’t matter if they understand know perfect probability to make optimal craps wagers, and manage money well enough to never go broke.
The conservative movement attacking us for gambling, in any form, is looking for any example of our depravity to provide ammunition for their cause. A minister’s son robs a bank to pay off his online poker losses? A kid steals his mom’s credit card and maxes it out in an online casino? Someone lies about their age to get around a site’s Terms of Service?
The enemies of our game care not about whether an underage person is successful, only that they are underage. Which brings us to "FishOnTilt." Like "Andy McLeod" and "JJProdigy" before him, his skills are undeniable, as is his financial result applying said skill. In our little corner of the Web, underage poker prodigies are to be admired, and their games studied so we can play more like they do.
However, our little corner of the Web doesn’t exist anymore if we don’t act for the big-picture health of the online poker industry. For the benefit of all of us, we have to care and make decisions based not on what we believe is acceptable, but what those who don’t share our ideals believe is acceptable. To that end…
It must be irrelevant if a 16-year-old is making consistent money…
It must be irrelevant if a 16-year-old is good enough to play poker for a living…
It must be irrelevant what personal opinion any of us hold in terms of poker, its status as a game of skill, and whether or not it should be lumped in with house-edge casino games for regulatory purposes…
While our game, and our right to play it, is under scrutiny and restriction, we cannot afford to demand the capitalistic, competitive ideal. We have to understand what the enemies of the game may consider acceptable, and keep it in higher regard than our own opinions. We have to be willing to hold ourselves, and those around us, to the standards and practices others are trying to hold us to. If we know the player next to us is underage, we have the same obligation to the health of our poker society as we do to turn in the 14-year-old neighbor boy taking his parent’s car out for a joyride, or the drunk driver in the car in front of us.
Personally, I wish this wasn’t happening. Personally, I hope "FishOnTilt" comes back on his 18th birthday, and dominates the game the way he does now.
But he shouldn’t play until that day arrives.