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On Poker, Backgammon & Economic Crisis Just as Senator Robert Menendez introduced a bill striving to regulate internet poker in the US, claiming that poker is (a) a game of skill just like backgammon, chess and bridge and that (b) poker has an integral part in the creation of America, I ran into this post by Stephen Lewis who brings a different, quite convincing, but not very flattering outlook on the link between poker, American identity and backgammon.
Poker, Mr. Lewis writes, "is a game of bluff driven by a desire for quick money at the expense of another". Thus, if poker a game of skill, it is the skill of deception, the ability to cause your opponent, perhaps a weaker, more insecure player, to believe your hole cards are more valuable than the cards you actually hold, "a founding principle of the finance, toxic-loan, and non-earned-bonus-based economy and an underlying principle of marketing", exactly what put America in the current economic crisis.
Backgammon, on the other hand, is based on "assessment of situations, envisioning of scenarios, no bluff or room for marked cards" (though there are setup dice). That is why, backgammon is played in the bright day light, whilst poker is covered up in "dark, smoke-filled rooms". In addition, he quotes Sara Nur Yıldız, an expert in Seljuk history (and dozens of other backgammon theorists) who stresses that significance of the "ability to react quickly and effectively" to the unpredictability of the dice (and of course to the pleasant and unpleasant surprises summoned by fate).
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