Poker- The Parody of Capitalism

Bjerg_Ftmat.qxd 6/22/2011 11:55 AM Poker Page i Bjerg_Ftmat.qxd 6/22/2011 11:55 AM Page ii Bjerg_Ftmat.qxd 6/22/2011 11:55 AM Page iii Poker ♠ ♣ ♥ ♦ The parody of capitalism Ole Bjerg The University of Michigan Press • Ann Arbor Bjerg_Ftmat.qxd 6/22/2011 11:55 AM Page iv Copyright © by the University of Michigan 2011 All rights reserved This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publisher. Published in the United States of America by The University of Michigan Press Manufactured in the United States of America c Printed on acid-free paper 2014 2013 2012 2011 4 3 2 1 A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. \US CIP to come\ Bjerg_Ftmat.qxd 6/22/2011 11:55 AM Page v For Sylvester & Balthazar Bjerg_Ftmat.qxd 6/22/2011 11:55 AM Page vi Bjerg_Ftmat.qxd 6/22/2011 11:55 AM Page vii All play means something. —johan huizinga, Homo Ludens It is not absurd to try diagnosing a civilization in terms of the games that are especially popular there. —roger caillois, Man, Play and Games Poker is the laboratory of capitalism. —john mcdonald, Strategy in Poker, Business, and War Bjerg_Ftmat.qxd 6/22/2011 11:55 AM Page viii Bjerg_Ftmat.qxd 6/22/2011 11:55 AM Page ix acknowledgments The primary challenge of writing this book was to bring together several distinct and very diverse ‹elds of knowledge. Overcoming this challenge was made possible only through generous support and encouragement from a number of people. I am very grateful to all the poker players who ‹gure as anonymized informants in the book. Throughout the work on it I was impressed by their unconditional willingness to share their knowledge of poker as well as their personal experiences and feelings toward the game. Their accounts have provided indispensable insight that could not have been obtained from any book. Sidsel Boesen, Thomas Bigum Christensen, Morten Erlandsen, Sune Holst, Frederik Hostrup, Laust Kehlet, Tobias Petersen, Tune Seidelin, and Rasmus Thomasson have not only let me in on their expert knowledge of the game but they have also been generous in answering my emails as new questions came up as the work progressed. The people at Center for Ludomania also have a large stake in this book. By letting me tap into their ‹rsthand knowledge about the downside of gambling they have functioned as sparring partners in the development of key ideas of the book. Furthermore, Benedicte Ejlers, Michael Bay Jørsel, Per Nielsen, and Steffen Røjskjær provided important support in the application for funding for the research. I would also like to thank my colleagues at the Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy, Copenhagen Business School for their open-mindedness toward the project and their analytical input to the Bjerg_Ftmat.qxd x 6/22/2011 • 11:55 AM Page x Acknowledgments process. These thanks extend to my professional colleagues in other places who have contributed to the work, Jakob Jonsson, Kristian Karlsson, Henriette Langstrup, Thomas Poulsen, Alan Rosenberg, Simon Sjørup Simonsen, Troels Bjerre Sørensen, and Nina Wittendorff. Special thanks go to the assistants that were directly involved in the practical work of the research. Mia Møgelgaard provided swift yet meticulous transcription of the interviews and Martin Cramer Pedersen essentially made the quantitative part of the book happen. Kathrine Vitus has played a key role in the process of making this book. Besides serving as an intellectual discussion partner on a daily basis, she has provided all the other kinds of support one can possibly wish from a wife. Few research projects come into being without ‹nancial support and this one is no exception. I am exceptionally grateful for the funding provided by The Carlsberg Foundation as well as by The Danish National Research Foundation. Bjerg_Ftmat.qxd 6/22/2011 11:55 AM Page xi contents Introduction 1 part one. the philosophy of poker 1. The Ontology of Poker 9 2. Anatomy of a Poker Hand 38 3. All You Ever Wanted to Know about Texas Hold ’Em but Were Afraid to Ask «i»ek 50 part two. the poker economy 4. Where Does the Money Come From? 75 5. Styles of Play in the Poker Economy 93 part three. suckers, grinders, and players 6. A Tough Way to Make an Easy Living 111 7. Why Do People Play Poker? 139 8. Losing It 165 part four. poker and capitalism 9. What’s in a Game? 189 10. The History of Poker 203 11. Poetry of Money 224 Conclusion: The Uncanniness of Poker 244 Notes 251 References 263 Index 271 Bjerg_Ftmat.qxd 6/22/2011 11:55 AM Page xii Bjerg_Text.qxd 6/22/2011 ♠ ♣ ♥ ♦ 11:55 AM Page 1 Introduction Over the last decade, an almost explosive growth in the popularity of poker has taken place. Rough estimates say there are 140–180 million regular players worldwide, and the turnover of major poker sites on the Internet is counted in billions of dollars.1 What used to be a typically American game has now become a genuinely globalized phenomenon. Obviously, the growing popularity of poker is closely connected with the development and the spread of the Internet. Yet technological innovations and clever marketing provide only part of the explanation for the “poker boom.” This book is written on the assumption that the sudden popularity of poker signi‹es a rich cultural resonance in the game. When we look at a piece of art, read a piece of literature, watch a ‹lm, or listen to a piece of music, it is commonplace to think of them as cultural expressions of the society and historical context in which they are created. Art, literature, ‹lm, and music are readily recognized as mediums of the Zeitgeist. Poker and other gambling games are rarely thought of in the same fashion. At best, they are considered meaningless entertainment, at worst self-destructive vices. The idea of this book is to treat poker as a cultural expression in line with art, literature, ‹lm, and so on. When so many people ‹nd poker interesting, it is because the game has an eminent capacity to capture a set of existential conditions of life in contemporary society and offer them to the players in a form that allows them to explore, challenge, and play with these conditions. Furthermore, not only is the cultural resonance of poker Bjerg_Text.qxd 2 6/22/2011 • 11:55 AM Page 2 poker manifested quantitatively in the great amount of people playing the game, but the quality of individual players’ engagement is often very intense. It is not uncommon for players to devote signi‹cant amounts of time, money, and mental energy to the game. The signi‹cant cultural resonance of poker makes it a rich phenomenon in terms of meaning and therefore an intriguing object of cultural analysis. In his seminal work Man, Play and Games, Roger Caillois formulates a program for a sociology of games that could also serve as a program for the analysis of poker in this book: It is not absurd to try diagnosing a civilization in terms of the games that are especially popular there. In fact, if games are cultural factors and images, it follows that to a certain degree a civilization and its content may be characterized by its games. They necessarily re›ect its culture pattern and provide useful indications as to the preferences, weakness, and strength of a given society at a particular stage of its evolution.2 The reason that poker, as well as other gambling games, generally receives less attention than art, literature, ‹lms, and so on as culture-bearing is not simply a matter of forgetfulness. Jackson Lears, author of Something for Nothing, has noted: “Debate about gambling is never just about gambling: it is about different ways of being in the world.”3 Historically, the attitudes in society toward gambling seem to have been ambivalent for as long as these games have existed.4 On the one hand, gambling has been condemned as a vice or later on as a pathology; on the other hand, gambling games have been tolerated and sometimes even appropriated as sources of public revenue. This ambivalent attitude is very much true today in relation to poker. Poker seems to have an eminent capacity for producing a certain kind of Unbehagen in the collective body of society. As a cultural expression, poker is not exactly an embellishment of society. This is incisively captured in Walther Matthau’s famous quip on poker: “The game exempli‹es the worst aspects of capitalism that have made our country so great.”5 As we are going to see throughout this book, poker simulates core features of contemporary capitalism and displays these in a very pure form. Poker functions as a parody of capitalism. As we know from impersonations of famous and powerful people, the exaggeration of distinct features of a person has the effect of “desublimating” the image of this person. For someone who wishes to maintain a certain image as being endowed with certain sublime or otherwise impeccable Bjerg_Text.qxd 6/22/2011 11:55 AM Page 3 Introduction • 3 qualities, parody can be very discontenting. There is an element of truth in any good parody, not in the shape of accurate representation but in the effects on the original image of the object of parody. As a parody of capitalism, poker produces certain truths about the economic organization of contemporary society. Maybe this is why the game provokes Unbehagen in society, and maybe this is why there seems to be a reluctance to grant poker the status of a culture-bearing phenomenon. When we experience times of great ›uctuation in the general economy, capitalism is sometimes compared to a gambling game. The metaphor of “casino capitalism” is frequently used as a denigrative designation of the state of the economy. For instance, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus comments on the recent ‹nancial crisis: “Today’s capitalism has degenerated into a casino. The ‹nancial markets are propelled by greed. Speculation has reached catastrophic proportions.”6 Although the intentions behind the statement are probably both fair and well-meaning in terms of the analysis of capitalism, the implied notion of what happens in a casino is at best inaccurate and at worst misleading. This book proposes a corrective to the concept of casino capitalism. First, it makes a clear distinction between poker, on the one hand, and roulette, craps, and other gambling games of pure chance, on the other. Second, it demonstrates that contemporary ‹nancial capitalism does indeed resemble a poker game, whereas it has little to do with other casino games. Third, and perhaps more importantly, the book raises the question of whether the equation of capitalism and poker is really a denigration of the former or perhaps rather a denigration of the latter. As Yunus’s statement exempli‹es, it is common to think of gambling in general and poker in particular as degenerate forms of economic transaction. The concept of casino capitalism is meant to designate a perverted form of capitalism. However, once we move past the immediate moral depreciation of poker and venture into a thorough analysis of the game, arguably we ‹nd a more democratic, honest, just, and pure system for the distribution of value than in actually existing capitalist society. In a 1974 Playboy article, G. Barry Golson says about poker: The game is as perfect a microcosm as we have of the way a free-enterprise system is supposed to work, except that the rich don’t necessarily get richer. Brass balls will do. [In a game of poker] a grocery clerk can humiliate an oil tycoon through sheer bravado—the object being, without exception, to bankrupt the bastard across the table.7 Bjerg_Text.qxd 4 6/22/2011 • 11:55 AM Page 4 poker A symptom of the reluctance to give poker the status of a culture-bearing expression is that the vast majority of research-based texts on gambling are analyses of different aspects of problem gambling. Although problem gambling is certainly a serious issue with tragic consequences for those individuals suffering from the disorder, the focus on the detrimental aspects of gambling often stands in the way of exploring and understanding its wider cultural meaning. Fortunately, in recent years there has been a growing interest in the cultural signi‹cance of gambling, and a number of brilliant books on the subject have been published.8 As none of these works deals with poker speci‹cally, many of the analyses of this book venture into virgin territory. Actually, David Hayano’s seminal study of Gardena poker players in Poker Faces: The Life and Work of Professional Card Players from 1982 stands out as the only serious academic work on poker within the ‹eld of anthropology, sociology, and philosophy.9 As a result, the analyses of this book have found great inspiration and support in the rich body of nonacademic literature on poker that has been growing steadily with the increased popularity of the game.10 As poker is a fairly virginal phenomenon in terms of academic analysis, it still has not found its proper place in a speci‹c ‹eld of research. Within the framework of the book, this indeterminacy constitutes both a dif‹culty and a liberty. Instead of ‹xing poker within a particular ‹eld of theories and methods, the analyses of the book move into various disciplinary ‹elds: philosophy, sociology, psychology, economy, and history. The purpose of the study is to intervene in several ‹elds of knowledge at the same time and, by doing so, force these ‹elds to open up toward each other. These ‹elds of knowledge are cultural studies of gambling, popular literature on poker and poker strategy, gambling studies of compulsive gambling, and social theory on contemporary capitalism. The ambition of this multidisciplinary approach is also to invite a wide range of readers with different interests to explore different topics in the book. The book is divided into four parts, each subdivided into two or three chapters. Part 1 is a philosophical analysis of poker. In chapter 1, poker is positioned in relation to other games with regards to the ontological structure of the game. Slavoj «i»ek’s distinction between three different ontological orders, the symbolic, the real, and the imaginary, is presented. This triad provides the basic analytical framework for much of the thinking about poker in the book. Chapter 2 continues along the same lines. Using a single hand played by poker professional, Gus Hansen, as an example, it demonstrates how a particular variant of poker, Texas Hold ’Em, is actually Bjerg_Text.qxd 6/22/2011 11:55 AM Page 5 Introduction • 5 played, and the basics of strategic reasoning in poker are introduced. Chapter 3 concludes the philosophical analysis of Texas Hold ’Em by using «i»ek to unfold the challenges of poker strategy. Part 2 analyzes poker empirically as an economic system for the circulation and distribution of money. In this part, the analytical focus is gradually shifted from the game of poker to the poker players. Using data from an online game provider, chapter 4 maps the relative proportions of different categories of winning and losing players. In chapter 5, data on different styles of playing are included, and ‹ve classes of players are identi‹ed in a statistical latent class analysis. In part 3, the analytical focus is also on the players, and different forms of subjectivity in poker are investigated. Based on qualitative interviews, chapter 6 investigates the particular skills required to succeed as a professional poker player. In chapter 7, three ideal typical approaches to poker are developed, using again Slavoj «i»ek’s distinction between the real, the symbolic, and the imaginary. The three orders correspond to the three types: Sucker, Grinder, and Player. Chapter 8 looks into problem gambling in poker. Using qualitative interview data, the chapter develops a map of four different types of problem gamblers in poker. Part 4 investigates the cultural meaning of poker and the relation between poker and capitalism. Chapter 9 takes the analysis to a very general level by inquiring into the relationship between game and society; it proceeds by presenting Jean Baudrillard’s de‹nition of game as “parodic simulacrum” as a way of conceptualizing this relationship. In chapter 10, this concept is applied to a historical analysis, demonstrating the parallel development of poker and capitalism. I argue that the evolution and succession of different forms of poker, Flat poker, Draw poker, Stud poker, and Texas Hold ’Em, corresponds to the evolution and succession of different paradigms of capitalism. Chapter 11 demonstrates how the circulation and distribution of value in No-Limit Texas Hold ’Em simulates the circulation of value in postindustrial capitalism. Furthermore, it shows how the ideal types of poker players correspond to class positions in postindustrial capitalism. Even though the book is written with the intention of being read from beginning to end, it is also possible for readers with particular interests to approach the different parts of the book in an order other than the one immediately suggested by the disposition. A scholar of contemporary social theory might want to begin with part 4 and then turn back to part 1. A poker player with an interest in the game in its own right will probably want to start at the beginning. Chapters 1 and 3 are, however, the most de- Bjerg_Text.qxd 6 6/22/2011 • 11:55 AM Page 6 poker manding chapters to read because of the extensive use of philosophical terminology. An alternative option is to skip forward to parts 2 and 3 before reading part 1. A reader with a particular interest in problem gambling might want to start with part 3 and perhaps even approach the chapters 6 through 8 in reverse order. Scholars of the culture of gambling will want to read the book from beginning to end. In other words: shuf›e up and read! Bjerg_Text.qxd 6/22/2011 11:55 AM Page 7 part one The Philosophy of Poker ♠ ♣ ♥ ♦ Bjerg_Text.qxd 6/22/2011 11:55 AM Page 8 Bjerg_Text.qxd 6/22/2011 one ♠ ♣ ♥ ♦ 11:55 AM Page 9 The Ontology of Poker Is poker a game of chance or a game of skill? This has been a controversial issue in much debate about poker in the wake of the poker boom. We might provide a quick answer to the question by paraphrasing the Marx Brothers joke, where Groucho answers the standard question “Tea or coffee?” with “Yes, please!” So: Yes, poker is a game of chance or skill! The question about whether poker is a game of chance or skill does indeed raise interesting epistemological issues. However, the reason that this question stirs up controversy is not because there is a widespread interest in such philosophical issues. It is rather the fact that the categorization of poker within law, politics, morality, and even public health has hinged on the outcome of the controversy. The line of reasoning seems to be that if it were determined that poker is a game of chance, it could be placed in the same category as roulette, slot machines, and other familiar gambling games. The game would thus be subject to the same legal and political regulation, it would have the same dubious moral quality, and it would require the same preventive and therapeutic measures in relation to problem gambling as these games. If, on the other hand, it could be proved that poker is a game of skill, it would fall into the same category as chess. The game should thus be exempted from the legal and political restrictions pertaining to gambling games. Great poker play ought to be considered an expression of virtue rather than a vice. And it might even be justi‹ed to deny any possible connection between poker and problem gambling. From a philosophical point of view, many of these debates about poker 9 Bjerg_Text.qxd 10 6/22/2011 • 11:55 AM Page 10 poker in recent years, in the media, in political debates, and in the courtrooms, have been a mess. And the primary reason for the mess is that the initial question itself is fallacious. To ask whether poker is a game of chance or a game of skill is to assume that it is either-or. Yet the essential characteristic of poker is precisely that it is both. Poker is a game that requires a very particular set of skills related to the art of navigating in an environment that is ultimately governed by chance. Once it is recognized that there is an intricate interrelation between skill and chance in poker, and that the game does not ‹t unambiguously into either category—game of chance or game of skill—it also becomes evident that poker does not really ‹t into the usual classi‹cation schemes of law, politics, morals, and public health. The object of the current chapter is to do a philosophical analysis of poker. Analysis is here understood in the original meaning of the word as separating an entity into its parts in order to study its structure. The outcome of a game of poker is determined by three elements: chance, mathematical-logical deduction, and psychological empathy. In the actual play the three elements are interwoven in a way that makes them almost indistinguishable in practice. The analysis separates the three elements of poker by associating each of the elements with a particular game. The three games are chess, roulette, and Rock-Paper-Scissors. The argument is that, philosophically, poker is a hybrid of these games. z &i z &ek an d p o k e r an al ysi s In order to do the analysis of poker, a philosophical framework is required. A philosophical theory is a reservoir of concepts, de‹nitions, and analytical distinctions. The theory is a tool for thinking that sharpens our understanding of the object of analysis. The analysis of poker, not only in the current chapter but throughout the entire book, is almost exclusively structured by the philosophical theory of one particular thinker, Slavoj «i»ek. The choice of «i»ek as the analytic master ‹gure of the book is not justi‹ed by any work he has done on the subject of poker. In fact, even though few subjects are strange to «i»ek’s relentless explorations of contemporary culture in all its manifestations, I haven’t found a single reference to poker in all of his oeuvre. Nevertheless, the initial idea for this book was sparked by a sense of striking resemblance between the functioning of analysis in «i»ek’s works and the way a game of poker proceeds. The philosophical infrastructure of «i»ek’s analytical perspective is made up by the distinction between three different ontological orders: the Bjerg_Text.qxd 6/22/2011 11:55 AM Page 11 The Ontology of Poker • 11 real, the symbolic, and the imaginary. «i»ek’s analyses typically circle around the inevitable interrelatedness between these three orders. The three orders come together to constitute the reality in which we live and understand ourselves as human subjects. «i»ek’s point is often to show that every stable and seemingly regular order is founded on the covering up of an underlying fragile, paradoxical, even uncanny structure. The insistence on fragility and paradox extends even to his own theorizing. As a reader of his writings, you ‹nd yourself constantly struggling to catch up with the manic pace of the argument. And just as you think you are about to ‹gure out where «i»ek is going, the argument breaks off into a new direction. «i»ek’s analysis never settles into a stringent coherent argument. This leaves the reader with a constant feeling that the object of study always eludes the analysis just before it is completed. The infrastructure of poker is also three-dimensional. This is perhaps the source of the apparent resemblance with «i»ek’s thinking. A game of poker is determined in an intricate interplay between chance, mathematical-logical deduction, and psychology. These three dimensions seem to correspond to the distinction between real, symbolic, and imaginary. Furthermore, it is characteristic of poker that none of these dimensions may be subsumed under either one of the others. All three dimensions are inevitably at play simultaneously. This means that the relation between poker strategy and actual poker play has a certain similarity with the relation between a «i»ekian analysis and the object of this analysis. Knowledge of poker strategy may certainly improve a player’s chances of winning, yet the strategy is always incomplete in terms of fully mastering the game. The game always seems to elude complete strategizing. In «i»ek, we ‹nd a philosophical theory of the relation between language, imagination, and reality. The theory is heavily inspired by the psychoanalysis of Jacques Lacan. This means that it is also a psychological theory of the subject. Furthermore, «i»ek has done extensive work applying the theory to cultural and political phenomena. Under great in›uence of Marxist thinking, the theory is thus also a sociological theory of capitalism. The versatility of «i»ek’s theory is another reason that his thinking appears particularly suited for the study of poker. It allows us to combine, within one and the same theoretical framework, philosophical analysis of the ontology of poker (part 1) with a psychological analysis of poker players (part 3), and to conclude with a sociological analysis of the relation between poker and contemporary capitalism (part 4). The descriptive analysis of the poker economy (part 2) is, however, «i»ek-free zone. Bjerg_Text.qxd 12 6/22/2011 • 11:55 AM Page 12 poker The current chapter serves not just as an analysis of the ontology of poker. Since the analyses of the remaining parts of the book (part 2 excluded) draw upon the thinking and terminology of «i»ek, it is necessary to introduce and de‹ne some of the key concepts of the theory. It is the aim of this chapter to provide such introduction parallel to performing the actual analysis. The triad of imaginary-symbolic-real designates three different orders of the ontological constitution of the world. Brie›y stated, the real is the undifferentiated existence of matter, the symbolic is the system of signs differentiating matter and inscribing it into a coherent universe of meaning, and the imaginary consist of fantasmatic projections mediating the gap between the real and the symbolic. In practice, it is, however, most often impossible to pinpoint the individual orders separate from each other. Instead, the three orders should be regarded as different dimensions of any event taking place. From an analytical perspective, it is not the discriminatory distinction between the orders that is interesting, but rather their mutual interaction, interplay, and interrelatedness. The triad of imaginary-symbolic-real is sometimes illustrated through the ‹gure of the so-called Borromean Knot (‹g. 1).1 Close examination of the ‹gure reveals that no two circles are directly linked. The holding together of any two circles is conditioned by interconnection of the third, and the entire chain is held together by the simultaneous folding together of the three circles into each other. If one circle were to be taken out of the knot, the other two would drift apart unconnected. Analyzing psychological, sociological, or cultural phenomenon through «i»ek’s philosophy is often a question of uncovering how all three orders of the triad of imaginary, symbolic, and real are at play simultaneously. And the object of the analysis is often to point to the functioning of a particular order of the triad that is not immediately apparent. In our analysis of poker, we shall see that the game is only properly understood when the imaginary, the symbolic, and the real dimensions of the game are all taken into account in one and the same analytical movement. This applies to our analytical perspective of the game, but in fact it also applies to the player’s perspective of the game when attempting to master it successfully. Negligence of one of the dimensions is fatal for understanding the game as well as for playing of game. However, the full implications of these considerations become apparent only when we have a proper understanding of the functioning of the three orders. Bjerg_Text.qxd 6/22/2011 11:55 AM Page 13 The Ontology of Poker • 13 Fig. 1. The Borromean Knot c h e ss and th e symb o l i c The symbolic order emerges as the undifferentiated being of the real is rendered meaningful through signs, language, law, and other forms of symbolization. The chaotic, meaningless, unmanageable real is thereby processed into a meaningful, regulated, and somewhat predictable social reality. Once we have ordered matter and human beings by means of a symbolic order of signs, we also have a system for understanding and knowing what to expect from these otherwise incalculable entities. In popular sociology, this process is what is often referred to as the “social construction of reality,” the analysis of which is the concern of so-called social constructivists. The social reality generated through the order of the symbolic is no direct re›ection of the material matter of the real. It is crucial here to note «i»ek’s distinction between reality and the real.2 We may say that reality is not preexistent in the real. The symbolization of real entities is regulated through principles and regularities inherent in the symbolic order itself. This idea is by no means unique to «i»ek. It is rather the rule of most contemporary sociological theories about language to view the process of signi‹cation as a process of construction governed by language-immanent rules rather than a process of mere representation governed by extralinguistic rules. Bjerg_Text.qxd 14 6/22/2011 • 11:55 AM Page 14 poker One of the classic proponents of such a notion of language is Ludwig Wittgenstein. In the major work of his later philosophy, Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein makes the following proposition about the function of language: “The meaning of a word is its use in the language.”3 The point of the statement is that language is not considered to be a logical function of some language-external world. The relation is rather the other way around. Through the use of language we project beliefs, values, expectations, norms, and so forth onto the world as we experience it. Thus, use of language and experience of the world become inseparable. This is not to say that the use of language is arbitrary. Use of language is indeed governed by rules. These rules, however, have no support in transcendental or otherwise metalinguistic structures. Instead, the rules of language are grounded in the practice of language use. The rules of language are inherent to language. Wittgenstein employs the word “grammar” to designate these rules. What we ‹nd in the late Wittgenstein is actually a very sociological notion of language. Language is not just a neutral medium for expressing the values, norms, beliefs, and experiences of a community. Instead, language is viewed as a constituent part of the very shaping of our shared social experience of the world: “The speaking of language is part of an activity, or of a form of life.”4 It is relevant to consider Wittgenstein in the present context not just because he is one of the classic proponents of the understanding of language that we ‹nd in «i»ek’s notion of the symbolic order. It is also the fact that in order to account for his understanding of language he invokes the metaphor of the “language game.” This metaphor refers to ways in which language is governed by language-immanent rules, grammar, in the same way that a game is governed by rules inherent in the game. Language consists of different language games, and the use of language comprises a kind of “playing” of these language games. In order to unfold the analogy between language and games, Wittgenstein in several places makes explicit reference to chess. Chess is of course an obvious illustration of the idea that the meaning of something is not a direct function of the material properties of the thing but rather a function of the social conventions surrounding the thing. The meaning of the king in chess does not derive from the particular shape and color of the piece but rather from the way the king moves in the game and its particular role in the determination of the outcome of the game.5 The mere designation of a particular piece as “the king” does not explain to an outsider the actual Bjerg_Text.qxd 6/22/2011 11:55 AM Page 15 The Ontology of Poker • 15 meaning of the piece. Only when the person is told what to do with the piece and how to employ it strategically in the game in relation to the other pieces does the person start to learn the meaning of the piece and the meaning of the game as a whole. The same goes for the words of a language. The meaning of a word consists in its relation to other words and its use in combination with other words. In «i»ek, the symbolic order consists of chains of signi‹ers comparable to Wittgenstein’s language games. Things, events, people, actions, emotions, and so forth are incorporated into the symbolic order through a process of signi‹cation. Insofar as these things initially belong to the real order of material existence, the process of signi‹cation may in some sense be understood as a process of transubstantiation from the real to the symbolic order. And in the same way that the use of language and the perception of the world in Wittgenstein become indistinguishable, there is in «i»ek the idea that the process of symbolization also bars our immediate access to the order of the real. Once we have entered the realm of social reality, we lose any immediate access to the real.6 This is exempli‹ed by the way we lose access to the real sound of somebody’s voice once we become aware of the meaning of what the person is saying. When hearing our own voice, for example, on a recording, we seem to regain awareness of the real of the voice insofar as we abstract from the meaning of the words spoken. Such experience is often accompanied by a feeling of discomfort illustrating the “uncanniness” of the real stemming from the fact that we are not used to such direct experience of the real. Instead, we are used to experiencing the real through the medium of the symbolic order, that is, as reality, not as real. Wittgenstein’s choice of chess as illustration for his philosophical point may be coincidental, and he might just as well have used any other game to convey the same argument. If we move from the level of the formal rules of the game to the level of the actual play determining the outcome of the game, there is, however, something about chess that makes it stands out among games as a particularly well-suited illustration of the way the symbolic order functions. Within the philosophy of chess, there is a fundamental dispute between a romantic and a scientistic conception of chess.7 According to the romantics, chess is a game of vision, creativity, imagination, and freedom, and it cannot be reduced to deterministic calculations and mathematical algorithms.8 The scientistic conception, propagated among others by researchers and developers in arti‹cial intelligence (AI), sees chess as a game Bjerg_Text.qxd 16 6/22/2011 • 11:55 AM Page 16 poker that precisely lend itself in the last instance to formalization and reduction into a game of calculation and mathematical algorithms.9 Even though the dispute is perhaps not conclusively settled on the philosophical level, the scientists certainly delivered a very strong argument for their position when in 1997 the IBM chess computer Deep Blue defeated Gary Kasparov, the world champion at the time. If we accept the argument that chess is in the last instance a game of mathematical calculation, we can assert that ideally for every position and every move an optimal countermove could be calculated by hypothetically playing through the different possible scenarios following from different possible moves. This approach is the foundation of the Game-Tree search method used in AI computers playing chess.10 Whenever one player deviates from the optimal course of the game, the other player can take advantage of the “mistake” and gain an edge in the game by once again choosing the optimal move. The winning player would be the one deviating least from the optimal course of play. This means that not only are the formal rules of the game inscribed into the symbolic order of the game but even the optimal moves guaranteeing a favorable outcome of the game can be derived from this symbolic order. This is indeed the notion of chess we ‹nd in Neumann and Morgenstern’s classic exposition of game theory: “If the theory of Chess were really fully known there would be nothing left to play.”11 The laws governing not only legitimate but also strategically optimal play are present in the symbolic order prior to the ‹rst move, and if we were only able intellectually to grasp these laws, the actual course and outcome of the game would be predetermined given that both players would be playing to win. Hence there would be no reason to play out the game in the real. This idea of chess corresponds to an idea found in modern physics. In his famous Principle of Suf‹cient Reason, Leibniz states that that “there can be no fact real or existing, no statement true, unless there be a suf‹cient reason, why it should be so and not otherwise, although these reasons usually cannot be known by us.”12 Initially formulated as a law of logic, this principle carries over into science, constituting the backbone of classic mechanical Newtonian physics. The goal envisaged by Newton was a complete theory of physics able to account scienti‹cally for every event and in principle to predict any course of events in the physical world. The universe, according to Newtonian physics, is one where spontaneity, randomness, and metaphysical intervention of any kind may be reduced to Bjerg_Text.qxd 6/22/2011 11:55 AM Page 17 The Ontology of Poker • 17 causal, deterministic, physical explanations following the fundamental laws of nature, that is, a world where any event in the real may ideally be accounted for in the order of the symbolic.13 The goal of classic mechanistic physics is thus to bring the symbolic order of science into accord with this ideal, completing an all-encompassing theory of physics. The completion of a perfect theory of chess, like the completion of a perfect theory of physics, would constitute a complete system of symbolization of the real. The theory would be able to account for the complete meaning of every possible game situation, insofar as it would be able to point unambiguously to the optimal move in each and every one of these situations. No move made by the opponent would constitute a challenge to the theory, as all possible future moves by the opponent are already included and anticipated in the theory’s account of the current situation. Winning in chess thus boils down to the ability to conform to the laws of the symbolic order of the game, neutralizing any intervention from the real in the course of one’s play. Just as the Newtonian physicist brings his reasoning into accord with unambiguous laws of physics, the chess player is encouraged to optimize play by evaluating every move by way of mathematical calculation. Ideally, no move in chess should be in›uenced by spontaneity, distraction, emotion, and so on, and the chess-playing subject should approach a state of desubjecti‹cation, where it has become a neutral medium for the execution of the a priori laws of chess strategy inherent in the symbolic order of the game.14 Paraphrasing Leibniz, the credo of the game of chess could be formulated: “There should be no move unless there be a suf‹cient reason why it should be so and not otherwise.” ro ule tte an d the re al In the scientistic conception, the hindrance to reaching a complete theory of chess is of a practical nature. It is merely a question of ‹guring out the proper algorithms and disposing suf‹cient calculative resources, whether in the form of human intellect or brute computer power. In other words, complete symbolization of the real in chess is possible—at least in principle. I have used chess as an analogy to the functioning of the symbolic order. So far, I have been de‹ning the symbolic order in accordance with Wittgenstein’s notion of language. And so far we have not seen what is particular to «i»ek’s notion of language and the symbolic. Actually, we may identify the point where «i»ek’s notion of the symbolic order breaks away Bjerg_Text.qxd 18 6/22/2011 • 11:55 AM Page 18 poker from Wittgenstein’s theory of language (and from most other ordinary social constructivist theories of language and reality)—precisely at the point where the analogy between chess and language falls short. Even if we agree to the possibility of complete symbolization of the real in the limited world of chess, it is a basic point in «i»ek’s thinking that this does not hold true for most other forms of symbolization and certainly not for language in general. On the contrary, «i»ek states that incompleteness is an inherent feature of symbolization, and this incompleteness should not be regarded as just a temporary state due to practical limitations. The impossibility of complete symbolization is a condition of the very ontological constitution of the symbolic order. In chess, the incompleteness of symbolization manifests itself at the margins of the system of symbolization. A skilled player may be able to foresee the potential consequences of different play options ‹ve moves ahead and thus make an estimate of the value of each possible move in the current situation. A given move may, however, have unfortunate consequences that only occur six, seven, or perhaps fourteen moves ahead. Since the calculative resources of a human being are limited, a player is able to analyze the game situation within a system of symbolization only to a certain extent. Beyond these limits the player’s calculative symbolization falls short. The proper analogy here would be one of a cartographer who has mapped out a certain geographical area. The map covers only a limited segment of the world, and beyond these limits the map simply falls short in describing the world. In «i»ek’s understanding of language and signi‹cation, incompleteness does not manifest itself at the margins of symbolization but at the very heart of the symbolic order. Any symbolic order is constituted by a “lack” of symbolization, a point where symbolization is impossible. This lack is not just a mark of the insuf‹ciency of the symbolization. It functions as the very structuring principle of the symbolic order. «i»ek states that “the symbolic ‹eld is in itself always already barred, crippled, porous, structured around some extimate kernel, some impossibility.”15 He goes on to state that this impossibility is the very condition of possibility for symbolization and for the constitution of social reality: “Reality itself is nothing but an embodiment of a certain blockage in the process of symbolization. For reality to exist, something must be left unspoken.” “[T]here is ‘reality’ only in so far as there is an ontological gap, a crack, at its very heart—that is, a traumatic excess, a foreign body that cannot be integrated into it.”16 What we ‹nd in this “ontological gap,” this black hole of the symbolic Bjerg_Text.qxd 6/22/2011 11:55 AM Page 19 The Ontology of Poker • 19 universe, is of course the real. This time, however, the real is not just passively awaiting meaningful interpretation through inscription into a coherent symbolic order. Instead, the real emerges as that which “resists symbolization,” “as the rock upon which every attempt at symbolization stumbles.”17 In order to understand what «i»ek is referring to in these rather enigmatic statements about the real, we shall be looking into the game of roulette. If we were to apply the principle of suf‹cient reason to roulette as we did to chess, the most logical and rational thing to do would be not to bet at all. Basic probability theory will soon show the gambler that the odds are in favor of the house and that this is where the money is going to end up in the long run. Such logical considerations, however, miss the essence of the game of roulette. Roulette is not a game of logic and mathematical reason; it is rather a game against logic and reason. Probability theory constitutes a logical system for the symbolization of the game situation. It ascribes probabilities to different outcomes, so that on a traditional French single-zero wheel the chances of winning, for instance ,on either red or black are 18 to 37, on a single number 1 to 37, and on a column 12 to 37. Comparing these ‹gures to the payout structure, simple math will tell you that no bet in a game of roulette can be pro‹table in the long run. What is overlooked in this purely statistical approach to roulette is that the true gambler does not play the game in the long run. The enchanting charm of the game, its very essence, lies in the stubborn insistence on the meaning of the single instance, or perhaps rather, the lack of meaning of the single instance. Say a gambler bets $1,000 on the single number 9 and the ball indeed lands on this number giving a win of $36,000. If we regard this outcome as part of a larger series of instances, which are on an aggregate level normally distributed, there is nothing mysterious, thrilling, or in any way exiting about the win. Probability theory tells us that if the gambler were to repeat this bet a large number of times, the overall winnings would approach a given average of minus $27 per bet. Over time, the statistical order will gradually assert itself. The excitement of roulette comes from the fact, however, that while probability theory may indeed be able to account for the mathematical order emerging in the long run, it is not able to predict the single instance. There is a gap between “the long run” and “the short run,” and this gap is equivalent to «i»ek’s ontological gap between the symbolic and the real. Bjerg_Text.qxd 20 6/22/2011 • 11:55 AM Page 20 poker Probability theory is unable to explain why this particular gambler at this particular moment wins on this particular bet. The single instance constitutes a “piece of the real” resisting symbolization. The single instance constitutes the lack residing at the very heart of the symbolic order of probability theory. It is often overlooked that there are two sides in the game of roulette. On the one side, we ‹nd the gambler, who gets to decide where the money is bet. On the other side, we ‹nd the “house,” the casino that has to accept the gambler’s bet but in return gets to be on the advantageous side of the odds. The house views the game from the perspective of the long run. It is con‹dent that an occasional “run of luck” on behalf of a gambler will even out over time. And even if one gambler retires from the table with a win, there will be other gamblers compensating the casino through their losses. The true gambler, however, has the opposite approach, viewing the game from the perspective of the short run, the single instance. What matters are not average wins or losses over a large number of runs of the wheel but what happens right here, right now. This approach to roulette is most famously expressed by Dostoyevsky in his semiautobiographical novel The Gambler. Here the protagonist says: “True, out of a hundred persons, only one can win; yet what business is that of yours or of mine?”18 This stubborn refutation of probability theory is not due to the gamblers misconception of the “true” stochastic nature of the game. On the contrary, the deliberate denial of statistics constitutes the very essence of the game. The player is seduced into conceiving of the individual instance in its singularity, not as manifestation of a general law but as an instance bearing meaning in and of itself.19 Playing roulette is about letting oneself become seduced, despite rational reasons for the opposite. The house perspective of the game is of course that of the symbolic order. The interpretation of chance through probability theory is precisely an example of the transposition of the real into the order of the symbolic. The gambler’s perspective, on the contrary, is that of the real. His encounter with the real is not mediated through the predictable order of social reality. What manifests itself in the singular instance in roulette is the real as that which “resists symbolization.” In this direct encounter, the gambler experiences the very ambivalent nature of the real. On the one hand, the real of the single instance is completely meaningless. As we have seen, the abstract accounts of the probabilities of winning and losing break down in the case of the single instance, and the insuf‹ciency of the symbolic order reveals itself in the absence of Bjerg_Text.qxd 6/22/2011 11:55 AM Page 21 The Ontology of Poker • 21 an explanation to the question “Why should I win on this bet now?” On the other hand, the direct encounter with the real produces a proliferation of meaning. Now all of a sudden anything becomes potentially meaningful. The color of a woman’s shirt may be a sign that red is the outcome of the next spin of the wheel. The number on a taxi license plate may be a sign that I will win on 24. Or the win in itself may be a sign that the gambler is favored by some kind of divine entity, Destiny, Lady Luck, or even God. Here is how one author describes the proliferation of meaning and the gambler’s attempt to achieve some kind of correspondence with the real, not through ordinary representative symbolization but by bringing himself into harmony with “the mystic rhythm of the universe”: Man, devoid of all secular capacity except cajolery, and all knowledge of cause and effect except the laws of probability, places himself before the unknown and seeks grace of the deity Fortune. He talks to the dice or makes a system at roulette, imploring favor. He wears charms, tips beggars, won’t eat peanuts before a race if he is a jockey, alternates incantations with silent blasphemy, all to seek the mystic rhythm of the universe and determine its future—a chosen man whose distinction will be symbolized by the substance of his win.20 The gambler’s universe of meaning is of another kind than the ordinary social reality. It is not the meaning emerging from the signi‹cation of the real. It is rather as if the real itself becomes a sign. The gambler’s encounter with the real in the single instance is like the collision between subatomic particles produced in a particle accelerator. What happens is an implosion between the symbolic and the real. Just as the particle accelerator momentarily breaks down the regular deterministic laws of Newtonian physics in favor of the pure unpredictable spontaneity of quantum physics, so does the win or loss at the roulette table momentarily suspend the ordinary system of meaning of social reality. And in the same way as events in the subatomic universe of quantum physics—entities that are simultaneously waves and particles or pairs of particles that are spatially separated but nevertheless correlated in their behavior—incite the uncanny feeling of looking through a window into a mystical universe beyond human comprehension, so does the win or loss at the roulette table sometimes engender the feeling of being at the mercy of forces traversing the distinction between the “dead” physical world and the “live” world of meaning and symbols. It is as if matter has become endowed with some form of life. Meaning is transposed directly into matter itself. Bjerg_Text.qxd 22 6/22/2011 • 11:55 AM Page 22 poker Here is how two inveterate gamblers describe the feeling of losing in Blackjack: You begin to sense that, for all the mathematics, the calculations, the odds, the multiplying strategies of working the percentages, something else is at work, some loopy otherworldly thing. It seems built into the cards. There comes a point when you begin to think you know the cards before they’re dealt. You’ve made a big bet, you’re holding an eighteen and the dealer is showing an eight, and you think you’ve pushed, you’re safe. Then you think, Unless she has an ace. No sooner have you had the second thought than you know she has the ace. You wish she didn’t, but you know she does. And when she ›ips her down card there it is, the ace. And you lose again. Then you think that you caused her to have the ace by thinking it. Do we believe all this? Sure we do, though not in the same way one believes mathematics. It doesn’t do to spend a lot of time thinking about it, but it’s out there, and when it’s happening it is too real to disregard.21 Roulette is a demonstration that the symbolization of the real is incomplete. «i»ek sometimes refers to the symbolic order as the “big Other.” And roulette is a demonstration of the “lack in the big Other.” Insofar as the object of chess is to reach the highest possible level of symbolization of the real, the two games may be conceived as diametrically opposites. If chess is a game based on the Principle of Suf‹cient Reason, roulette is a game based on a principle of insuf‹cient reason. ro c k- p ap e r- sc i sso rs an d th e i mag in ary As we have seen here, the basic tenet in «i»ek’s thinking is the irreconcilability of the symbolic and the real. Depending on the analytic perspective from which we approach this irreconcilability, it manifests itself as an incompleteness, lack, or aporia in the symbolic order or as a de‹cit or surplus of the real. In the philosophy of «i»ek, the aim is never to reconcile philosophically the split between the real and the symbolic, for instance by giving primacy to one or the other side. Instead, the split is accepted as a fundamental condition, and the philosophical task is now to analyze how subjects and societies deal with this traumatic split between the real and the symbolic. This is where philosophy turns into psychology or sociology. The management of the split between the real and the symbolic, whether in the psychic life of subjects or the social life of societies, takes place in the third order of the Lacanian triad of ontological orders, the imaginary. Bjerg_Text.qxd 6/22/2011 11:55 AM Page 23 The Ontology of Poker • 23 Since there is no logically consistent solution to the problem of the relation between the real and the symbolic, the imaginary order has the form of fantasy. The symbolic order presents itself as the order of logic, regularity, rule of law, predictability, coherence, completeness, and so on. The order of the imaginary, on the contrary, has the form of paradox, tautology, and incoherence. As we have seen, the logic and completeness of the symbolic order is only apparent, and the maintenance of this appearance is precisely the function of the imaginary order. Thus, the two orders are not contradictions but rather opposite sides of the same coin. Or to put it perhaps even more to the point: the two orders are on the one side of the same Möbius band. In the order of the imaginary, we ‹nd a vague and often not fully articulated fantasy about a completed state of the symbolic order where contradictions and antagonisms have been overcome. The function of fantasy is to ‹ll the opening in the Other, to conceal its inconsistency. . . . Fantasy conceals the fact that the Other, the symbolic order, is structured around some traumatic impossibility, around something which cannot be symbolized.22 «i»ek often uses the terms “imaginary” and “ideological” interchangeably. The function of the imaginary should, however, not be confused with the popular notion of ideology as a veil covering up the true state of reality. On the contrary, if we keep in mind the distinction between the real and reality, ideology is part of the very fabric of reality. In a key formulation «i»ek puts it this way: Ideology is not a dreamlike illusion that we build to escape insupportable reality; in its basic dimension it is a fantasy-construction which serves as a support for our “reality” itself: an “illusion” which structures our effective, real social relations and thereby masks some insupportable, real, impossible kernel. . . . The function of ideology is not to offer us some point of escape from our reality but to offer us the social reality itself as an escape from some traumatic, real kernel.23 The imaginary may indeed serve to cover up an underlying traumatic split, but the covering up is an inherent part of the very functioning of reality.24 The imaginary is not a derivative form of ontological order, the neutralization of which would result in a state of truth. The truth does not reside somewhere behind or beyond the order of the imaginary but in the very imaginary interweaving of the real and the symbolic. We can observe the functioning of the imaginary, for instance, in the Bjerg_Text.qxd 24 6/22/2011 • 11:55 AM Page 24 poker constitution of subjectivity. W. Somerset Maugham tells the story of the appointment in Samarra, which is a beautiful illustration of the dialectics involved in the constitution of subjectivity. The story is narrated by Death: There was a merchant in Bagdad who sent his servant to market to buy provisions and in a little while the servant came back, white and trembling, and said, Master, just now when I was in the market-place I was jostled by a woman in the crowd and when I turned I saw it was Death that jostled me. She looked at me and made a threatening gesture; now, lend me your horse, and I will ride away from this city and avoid my fate. I will go to Samarra and there death will not ‹nd me. The merchant lent him his horse, and the servant mounted it, and he dug his spurs in its ›anks and as fast as the horse could gallop he went. Then the merchant went down to the market-place and he saw me standing in the crowd and he came to me and said, Why did you make a threatening gesture to my servant when you saw him this morning? That was not a threatening gesture, I said, it was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Bagdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.25 The tale should be read here as an allegory of the relationship between the subject and the big Other of the symbolic order. The encounter with Death in the marketplace represents the subject’s position in the symbolic order. At ‹rst glance the big Other takes the shape of Destiny, determining the identity and the course of the individual’s life. The servant, however, does not readily accept his destiny. He resists the symbolic identity appointed to him and escapes to Samarra. The subject, in the shape here of the unfortunate servant, imagines the big Other as a closed and coherent system observing the subject in a totalizing fashion. What the subject fails to see is that the big Other is by no means a closed system but is rather dependent on the subject for its own realization. Only through the subject’s resistance to the big Other, only through the subject’s insistence on its own free and independent will, does the big Other complete itself. There is in the subject’s imagination of the big Other a paradox at play. On the one hand, the big Other is overestimated, in that the subject believes the big Other can bypass the “free will” of the subject and unilaterally execute the “social destiny” of the subject. On the other hand, the big Other is underestimated, in that the subject imagines itself as having the capacity for avoiding this destiny and does not realize the way in which the Bjerg_Text.qxd 6/22/2011 11:55 AM Page 25 The Ontology of Poker • 25 subject’s resistance to the big Other is already included in the functioning of the big Other. The maintenance of this paradox takes place in the order of the imaginary. In «i»ek’s thinking, subjectivity is not the immediate result of a totalizing process of “social construction” whereby the individual subject is socialized into a preestablished set of social roles, identities, positions, and so on. Subjectivity emerges, rather, at the points where these symbolic designations break down. Subjectivity emerges not where the subject identi‹es with its position in the symbolic order of society but precisely where the subject does not identify with these positions. When the subject is integrated into the social order through symbolization, there is always a remainder left behind, barring the complete social integration of the subject. There is a feeling of “This is not me” and “I am more than this.” This feeling constitutes a “piece of the real” resisting symbolization, and at the same time this piece of the real becomes the surface for the subject’s imaginary projections about its own self. This is where subjectivity emerges. The incompleteness of the inclusion of the subject into the symbolic order is the precondition for the subject’s self-image as an independent and free will. Insofar as this self-image is also a precondition for the subject’s normal functioning in social reality, the incompleteness of the subject’s inclusion is at the same time the very condition of possibility for the subject’s full inclusion. In the emergence of subjectivity as simultaneously a surplus of the real, a lack in the symbolic order, and a fantasy of the imaginary order, we see an example of the general functioning of the imaginary order. Not only does the fantasmatic imaginary order function to cover up the excess of the real not contained by symbolization. At the same time the imaginary order functions to appropriate this excess in order to transform it into an extrasymbolic con‹rmation of the symbolic order. When such appropriation works successfully, the remainder of the real “left behind” by the “social construction of reality” reemerges as an “answer from the real” to a basic question of the meaning of the symbolic order.26 The imaginary order serves to connect the symbolic and the real not in a relation of representation but rather by establishing “quilting points” (point de capiton) where the real is woven into the fabric of reality. «i»ek explains: Why must the symbolic mechanism be hooked onto a “thing,” some piece of the real? The Lacanian answer is, of course: because the symbolic ‹eld is in itself always already bared, crippled, porous, structured around some extimate kernel, some impossibility. The function of the Bjerg_Text.qxd 26 6/22/2011 • 11:55 AM Page 26 poker “little piece of the real” is precisely to ‹ll out the place of this void that gapes in the very heart of the symbolic.27 In order to explicate further the functioning of the imaginary order and hint at its relevance to poker, we shall be turning to the game of Rock-Paper-Scissors (RPS). The game is typically played between two players. The players “pump” their arms in synchronization and after the third pump they simultaneously deliver their “throw” in the form of Rock, Paper, or Scissors each represented by a distinct formation of the hand. The outcome of a throw is decided according to a circular ranking of hand values according to which Paper beats Rock, Rock beats Scissors, and Scissors beat Paper. Equal hands result in a draw. A match is often decided as the outcome of a best out of three rounds. Tournament play often have a more elaborate format with best of three rounds constituting only a set and the entire match being decided as a best of ‹ve sets. In the classic analysis of RPS in game theory, Neumann and Morgenstern demonstrate that any one of the players may turn the game into a game of pure chance through the application of a strategy playing each of the different throws with a probability of one-third.28 In other words, the player should apply the game options Rock, Paper, or Scissors in a completely random fashion. The result of this strategy is that even if the opponent were aware of the player’s strategy, he would not be able to apply any counterstrategy that would give him a better chance of winning than 50 percent. In return, the player’s application of the strategy of complete randomization would bar him from exploiting eventual errors in the opponent. He would be secured against losing any more than 50 percent of the rounds on average but he would also not be able to win any more than 50 percent on average. Thus, the application of a randomized strategy by either one of the players would force the game into a form structurally equivalent to coin-tossing, that is, into a game of pure chance. We cannot, however, infer from this analysis that RPS is basically a game of chance. First, human beings are not machines, and even with the intention of applying the completely randomized strategy, they are in practice almost always going to execute the strategy with some amount of nonrandom systematic bias. In The Of‹cial Rock Paper Scissors Strategy Guide, this point is stated as follows: Human beings are utterly incapable of acting in a purely random fashion, despite appearances. Everything we do has some motivation behind it. This is certainly not to say that humans are always rational or logical, Bjerg_Text.qxd 6/22/2011 11:55 AM Page 27 The Ontology of Poker • 27 only that there is some kernel of a reason nestled somewhere in the dark caverns of the brain.29 Second, even if human beings were able to apply the completely randomized strategy, for example, through the aid of a mechanical randomization device, they would in most game situations not be content with just a 50 percent chance of winning. As noted by Neumann and Morgenstern, the randomized strategy prescribed by game theory is optimal only from a defensive point of view.30 If a player feels con‹dent, that he is able to exploit weaknesses in the opponent’s play, he is going to opt for at different strategy. This also applies if the player’s desire to win is stronger than his fear of losing, or if he is in the game for the thrill of playing and not for the dull execution of a mechanical strategy that is only going to maintain a status quo. The strategy book sums the point up: Each [player] will make a conscious choice of which throw to make with the express desire of humiliating his adversary. So to assign basic probability to an RPS match would be a grave error, unless the player’s aspiration reaches only to a height of mediocrity.31 This means that in actual game situations players will most often deviate intentionally or unintentionally from the purely randomized game-theoretical strategy. This is the point where the game of RPS opens up to strategy beyond randomization and thus potentially becomes a game of skill. RPS strategy is all about the player gaining information on the opponent’s play without giving away information about his own play. Yet, the status of the information available in RPS is of a different nature than the information available in a game like chess. In chess, the relative values of different moves may be deduced logically based on the information immediately available on the board about the current game situation. The logical processing of information may thus provide conclusive answers when deciding between different moves. In this respect, RPS provides the diametrical opposite to chess. In RPS, the game setting does not immediately provide any information for logic to work with. Each player has three possible moves, and from a strictly logical perspective, the moves are of equivalent value. This difference between chess and RPS may be described as a difference between a game of perfect information and a game of imperfect information. To some extent, RPS is similar here to roulette, since the betting options in roulette from a purely mathematical perspective are also of equiv- Bjerg_Text.qxd 28 6/22/2011 • 11:55 AM Page 28 poker alent value, for example, the expected value of a $1,000 bet on red, on the single number 9, or on the third column are all minus $27. But the structural similarity between roulette and RPS goes only so far. In roulette, the idea of utilizing any kind of information to gain strategic advantage in the game is illusionary. This is not the case in RPS. In RPS strategy, we encounter a third form of information that has neither the purely illusionary character of the information in roulette nor the perfectly exact nature of the information in chess. It is a kind of information that is neither at the mercy of the real resisting symbolization nor reducible to the logical regularities of the symbolic order. Information in RPS is a very pure example of knowledge contingent upon the order of the imaginary. RPS strategy relies on a number of different ways of gaining information about an opponent’s play. 1. A player may predict the nature of her opponents throw by observing physical “tells” in the opponent. Typical tells include the so-called rock jaw, where tension around the jaw muscles prior to the throw reveals the intention of playing an aggressive rock; the “scissor ‹ngers,” where excess tension between index ‹nger and thumb indicates the intention of throwing Scissors, and the “paper hook,” where the underarm is prematurely twisted toward the horizontal position of the Paper. 2. There is the assumption in RPS strategy that the different throws incite different subconscious associations based on the nature of the real object they represent. Depending on their general psychological constitution, different players will form certain attachments and a preference for certain throws in certain situations. The vivid theory about the different throws is worth quoting a length: Represented as it is by a closed ‹st, Rock is commonly perceived as the most aggressive throw. It taps into memories of ‹st‹ghts, and it conjures up images of tall and unmoving mountains, rugged boulders, and the stone axe of the cavemen. Without realizing it, most players think of Rock as a weapon and will fall back on it for protection when other strategies appear to be failing. . . . Paper is often considered the subtlest of the three throws. There is nothing aggressive about the limp documents that move across our desks and through out of‹ces. Even the gesture used to represent Paper is peaceful—an open palm much like the gesture used in a salute or a handshake. Historically, an open palm has been a sign of friendship and peace because an open hand cannot hold a weapon. Some players, who subconsciously perceive Paper as a sign of weakness or surrender, will Bjerg_Text.qxd 6/22/2011 11:55 AM Page 29 The Ontology of Poker • 29 shy away from using it entirely or will drop it from their game when they are falling behind. . . . Scissors are a tool. As children, we use them to cut construction paper for craft projects. As adults, we may cut cloth for clothing or use scissors to open irritating plastic packaging. Scissors are associated with industry, craftwork, and construction. There is still a certain amount of aggression associated with scissors; they are, after all, sharp and dangerous implements. Different from the thuglike force of Rock, Scissors represent aggression that is controlled, contained, and rechanneled into something constructive.32 RPS play is often conceived not only as the execution of individual throws but as a sequence of “gambits,” a series of three successive moves. With twenty-seven possible gambits, this allows for further elaboration of the associative meaning invested in different plays. Classic gambits include the Avalanche (Rock-Rock-Rock), Fistful O’Dollars (Rock-Paper-Paper), the Scissor Sandwich (Paper-Scissor-Paper), and the Toolbox (Scissor-ScissorScissor). 3. Observation of an opponent’s play over the course of a signi‹cant number of matches may reveal patterns in his play, due to either intentional strategy or unintentional dispositions.33 This is the kind of analysis used in arti‹cial intelligence robots playing RPS.34 We may add a fourth way of gaining information about an RPS adversary, although this is perhaps rather a re›exive function of the three already mentioned. RPS players rarely make their decisions about speci‹c throws solely on the basis of the inherent qualities of the throw itself. The intransitive nature of the ranking system (Rock beats Scissors, Scissors beats Paper, but Rock does not beat Paper) means that assumptions about the opponent’s possible action are decisive to the player’s choice of throw. Since these assumptions are made in the awareness that the opponent is looking back at the player to form her own assumptions about the player’s throw, the decision-making process in RPS quickly spirals into the dialectical movement of ‹rst-, second-, third- . . . nth-order observations that are characteristic of this game: “He probably thinks I think he will throw Rock. So he expects me to throw Paper, which he will then beat by throwing Scissors. In order to beat his expected Scissors, I will therefore throw Rock.” This kind of thinking is also known as “Sicilian reasoning.” The re›exive nature of the strategic reasoning in RPS, which we have seen here as the fourth way of gaining information, has profound implications for the information gained in the ‹rst three forms of observation. Bjerg_Text.qxd 30 6/22/2011 • 11:55 AM Page 30 poker When observing a physical tell in an opponent, the player can never completely rule out the possibility that this tell is not unintentional behavior on the part of the opponent but rather a “false” tell staged with the strategic aim of misguiding the player. Similarly, a 120 kilogram tough guy with tattoos all over his body, whom the player might expect to throw an aggressive Stone as his opening move,35 may instead turn out to play Scissors on the assumption,that the player was indeed expecting him to play Stone. Finally, a skilled player may be able, intentionally, to display certain patterns in his play over the course of a number of rounds only to shift his style of playing as soon as the opponent has picked up on the pattern and adjusts his own play to exploit the information. Furthermore, re›exivity also means that the theories described under the ‹rst three forms of observation need not to be actually true in order to become effective in the game situation. One may, for instance, be inclined to write off the theory of the subconscious attachments associated with the different throws as pseudo-Freudian nonsense (or perhaps even worse: pseudo-Jungian nonsense). But even a player not buying into the theory as such may be forced to take it into consideration when facing an opponent who he ‹gures believes in them. If the opponent believes in the theory, he will adjust his play according to his image of the player as say, a Scissors player. Knowing this, the player will be able to counteract by playing Paper. Even in the case where neither the player nor the opponent actually believes in the theory about subconscious attachments, it may still have a real effect on the game, if say the opponent still believes that the player believes in the theory. In this case, the player might reason: “According to the theory, my opponent is a Rock player. Even though my opponent does not believe in the theory, he thinks that I believe in it. He therefore expects me to expect him to throw Rock and he thus expects me to throw Paper. Hence, I can expect him to throw Scissors. Therefore I shall play Rock.” What we see here is a transposition of the imaginary belief needed to support the symbolic theory onto the other subject. Even though the theory is perhaps not immediately true in itself and even though the player does not believe in it herself, the imaginary transposition of belief onto the opponent nevertheless generates the real effects of the theory needed in order to make it true, although in some weird distorted fashion. This mechanism corresponds to «i»ek’s concept of the “subject presumed to believe.” «i»ek illustrates this concept by showing how the constant shortage of toilet paper in the socialist former Yugoslavia actually came about: Bjerg_Text.qxd 6/22/2011 11:55 AM Page 31 The Ontology of Poker • 31 Our hypothetical starting point is that there is an abundance of toilet paper on the market. But, suddenly and unexpectedly a rumour starts to circulate that there is a shortage of toilet paper—because of this rumour, people frantically begin to buy it, and of course the result is that there is real shortage of toilet paper. At ‹rst sight this seems to be a simple mechanism of what is called self-ful‹lling prophecy, but the effective way in which it functions is a little more complicated. Each participant reasons as follows: “I’m not naïve and stupid, I know very well that there is more than enough toilet paper in the shops; but there are probably some naïve and stupid people who believe these rumours, who take them seriously and will act accordingly—they will start frantically buying toilet paper and so in the end there will be a real shortage of it; so even if I know very well that there is enough, it would be a good idea to go and by a lot!”36 The point is here, that no one actually has to believe in the theories on RPS strategy directly. For the theories to become effective in reality, it is enough that players presume the existence of other players who believe in the theories. The game of RPS constitutes an extrapolation of the arbitrariness in the relation between a sign and the actual fact the sign is asserted to be signifying. Hence, the symbolic order of RPS is a very unstable one. A player may make a perfectly logical ‹fth-order observation, but in the end his deductions may be proven wrong since they are build on an incorrect assumptions. Sicilian reasoning may err in the initial assumption about a player; say in the assumption that a particular female player is a typical Scissors player.37 But it may also err in the assumption about the opponent’s level of re›exivity. The opponent may indeed be a typical Scissors player, but she may also be capable of Sicilian reasoning herself and thus able to take advantage of her appearance as a typical Scissors player by opening with an unexpected Paper. This type of error may take the shape of an underestimation, as in this case, but overestimations may turn out to be equally fatal. An opponent may be judged as a typical Paper player38 and he may be assumed capable of third-order Sicilian reasoning, thus thinking: “My adversary thinks I think he thinks I am a Paper player. He therefore expects me to counter his expected Scissors with Rock. Thus, he can be expected to throw Paper. Therefore I will throw Scissors.” In order to counter this opponent, the player would throw Rock. However, the player may turn out to be wrong, having fatally overestimated his opponent, who now turns out to be indeed a straightforward Paper player. Bjerg_Text.qxd 32 6/22/2011 • 11:55 AM Page 32 poker The uncertainty inherent in any piece of information about an opponent derives partly from the fact that the player never knows to what extent her gaze at the opponent is already included in the acts of the opponent. This is the same ambivalence we found in the tale about the appointment in Samarra. The servant believes the encounter with Death to be a spontaneous event with an independent meaning to be deciphered by him. What he fails to recognize is that his reading of the event is already included and anticipated in the event itself. The servant fails to realize that his resistance against occupying the place seemingly prepared for him in the symbolic order is in fact already included in the place prepared for him. We ‹nd here an instance of simultaneous inclusion and exclusion of the subject characteristic of the general functioning of the symbolic order. A certain void exists in the symbolic order, and this “nothingness” comes to function as the place of the subject. As «i»ek explains, The subject is not directly included in the symbolic order: it is included as the very point at which signi‹cation breaks down. Sam Goldwyn’s famous retort when he was confronted with an unacceptable business proposition, “Include me out!,” perfectly expresses this intermediate status of the subject’s relationship to the symbolic order between direct inclusion and direct exclusion.39 The subject is included in the symbolic order through its own exclusion of itself from the symbolic order. This mechanism by which the subject “includes itself out” is only possible through the functioning of the imaginary order. The imaginary order functions precisely by masking the voids in the symbolic order, in this way veiling the inconsistency of the big Other. Thus, on the one hand the servant’s “fantasy” about Death as the omnipotent big Other with the capability of executing the servant’s Destiny veils the fact that Death is actually dependent on the compliance of the servant. On the other hand, the servant’s fantasy of himself as an independent subject capable of resisting Death veils the fact that he is actually complying with the destiny intended for him by the big Other. Had the servant in the tale been an apt RPS player, he might have survived his intermezzo with Death. RPS is very much a game played out in the order of the imaginary. There is a fundamental incredulity toward any system of signs exhibited by the opponent, since the player is aware that the meaning of the signs may not be their immediate signi‹ed but rather their very staging. In the servant’s encounter with Death, and in most of our everyday life in society, the imaginary fantasies supporting social real- Bjerg_Text.qxd 6/22/2011 11:55 AM Page 33 The Ontology of Poker • 33 ity are not questioned. Such questioning is, however, at the heart of RPS playing. The game can be said to take as its point of departure the Lacanian insight that “there is no Other of the [big] Other,”40 meaning that the symbolic order is in the last instance not supported by anything other than the subject’s own fantasies about the very same symbolic order. Hence, any attempt at mastering the game by establishing a system of signi‹cation to logically interpret and symbolize different game situations is immediately thrown into the vertiginous dialectics of Sicilian reasoning and confronted with the inevitable void residing at the core of any system of symbolization. RPS cannot be mastered solely through the logical structures of the symbolic order but forces players to enter the fantasmatic and paradoxical universe of the imaginary. b o rro me an k n o t of p o k er Poker is a unique game because it approximates life. This is not true of chess, which is circumscribed by a framework of mathematical rules and is therefore irrevocably arti‹cial. Even though the variations of its calculations are almost in‹nite, the rules are in›exible. That is why there are so many chess players of the rank of genius who are no good at anything else: their extraordinary capacity for mental gymnastics, on the one hand, being off-set, on the other, by a generally below-average allowance of common sense.41 Even though we ]may not fully agree with the rather harsh judgment on chess players, there is certainly a grain of truth in it. In each of the three games explored in this chapter, the pivot point lies very much in one particular ontological order. In poker, we ‹nd the three ontological orders, the symbolic, the real, and the imaginary, to be intertwined, and the pivot point of the game lies in the very combination of the three orders. Hence, we may argue that each of the three games explored in this chapter constitutes an extrapolation of one dimension of life, whereas the complex nature of poker makes it a game closer to life itself. In chess, players compete on their abilities to analyze and understand the positions on the board through logic and calculation. The ideal is to construct a complete system of symbolization without any voids so that any possible future move of the opponent is already anticipated in the current move made by the player. There is here a parallel between chess and poker. In poker, logic and mathematics are also applied in the attempt to master Bjerg_Text.qxd 34 6/22/2011 • 11:55 AM Page 34 poker the game. Mathematics in the form of probability theory is utilized as a means of controlling the element of chance. And logic is used in order to understand and anticipate moves made by the opponent. The level of sophistication in the symbolic order through which players conceive the game is thus also an important factor in poker. Nevertheless, there is here also a crucial difference between chess and poker. In chess, complete symbolization is in principle possible and even though the ideal of complete symbolization is in actual play only reached in marginal game situations, a game of chess is still almost exclusively played out in the symbolic order of logic and calculation. In poker, complete control of the game through logical and mathematical calculation is not possible, neither in practice nor in principle. Even the most sophisticated calculations of probabilities will not eliminate the element of chance in the outcome of the game. And furthermore, when a player uses logic to interpret and anticipate his opponent’s move, he cannot, as in chess, model his deductions on the assumption that the opponent is a fully rational player. Poker is played against real people with real human tendencies, ›aws, and imperfections. The player has to ‹gure out the exact character of his opponent’s playing style, and overestimating the opponent can sometimes be as fatal as underestimating him. Exact logic cannot stand alone. It must be supported by a certain degree of inexact psychological empathy. The philosophical difference between chess and poker is that in chess, the aim is to close the voids in the symbolic order, whereas in poker, there is recognition that these voids can never be fully closed. In poker there is a fundamental acceptance of imperfection in the symbolization of any game situation, and the aim is to tolerate and sometimes even pro‹t from this imperfection. Roulette constitutes the diametrical opposite to chess. The roulette player disregards the mathematical symbolization of the game situation. Ignoring the unfavorable statistical odds of his bets, he completely delivers himself to the real dimension of the game in the form of chance. Doing this, the roulette player seems to conjure mystical forces of the universe, defying the strictly rational laws of the symbolic order. This conjuring, rather than winning, may be the actual object of playing roulette. In poker the blind deliverance to chance constitutes a temptation to be resisted rather than an aim of playing. Nevertheless, few poker players can honestly disclaim any belief in the existence of mystical forces beyond the Bjerg_Text.qxd 6/22/2011 11:55 AM Page 35 The Ontology of Poker • 35 stochastic universe of probability theory. Poker is ‹rst and foremost a contest with the other players at the table. Parallel to this contest there is, however, also a contest between the individual player and the game itself that has some resemblance to the roulette player’s contest with chance. Even though the skilled poker player will generally implement his strategy according to the laws of probability, he is still subject to the thrills and horrors of being, in the singular instance, at the mercy of chance. An important part of poker playing is being able to deal with these emotions and employ them in a productive fashion. The excitement of engaging with chance should be channeled into increasing the player’s analytical focus on the game while at the same time not seducing him into pursuing irrational whims of chance. Similarly to the roulette player, the poker player engages in a battle with chance, and this constitutes an important element of the very attraction of both games. What sets the two apart is that while the roulette player enters the battle with nothing more than superstition and blind recklessness, the skilled poker player will be armed for the encounter with mathematics, strategy, and a willingness to take calculated risks. In Rock-Paper-Scissors, we ‹nd an in›ation of the role of the imaginary order. The RPS player may collect information to support her decision on whether to throw Rock, Paper, or Scissors in a particular situation against a particular opponent. But the predictive value of any information, whether in the form of physical tells, psychological pro‹ling, or statistical data on the opponent, is highly contingent on the extent to which the player’s reading of the opponent is already included in the opponent’s display of information. Any symbolization is contingent on the imaginary mediation between the sign and the signi‹ed. In RPS, it is paradigmatically illustrated that any system of symbolization is contingent upon the particular way in which the subject’s reading the system is included, excluded, or in some way “included out” of the symbolic order. The functioning of the imaginary order in RPS results in a number of elements in the game that we also ‹nd as crucial components of poker: Sicilian reasoning, bluf‹ng, and the importance of reading the opponent as a concrete human individual and not as an idealized perfectly rational idea. The difference between the two games derives from the fact that in poker the hierarchy of hand values does not have the same intransitive or circular structure as in RPS. Furthermore the nature of a hand is in poker not entirely decided by will, as is the case in RPS, but through the random distribution of cards. This means that in poker there is a difference in the real be- Bjerg_Text.qxd 36 6/22/2011 • 11:55 AM Page 36 poker Fig. 2. Borromean Knot of game types tween players, instituted at the initial deal of cards and further evolved through the subsequent rounds of the hand. Since poker players have exact knowledge about their own cards and the cards on the board, there is room for some degree of exact logical and mathematical analysis. Contrary to RPS, poker players are not entirely delivered to the fantasmatic universe of the imaginary order. Some system of symbolization may be established whereby poker becomes more than a game of pure speculative imagination. We conclude this chapter by returning to the ‹gure of the Borromean knot. This time we are able to designate the circles not only by the orders of the Lacanian triad of symbolic, real, and imaginary but also by the three games exemplifying the functioning of these orders: chess, roulette, and Rock-Paper-Scissors. In a game of poker, the outcome of different hands will be determined in different dimensions of this ‹gure. Some hands may be determined through sheer luck (real), some hands may be determined by superior mathematical calculation by one player (symbolic), and some hands may be determined through bluf‹ng or advanced reading of the opponent (imaginary). But if we look at the game of poker over a course of hands, it turns out that the game constantly moves from one order to the other and that Bjerg_Text.qxd 6/22/2011 11:55 AM Page 37 The Ontology of Poker • 37 most hands involve a complex interplay between all three orders, the symbolic, the real, and the imaginary. This is why we relate poker to the other games in the ‹gure by placing poker as the whole of the interplay between the three other game elements. This understanding of poker provides the analytical framework for the exploration of the game in the rest of the book. Bjerg_Text.qxd 6/22/2011 two ♠ ♣ ♥ ♦ 11:55 AM Page 38 Anatomy of a Poker Hand [Poker is] a game of fortune to be won by luck, science, and intuitive skill, in a combination unexampled except in life itself.1 Rather than one particular game, poker is a family of different games structured around the same basic principles. In this chapter, we shall be looking into No-Limit Texas Hold ’Em, which is the most popular form of poker today. From a philosophical perspective, No-Limit Texas Hold ’Em is arguably distinguished from other variants of poker by having a structure that balances the three ontological orders very well against each other. The game is not primarily a game of chance. It is not primarily a game of mathematical and logical deduction. Nor is it primarily a psychological game. More so than other variants of poker, it is precisely the interplay between these three dimensions that determines the outcome of the game. The game is never entirely determined by one dimension. Perhaps this is the philosophical justi‹cation for poker legend Doyle Brunson’s designation of Texas Hold ’Em as “the Cadillac of poker games.” The object of the current chapter is to give a brief introduction to the dynamics of poker and poker strategy. This introduction serves as the basis for the following chapter, where we are going to go further into the philosophical analysis of poker by applying the distinction between real, symbolic, and imaginary to the kind of reasoning going into the game. b asi c s o f te xas h ol d ’ e m Texas Hold ’Em is played between a number of players typically ranging from two to ten. At the beginning of each hand, every player is dealt two 38 Bjerg_Text.qxd 6/22/2011 11:55 AM Page 39 Anatomy of a Poker Hand • 39 cards not exposed to the other players. These are the so-called hole cards. The playing of a hand consists of up to four consecutive rounds of dealing and betting. In each betting round, players bet/raise (put money in the pot), call (match a previous bet), check (stay in an unraised pot without betting), or fold (withdraw from the hand without adding further money to the pot). A betting round proceeds until players have either folded or equalized their bets into the pot. If more than one player is still left in the round, the hand proceeds to the next round of dealing and betting. If only one player is left, this player wins the hand and takes the money currently in the pot. After the ‹rst betting round, three cards are dealt faceup on the board. This is called “the ›op.” After the second round of betting, one further card is dealt faceup. This is “the turn.” After the third round of betting, a ‹fth and ‹nal card is dealt faceup. This is “the river.” The river card is followed by a fourth and ‹nal round of betting, and if more than one player is still left in the pot after this round, the players still in the pot go to showdown and reveal their hole cards. The player showing the strongest poker hand, consisting of any ‹ve-card combination of his two hole cards and the ‹ve community cards on the board, wins the hand and takes home the money in the pot. Hand strength is determined according to the standard ranking of poker hands. In descending order: straight ›ush (‹ve cards of the same suit in consecutive order), four of a kind (four cards of the same rank), full house (three cards of the same rank plus two cards of another rank), ›ush (‹ve cards of the same suit), straight (‹ve cards in consecutive order), three of a kind (three cards of the same rank), two pairs (two cards of the same rank plus two cards of another rank), pair (two matching cards of the same rank), and high card (the highest-ranking single card of the hand). In case of a tie, the pot is split. There are thus two ways of winning a hand, either showing the strongest hand at showdown or placing a bet in any of the four betting rounds not matched by any of the other players. Since it is generally considered to be an advantage to be positioned late in the sequence of betting, position is rotated after each hand so that players alternate being ‹rst, second, third, and so on in the betting sequence. The last position is referred to as “the dealer’s position” or as “being on the button.” Furthermore, each hand is initiated by a number of forced bets also known as “blinds” and “antes.” These are bets players must place before their cards are dealt as an entry to participate in the hand. The player immediately to the left of the dealer places “the small blind” of some Bjerg_Text.qxd 40 6/22/2011 • 11:55 AM Page 40 poker prede‹ned amount. The player immediately to the left of the small blind places “the big blind” typically amounting to twice the small blind. If the game is played with antes, every player including the blinds places a forced bet of some prede‹ned amount smaller than the small blind. Players, of course, also take turns being in the position of the small and the big blind. In limit poker, players may only bet in restricted increments up to a certain maximum on each betting round. In no-limit poker, players are allowed in any betting round to bet any fraction of the money they have on the table or even go “all-in” with their entire stack of chips. An often quoted poker saying goes: “Poker’s a day to learn and a lifetime to master.” Truly, one of the enchanting charms of poker is the immense contrast between the simplicity of the rules and the overwhelming complexity of the game in practice. It is far beyond the scope of this book, and perhaps of any book, to deliver a complete presentation of the strategic thinking that goes into playing poker. The object here is, instead, to apply our theoretical framework to poker in order to identify the different philosophical dimension in the kind of thinking that goes into playing poker. In the following, we shall be taking as our starting point one particular hand to serve as example. We shall be looking at how the hand proceeds as it is played and undertaking a philosophical analysis of the considerations going into the hand. The hand chosen for illustration was played by professional poker player Gus Hansen in the course of the Aussie Millions Poker Tournament 2007. The hand was crucial in determining the ‹nal outcome of the tournament, which Hansen proceeded to win.2 p re fl o p : symb o l iz i n g th e stre n g th o f a p o k e r h an d The hand occured toward the end of the tournament when all but 14 out of an initial 746 players had been knocked out. This accounts for the astronomical amount of chips accumulated on the table. Gus Hansen is seated at a table with four other players. His chip stack at this stage is 1.9 million dollars. The small blind is 12,000, the big blind is 24,000, and antes are 4,000, meaning that there is 56,000 in the pot even before the actual betting begins. Hansen is positioned in the big blind and he is dealt the hole cards: Bjerg_Text.qxd 6/22/2011 11:55 AM Page 41 Anatomy of a Poker Hand • 41 The betting round is initiated by the player to the left of Hansen, who immediately folds, as do the following two players. Left in the pot is now only the player in the small blind, Patrik Antonius, an experienced professional well known to Hansen. Antonius adds another 12,000 to his small blind, calling Hansen’s initial forced bet of 24,000. Before we proceed to see how Hansen acts, we shall pause to consider the philosophical coordinates of the situation. The distribution of cards in a game of poker is completely random, assuming the game is fair. As such we may initially regard the cards as immediate manifestations of the undifferentiated Being of the real. There is no meaningful reason that a player is dealt J♣ J♠ instead of A♠ J♠, 10♦ 10♥, K♣ 8♠, or any other hand. Since very few and certainly only very bad poker players play their cards complete randomly, the cards rarely remain mere manifestations of the real. As soon as a player starts considering how to play her hand, a symbolization of the cards take place, whereby the cards are inscribed into the symbolic order of the game. Basically, playing good poker may be boiled down to being able to judge the strength of your hand at any given time in the game and bet accordingly, that is, symbolize the real. Doyle Brunson puts it this way: “Try to decide how good your hand is at a given moment. Nothing else matters. Nothing!” Although it is certainly true, we should not be deceived by the simplicity of this statement. As we shall see in the following, “strength” of a poker hand is no straightforward concept. First, it is dif‹cult in most situations to express the strength of a poker hand on a one-dimensional scale. Second, the factors going into estimating the strength of a poker hand are manifold and heterogeneous. The list of possible factors relevant when deciding its strength is almost endless. It includes basic factors such as position and pot odds but also more advanced things such as opponent’s style, the player’s and the opponent’s amounts of chips, the stage in tournament progression, physical tells, the player’s own table image, and so on. Brunson’s statement may thus be complimented by a paraphrase: “When trying to decide how good your hand is at a given moment, everything matters. Everything!” The difference in skills between different players is often made up by the difference between the amounts of factors the players are able to include in their judgment of a hand’s strength. Theoretically, the strength of a poker hand may be viewed as a con›ation of three dimensions of strength: current strength, potential strength, and relative strength. Current strength is the ranking of the poker hand that can be made with the hole cards and any community cards already on the board. Potential strength is measured by the ranking of the Bjerg_Text.qxd 42 6/22/2011 • 11:55 AM Page 42 poker poker hands that may eventually be made when all the cards are out and the probability of these hands being made. Relative strength of a hand is decided in comparison with the strength of the hands of opponents still in the pot. Since opponents’ hands are equally subject to development during a hand, it is relevant to consider both current relative strength and potential relative strength. Going back to our example, the ‹rst thing to consider for Hansen is the current strength of the hand. With no cards yet on the board, this is easily determined to be a pair of jacks—a fairly strong hand at this moment, beaten only by queens, kings, or aces. As mentioned, such determination constitutes a symbolization of the real. The real of the randomly dealt cards is valuated through inscription into the symbolic reality of the game. The determination of current hand’s strength operates, however, at a very primitive level of symbolization, and at this early stage of the hand, it is obviously insuf‹cient since the showdown value of the hand is contingent on ‹ve other cards to come. The ‹ve remaining cards constitute a surplus of the real not yet included in the symbolization of the hand in the determination of current strength. The next level of thinking involves determining the potential strength of the hand. In this case of two jacks, the most obvious possibility of improvement lies in catching another jack to complete three of a kind, also known as a “set.” At this stage, the calculation of this probability is fairly simple. With two jacks remaining in the deck and 50 cards still not revealed, the probability of completing a set on the ›op is 12 percent, on the ›op or the turn 16 percent and on the ›op, turn, or river 20 percent. The surplus of the real is included in the symbolization through probability theory. A player does not know which cards are to be dealt as the hand progresses, and he can point to no de‹nite causes that predict the cards. Given his knowledge of the cards in the deck, he can, however, determine the probability of certain cards to be dealt. Through the calculations of probability theory, the manifestations of the real in the form of the random distribution of cards are inscribed into a meaningful and ordered symbolic system of signs. Later in this chapter, we shall be looking further into the philosophical implications of this procedure. Finally, Hansen also makes some re›ections on the relative strength of his hand. At this early stage of the hand, he has very little information from which to deduce the probable content of his opponent’s hand. Hansen makes the following assumption: Bjerg_Text.qxd 6/22/2011 11:55 AM Page 43 Anatomy of a Poker Hand • 43 Even with the very signi‹cant ante, I don’t think Patrik would limp with total garbage. As a matter of fact I think he has somewhat of a decent holding, since I know that Patrik is very reluctant to get involved in bigstack shoot-outs out of position.3 Taking into consideration the size of the pot, Antonius’s position and his call and also some general knowledge of Antonius’s style, Hansen rules out his opponent having a weak hand or a very strong hand and assumes he is up against a medium strong hand. Hansen decides that the overall strength of his hand warrants a raise and puts 72,000 in the pot to go with his big blind of 24,000. Hansen’s bet is then called by Antonius and both players proceed to the ›op. f l o p an d turn : th e o pp o n e n t an d the i magi n ary The pot now contains a total of 212,000 and the ›op puts the following cards on the board: The ‹rst thing to note is of course the jack improving the current strength of Hansen’s hand by completing his set. What needs to be decided then is the likelihood of this hand being the strongest at the moment and the probability of the hand being the strongest at showdown. This decision involves considerations of the current relative strength and the potential relative strength of the hand. One option to take into consideration is that Antonius is holding an ace that gives him a pair of aces in combination with the board. Since he didn’t show strength pre›op it is reasonable to assume that his second card is low or medium value. This would be a fortunate situation for Hansen since Antonius would be left with limited chances of improving into a hand that could beat a set of jacks. Yet the board also opens possibilities for both