Re-act-an c e
video: Congressman’s son plays poker and goes nuts
Besides the obvious reason of seeing somebody get disproportionately excited over something, this video is cool because the guy’s outward emotion runs the gamut of what it really feels like to play poker. And especially online poker where communication is limited to behavioral events instead of stacking visual and auditory.
In particular, this exemplifies what it was like to play PokerStars, a huge internet poker room. You sit there with a plate of food, or walk back and forth to the kitchen to make the food. You’re only playing against a few hundred others, but the psychological simulacrum of warfare is like launching missiles from a bunker.
Some great memories were being at my friends’ house and each of us playing an occasional tournament simultaneously from different rooms. It felt like we were battling the world.
One time as a hurricane struck Orlando and we had an ACTUAL fortress setup in the center of the house — mattresses against the sliding glass door, stockpiles of Cheese Whiz and water — the computer and huge CRT monitor were on the kitchen table. We played some rounds before the power went out and once it came back on a couple days later.
People who shrug off the value of poker usually think of it as a game of chance. I disagree with both categorizations. It is not a game in that it precludes an awareness of separate reality. Poker is a hyperreal activity, so much so that the opponents are almost irrelevant. Furthermore, at no time is it played in the context of chance.
Poker is an activity of reactance as engaged by and of probability. The player is always in complete control of the outcome of each hand; however, the true skill is in forcing reactance in the opponent. And the true purpose is what makes the ‘game’ akin to conquering the world: gaining resistance to reactance in oneself.
It is a training tool for living and surviving.
