12-03-05 - 1

12-03-05

The NYT last week had some more moronic articles about how Bridge and Chess are more valuable than poker and should have a resurgence, bla bla bla, written by lovers of those games. They go on about how women are becoming more common in Chess, more kids play bridge, how televised coverage could make those games more interesting, with dynamic players and color commentary. Do they really still not understand? Poker is a uniquely sexy and appealing game for many reasons. See my old article here - The Texas Hold'em Craze . Perhaps the most important difference to a game like Bridge or Poker is the variance, which gives every shlub poor player the dream of winning the big one. We'll see Monopoly or Backgammon become popular before Bridge or Chess. Backgammon is actually a very interesting game which is a big gambling game in Europe, but it's still missing a lot of factors - the outlaw history, the ease of understanding what's going on, the bluffing, the hidden psychological component, etc. it's a much more mathematical gambling game.