Thanksgiving Day

BY: Ashley Adams
Contact at: (Asha34@aol.com)
Author of Winning 7-Card Stud

It's Thanksgiving Day. I have a turkey in the oven and some cranberry sauce on the stove top boiling down to its sweet, tart perfection. My potatoes are boiling as is my tzimmes. Hey, I need at least one dish to remind me of my true ethnic roots.

We poker players have a lot to be thankful for today - and every day here in America. I'd like to count some of those blessings today,

We are all fortunate enough to live in a time and in a society with enough free time and disposable income for millions of us to play poker. Think about that. Think about how fortunate that is. There are so many places where people have to work all the time - or where the economy is so terrible that nearly everyone lives an impoverished existence. In scores of nations the per capita annual income is under a thousand dollars. Not too many good $10/20 or higher games likely to be formed there. But here in the United States, it seems that there are people gambling away hundreds of dollars at a sitting. It makes you wonder where all of these people spent their money before there were Indian casinos, lotteries, sports betting, and scratch tickets. Did they ALL fly to Las Vegas? Did they ALL play BINGO?

I'm thankful for all of the disposable income and extra time that allows so many millions to play poker.

I'm grateful for all of the new outlets for poker. Just fifteen years ago, if you wanted to play poker legally in a public card room you had to travel to Nevada, California, or Washington State. Of course you could try your hand among friends or strangers at a home game. But there was always the possibility of not getting paid, of getting busted or of getting robbed. Not so today.

Today we have legal poker on Indian reservations or otherwise legal venues in the majority of states. And if we don't have an actual brick and mortar place to play we have the Internet. We can all play poker twenty-four hours a day without getting out of our chairs if we so desire. How great is that?

Thank you to Planet Poker who started it all, and to all of the other internet poker sites who have carried the torch and improved the technology and brought poker fully into our living rooms. Thank you too to the folks who put together IRC, the predecessor of them all - who started the notion of playing poker on our computers. Thank you to rec.gambling.poker who created a community out of thousands of otherwise scattered individuals who shared a passion for this game. We have advanced this game to a level never imagined.

Thank you to Steve Lipscomb and Lyle Berman who brought poker to American television in a huge way. The World Poker Tour has not just made a star out of our favorite goodwill ambassador to the game, Mike Sexton, but it has made stars out of dozens of professional poker players - and a star out of the game of poker itself. What else can explain the explosion of interest in poker by today's youth? It may well be the single most important development in the world of poker since the introduction of the straight.

A well deserved tip of the cap is surely deserved by David Sklansky and Mason Malmuth who brought serious poker literature up to date. They and the publishing company they formed, Two Plus Two, have done all serious players an enormous service - allowing us to understand the elements of winning play without having to pay for the lessons with hours of losing play. They also demonstrated that poker books could sell well - encouraging other publishers to take a chance with other how-to books about our favorite game. In 1992 I went in to my local book store to buy some instructional manuals on poker. I found two books. I went in to Borders the other night to see if they had a copy of my book. They did - along with 87 other titles.

The list of people who have contributed to this huge poker boom is enormous. In addition to all of the floor people, the poker room managers, the brushes, the cashiers, the dealers, the wait staff, and the chip runners, it surely includes all of the professionals we see on television. Their willingness to have their down cards exposed to the world has taken poker from it's large but private world and thrust it into the mainstream - complete with groupies, wannabees and imitators. Thank you guys. Keep up the good work. Maybe one of these days you'll get it together sufficiently to really start getting the financial rewards you deserve. If you ever want to talk about organizing a player's union, you know how to find me.

And finally, my seasonal thank you's would be incomplete if I didn't give at least some backhanded praise to the naysayers, hypocrites, and legislators who have kept poker largely illegal. To those of you who declare those of us who spread home poker games to be criminals, while encouraging BINGO, state lotteries and scratch ticket sales - a round of applause for allowing my favorite game to keep its outlaw mystique alive and well. Were it not for the likes of you phony do-gooders, poker might well have long since become completely sanitized - losing the shady and somewhat seedy allure that has kept it so popular for so long. And who would want that?

© The Poker Forum.com, all rights reserved