Drugs in poker

[ShatnerPants]

edit before the whole "poker is a sport" nonsense debate kicks off.

http://www.sportdevelopment.org.uk/html/eucharter.html definition of sport, let's not argue that poker is a physical activity please.

Sport" means all forms of physical activity which, through casual or organised participation, aim at expressing or improving physical fitness and mental well-being, forming social relationships or obtaining results in competition at all levels.

But it was too late......

Poker is a game that takes place over a long period of time.  Therefore people with better stamina will be able to concentrate longer and better.  So younger, fitter guys and gals will be able to outlast old dribbly farts.

Try playing poker without any form of physical activity.    It gets a bit dull.

Think of all the ex sportsmen who are top class poker players.  Theres Antonius, and Benyamine for starters.  Ivey was a world champ pacman player ffs.

Atheletes at every turn.

[ShatnerPants]

I don't get - what on earth makes folks want to do it?

-Once they start, they're addicted

Open question.

Define 'addicted'.

[boldie]

edit before the whole "poker is a sport" nonsense debate kicks off.

http://www.sportdevelopment.org.uk/html/eucharter.html definition of sport, let's not argue that poker is a physical activity please.

Sport" means all forms of physical activity which, through casual or organised participation, aim at expressing or improving physical fitness and mental well-being, forming social relationships or obtaining results in competition at all levels.

But it was too late......

Poker is a game that takes place over a long period of time.  Therefore people with better stamina will be able to concentrate longer and better.  So younger, fitter guys and gals will be able to outlast old dribbly farts.

Try playing poker without any form of physical activity.    It gets a bit dull.

Think of all the ex sportsmen who are top class poker players.  Theres Antonius, and Benyamine for starters.  Ivey was a world champ pacman player ffs.

Atheletes at every turn.

they are Ex- athletes that are now poker players...that doesn't make poker a sport.

you try doing cross words for 8 hours a day...does that make people doing cross words athletes as well?..

Being in good physical shape always helps no matter what you do..saying that being in good shape helps is therefore not an argument as to why Poker is a sport.

[PocketLady]

I don't get - what on earth makes folks want to do it?

-They find life boring
-They are trying to block out unpleasant feelings/memories
-Peer pressure
-Once they start, they're addicted

Again as many people have said before it's the same as asking why do people drink alcohol?  They drink it to make them feel good and give them confidence, for the most part.  Drugs make you feel good, and quite often without the nasty hangover that alcohol brings.  Obviously a lot of people might say "Well if you are happy with your life then you shouldn't need to use drugs to make you feel good."  Whilst it's true that unhappy people are most likely to become alcoholics or drug addicts, for many people drugs are an experience.  A friend of mine once told me about something called Saliva which is a legal drug originating from Mexico (I think) which Shamans used to use to obtain a higher level of consciousness.  Two of my friends tried it once at home.  One of them was convinced that they were actually a floorboard, and the other fell in love with a giant Winne The Pooh which was behind the sofa.  All safe experiences but an experience that you are never going to be able to have otherwise (although not an experience everyone will want to have I'm sure...), and I think the whole point of life is to experience as much as you can while you're here.  The problem is when the addiction comes along.

Like I said previously, the worst drug I have ever done is smoked weed, nothing that serious.  I remember one night I had been at one of my local casinos playing a comp when a few of us decide we were going to go back to one of our friends house to carry on the night with some more poker and booze etc.  It just so happened that this guy was a drug dealer, mainly in the form of growing and selling weed.  So we went to his house and he produced this huge box full of weed, never seen anything like it before, and just basically said help yourselves.  As the night went on some coke was produced from somewhere, and my boyfriend of the time asked me if I wanted some.  Although personally I think I would like to experience some of these narcotics in my life, I'm fully aware that I get addicted to stuff extremely easily.  I smoke and play poker for starters!  So I declined on the basis that if I liked it, I know it could easily turn into a habit and I'm not ever going to let that happen.  

I can understand the people who hate drugs and alcohol, are tee total, and want them both to be banned.  But I cannot understand the people who think drinking is ok - and smashing up windows and people's faces, and threatening people and throwing up, and killing people in drink driving accidents - but that cannabis (and others) is not ok.  And in my opinion this all comes from the fact that the governement tells us alcohol is ok (because it's legal) and that drugs are not.  Drugs are bad and we all have that drilled into us from when we are old enough to go to school.  They tell us about the extreme cases, kids dying from taking one E, coke addicts becoming prostitutes, people getting HIV from sharing needles, Amy Winehouse, and this becomes the public perspective on drugs.  But if anyone cared to actually think about it for themselves for a while and considered the possibility that the government isn't always right, then their perspective might change somewhat when they see that for the most part drugs aren't actually like that at all.  For example I asked a friend (completely tee total, anti drugs, anti everything) last night if they would rather be sat next to a drunk person or a person on drugs in a poker game.  They immediately said "Drunk" as a reflex, but once they'd thought about it said "Oh actually I'm not too sure."  

[Karabiner]

I know of a number of poker players who go outside for a spliff during the breaks, and until a few years ago I would have joined them.

Is anyone seriously suggesting that they should be disqualified on their return for playing whilst stoned ?

[gatso]

"Sport" means all forms of physical activity which, through casual or organised participation, aim at expressing or improving physical fitness and mental well-being, forming social relationships or obtaining results in competition at all levels.

yuck, that's a horrible overly PC definition of sport. the council of europe probably paid a fortune for a team of consultants to come up with that rubbish, part of the brief being to ensure they excluded as few people/activities as possible

[WYSINWYG]

http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache:9A4awoExoZUJ:www.eurad.net/mary/Cannabis%2520and%2520Mental%2520Illness.pdf+CANNABIS+MODERATE+USE+MENTAL+ILLNESS&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=13


So some guy wins the WSOP main event but you as the TD thought he was a bit jumpy, so test him. Turns out he's on Coke, speed, Nootropil and Valium, having taken them at different stages of the tourney. What do you do?

Not really an issue, is it? the problem was that the guy was an arse..not that he was stoned, no?

The problem was that he won a sport of mental performance while using mind-enhancing and mood-modulating drugs. Obv the extent to which this can help you WIN is well open to debate but:
-a lot of people (inc myself) consider poker to be a sport. Albeit a sport that heavily uses your mind (at times). Other sports ban athletes who attempt to gain an unfair edge by chemical means, why does poker get off?

If the main event runs a LONG time, then u see how tired is everyone is getting, the guy who decides to resort to illegal stimulants will often have an edge, ceteris paribus.

I'm just throwing this out there as an idea, I don't really have a strong stance on it either way.

everyone on Red Bull could have an edge as well.




p.s. Poker is most definitey not a sport...although some poker players i know would love to be classed as Athletes, they most certainy aren't.

edit before the whole "poker is a sport" nonsense debate kicks off.

http://www.sportdevelopment.org.uk/html/eucharter.html definition of sport, let's not argue that poker is a physical activity please.

Sport" means all forms of physical activity which, through casual or organised participation, aim at expressing or improving physical fitness and mental well-being, forming social relationships or obtaining results in competition at all levels.

According to your theory then this man is not an athlete?



?

Also Tony G says it's a sport and he is one of the finest athletes ever, who could deny?


As for

I doubt that there is a drug out there that would have a positive effect on someone's poker skills. A poker player like Ivey (to name but one) is good for a lot of reasons, one of which is his mental attitude. That would be altered if he took cocaine or something like that thus making him more inclined to bugger up.

I can't entirely agree. As for the drugs, stimulants that also mess up your cognition/mood a bit are the most famous ones that get all the press (probably because they do the aforementioned and are addictive). But there are a ton of legal drugs out there that definitely DO enhance cognition, memory, alertness, but society has not yet caught up with the research or bought into the idea of habitual nootropic use.
As for Ivey, yeah I've watched the guy's game a lot too, I think he's amazing, and how much his game would be improved synthetically is very arguable. But no part of his edge occurs outwith the neuronal messaging and pathway circuitry in his brain (ok body fitness a slight contributor too). But his main edge, his mind, memories, and experience, they are in his brain. These legal drugs act specifically on those parts of his brain, perhaps facilitating them. Ivey admits that some part of his edge comes from his self-control and relatively tilt-free game.  So two mediocre players, in all other respects equal, over time will most likely show a difference if one is allowed access to these drugs and the other not. Is that fair? You take the drugs as an average player, they aren't gonna make you beat Ivey, but from a level starting point it may be a different story.
I question the a priori assertion that because Ivey is already great and has an edge, therefor we should question the relevance of enhancing drugs. Ben Johnson was a fantastic athlete, at the top of his game, and no amateur could touch him. But he took drugs to boost that edge, and for that he was banned and rightly shunned.

[WYSINWYG]

*Ben Johnson the African Canadian runner.

[boldie]

lol@ the suggestion that "because Tony G says so we should all think that Poker is a sport"

Pokerplayers are not althetes, really honest to God they are not. there might be athletes that play poker but that doesn't make every poker player an athlete.


Hell, I am almost starting to think this is a level.

[gatso]

I don't get - what on earth makes folks want to do it?

-They find life boring
-They are trying to block out unpleasant feelings/memories
-Peer pressure
-Once they start, they're addicted

Again as many people have said before it's the same as asking why do people drink alcohol?  They drink it to make them feel good and give them confidence, for the most part.  Drugs make you feel good, and quite often without the nasty hangover that alcohol brings.  Obviously a lot of people might say "Well if you are happy with your life then you shouldn't need to use drugs to make you feel good."  Whilst it's true that unhappy people are most likely to become alcoholics or drug addicts, for many people drugs are an experience.  A friend of mine once told me about something called Saliva which is a legal drug originating from Mexico (I think) which Shamans used to use to obtain a higher level of consciousness.  Two of my friends tried it once at home.  One of them was convinced that they were actually a floorboard, and the other fell in love with a giant Winne The Pooh which was behind the sofa.  All safe experiences but an experience that you are never going to be able to have otherwise (although not an experience everyone will want to have I'm sure...), and I think the whole point of life is to experience as much as you can while you're here.  The problem is when the addiction comes along.

Like I said previously, the worst drug I have ever done is smoked weed, nothing that serious.  I remember one night I had been at one of my local casinos playing a comp when a few of us decide we were going to go back to one of our friends house to carry on the night with some more poker and booze etc.  It just so happened that this guy was a drug dealer, mainly in the form of growing and selling weed.  So we went to his house and he produced this huge box full of weed, never seen anything like it before, and just basically said help yourselves.  As the night went on some coke was produced from somewhere, and my boyfriend of the time asked me if I wanted some.  Although personally I think I would like to experience some of these narcotics in my life, I'm fully aware that I get addicted to stuff extremely easily.  I smoke and play poker for starters!  So I declined on the basis that if I liked it, I know it could easily turn into a habit and I'm not ever going to let that happen.  

I can understand the people who hate drugs and alcohol, are tee total, and want them both to be banned.  But I cannot understand the people who think drinking is ok - and smashing up windows and people's faces, and threatening people and throwing up, and killing people in drink driving accidents - but that cannabis (and others) is not ok.  And in my opinion this all comes from the fact that the governement tells us alcohol is ok (because it's legal) and that drugs are not.  Drugs are bad and we all have that drilled into us from when we are old enough to go to school.  They tell us about the extreme cases, kids dying from taking one E, coke addicts becoming prostitutes, people getting HIV from sharing needles, Amy Winehouse, and this becomes the public perspective on drugs.  But if anyone cared to actually think about it for themselves for a while and considered the possibility that the government isn't always right, then their perspective might change somewhat when they see that for the most part drugs aren't actually like that at all.  For example I asked a friend (completely tee total, anti drugs, anti everything) last night if they would rather be sat next to a drunk person or a person on drugs in a poker game.  They immediately said "Drunk" as a reflex, but once they'd thought about it said "Oh actually I'm not too sure."  

your posts on this thread have been superb. thanks for putting my views across much better than I could

[WYSINWYG]

lol@ the suggestion that "because Tony G says so we should all think that Poker is a sport"

Pokerplayers are not althetes, really honest to God they are not. there might be athletes that play poker but that doesn't make every poker player an athlete.


Hell, I am almost starting to think this is a level.

Paranoia, see?

Wasn't Tony G formerly head coach for the Russian Cycling Team?

[boldie]

lol@ the suggestion that "because Tony G says so we should all think that Poker is a sport"

Pokerplayers are not althetes, really honest to God they are not. there might be athletes that play poker but that doesn't make every poker player an athlete.


Hell, I am almost starting to think this is a level.

Paranoia, see?

Wasn't Tony G formerly head coach for the Russian Cycling Team?

again, there are athletes that play poker...that doesn't make every poker player an athlete...nor does it make poker a sport.

[WYSINWYG]

lol@ the suggestion that "because Tony G says so we should all think that Poker is a sport"

Pokerplayers are not althetes, really honest to God they are not. there might be athletes that play poker but that doesn't make every poker player an athlete.


Hell, I am almost starting to think this is a level.

Paranoia, see?

Wasn't Tony G formerly head coach for the Russian Cycling Team?

again, there are athletes that play poker...that doesn't make every poker player an athlete...nor does it make poker a sport.

Live multitabling, that would be a sport. UTG flops quads, crushed to death by Matusow when returning for turn action.

[ShatnerPants]

edit before the whole "poker is a sport" nonsense debate kicks off.

http://www.sportdevelopment.org.uk/html/eucharter.html definition of sport, let's not argue that poker is a physical activity please.

Sport" means all forms of physical activity which, through casual or organised participation, aim at expressing or improving physical fitness and mental well-being, forming social relationships or obtaining results in competition at all levels.

But it was too late......

Poker is a game that takes place over a long period of time.  Therefore people with better stamina will be able to concentrate longer and better.  So younger, fitter guys and gals will be able to outlast old dribbly farts.

Try playing poker without any form of physical activity.    It gets a bit dull.

Think of all the ex sportsmen who are top class poker players.  Theres Antonius, and Benyamine for starters.  Ivey was a world champ pacman player ffs.

Atheletes at every turn.

they are Ex- athletes that are now poker players...that doesn't make poker a sport.

you try doing cross words for 8 hours a day...does that make people doing cross words athletes as well?..

Being in good physical shape always helps no matter what you do..saying that being in good shape helps is therefore not an argument as to why Poker is a sport.

Ok so I'm stretching the definition of physical activity just a tad.

In which case, living is a sport.  I'm just rubbish at it.

[PocketLady]

Being in good physical shape always helps no matter what you do..saying that being in good shape helps is therefore not an argument as to why Poker is a sport.

I would have thought that this is an arguement AGAINST poker being a sport judging from the look of some poker players...

Poker players are renowned for being lazy slobs most of the time.