Here is the latest poker article Raul Mestre has written to his weblog. Raul tells him his opinion about the eternal question of whether or not poker is a sport .
Surely you have heard often refer to poker as a sport. Normally, and as much as me though, is because players / members / rooms would be interested to beast that poker was classified as a sport rather than the objective fact that has too much of sport (at the bottom of this, as almost always, is the least important: the interests are much higher than reality).
However, without a precedent, I think it does have points in common, most of those who thought a few years ago. Of course, when classification would have to pull the dictionary, and how physical activity has little future, even though he may be tired of spending hours playing continuously (this happens with all office work, and do not think anybody is turn has brought in sports).
However, yes there is something that separates elite athletes from the rest. And it’s the same thing that separates the elite poker player from the rest. The mental toughness. In both cases there are some additional things, but without a mental strength, dedication and discipline, well above the average, it is almost impossible to succeed in any competitive sport, or in poker.
This is easily seen in sports because they do not forgive. Despite having variance, in many a player who is below the level it is supposed to is something that “note” pretty quickly. Think of the top level athletes whose performance went down because they had the right mental attitude (Ronaldinho and Guti are the first to go through my head, but I’m sure there are hundreds of examples). Moreover, many elite athletes in their head the most “active”. Disciplined people, working and not get carried away by success. There are many examples of this type of athletes. Simply, they are willing to sacrifice more and will make better decisions throughout his career, which better positions them to become elite professionals. And apparently, then there is always an innate part. But simply those who do not have adequate mental capacity and the right psychological approach does not develop much as they should.
The Poker quite the same. The mental toughness, discipline and willingness to sacrifice improvement and capacity are factors that distinguish a player with little talent and a real professional success. The point is that in poker, equal (although less so) than the sport, being a good professional recognition does not imply a corresponding mediaproduction. Similarly, players and athletes have been lofty countless times just because the image produced much more value than its activity “sport.”
This happens more in poker than in professional sports because it has much more variance. As much as Nike tennis shoes vernder tried using my name, I suspect that the fact of losing all matches without winning a single point would make the most of the public lost interest in my image enough.
In poker, this can happen because, unless it is a complete fish mass (and this is fairly easy to avoid) any player may “seem” good. There is so much variance in the results, especially in the live game for the public to distinguish a competent player is not one that is simply impossible. This really has been terrific for the poker market since the great figures have been selected only for their image, opening up more and faster the market.
Make no mistake. This also happens in other sports, but as I said on a smaller scale. It is obvious that an athlete has to be competitive (especially if it competes in an individual sport!), It need not be the best to sell it as such. Import the image, and the ability of the athlete so that it is sold.
And make no mistake: there is variance in sport. And a lot. If not, professional gamblers and bookmakers would be millionaires (well, I mean more millions than they already are). In fact, better thought out, not because nobody would bet. In fact, the league would have no emotion. Fortunately for people who like sports, there is variance. Luckily for them, this is not so large that the winner ends up being “arbitrary” most of the time.
Even so, both in poker and the sport need to know to overcome the bad times and be strong psychologically to be among the elite. This must be the most important similarity. The innate characteristics that are needed vary according to the sport (I do not see Gasol being a magnificent swimmer or Nadal playing basketball in the NBA), and so is poker. The fundamental difference is that the features you need an elite athlete, the physical have very dominant, while for a poker player are mental ones. But in the end it remains a battle of talents, and who has worked his has a big advantage .