United Kingdom Poker

Who's the new Poker Player?

We see the old poker player as someone who is our dad, our grandpa, our distant relative, who smokes cheap cigars, carries a big beer belly, all-too Western-like, a gun-slinging cowboy, a gangster, unhealthy and nearly a chronic palpitator, an arrythmiacs. We see pokers played in saloons, in basements, or in underground liquor compound in Capote-run Chicago.

Fifty years ago, people found this cool (except for the chronic palpitator and arrythmiacs). And this kind of appeal worked out to make the game the unofficial U.S. National Pastime and the baseball for the unathletic. But as the tides turned, the game lost its appeal. People got tired looking at Poker as the good 'ole game. What used to be high drama and suspense the game gave to audiences just became cliché.

To bring back Poker to mainstream, you'll need to subtly change the image of the game. And you do this by recasting the players. And who did we find.

Mathematicians, Statisticians, Computer guys.

Nerds, Geeks.

But look again.

These profiles are poker players who are opportunistic, slightly seedy, spirited, strategy-oriented, intelligent and individualistic - exactly the kind of characteristics that made millions in the Internet.

Sure enough, these are the kind of people that the youth nowadays can relate to.

So this youth, this generation X, started to like poker too. You don't see them in bars. You don't see them smoking cigars. You see them in libraries, with their calculators, with their numbers, with their notes juggling strategies, with their detailed charts on bluffing and play patterns.

The new arena for Poker is surprisingly in the comfort of their home. Online poker games enables players for real money or fake against anyone - a novice or an old hand. In every online room, one can refine their game and take notes at the same time. A recent World Series Poker Champion, a 28-year old Tennessean, is not your ideal old West, saloon player. He's an accountant and he just learned everything about poker by joining in online rooms obsessively. He beat hundreds of traditional, old hand players and walked away with a whooping $2.5 million in his pocket.

So here's our newfound appeal to Poker. It's not vice, and not entirely an issue of gambling, it's about wits. It's a game of chance, but it's a game of chance that can be won by will and you try to make weaker hearts and dull minds wallow on your wake.