Over the years, people have compared poker to many other subjects, including chess, bridge, blackjack, the business world, and investing. Poker has been compared to sports, higher mathetmatics, and the relations between a man and a woman.
These can be valid comparisons, because poker involves a combination of play-acting, mathematical skill, game theory, and personal psychology. To be a master at poker, you have to be skilled at the technical aspects, but also good at reading people and sending mixed messages. With such factors involved, it’s only natural someone would compare poker to politics.
How Poker Is Similar to Politics
Robert Silverman of KnickerBlogger.net fame recently wrote an op-ed piece comparing politics to poker. In the article, Silverman quoted his own uncle saying you could get to know a person one of two ways: see them drunk or watch them play poker.
Then Silverman pivoted to the subject of US President Donald Trump. He described all the pundits and opinion writers trying to decipher the policy positions and strange behavior of the president, then compared it to that of a poker player.
Robert Silverman described poker as a “continuous negotiation”, which is how he connects poker to Donald Trump. Poker is not a zero-sum game, like football. (In a zero-sum game, one side’s loss is another side’s gain, and vice versa.)
The writer contrasted the personalities of the past two presidents, citing poker player and author James McManus, who described Barack Obama as a “cautious” poker player. Silverman places Donald Trump in the “showboater” category as a politician and speculates he would be a showboater as a poker player. In doing so, Robert Silverman suggests showboating is a legitimate way to play cards and play politics.
Deception in Poker
It is no secret that a certain level of Machiavellianism helps when playing poker. Lancaster University in the United Kingdom did a study of strategic deception in online poker, to see how adopting the techniques proposed by Niccolo Machiavellia worked in iPoker.
Dr Jeff Yan, Senior Lecturer at Lancaster University’s School of Computing and Communications, led the study.
Dr. Yan noted, “To be a successful poker player, the general advice is to be the one controlling the action. Machiavellians might have an increased propensity to bluff not because they are amoral or desire status in life, but because they dislike showing weakness and generally desire to be in control.”
Keeping up Appearances
Dr. Yan described a type of player as “High Machievellian”, which is a player who likes to bluff a lot. He suggested that such players like to be in control and dislike when others bluff them (and it works), because it makes them look foolish.
The study said, “Although Machiavellians have typically been considered to be cold-blooded and calculating, our results show that when they get slow-played, being the target of manipulation elicits strong negative emotions.
“High Machiavellians generally like to feel in control and dislike showing weakness and might thus be prone to feeling distraught when someone else displays control over them — by making them look weak and exploitable by using their own weapon of deception against them.”
The Lancaster University study seemed to suggest that High Machiavellians are more prone to go on tilt. Certainly, they are more prone to allowing emotions control their reaction to events — because of a need to maintain the appearance of control and competence.
As Dr. Yan stated, “We found a positive correlation between sensitivity to poker losses and Machiavellianism. Losing in poker was emotionally more stressful to High Machiavellians than others.”
How Poker Is Different from Politics
How those findings might apply to politics is another matter. As complicated as poker is, politics is far more complicated. A poker table might have 9 players at it. American politics involved 330 million people, making it far more complicated. Politics involves the allocation of resources, so helping one person hurts another person. Even if you divide people into groups to make things less complicated seeming, there are far more than 9 groups to consider in American politics.
Also, politics is not about acquisition. It is about arranging a society. Bluffing might not work as well, because the appearance of strength (without the reality of strength) causes people at various levels to make life-changing decisions based on false premises.
Sandbagging — or portraying weakness when one is really strong — can have similar consequences. Unless public safety or the public good is at stake, then it is a bad idea to do either. Instead, transparency and truth-telling are better served. As numerous historians have said, intelligence and technical knowledge are not the most important traits for a president, but character, wisdom, courage, and public trust are.
International Relations Compared to Poker
International politics is even more complicated than domestic politics. Unlike the poker table, international relations are not just adversarial; they can be cooperative. Diplomacy, alliances, cooperation, and soft power often are more important than confrontation. Nations sometimes have shared interests, and nations that strive to build alliances are made stronger, because their alliances are a force multiplier in the military, economic, and political world. They help deter enemies, tighten sanctions, and secure UN resolutions. And in time of war, they share the costs and burdens of conflict.
That is one thing Donald Trump’s approach to politics seems to lack (so far). He appears to view all foreign relations as adversarial. Win-win situations do not seem to exist in his philosophy. If it is good for the NATO countries, it cannot be good for the United States. If China prospers, America suffers. For American interests to be served, we need to make a profit off the deal. Cooperation only has value, if it is established that America or Americans get rewards first.
The Dangers of Sending Mixed Signals in Foreign Relations
In this environment, the comparsion between poker and politics breaks down. Alliances are strong when the allies know what your reaction will be, because they make hard decisions based on confidence in an allies’ strength and resolution. If they cannot depend on you to uphold Article 5, they have to make alternative plans. That, in turn, leads to an erosion of trust on both sides and collective security is weakened.
When confronting rivals in international relations, showboating and bluffing has some value. The “Crazy Man Theory” worked to some extent for Richard Nixon, in very limited ways. Henry Kissinger would tell rivals he didn’t know what Nixon might do, so they should be more reasonable.
Even then, sending mixed messages can lead to tragedy. Prior to the Korean War, the Truman Administration would not give a 100% pledge to defend South Korea in case of a communist invasion. The communists were convinced an invasion would not be opposed; two miscalculations led to the death of over an estimated 1.2 million people on all sides of the conflict.
Is It Better to Be Loved or Feared?
People assume that Niccolo Machiavelli would come down on the side of Donald Trump and Richard Nixon, in suggesting that the Crazy Man theory has merit. He does in a way, based on his classic question, “Is it better to be loved than feared?”
Macchiavelli answered that it is better to be feared than loved, because fear is something a politician can control. Love is something given to the politician by their subjects/citizens, while fear is something he or she bestows in the population, other politicians, and other nations.
People forget, though, that Machiavelli said fear is not the optimal state for a prince or politician. He said it is better to be feared than loved, “if you cannot be both”. There is significant value in having allies and making friends around the globe, and there is plenty of advice in “The Prince” deals with how a prince can gain popularity, respect, or standing.
Love & Fear in Poker
In poker, I would argue that it is possible to be both loved and feared. Players who win consistently are like sports franchises which consistently: they are feared by their opponents. In this regard, “fear” is closely associated with “respect”. When a top player shows strength, other players respect that strength a bit more. They show a healthy level of fear.
At the same time, not all famous players are despised or disliked. Most of the top poker professionals try to develop a likeable persona. For one thing, most people do prefer to be liked. Also, it helps market oneself if most people in the card playing community likes a poker pro.
Beyond that, though, being liked at the poker table limits adversarial relationships. Top pros naturally have a target on them, because amateur players want to return home with stories of their battles with the pro at the table. They want to say they took down the famous player. If they fail, well, they’ll have an interesting story nonetheless. Having a likeable persona means players might be less likely to target a player as much, though some might argue that fear works better, because it is something the Machiavellian poker player controls.
Still, whether in politics or poker, it is best to have as many tools at one’s disposal as possible. The United States has employed hard power and soft power to great effect around the world over the decades. Few would argue that you should only have hard power or only have soft power; they work hand-and-hand. American hard power (military power) kept the United States and its allies from losing the Cold War, but American soft power (economics and liberty) won the Cold War. Essentially, those under Soviet domination wanted liberty and prosperity, and therefore soft power won the day.
I accept Robert Silverman’s premise that poker, like politics, is a “continuous negotiation”. Given that premise, it is best to have as many tools of negotiation at your disposal as possible. Maintaining one’s calm in the good moments and bad is best.
About Robert Silverman: Freelance Writer
Robert Silverman is a sports and gaming writer who has had articles published in the New York Times, Salon, VICE, The Classical, Deadspin, and ESPN.com. Silverman was the co-author of We’ll Always Have Linsanity: Strange Takes on the Strangest Season in Knicks History. He can be reached on Twitter at @BobSaietta.
