The Game-Watching Game

Vera and I spent a nice quiet Thanksgiving on the farm yesterday watching a lot of football. Then today we spent some time driving around visiting family and enjoying leftovers.

Got to hang a little with my nephew, which is always fun. He’s seven-and-a-half now, and as usual during our reunions he introduced me to his current interests.

One was a new app he’s enjoying called My Singing Monsters which he insisted I download on my phone, too. Sort of a funny game with a creative element involving arranging “monsters” you’ve collected in ways that allow them to sing repetitive, catchy songs together.

He’s also handy on YouTube these days, and introduced Vera and I to a couple of his new favorites.

One is this nutty series of shorts called “The Annoying Orange” which I believe started out as a web-only thing before eventually becoming a series on the Cartoon Network. (And no, in case you’re wondering, it isn’t about the president-elect.) One of the videos just involved characters from the show playing a video game and commenting over it, my nephew giggling all of the way. That one is pictured above -- has over 6.8 million views!

Another are these videos made by an English fellow (I didn’t catch the name) that seem to involve him just acting funny on camera while sitting at his desk. Kind of minimal, but super-popular apparently as indicated by the huge views he gets.

I’m not sure what the standard format of the latter is, but the videos we saw all involved him kind of challenging himself to guess which of two choices would be the most popular in a “Would You Rather?”-type game. Stuff like “Would you rather spend five years in prison and then get a million dollars when released or never go to prison and not get any money?” He made his decisions entertaining by forcing himself to eat sour candy (and make lots of faces) should he choose the less popular of the two.

My nephew thought he was hilarious, and while I wasn’t laughing as much I think the target audience has to be kids. I found myself thinking how similar the dude’s videos were to ones produced by those playing online poker on Twitch, at least formally.

In both cases, the audience is basically watching someone play a game while trying to make it compelling viewing in some way. Both combine entertainment and education, too, via game show-like structures (or at least they can). And of course, in both cases the performer has figured out a way to monetize the performance.

We play games for a variety of reasons. There are a lot of different motivations for watching others play them, too, some of which make the games themselves somewhat incidental.

Something to think about, I guess, as I go back to watching football this weekend.

Game Culture

Sunday ended up being a workday for me, although the latter part of it I spent with the laptop in my immediate view and the Oscars playing out on the television a little farther away. Watched the whole sucker, more or less. I think the last time I did that Titanic swept the statues.

I don’t get out to see too many movies these days, not the current fare at least. I’ve been watching a few these last couple of months while we enjoy some free premium channels after initiating a new satellite setup in our new place, but we’ll let those channels go soon as we don’t spend enough time watching to justify the expense.

Of the ones highlighted last night I’d only seen Gravity, and that was on a plane (as I wrote about here a few weeks ago describing my trip home from EPT Deauville) -- hardly the ideal setting to take in the effects-laden spectacle, although I did form an appreciation of the film nonetheless. Not seeing the rest I can’t really say one way or another whether the trophies were handed out in a way that was deserving.

Found myself thinking a little about how on a certain level awards shows kind of weirdly make “games” out of pursuits and entertainments that aren’t really competitions at all. That up above is a “2014 Awards Season Scorecard” put out by Yahoo, further emphasizing the “sport” of such shows. I guess the Academy Awards are really like the playoffs, complete with favorites and underdogs, significant betting on outcomes and pools, and various kinds of scorekeeping taking place throughout the night.

I remember several months back listening to an episode of “B.S. Report” and getting a little frustrated with a lengthy discussion between host Bill Simmons and a guest regarding the acting career of Jodie Foster. It is a sports podcast (primarily), and so it shouldn’t have struck me as odd to hear the discussants pursue an analogy between Foster’s oeuvre and the career, say, of an NBA player. But after a while it felt like an unnecessarily narrow method of analysis.

Her two Academy Awards for Best Actress were likened to MVP or championship seasons. A stretch of non-remarkable roles stood for a lengthy slump. Her acting skills were questioned in the same way a player’s ability is, with an argument pursued that her apparent career highlights were more the product of fortunate casting and support (i.e., being on a strong “team”) than individual ability.

And so on. It was interesting, but seemed way too easy and ultimately not that revealing. In other words, the “sports guy” was talking about something that wasn’t sports as if it were, and finally I just wanted him instead to talk about sports again.

But that’s not to say such an approach can’t be insightful, nor that it is even wrong to make a “game” out of the act of criticism or evaluating artistic performance. It might even be inevitable, the way we tend to judge pretty much anything by making comparisons or ranking or assigning grades.

Heck, as I go to hit publish I’m already imagining giving myself a score out of 10 on this post. What would you say... 6? 7?

Defining Poker

Had fun again last night playing Hard-Boiled Poker Home Games on PokerStars while watching the opening weekend of NFL football. We’re still pushing through “Season 1” of the HBP HG, playing two tourneys each Sunday night until the end of September. By the end there will have been 20 events in this season, then at the beginning of October I’ll begin a “Season 2” that will play through the end of December.

As I’ve mentioned here before, players in each of the events can accumulate points for finishing in the top third of the field, and the one earning the most points for the season is going to win a copy of Poker: Bets, Bluffs and Bad Beats by Al Alvarez. I’m looking into lining up a few extra prizes for Season 2, so that one won’t be a winner-take-all.

I’ve been trying to schedule various games besides no-limit hold’em to keep things interesting. Last night we played pot-limit hold’em (Event No. 13) and what PokerStars calls “Triple Stud” (Event No. 14), the latter rotating between the three stud games in H.O.R.S.E. -- that is, stud (high only), stud hi/lo, and razz.

One of the ongoing challenges when playing Triple Stud was simply to remember which game was being played. The levels only lasted three minutes, which meant the games were switching frequently, and I think just about every one of us at least once started a hand thinking it was one stud variant when in fact it was a different one. Keeping track of the games is part of the challenge of any mixed game format, but I think the test might be slightly more taxing when all of the games are stud and thus superficially appear similar.

Kind of got me thinking a little about how “poker” covers so many different kinds of games. Or, to put it another way, how flexible that word “poker” really is in terms of what it could be said to define.

Heck, when I create Home Games, PokerStars let’s me choose from 17 different poker variants, with a number of those allowing for different betting formats (e.g., no-limit, pot-limit, fixed-limit). And of course there are options for full ring, short-handed, heads-up, different level durations, different starting stacks, and so forth. We couldn’t get through all of different poker games if we played a 100-event series.

Many say there are certain elements that are absolutely essential for a game to be called “poker.” I’ve heard and read a number of attempts at pinning those elements down, with most usually declaring that in order for a game to qualify as “poker,” it must involve cards, money, and bluffing.

Think about it, though... what a huge range of possibility exists for games that include those three criteria. And I’m not even completely sure those three elements are absolutely essential or cannot be modified significantly without carrying the game outside of the boundaries of what we can still call “poker.”

It’s like “literature” or “the novel” or other ambiguous categories or genres, really. One could even argue that as long as participants can agree on rules and that the game is still going to be called “poker,” then it’s poker.

How do you define poker? What elements would you say are utterly essential for a game to be called poker?

Let the Games Begin

The 2012 Summer Olympics are getting started in and around London. I expect I’ll be as diverted by them as anyone over the next two-and-a-half weeks.

Once again the start of the Olympics are bringing those odd, sorta-serious sorta-goofball calls for poker somehow to be considered for inclusion as an officially recognized Olympic “sport.”

PokerListings made reference to a failed petition yesterday in their Daily 3-Bet. The Ante Up guys also tossed up an op-ed a couple of days ago renewing the call for poker to be considered for inclusion in the Olympics.

I’ve been keeping this blog long enough to have seen this idea come up a few times by now. Heck, four years ago I was making reference here to the start of the 2008 games and that same silly suggestion to include poker as an Olympic sport.

I’ve discussed that old debate over poker being considered a “sport” several times in the past as well. For me, I’ve always come down on the side that says poker is not a sport though obviously shares some common ground, including a lot of overlap between the way poker tourneys and sporting events get covered.

To me poker is better referred to as a “game” than a “sport.” And even though they do call them the Olympic games, if one looks at the International Olympic Committee’s evaluation criteria for sports and disciplines, poker satisfies almost none of them.

Of course, there are those who have problems with calling poker a “game,” too. Not long ago on my Twitter feed I idly watched a strangely heated debate begun by a person referring to poker as “just a game” and another jumping in to gripe about how the phrase somehow demeaned his chosen profession.

The original tweeter was simply trying to point out poker’s relevance when compared to other, more serious matters, but the responder thought it needful to defend poker as more than “just a game.”

I suppose the issue isn’t so much calling poker a game (which it is), but referring to it as just a game, when it also can represent a lot else, depending on one’s perspective. After all, the fact that poker can mean so many different things to different people is one of its greatest attributes. And a reason why so many find poker a worthwhile activity.

Or hobby. Or pastime. Or pursuit. Or whatever you think poker is.

Take the Fun Pass

You might’ve seen this video that has been passed around the web a bit lately, a short film about a nine-year-old boy named Caine who built his own cardboard arcade in his father’s auto parts shop in East Los Angeles.

Using old boxes and other materials in his father’s shop, Caine invented a bunch of arcade games and sold tickets. He charges $1 for four plays. Or you can get a cool “Fun Pass” for $2 that gets you 500 plays. What a deal!

He even invented a clever security system using calculators to ensure all Fun Passes were genuine. And he designed a shirt he wore showing he was “Staff,” too.

Caine spent most of summer vacation creating his arcade, but didn’t get too many customers. Then a fellow named Nirvan stopped into the shop looking for a door handle to his 1996 Corolla, and he was intrigued enough by Caine’s arcade to buy a Fun Pass.

Eventually Nirvan got the idea to make the film about Caine and what he’d created, which included his having organized a flash mob last fall to descend upon his arcade, thus giving Caine a huge surprise as well as a sudden jump in business. Here’s the film:



The film demonstrates what is really a fundamental desire most humans possess to be creative. Caine obviously exemplifies this with his arcade, and the story reminds me of being a boy creating similar games.

I once built a baseball game out of a piece of wood, a few nails, and some rubber bands. I drew an elaborate field on the board, diving it all into little boxes where I wrote in “OUT” or “2B” or “BB” or whatever. I can’t remember exactly, but I think you shot a coin or little paper ball with a rubber band out into the field and moved players around the bases according to where it landed. I even constructed a scoreboard to go with it.

I’m remembering other, similar efforts like creating little flipbook cartoons with stapled-together pages, building a two-hole miniature golf course in the back yard, and so on. I haven’t thought about a lot of that stuff for a long time, but watching this video brought some of it back.

Of course, the creative impulse continues for a lot of us even after we become adults. We keep on building things, just like Nirvan did by making his film. We make these things to use or enjoy, but we also get a lot of use and enjoyment out of the process of making them.

The film also highlights our love of games. Nirvan’s enthusiasm about Caine’s arcade is utterly understandable, as is that of the many people he got to come play. I suppose some of us lose some of the desire to be creative as we get older, or at least find it harder to find ways to do so as we face other obligations. But just about everyone continues to want to play games and/or watch others play.

Poker kind of brings together both the desire to be creative and our love of games and competition. The game itself requires imagination, and of course there’s always something satisfying about building a bigger stack of chips from a smaller one. And it’s fun to play, too, although it can be hard sometimes to remember that.

Anyhow, if you haven’t seen the video, check it out and be inspired. And remember to keep an eye out for Fun Passes.