Comparing professional chess to professional poker is like comparing crackers to cake. The relationship is strong, but the difference is obvious. Cardplayer.com has a Poker Player of the Year list that is updated frequently. My projection is that by the final day of 2003 the top fifty players on this list will have earned over 25,000,000 dollars! That number is impressive but the truth is far more incredible. That 25 million is only for the results on final tables (the last nine players) of particular recognized events. At the championship event of the World Series of Poker (the annual premier showcase of poker, held every year for six weeks in downtown Las Vegas, Nevada at Binion's Horseshoe Casino) 63^rd place paid 15,000 dollars, there was a total prize pool of well over 8 million dollars. Now the amounts mentioned above do not have entry fees subtracted, but my educated guess is that the finishes below ninth would add millions to the total. In all cases we can easily say that the top fifty players in the world of tournament poker have earned many millions over the months of 2003. It is not as easy to come up with the earnings numbers of the top fifty chess players in the world in the year of 2003 but using a wild guess I would be quite surprised if they had earned more than 5,000,000 dollars. Neither set of numbers includes other incomes such as what famous players might earn from endorsements, writings, or giving lessons.

So if you are a parent deciding what profession little Johnny should aim toward do you steer him toward training the mind to search for the truth (chess), or do you steer him to the game that pays a much bigger multiple if you get very good at it (poker)? In chess the better player wins a large percentage of the time, which rewards good play and good thinking, but tends to make bad players give up. In the world of poker a good player must evaluate the situation correctly, he must know the math of what is going on, he must be aware of the psychological state of his opponent, and then finally, he must survive the luck of what happens. The good player in a poker tournament is often upset about the fickleness of Lady Luck but that same luck, that possibility of the underdog coming through and donning the robes of victory, is exactly why so many play poker for big money. Self-deception is difficult to maintain in chess once you find some quality opposition, whereas in poker it takes a long time for most players to figure out that they are in trouble from the very beginning. Often the bad player in poker never does understand just how much of an underdog he is. For some inexplicable reason in America, it is quite acceptable to meet your friends once or twice a week at a poker get together and throw away a certain percentage of what you have earned during the rest of the week! Is there some underlying understanding of the gamble of living on a rock hurtling through space, of the actuarial dangers of crossing a busy street, of the uncertainties of the stock market, at work here; whereas the pursuit of truth and the reward of "good" play (in the world of chess) is too dry, too scientific? We are asking questions here and do not know the answers. Do you?

I attended this year's United States Chess Championship in Seattle, Washington and enjoyed it very much. A lot of effort was put into "media streaming" the event so that it was available move by move on the internet with a lot of commentary soon thereafter. IM Jeremy Silman gave lively analysis in an adjacent room. The top players (along with assorted other qualifiers) strained mightily over their boards and pieces to come up with the correct move and it was very exciting for me as an ex chess master, and probably for many other chess players, professional and amateur, around the world. Gripping theater to the general world it was not. The typical person on the street cannot even grasp the basics of what was going on.

Poker has faced a similar challenge historically: How to make something exciting where a group of contestants are all pulling on the edges and corners of a blanket, but we do not even know what they are fighting with? Well, a few years ago in England someone put together a television program using modern technology (a mini-camera in front of each player) and once we were allowed to see what the players were using for weapons (the actual poker hand dealt to them), and what they did with those weapons, and how much money was at stake, we had drama - big-time drama! This year in the United States a television show aired on The Travel Channel featuring the final tables (in actuality the final six players only in order to cut to the chase and allow other exotic fillers for TV such as player profiles, interview clips, poker analysis, color commentary, nearby tourist attractions, and scenic vistas) from thirteen inaugural events with millions of dollars at stake. Most of these tournaments were no-limit Texas holdem, the game that has been nicknamed the "Cadillac" of poker. Immediately there was an explosion of interest that is still changing the way poker events are presented. The World Poker Tour arrived on television in a way that could not have been anticipated by a rabid optimist. People gathered around the water cooler at work on Thursdays and discussed the momentous decisions that they had seen the night before. Thousands upon thousands of new players accessed sites online or went to brick and mortar casinos and cardrooms to try their hand at this suddenly popular game. ESPN2 had been airing shows of a few events for several years, from the World Open in Tunica, Mississippi and from the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, Nevada but this year they followed the WPT lead and made it a full-blown production with seven one hour segments featuring the World Championship. Not only were there roving cameras during the first four days of the event as well as a (chosen daily) featured table with mini-cameras, but another important technological addition was also featured. The players on the "chosen" table were "wired" with portable microphones, allowing the viewers to follow some of the patter, attempts to discern the strength of opponents holdings, and other verbal exchanges that occur during this multi-day marathon. After looking at the Travel Channel's ratings on the WPT poker show, ESPN as well as ESPN2 aired the World Championship of Poker and (surprise!) it was the week's highest rated show on both networks week after week.

Can chess come up with a formula that will work fifteen percent as well? If so it would probably be a feasible show. Perhaps poker will make it more possible for chess (?).

I do know that I have had hundreds of people walk up to me and say "I saw you on ESPN!" and I was not even in a featured segment or hand. Furthermore, when I sent a manuscript to a publisher some months ago he wanted me to change the chess player (in the book) into a poker player. Ah, Hollywood! Ah, America! We do love a winner, do we not? This year's winner of the World Championship of Poker was a young man from Tennessee named Chris Moneymaker (that is his real name, folks) who earned his way into the event by playing an online satellite and took home two and one half million dollars. Not bad for his first ever brick and mortar tournament. Perhaps you saw his appearance on the David Letterman show? Now that is a real success story!