扑克大变局(ZT)

由时间草原 2008-03-09, 16:10

Poker扑克
A big deal大变局
Dec 19th 2007

Poker is getting younger, cleverer, duller and much, much richer
更年轻，更聪明，更沉稳，以及更加更加富有

扑克大变局(ZT) Index

DOYLE BRUNSON (above, left) is a poker legend. Twice winner of the game's most prestigious annual tournament, the World Series of Poker (WSOP), held in Las Vegas, the cowboy-hat-clad southerner affectionately known as Texas Dolly also wrote what many consider to be the bible of poker theory, “Super System: A Course in Power Poker”. His reputation among card-shufflers borders on the superhuman. Indeed, after fighting off supposedly terminal cancer in the 1960s, he celebrated his return to the cardrooms with 53 straight wins. Adding to the mystique, both of his World Series titles were won with exactly the same cards: a full house of tens over twos.（1）
多勒·布朗森（上图之左者）堪称扑克传奇。曾经在最富盛名的年度赛事世界扑克锦标赛（WSOP）中两度折桂。其著作《超级系统：扑克术教程》被奉为扑克圣经。这位头戴牛仔帽的南方佬有个响亮的花名“德州多利”。在扑克界，他是超人的代名词。在1960年代战胜了所谓晚期癌症之后，他用53场连胜宣布自己回归。更加神奇的是，为他赢得两次世界锦标赛冠军头衔的是同一副牌：三张十带两张二。

Now in his mid-70s, Mr Brunson is still going strong. But not strong enough for Annette Obrestad (above, right), who beat the old master and 361 other entrants in September to win the first ever WSOP event held outside America. Miss Obrestad's victory, which netted her ￡1m ($2m), shows how much poker has changed since the days when Texas Dolly, Amarillo Slim Preston and Jack “Treetops” Straus held sway. She is only 19 (*** her the youngest ever winner of a World Series bracelet) and she is, of course, a woman. She hails from Norway, not Nevada. And though she had previously won over $800,000 in internet tournaments, the event at London's Empire Casino was the first time she had encountered serious opposition in the flesh. The poker press refers to her by her online moniker, annette_15.（2）
尽管牌技仍然出众，但70有余的布朗森到底已经廉颇老矣。9月份，世界扑克锦标赛首次在美国以外的地方举行，最后安妮特·奥瑞斯塔（上图之右者）在击败了布朗森和其他361位扑克高手后成功加冕。冠军为奥瑞斯塔带来100万英镑（200万美元）的收益，同时也宣告属于德州多利、阿玛里洛·斯林姆·普莱斯顿和“树冠”杰克·斯特劳斯的扑克时代已经过去了。奥瑞斯塔年方19（因此成为史上最年轻的世界冠军手镯获得者），而且是位巾帼。她并非来自内华达，而是挪威人。在伦敦帝国赌场的牌局还是她头一次在现实世界中与人对垒，尽管此前她已经在网络扑克比赛中赢过80万美元。扑克刊物习惯用她的网络花名 annette_15来称呼她。

Miss Obrestad's route to the grand prize—dumped on the final table in bundles of $50 notes, as is the World Series tradition—required her to see off such modern-day poker luminaries as Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, a hirsute scholar of game theory, Dave “Devilfish” Ulliott, a somewhat less cerebral but wily British professional who wears diamond-encrusted knuckledusters, and Phil “Poker Brat” Hellmuth, arguably the most celebrated (not least by himself) modern player. Jim McManus, a poker player and historian, describes the young Scandinavian's win as a “startling milestone”.（3）
按照世界锦标赛惯例，奥瑞斯塔最后获得的奖金是牌桌上堆积如山的50美金筹码。为了这堆筹码，奥瑞斯塔一路战胜了毛发发达的博弈论专家“耶稣”克里斯·弗古森、带着镶钻指节套的绵里藏针的英国职业玩家“章鱼”戴夫·尤略特、以及最著名（这可不是他自封的）的现代扑士“扑克顽童”菲尔·赫尔姆斯。扑士和扑克史家吉姆·麦克玛纳斯形容这位斯堪的纳维亚小姑娘的胜利是“令人大跌眼镜的里程碑”。

Yet it is also part of a trend. Youngsters are flocking to poker as never before, attracted by its growing cachet and the ever-expanding pots. The plethora of books, blogs and DVDs now easily accessible, and the rapid growth of poker online, means newcomers can learn the art much more quickly than in earlier eras. “When I started out it took years of hard grind at the table to get good. Now the learning curve is much steeper,” says Howard “The Professor” Lederer, a professional player. It is often said that while Texas Hold 'Em, the most popular version of poker, may take only minutes to learn, it takes a lifetime to master. Annette_15 may beg to differ.（4）
世道的确是大变了。由于扑克比赛的声望和奖金规模已是今非昔比，越来越多的年轻人开始涌入扑克界。同时，关于扑克的书籍、博客和DVD可谓琳琅满目，唾手可得，加上在线扑克游戏的快速增长，新菜鸟学起扑克艺术来要比他们的前辈快捷多了。“在我进入这一行的时候，你得在牌桌上花上好些年的时间才能有所精进。现在，学习曲线变得陡峭得多了。”职业扑士、人称“教授”的霍华德·李德勒如是说。人们常说，德州扑克（最流行的扑克玩法，按，就是《赌神》里周润发玩的那种）是入门几分钟，修行一辈子。这话用在Annette_15身上可不合适。

The threat to the old guard from quick-learning online players first became apparent in 2003, when the aptly named Chris Moneymaker won the World Series after qualifying through a satellite tournament for players on a poker website. He turned his $40 fee (a tiny fraction of the $10,000 “buy-in” for the pros) into $2.5m, finishing off his final opponent with a colossal bluff. This year's winner in Vegas, Jerry Yang, qualified the same way. After two weeks of intense play, with daily sessions lasting up to 16 hours, the 39-year-old psychologist went home $8.25m richer, promising to give much of it to charity. No other sporting competition (if poker can be called a sport) offers the same reward.（5）
2003年，人如其名的克里斯·摩尼麦克（Chis Moneymaker，按，其姓为“赚钱能手”之意）通过网络卫星海选晋级世界锦标赛并最终问鼎，成为网络速成牌手与老牌扑士分庭抗礼之滥觞。摩尼迈克只花费了40美元参赛费（这与职业选手10000美元的“入场费”相比真是天壤之别），在最后的决赛中大唱空城计，最终成功吓退对手，获得250万美元奖金。今年的维加斯扑克冠军杰瑞·杨的晋级之路也是如此。在经历了连续两周、每天16小时的紧张比赛之后，这位39岁的心理学家最终获得825万美元奖金，并承诺将一大部分用于慈善事业。还没有哪项其他体育赛事（如果扑克也能称为体育项目的话）能提供如此丰厚的奖金。

Popular websites such as Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars enjoy peak traffic of tens of thousands of visitors at any given time, occasionally over 100,000. Full Tilt offers visitors the chance to try their wits against a roster of professionals, who play under their own names and are paid according to how well known they are. Poker sites employ some of the snazziest software on the web. They also offer a dizzying array of blogs and forums, which debate everything from “slowplaying” (playing a strong hand with deceptive passivity) to Morton's Theorem (don't ask). One recent discussion had more than 1,600 participants. No wonder it is often said that poker has done more than anything apart from ***ography to develop the web.（6）
主要扑克网站，如Full Tilt Poker和PokerStars，在高峰时期的同时在线人数都有几万之多，偶尔还会超过10万。Full Tilt邀请了一些职业选手以实名注册，在线上接受玩家挑战，并以其知名度为标准付给酬劳。扑克网站大多使用最时髦的网络软件，还具备了博客和论坛功能，讨论的话题从“延迟打法”（手持一把大牌却故意示弱）到莫顿定理（禁问），包罗万象。最近有一个话题吸引了1600人参与讨论。无怪乎人们常说，除了色情，网络发展的第一推动力非扑克莫属。

Star of the small screen荧屏之星
The other force fuelling poker's growth is television. The game has grown rapidly on the small screen since camera crews worked out a way to show the “hole cards” (those dealt face down to each player) using miniature cameras positioned beneath specially designed tables with glass panels. This allowed viewers to see each hand's dynamics as they unfolded. Televised celebrity games have added to poker's appeal. Ben Affleck, Toby Maguire and James Woods are among those who consider themselves accomplished amateurs. Mr Affleck even hired a pro to help him raise his game, and subsequently won California's state poker tournament.（7）
电视是另一股推动扑克发展的力量。这要归功于在电视转播中，观众可以看到花色朝下的底牌。现在的牌桌都经过特殊设计，采用玻璃面板，其下装有微型摄像头，所以不仅可以拍到底牌，选手翻牌时的手部动作也能一览无余。电视名人赛使扑克的吸引力大增。本·阿弗莱克、托比·马奎尔和詹姆斯·伍兹（按，三人都是好莱坞人士）等人已经不满足只做个票友了。阿弗莱克甚至聘请了一位职业玩家来帮助自己提升牌技，还获得了加州扑克赛的桂冠。

Today poker is the third most watched sport on cable television in the United States, after car racing and American football, trumping even NBA basketball. In America, it is regularly aired on ESPN and the Travel Channel, while Britain has its own poker channel. ESPN's World Series shows regularly get more than 1m viewers, and numbers hold up well even during the busiest sports periods, such as during the major-league baseball play-offs and the NASCAR motorsports season. （8）
现在，扑克在美国有线电视体育收视榜上高居探花之位，仅次于赛车和美式橄榄球而排在NBA之前。在美国，扑克比赛由ESPN和旅游频道定时播出，在英国则有专门的扑克频道。超过100万观众定期收看ESPN的世界锦标赛事节目，即使在赛事最频繁的NBA季后赛和NASCAR摩托赛季期间也不例外。

The poker economy has never been flusher. There are an estimated 60m-80m regular players in America and perhaps 80m-100m elsewhere. Poker is by far the largest chunk of the online gambling market, which had worldwide revenues of around $15 billion in 2006—a figure that may be closer to $20 billion this year. Poker chips are among the best-selling items on Amazon.com. What was once the preserve of either high-rollers or low-lifes is now being roundly embraced by the mass of ordinary folk in between.（9）
扑克经济现在是空前繁荣。据估计，固定的扑克玩家在美国有6000万-8000万，在美国之外还有8000万-1亿。到目前为止，扑克是最大的网络赌博市场，2006年在全世界的收入达到150亿美元，今年可能更进一步，接近200亿美元。扑克筹码是亚马逊网站上最受欢迎的商品。扑克界原本是阳春白雪和下里巴人泾渭分明之处，现在则成了普天同乐之所。

（待续）

由时间草原 2008-03-09, 16:14

The changing of the guard at the top of poker reflects this move into the mainstream. Harrah's, the casino operator that runs the WSOP, has brought in Jeffrey Pollack, a former NASCAR executive, to smooth its image and entice in corporate money. He has revamped the website, wrung more money out of ESPN and put poker on the radio (where it works surprisingly well). More impressively, he has lured dozens of sponsors—including Hershey's chocolate, Milwaukee's Best Light beer and Planters peanuts (“the nuts” being the term for an unbeatable hand of cards)—into a game that many consider morally questionable. （10）
扑克卫道士的观念开始转变，这意味着扑克向主流迈进。赌场运营商和世界扑克锦标赛的举办者Harrah’s日前聘请了前NASCAR执行官杰弗里·波拉克，力图打造平民化形象并招徕合作资金。波拉克改版了Harrah’s网站，从ESPN处得到了更高的转播费，并推出了扑克广播节目（而且大获成功）。令人印象深刻的是，他还成功地将一系列赞助商引入了这项广受道德质疑的比赛中，其中包括好时巧克力、密尔沃基最佳轻啤和庄园主花生（花生英文是 “peanuts”，而“nuts”在扑克术语中意指一手绝世好牌）。

Mr Pollack says his aim is to run the WSOP, which was conceived in the late 1960s, as a “38-year-old start-up”, constantly innovating and pushing into less developed markets in Europe, Asia and Latin America. An annual tournament in Macau is likely to be the next move. That would put the World Series head to head with the new Asia Pacific Poker Tour, which is sponsored by the PokerStars website. In some Asian countries, such as Thailand, poker is illegal. But China is a potentially huge market, and the game has exploded in popularity in Australia. Some 400,000 Australians joined poker leagues after Joe Hachem, from Melbourne, won the World Series in 2005. That burst of activity prompted a government inquiry. （11）
波拉克声称自己的目标是将运营始于1960年代的世界扑克锦标赛视为“38岁的开端”，自己将致力于持续的创新，并将把这项赛事推广到欧洲、亚洲和拉美等欠发达市场。波拉克的下一步动作可能是在澳门举办一项年度赛事。这将使世界扑克锦标赛面临与PokerStar网站赞助的“新亚太扑克之旅”的直接对话。在某些亚洲国家如泰国，玩扑克是非法的。不过中国是一个潜在的巨大市场，而在澳大利亚，扑克也已开始经蓬勃发展了。在墨尔本人乔伊·赫克曼于2005年荣膺世界锦标赛冠军之后，已有40万澳大利亚人加入了扑克联盟。这一爆发性的增长已经引起了政府的介入调查。

Another largely untapped market is women. They make up only around one in 20 of all tournament entrants, though Miss Obrestad's victory is likely to encourage more to take the plunge. Mr McManus, who teaches a poker course at a Chicago college, says his female students have just as much of a feel for the game as his male ones. But he also thinks men have the edge in no-limit Texas Hold 'Em, which relies more heavily than other forms of poker on aggression and the willingness to risk everything on a single hand.（12）
另一块未开垦的处女地是女性市场。从总体上看，参加扑克比赛的女选手只占总人数的二十分之一，不过奥瑞斯塔的胜利可能会促进女性的参赛人数。麦克玛纳斯在芝加哥某学院教授扑克课程，他感到女学生对牌技的感觉一点也不逊于男学生。不过他同时认为，男士在无限赌注德州扑克上具有优势，因为这种玩法与其他玩法相比，更需要咄咄逼人的气势和孤注一掷的勇气。

Some of the game's most eloquent player-commentators are women, notably Annie Duke, who has won more than $3m in prize money, and Victoria Coren, winner of the London leg of last year's European Poker Tour and author of a poker column in Britain's Guardian. Ms Coren describes poker as “a stimulating psychological challenge, combining guts and detective work...a world of its own, offering all the childish appeal of secret places, special languages and staying up late at night.” It is hard to imagine Mr “Devilfish” Ulliott describing it that way.（13）
在扑克比赛的顶级评论员中，倒有相当一部分是女性。著名的有安妮·杜克，她在职业生涯中已经获得超过300万美元奖金；以及维多利亚·柯蓝，她是去年的欧洲扑克之旅伦敦站冠军，同时还在英国《卫报》上开有扑克专栏。在柯蓝眼中，扑克是“令人兴奋的心理游戏，集贪婪和推理之大成…在扑克世界中，任何神秘之处都返璞归真，每个人嘴里都念念有词，通宵达旦却仍然精神矍铄。”很难想象“章鱼”尤略特能说出这样的话。

Both would agree, however, that the best players display a good deal of skill, and that poker is a long way from basic forms of gambling such as roulette or lotteries. The object, says Ms Coren, is to control the swings of luck with skill, figuring out how to win the maximum with your luckiest hands and lose the minimum with your unluckiest ones.（14）
但不管是男人还是女人都同意，扑克高手的确向世人展示了高超的技巧，而扑克与赌博的基本形式如轮盘和乐透之间，也实在没有什么可比性。柯蓝说，扑克是技巧和运气相结合的学问，目标就是用你运气最好的一手牌去赢得最大赌注，而在你运气最背的一手牌上输的越少越好。

The skill-versus-luck debate has crackled back to life because of the passage of a law last year, sneakily tacked on to a port-security bill, which sought to bolster existing legislation against internet wagering by blocking Americans' access to accounts that can be used to gamble online. All games that are “predominantly” subject to chance were covered by the ban. Poker was included. For reasons best explained by lobbyists, horse racing, fantasy sports and lotteries were exempted. This discrepancy had already landed America in hot water at the World Trade Organisation, thanks to a case brought by tiny Antigua, home to several online gambling sites.（15）
技巧和运气之争得歇一歇了，因为扑克运动现在有性命之虞。去年美国通过了一项法案，在港口安全法之下偷偷摸摸地增加了一些新条款，支持现有法律通过禁止美国人获得在线赌博帐户来限制网络赌博。所有“主要”依靠偶然性获胜的活动都被禁止了，扑克也未能幸免。而赛马、梦幻体育（按，就是以经理身份操纵一只球队获得胜利之类的游戏，如冠军足球经理）和乐透彩票则在竭力游说之下得到豁免。这一不公平待遇令作为数家在线赌博网站注册地的弹丸小国安提瓜怒发冲冠，愤然向世界贸易组织提起诉讼，令美国尴尬不已。

America's Department of Labour has given a nod to the element of skill, in some eyes, by last year recognising “professional poker player” as an official occupation. Courts, however, tend to view poker as a game of chance. That, Mr Lederer is convinced, is only because the opposing arguments have been botched at the bench. （16）
从某些角度看，美国劳工部对扑克技巧持肯定态度，因为去年它将“职业扑克选手”列为正式的职业。但法院倾向于认为扑克只是一种碰大运的游戏而已。李德勒坚信，法院之所以对扑克持有这种偏见，完全是反对派一叶障目的结果。

As he concedes, it is hard to argue that a seasoned professional will beat a first-timer in any given hand. But there is evidence aplenty that, over the long run, a player with a head for calculating odds and a feel for the psychology of the game, such as bluffing, will always overcome an untalented opponent.（17）
李德勒承认，对于任何一手给定的牌局，经验老道的职业选手未必一定能够战胜菜鸟。但是，有充分的证据表明，若以长期的视角来看，擅长算牌并对扑克心理战术如诈骗（按，扑克术语，即在没有胜算的情况下下大注以虚张声势）很有感觉的玩家总是可以在与这些方面比较弱的玩家对垒时胜出。

The skill, Mr Lederer argues, is in the betting. And it is apparent in the fact that you can win without the best hand. More than half of all hands end without the cards being shown, not because one player got lucky but because he managed to persuade the others, given their analysis of the available information and the size of the pot, that it was sensible to fold. When no one declares their hand, can it really be argued that the outcome was determined by luck?（18）
李德勒认为，扑克技巧体现在下注过程中。显而易见的事实是，赢家未必总是持有最好的牌。一半以上的牌局在亮底牌之前就宣告结束，这不是因为某位选手运气好，而是因为他成功地使对手们认为，在充分分析了现有信息和池底规模（按，每局牌里众人下注总额，亦即该局奖金数）后，选择收牌（按，即不跟）是最明智的。在没有人亮底牌的情况下，你还能说牌局结果是由运气决定的吗？

At the highest level, decisions about betting, bluffing and folding are based on the complex juggling of probabilities. “What drew me to poker is that it is essentially an academic endeavour,” says Ms Duke. She is one of a growing group of full-time players who came to poker through game theory and mathematics, not through any love of a flutter. (Indeed, she never plays craps or roulette.) Others include Mr Lederer (her brother) and Mr Ferguson, who has a doctorate in computer science and writes academic papers on probability theory with his father, a statistician at UCLA.（19）
选择下注、诈骗和收牌策略并不容易，说得高尚一点，完全是概率论的复杂运用。“我之所以喜欢玩扑克，是因为它实际上是一种学术活动。”杜克如是说。杜克使用博弈论和数学来制定玩牌策略，而不是靠灵光一现来进行一锤子买卖。（事实上，杜克从来不玩掷骰子和乐透游戏。）现在，她的同道中人越来越多，其中包括李德勒（其兄）和弗古森，后者拥有计算机科学博士学位，还时常和乃父（洛杉矶加州大学统计学家）合作撰写概率论论文。

Thomas Bihl, winner of a recent HORSE tournament, in which players have to show mastery of five different styles of poker, thinks the game has more in common with finance than it does with basic forms of gambling, because it requires the constant pricing and repricing of risk. Mr Bihl, a former stock trader, says the move from his old job into poker was a natural progression. Though his ￡71,000 win was “a huge lift”, he says that he is motivated not by money but by the chance to use his brain to outfox opponents. This is a common refrain among regular players. As Ms Coren put it in a recent article: “Cash is nothing more than chips, just the tools of the trade, like fishing rods to an angler. The game is all about money, and nothing to do with money.”（20）
新晋全能扑克赛（HORSE，需要选手掌握五种扑克玩法）冠军托马斯·比尔认为，与基本的赌博形式比起来，扑克游戏更像是金融，因为玩扑克的过程中要求选手不断地对风险进行定价和再定价。比尔说，作为一位前股票交易员，他从金融界跳到扑克界乃是十分自然之事。71000英镑的奖金固然令他“振奋不已”，但在牌桌上以谋略战胜对手才是最大的满足。职业玩家均对此深表赞同。柯蓝在其最近的文章中写道：“金钱无非就是一堆筹码，只是玩牌的工具而已，就好比钓竿之余垂钓者。扑克游戏是用钱堆出来的，但玩扑克和钱无关。”

Those who think skill predominates also point to the fact that some players excel at the game while others don't. Dan Harrington made the final table of the WSOP in both 2003 and 2004, the odds of which would be 25,000 to one if it were down to chance. Stu “The Kid” Ungar, a brilliant player with a self-destructive streak, won three times in not many more attempts before succumbing to drugs.（21）
技巧主导论者还指出另一个事实：有些玩家精于此道，而其他人则并非如此。丹·哈林顿于2003年和2004年连续两次闯入世界扑克锦标赛决赛，这一事件发生的概率只有两万五千分之一。天赋异禀又自我放纵的扑克天才“小孩”斯图·安加尔在死于嗑药之前只参加过为数不多的几届世界扑克锦标赛，其中就有三次获得了冠军。

Moreover, when wealthy amateurs pit their wits against professional players steeped in poker theory, more often than not they lose their shirts. In a number of sessions beginning in 2001, Andy Beal, a Dallas-based banker, locked horns with a syndicate of pros, including Mr Lederer, convinced that he could come out on top. He did not.（22）
若富有的扑克票友试图挑战技艺精湛的职业玩家，在大多数情况下都会已一败涂地收场。从2001年开始，达拉斯银行家安迪·比尔与包括李德勒在内的一群职业选手进行了一系列较量，试图证明自己牌技已臻一流。结果还是失败了。

Nevertheless, luck is important. It blends with skill to produce a game that is “much like life, full of incomplete information and second-guessing,” says Mr Lederer. Poker is certainly more exciting to most than chess, a game of complete information and limited psychology where the better player always wins. Tellingly, whereas computers can be programmed to play chess at the highest level, they still have a long way to go to match expert players in poker games with more than two participants. The best attempt so far, Polaris, developed by researchers at the University of Alberta, failed to get the better of two top players, Ali Eslami and Phil “Unabomber” Laak (who plays hooded). （23）
不过无论如何，运气也是很重要的。运气加上技巧，使得“牌局如人生，充斥着不完全信息和马后炮。”李德勒如是说。和扑克比起来，国际象棋只是信息完全、心理作用有限的雕虫小技，技高一筹者总是可以获胜，无聊透顶。用计算机编个程序就能造就一位顶级国际象棋选手，而在扑克界，再好的计算机在三人以上的牌局中都得歇菜。目前最牛的电脑扑士是由艾伯塔大学研制的“北极星”，结果被两位顶级玩家阿里·伊斯玛尼和“隐形炸弹人”菲尔·拉克（他喜欢在比赛中戴一顶风帽）击败。

Moreover, professionals say that poker's generous dollop of luck is good for them on balance, because it attracts money from neophytes who fancy their chances of beating the top players in tournaments. Some pros disparagingly call such players “ATMs”. But, as Mr Moneymaker showed, the newcomers occasionally win big. His victory in 2003 led to a surge in entrants for the World Series main event from 512 in 2000 to 8,773 in 2006. A dip this year to 6,358 reflected the new American law's effective ban on internet sites buying satellite-competition winners into the tournament. (Some tried to get around this by sending the winners cheques instead, but most recipients simply held on to the money rather than using it to buy themselves in.)（24）
职业选手认为，牌局中的那点小运气有助于他们维持财务平衡，因为这吸引着那些幻想着有机会在比赛中将顶级玩家斩落马下的新手源源不断地下注。有些职业选手戏称那些菜鸟是“自动取款机”。但是，正如摩尼迈克所指出的，新手有时也会取得大胜。他在2003年的夺魁使得进入世界锦标赛主赛的人数从2000年的 512人暴增到2006年的8773人。今年的人数下跌到6358人，不过那是因为美国的新法律有效地禁止了网站为其卫星竞赛的赢家购买参赛席位。（有些网站试图通过向赢家寄支票来绕过这条法律，不过绝大多数都将钱私吞了，而不是拿去为自己购买参赛席位。）

“It doesn't take most young people long to realise they won't be the next Michael Jordan. But they can all aspire to be the next Phil Hellmuth, and they don't even have to work out,” says Mr Hellmuth, slurping a full-cream mocha. He then quickly points out that poker requires a great deal of mental stamina, and that he promotes an energy drink.（25）
“大多数年轻人很快就能意识到自己无法成为下一个迈克尔?乔丹，但他们仍可以指望成为下一个菲尔·赫尔姆斯，甚至都不用进行深思熟虑。”赫尔姆斯一边喝着摩卡咖啡一边说道。紧接着，他指出玩扑克需要耗费不少精神力，因此他向大家推荐一种能量饮料。

Poker for pupils 从娃娃抓起
Parents are increasingly encouraging their children to play, he adds, because it is mentally more rewarding than video games and does not mix well with alcohol (at least if you care about winning). “When I started it was seen as a bit of an outlaw pastime, for rogues and cheats. Now it's a huge bottom-up movement,” he says.（26）
他接着说，家长们现在逐渐开始鼓励孩子们玩扑克，因为在智力培养方面，扑克比视频游戏强多了，而且也与酒精没有什么干系（至少在你很在乎奖金的情况下是如此）。“当我开始玩扑克的时候，这还是一种低级趣味的消遣，玩这东西的都是些流氓和骗子。现在，扑克成了一种自上而下的运动。”

（待续）

由时间草原 2008-03-09, 16:17

It might seem a bit of a leap to go from here to putting poker on the curriculum. But some academics see it as a worthy subject of study. Chief among them is Charles Nesson, a professor at Harvard Law School. Earlier this year he founded the Global Poker Strategic Thinking Society (GPSTS), whose awkward name belies a clear set of goals: to highlight poker's role in teaching patience, strategy and money management, and in improving cognitive skills. “Poker offers metaphors for a range of life skills and could be a wonderful educational tool,” says Mr Nesson, who plays a regular game with other law professors, including Alan Dershowitz—though he has yet to play with Antonin Scalia, a Supreme Court justice known to have a fondness for poker.（27）
把扑克上升到学院课程的高度似乎夸张了点儿，但一些学者认为这值得尝试。哈佛法学院的查尔斯·尼森教授就是个中翘楚，他在今年早些时候建立了世界扑克战略思维协会（Global Poker Strategic Thinking Society，GPSTS），名字虽然有些拗口，可目标是相当明确：强调扑克在开发认知能力和教授忍耐力、战略管理和资金管理方面所起的作用。尼森说道：“在扑克中，人们可以学到一系列生活技能，因此这是个不错的教育工具。”在生活中，尼森定期和其他法学教授切磋牌技，比如艾伦·德尔肖维茨。不过他尚未跟同是扑克迷的联邦最高法院法官安东宁·斯卡利亚交过手。

Poker is, first and foremost, a game of managing resources, argues Mr Nesson, teaching a cautious approach to risk-taking, not recklessness. There is some evidence for this. One study, comparing experienced poker players with financial- market traders, found the players less likely to exhibit over-confidence.（28）
在尼森看来，扑克首先是一门资源管理的学问，能指导人们谨慎做出是否承担风险的决策。有事实为证：在某项研究中，研究者将经验老道的扑士和金融市场的交易员做了对比，结果发现交易员要比扑士更容易变得过度自信。

An unlikely social-welfare tool 扑克不是社会福利工具
Determined to counter what he sees as the demonisation of poker by the American right, and the resulting squeeze on personal freedoms, Mr Nesson is working on a pilot programme to teach the game to disadvantaged children in schools in America and Jamaica. He muses about turning a property he runs in Second Life, a virtual world, into an online poker university.（29）
尼森认为美国右派在刻意妖魔化扑克运动，这已经威胁到了个人自由，因此决心向其宣战。为此他实施了一项试验计划，向美国和牙买加弱势在校孩童教授扑克游戏。他计划将自己在虚拟社区第二人生里的产业打造成一座在线扑克大学。

扑克大变局(ZT) Index

Ms Duke sees other ways in which poker teaches “life skills”. It taught her, for instance, how to be a good loser (“Even the best lose most of the hands they play. If you let that get to you, it will kill you”). She says she even uses poker theory when dealing with her children: “I always bet the minimum when *** a threat. If you say no TV rather than no Disneyland, you can always raise later.”（30）
杜克则从别处领会到扑克所教授的“生活技能”。比如，扑克教会了她如何做个输得起的人（“最好的扑士也是输多赢少。如果你总是患得患失，那你永远难成大器”）。她甚至将扑克理论用在和自己孩子的讨价还价中：“我总是两劣相权取其轻。如果要你选择放弃电视机还是放弃迪斯尼乐园，毫无疑问你会放弃后者。”

By enlisting the help of players, statisticians, law students and lobby groups such as the Poker Players Alliance, whose membership has swollen to 860,000, Mr Nesson hopes to roll back not only the federal ban on online gambling but also the worst bits of the nonsensical patchwork of state laws. Massachusetts law, for instance, makes it hard for the university to hold even a charity poker tournament. “Are they afraid that people will become addicted to giving money to good causes?” asks Andrew Woods, a Harvard student who helps to run the GPSTS.（31）
尼森呼吁广大玩家、统计学家、法学学生和扑士联合会（Poker Players Alliance，现已有86万成员）一起支持自己，敦促联邦政府能收回对在线赌博的禁令。有些州级法律纯粹是莫名其妙的拼拼凑凑，最好也一并端了。比如，麻省法律禁止大学举办扑克比赛，就算是出于慈善目的也不行。“难道他们害怕人们对捐钱做善事上瘾吗？”安德鲁·伍兹，一位协助GPSTS运营的哈佛学生质问道。

As the pokeristas sharpen their legal arguments, they are hoping for some extra help from the statisticians. Online poker sites have reams of game-by-game data. These could, in theory, be used to show what makes some players better than others, and what defines their skill (Bluffing? Shrewd betting based on the rapid calculation of odds? Or both?). Though research in this area has been thin on the ground to date, number-crunchers are starting to rise to the challenge. （32）
随着扑克合法化斗争的深入，扑克支持者需要统计学家的帮助。在线扑克游戏网站存有大量扑克对局数据。在理论上，这些对局记录可以用于显示是什么东西使某些玩家变得比其他玩家出色，他们的技巧到底又是什么（诈骗？基于概率速算的高明下注？还是两者都有？）。目前该领域研究的数据还不够多，但数学家正开始奋起迎战。

Among them is Steven Levitt, an economist at the University of Chicago and author of “Freakonomics”. He oversees a project called Pokernomics. It aims to collect millions of hands (which players can store using readily available tracking software) and analyse them systematically in the hope of answering questions. Does a big stack of chips allow players to bully others and win even more? To what extent does position relative to the dealer matter? Are there simple strategies that can be used to win money even with losing hands?（33）
芝加哥大学经济学家、《魔鬼经济学》一书作者斯蒂芬·列维特就是其中一位。他主持了一项名为“扑克经济学”的项目，目的是收集大量的牌面数据（玩家可以使用现成的跟踪软件来进行记录），并对其进行系统的分析，以期借此回答一些问题。拥有大量筹码是否能使玩家吓退对手从而赢得更多？玩家相对发牌者的位置如何影响战绩？是否存在单一策略可以使玩家手握一把烂牌也能赢钱？

These efforts may produce fascinating results. Or they might reveal nothing much. Even if the data highlight strong trends, it may still not be clear which are caused by skill and which by luck, says Jay Kadane, a statistics professor at Carnegie Mellon University who studies games. （34）
研究结果可能令人振奋，也可能一无是处。就算数据的确显示了明显的趋势，人们也无法得知哪些结果是由技巧造成的，哪些又是由运气所致。对牌局颇有研究的卡内基·梅隆大学统计学教授杰·卡丹说道。

扑克大变局(ZT) Index

Perhaps a better way to win over judges and lawmakers would be to highlight poker's place in the American psyche. Introduced by French colonials, as a game called poque, it soon spread from its original base in the Mississippi delta. By the late 19th century it had become a prominent cultural facet across the country, not only in the South or Wild West. Much ink has been spilled analysing its appeal to Americans. The answer may lie no deeper than Walter Matthau's one-liner about poker exemplifying “the worst aspects of capitalism that have made our country so great”.（35）
要说动法官和立法者，也许强调扑克在美国精神文明中的重要地位会更有效。扑克源于一种叫做poque的游戏，由法国殖民者引进，起先在密西西比三角洲流行，然后迅速传播。到了19世纪晚期，扑克已经成了影响全国的主流文化要素，而不仅仅流行于南方和西大荒。扑克是如何影响美国的千家万户的，关于这一话题的文献汗牛充栋。其中沃尔特·马修的一行话最为深刻：扑克是“使我国繁荣昌盛的资本主义的最大糟粕”。

Poker has long fascinated America's great and good, from politicians to generals to captains of industry. Presidents Roosevelt (both), Truman, Eisenhower and Nixon were all keen players. Nixon was famously good: most of the funding for his first congressional run came from poker winnings. Poker was said to have inspired cold-war tacticians. It is still a useful military motif: recall the playing cards used to represent Saddam Hussein and his most-wanted cohorts. Poker financed a sizeable chunk of Microsoft's start-up costs. Bill Gates once said he learned more about business strategy at the baize than in classrooms—though these days he apparently prefers the more stately game of bridge.（36）
美国的伟人和精英都对扑克情有独钟，从政客到将军再到产业大亨，概莫能外。西奥多·罗斯福、富兰克林·罗斯福、杜鲁门、艾森豪威尔和尼克松都是扑克高手。尼克松牌艺尤为精湛：其首次入主国会的资金绝大部分都是在牌局上赢来的。据说冷战军师时常能从扑克中获取灵感。甚至在军事方面，扑克也是不遑多让：想想印有萨达姆·侯赛因及其爪牙头像的扑克牌吧。微软的启动资金中有很大一部分也是来自扑克。比尔·盖茨曾说自己在牌桌上学得的商业战略要比在教室里学到的还要多。不过近几年来他明显对比较高雅的桥牌更感兴趣。

Not all famous players have made such good role models. As he partied away the declining years of his career, Errol Flynn incurred some excruciating poker losses, including, on one particularly bad night, a Caribbean island he had hoped to develop into a holiday resort. John Wayne had some shockers too, though in one memorable game he won Lassie from the canine star's desperate owner.（37）
不过并非所有著名的扑克发烧友都是正面典型。当艾尔罗·弗林（按，好莱坞英俊小生，代表作有《罗宾汉历险记》等）的演艺事业日薄西山时，他在牌桌上也是一溃千里。在一个倒霉的夜晚，他输掉了自己原本打算开发成度假胜地的加勒比小岛。约翰·韦恩也有过类似不堪回首的经历，不过他也曾在一场令人难忘的牌局中将莱希（按，著名电影《灵犬莱希》中的那条狗）从它绝望的主人手里赢了过来。

Getting serious 板起面孔
What would Nixon, Flynn and Wayne have made of poker today? They would surely have marvelled at the transformation of “the cheater's game” into a multi-billion-dollar industry, pumping out new millionaires almost daily. Even they might have been shocked at the latest season of “High Stakes Poker”, a television series in which players buy into each game for $500,000 apiece and the winner takes home more than $5m.（38）
尼克松、弗林和韦恩看到今天的扑克运动会怎么想？如果他们发现这项“欺骗游戏”变成了一个数十亿美元的产业，每天都会产生新的百万富翁，一定会惊掉了下巴。他们也会对新赛季的“大注扑克赛”（High Stakes Poker）啧啧称奇，要进入这项电视系列赛就得花50万美元买参赛资格，而最后的赢家可以获得500万美元奖金。

They might, perhaps, have been disappointed that the game had lost some of its backroom edginess. Miss Obrestad's generation are more likely to put their excess winnings into tax-free bonds than blow them betting on a single round of golf, as Mr Brunson and his Las Vegas pals used to do in their madder moments. Still, those hoping to win over poker's sceptics will find no better example than young annette_15. She is stern, sober and chillingly focused on her game. She appears to be exceptionally good at it too. Either that or amazingly lucky. （39）
他们可能也会有些许失望，因为扑克已经丧失了某些神秘性。奥瑞斯塔们也许会将剩余的奖金投资于免税债券，而不像布朗森和他的拉斯维加斯朋友们在轻狂岁月里常作的那样，将钱挥霍在某个高尔夫回合上。不过话说回来，要回应扑克怀疑论者的质疑，没有比annette_15更好的例子了。她头脑清醒，面无表情，眼里只有牌局。她看上去就有一种扑士气质。要想赢得牌局，你要么以annette_15为榜样，要么指望幸运女神眷顾你。

（完）

扑克大变局(ZT)