Comment by ZoomZoomZoom

Comment by ZoomZoomZoom 2 days ago

9 replies

The card games listed have the information aspect in common. The slot machine is not a Poker, it's a poker-themed slot machine and the game people play with it is called losing money.

apgwoz 2 days ago

“Poker is a family of _comparing_ card games in which players _wager_ over which hand is best according to that specific game’s rules.”

— [WikiPedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poker)

I don’t think I would have gone for that definition, but now that I see it, it sums up everything I’ve ever known “Poker” to be. The game is won by comparing cards you have left (meaning that Rummy, Go Fish, or Bridge are different), and there’s a wager about the game (possibly just bragging rights if not playing for money).

  • ZoomZoomZoom 2 days ago

    I totally agree, but I stand by the opinion that imperfect-information bit is so essential that it's simply assumed (it's, naturally, not specific to just poker card games, though). If you come to the table with your own stack of cards to draw from, it's very likely going to end badly for you, depending on how transparent you're with the matter.

kuboble 2 days ago

Not that I disagree with anything about the nature of those games, but your narrow usage of a word poker is wrong.

I even checked the Wikipedia article about Poker and there is a quote very similar to my wording:

"Other games that use poker hand rankings may likewise be referred to as poker."

  • ZoomZoomZoom 2 days ago

    Well, it's my opinion based on the assumption that players used to specific common card games under the moniker might be disappointed when a new game with the same name lacks an essential component (and it's not cards).

    Naming things is hard but there's no hard limits for the expansive approach, you can call all card games or all 5-things-games Poker. Your mileage as to communication with other people may vary, though.

    Where we're disagreeing is at how we're seeing what's conventional.

    • joseda-hg 2 days ago

      You can call all Fizzy soft drinks coke, at that point you're relying in shared context to make it work, not in hard definitions

    • kuboble 2 days ago

      All you say is true. Except in your first post you didn't say "I personally prefer a convention of calling only those games poker".

      You said "you can't call it poker" with a tone of an authority.

      And I say that you can.

      • Maxatar 2 days ago

        Refrain from using quotes unless you are actually quoting something that someone has said word for word. One good aspect of quoting the actual words someone has said is that it can act as a sanity check against potential misinterpretations you might have made.

        The actual quote, word for word is "I also don't think this can be called Poker, really."

        There is nothing suggesting a tone of authority, on the contrary this is someone explicitly sharing their own opinion on the matter.

      • ZoomZoomZoom 2 days ago

        > You said "you can't call it poker" with a tone of an authority.

        This is a misquote, if I ever saw one.

        What I've actually written (emphasis added): "I also don't think this can be called Poker, really."

        In other words, this is my personal line of thought, with the argument given in the next sentence, and "really" means "to some extent it can, but not to the full".