When is Poker a Sin?

Watched High Stakes Poker last night on the GSN (TiVo'd). Farha is absolutely brilliant, I think, and Negreanu played like a horrible donkey. His hemming and hawing call with second pair when Farha has a set is a stark illustration of the dangers lurking when we're on a slide in a session.

I've posted something that you may find interesting or revolting. I had posted this earlier on FullContactPoker but thought readers here may find it either revolting, intriguing, or helpful.

Daniel has been kind enough to respond to a few emails of mine a couple of years ago on his Christian faith, and on his FullContactPoker forums he has a large area devoted to religion. He speaks of his conversion after reading Lee Strobel's A Case for Christ. One thing I really like about live play especially is that I am with a tremendously diverse group of people when I'm playing in a card room. Racially, ethnically, religiously, demographically, it is significantly different for me than my normal suburban lifestyle.

As a strong believer and an older fart (41), balancing my faith and my passion for poker can be difficult at times. For one, most conservative/evangelical believers are not knowledgeable about poker, so the easy default is that it lies somewhere beyond sin in the bad sin area, grouped with frequenting prostitutes or beating your children. As the church I go to is very conservative, the few times I've tried to have a meaningful discussion on the topic usually gets my hand slapped severely. It is difficult to have relevant dialogue with believers on the topic.

Having said that, there is tremendous risk in poker, and probably more relevantly online poker. Let's move beyond poker and look at some of the things surrounding it (and I'd like to put aside professional play for this). Poker isn't unique to other pursuits, but let me lay these risk areas out as I see them.

• Poker is an addictive, potentially consuming pursuit. There is risk that this is an enabler of other sin in one's life, putting poker above responsibilities, love of God and others, etc.
• Addictive behavior can get in the way of putting God first and looking to His will. This is similar to the first point, but there is risk that my pursuit of poker and the significant time and mental energy spent detracts from my pursuit and focus on God. This isn't any different than virtually anything (work, school, girlfriend and wife), but it is something to be aware of.
• Deceit and lying. I often hide my play from others, like my wife. This not only is a sin, but there is risk that it additionally damages our relationship. Having seen various blogs regarding disapproval of poker from spouses, I would assume I'm not alone here.
  
• Stewardship. While I agree that putting my money at risk playing poker is similar to buying stocks or starting my own company, there is risk that it becomes both consuming as well as has the chance of being significantly damaging.

So, when is poker a sin, and when does poker lead to sin? Sometimes play can be evil (like yesterday's short FullTilt session when my aces were cracked by Td6d, catching the flush on the river), but I would be interested in any thoughts here.

I'll post tomorrow on a related but different topic: the risk to relationships pursuing poker can cause and what can be done about it.

Congrats to SurlyPokerGnome for crashing out in 2nd place in the WSOP Blogger tourney Sunday night won by Gracie. Mark lives in Hawaii, so it's hard to feel too much sympathy for him. I have been amazed after reading all the blogs about playing in the tourney. Most people's opinion, by and large, seemed to be like this: most of the players sucked and I should have done better than I did. The beautiful Bell Curve at work. I assume I'm a better player than I really am so I'm sure I would be part of the same contingent, but it was amusing that everyone thought most of the players were mediocre.

Nice to know if you Google poker frog card protector photo, this blog comes up as #2 and #3 on the search list. I was wondering why so many people were flocking here...