This story could reinforce some existing narratives about McCain and Obama: McCain the hothead, getting caught up in the heat of things. And then there's Obama, who said in an interview a while back that he learned about himself that when he's high, he doesn't get too high, and that when he's low, he doesn't get too low -- he's level-headed. Decisive leadership is good, but it needs to be thoughtful leadership.

Do I take it you're still overseas, Noam? I'm not in Israel now, just a mild insomniac.

Back in the day when I would occasionally foray into the games of chance I'm certain that some of my wagering would appear to be high roller. Certainly in the relative sense. To some others I would have looked pedestrian. Inasmuch that the results of my gaming has been for the most part zero sum (win some lose some) the only thing different is perception of scale depending upon audience. Prudence is a very flexible variable in this regard.

I look favorably upon Obama but this kind of thing you're trotting out just kind of pisses me off. Meet the new shills. Same as the old shills. And I'll get on my knees and pray. We don't get fooled again.

Okay. Who do you want running the show, the guy that likes roller coasters and flying things or the guy who likes a good book in the park with occasional thoughtful reflections on the flora and fauna about?

Ummm. My answer is........ Yes.

Aw, you gotta be kidding me.  My post went phhhhttt into the aether.  

What I said, at too much length, was that $1 ante poker is not "extremely low stakes."  At that level, in a casual home game where not everyone plays as tight as it sounds like Obama does, pots would run between $20-$50, and at such stakes a given player could expect swings of several hundred over the course of an evening.  Myself I wouldn't sit down at such a table with a stack smaller than $500.

$500 ain't "thousands," but neither is it "extremely low stakes."  With that kind of talk you make Obama sound like some kind of uber-nerd who plays poker for M&Ms.

aeromonas - the key is what followed the 'extremely low stakes' comment - "who sizes up his odds methodically and rarely loses money".  I'll take that kind of player as President any day!

As for box's zero-sum point, craps, McCain's game, has the closest odds of all of the casino games.  The house still wins in the end--always does--but by only a tiny margin.

Sure enough, Walt, but that's exactly the kind of player I DON'T want at my poker table.  If Obama's the rock of a poker player he's been made out to be, he can take his chips elsewhere.

Give me your gamblers, your chasers, your fishiest fishies yearning to win big, the drunken frat boys off your bar room floor.   Send these, the clueless, the internet-addled to me, I deal the cards that make them poor.

Hey, I took Sherlock Holmes' advice long ago: Never gamble, the house never loses. I believe he told that to Watson, who, like McCain, was a sucker for the fast bet.

Hell, I have always sought to better my odds, in everything: In college, while all my stupid friends were getting stoned and drunk, I stayed sober as a judge and took all their frustrated girlfriends. The only gambling I ever do is lotto. That is it.

I dunno aeromonas.  I play poker for trivial stakes -- a quarter ante -- and seldom does anyone leave at the end of the evening up or down more than $10. $20 is a lot.  That suggests to me that in Obama's game the big loser or winner might be up or down $100.

I prefer being the house which is how I make my living.

aeromonas-

I don't know what kind of game you usually play, but five-card stud with an ante of $1, and a maximum bet of $3, is indeed extremely low stakes. It's possible you may have a table full of chasers who'll take a card when they're beat on every street, but if Obama is (as described) a very tight player, he'd be out of the hand on second street unless he's already paired up, or is playing Ace-King, or maybe Ace-Queen. Which wouldn't happen very often. In other words, BHO would be playing maybe one out of every seven or ten hands beyond second street (if that). And even on the hands where he's already paired up, if there are overcards on the board, he may not play past second or third street. That means he's risking a whopping $1 a hand for most of the night, and maybe $2 to $4 every seventh or tenth hand. Yes, maybe every fifteen or twentieth hand, he may throw about $13 or (if there are raises) $20 into a pot, but that would be on hands where he has a very high percentage of winning. And if all of the other players at the table know that he's a rock, they're usually not going to stay in a hand with him beyond third street, because they know they're beat if he's in. The one example given of a pot in which another player stayed with Obama through fifth street was when BOTH of them had quads. Which is extremely, extremely, extremely rare.

All of which is to say, if he is (as described) a very tight player in a $3-limit, five-card game, BHO could probably play all night and not risk very much money at all.

Noam Scheiber-

One point that should be noted, I think, as per the kind of risks the two nominees take: Obama was not only playing very tight in a small stakes game, he was also playing against players with whom he was familiar in a home game with no rake. Which means that each time BHO pushed his chips into the center, he had a very high percentage of winning, while risking very little in the process.

McCain, on the other hand, was not only playing for much higher stakes, he was playing against the house. And, as we all know, the house, over the long haul, always wins. Which means that John McC was playing for the action, the thrill of it, risking thousands in the process, with a very low percentage of winning.

I'm with the container of stone objects on this one.

I fail to see how McCain's apparent occasional financial intemperance makes him less qualified to serve as Commander-in-Chief than his opponent's apparent comparative temperance. More distressing to me were Jimmy Carter's inability to keep time to Dizzy's "Salt Peanuts"; Nixon's bowling; and George H. W. Bush's hatred of broccoli: a display resembling a grand mal seizure, a fondness for tossing heavy objects at crowds of innocent smaller ones, and a rejection of cruciferous antioxidants reminiscent of a vampire's rejection of cruciferous crosses, respectively.

I say this as one who has gleefully tossed fistfuls of his own hard-owned cash at every hooker, psychotherapist, bartender, coke dealer, and church collection plate-bearer with the good sense to remember my (first) name (once, if I recall, all of them on the same day). And yet alone among the vices gambling has never vortexed my cortex: I walk onto casino floors, look around, yawn, and tell my companion, "I'll be back at the room." I don't get it.

So, like box says, do we want a President running naked circles around the Burning Man at Black Rock City, a dozen fresh Mayan hieroglyphs branded into his buttocks a la George Schultz at the Bohemian Grove, or do we want a President who just kniitted his mother a nice Merino cardigan, bless his heart.

Why, yes.

I think these B.A.U. profiling techniques work better on television but every generation seems to seek a better way of predicting how a POTUS will act. I'm guilty of peeling back the layers for an answer but think Obama has taken more from his years on the basketball court than playing cards.

His understanding of the game, minor success as a player and continuing experience is valuable even if he wouldn't admit it. I may be wrong but if I was McCain I'd think Barack's playing basketball makes him a more formidable opponent than his skill with poker.  I'll have to ponder how the same will translate to his approach in office but it serves him well in a campaign as a candidate.

"but if you've got a gambling problem, you tend to keep playing till you've lost a lot of money. i'm guessing mccain's lost a lot more than he's won over the years."

Noam, doesn't that presuppose the answer to the question about whether McCain has a gambling problem?

Also, it's worth remembering that McCain is rich.  So yes, he's probably lost  what most of us would consider a lot of money, but this sort of thing is relative.  For a guy that has 7 houses, it's probably not that big a deal.

Whether the stakes are high or low is really relative.

I'd have a heart attack if I had a couple thousand dollars on the table. But that's because my wife and I have a net worth that can be counted in the dozens of dollars. Sen. McCain and his wife, however, have millions and millions. We rent; the McCain's own seven homes. When I need to go somewhere, I borrow my wife's Camry; McCain borrows his wife's jet. When I graduated from college, my parents gave me a portrait and a dvd player; when Meghan McCain graduated from college, her parents bought her a $700,000 condo. Cindy McCain bought a condo in Coronado, CA, but her kids used it so much she just bought another. The McCains paid $273,000 in 2007 on household employees. In other words, John McCain can afford to play with a few thousand dollars.

When Obama was playing those $1 ante games, he and his wife were making around $200 G’s a year; they were paying a mortgage, rent in Springfield, raising a couple kids, and paying off law school loans. They made a good living, but not so much Obama wouldn’t kick himself if he lost $100 playing poker.

The insight I gain from McCain’s craps playing isn’t that he would be a loose cannon as President, but it’s that he is really, really rich. Republicans are trying to paint Obama as the elitist, but McCain thinks nothing of getting a private craps table and throwing down a few thousand bucks. I don’t think that makes him more or less likely to start a war with Iran, but I doubt he understands the worries of people suffering in this economy.

Nixon apparently was a masterful poker player and made a lot of dough from his fellow troops during WWII. Michael Ledeen is a championship bridge player. JFK was extraordinarily reckless in his personal life, as is (was) his youngest brother.

I doubt there's any correlation at all between someone's pastimes and his political views or governance style.

McCain was a fighter pilot, so of course he plays for the adrenaline rush, Obama for the comaradarie, so we are not even comparing like to like.

Myself, I hate gambling of any kind, same with drinking. I tend to trust people who feel the same way. Adrenaline junkies are great in Special forces, or in Fire houses, but in the Oval Office? And like Adam said, I don't think McCain has a clue about the lives of normal people. I think he is most interested in being Commander in Chief.

Not only does McCain gamble, but he might be failing to report the gambling-related income on his tax returns properly

gr360.blogspot.com/.../mccains-gambling-problem.html

At least he's not addicted to the slots - Gambling for Idiots - like that big, fat, hypocritical panty-waist Bill Bennett.

williamyard-

You write: "I fail to see how McCain's apparent occasional financial intemperance makes him less qualified to serve as Commander-in-Chief than his opponent's apparent comparative temperance."

I agree: It may be the case that the way the two nominees gamble is not a reliable indicator of how either would perform in the White House. But it does tells me one thing: I'd much rather be at a poker table with McCain--he's the kind of guy the grinders wait (and pray) for. He apparently bets big with a low chance of winning, he's apparently loose, makes low percentage plays, doesn't take stock of the odds. Which is to say, with John McC in the game, it would be like having an ATM at the table.

Obama, on the other hand, is apparently the kind of player who's hardly in the game at all, only calls when he has something serious, only bets when he has the second or third (or first) nuts, always plays the percentages, never takes a risk. Consequently, in a cash game, he's not a player who's any kind of a real threat (you simply fold to him when he bets, unless you have the nuts, or close to it). But he's also not a player from whom you can win anything substantial (he's not calling unless he has you beat). And on top of it all, he only plays for very low stakes.

Which is to say, playing a cash game (as opposed to a tournament) with a table full of Obama's would often be a waste of time. While playing that same game with a table full of McCain's would be heaven itself.

_______________________________________________________________________________

adamvaught-

You write: "When Obama was playing those $1 ante games, he and his wife were making around $200 G’s a year. . . They made a good living, but not so much Obama wouldn’t kick himself if he lost $100 playing poker."

First, it would be pretty difficult for a very tight player (as BHO reportedly is) to lose $100 in a $3-limit, five-card stud game. He'd have to be extremely bad, or extremely unlucky. Second, if you're making $200,000 a year, and can't afford to lose $100 over the course of a seven-hour game, I think this suggests that you have some serious money management problems. What professional making $200 Gs couldn't afford $100 for an evening's entertainment? It costs more than that to take your kid to a ball game. . .

One more thing, williamyard-

I have found that there is indeed some degree of correlation between the way a player acts at a poker table, and the way that same person thinks strategically, even when he's away from the table.

For instance, a player who can't read others, but just bets out blindly, trying to bully pot after pot (with no sense of what anyone else has), is usually not someone who can design a strategy to win others over to his side.

But in order to make such a judgement about a player, you would need a hell of a lot more information than was provided in the Time article. You'd need to have very direct (and somewhat thorough) knowledge of how that player behaves at the table in order to get any clear sense of how he might think strategically away from the table.

This is the problem with all such pop psych presumptions: they are often based on very little--too little--information, and consequently, they are usually meaningless.

Y'all might be right about the small swings with $1 ante poker.  Most of my experience is online.  I've played a ton of $1/$2 limit holdem online.  The per session swings are as big as I've said, but I tend to forget that playing online, you can race through many times the number of hands in an evening that you can do playing live.  The deal is more or less instantaneous so each table deals about 50 hands per hour, and what's more, you can play three or four tables simultaneously.  That makes 150 to 200 hands an hour, close to ten-fold what you can do live.  I consider myself a tight player too, so my swings don't tend to be that big.  But I've definitely been up or down $200 at these stakes on a few occasions.  And I've seen loose players (gotta love 'em) going up or down by more.  There tend to be enough chasers at this level that hands go to the river, if not showdown.  Any hand you're in, your into for a minimum of $6 and that's with no raises.  Say you're super tight and you play just one hand in fifteen.   Playing 150 hands an hour, you'll still be in ten pots/hr with $60 of your own money on the line.  I've had runs where I flopped five sets in an evening (pocket pair with a matching card on the board for 3-of-a-kind) and got beaten every time.  

BTW if you want a few minutes mind-bending fun, log onto Full Tilt Poker and go to the highest limit table where people are playing.  Don't play, just watch.  If seen 4 guys seated at the $2000/$4000 tables each with stacks of about 100 grand.  Most of the time they all folded out before the flop, but even so, the pot average was over $5000.  I watched one guy drop $20,000 in about 5 minutes.  He didn't blink, just kept right on playing.  Must either be a pro or a very wealthy fish.

I tend to play poker the way Obama does, although I rarely play for money.  The problem, of course, with playing for fake money with friends is that there's really no penalty for losing.  When they run out of chips, people either just get up and play video games, or someone with the tall stack at the table bails them out with a gift.  Being the only one at a table who doesn't realize we're not playing for actual money is difficult.

aeromonas-

Yes, playing live (as opposed to online) does slow the game down considerably, but there's one more factor to take into consideration: according to Time, Obama was playing five-card stud (not hold em), and in five-card, there's much less of an incentive to play past second street--especially if you're a very tight player. As I said above, BHO would probably be out of the hand on second street unless he's already paired up, or is playing Ace-King, or maybe Ace-Queen. Which wouldn't happen very often. And even on the hands where he's already paired up, if there are overcards on the board, he may not play past second or third street. Which means that in the overwhelming majority of hands, Obama wouldn't be putting more than the ante ($1) into the pot. In a small minority of the hands, he might stick around for one round of betting ($1 to $3). And in a very tiny minority of hands, he might go all the way to fifth street, but these would be the hands in which he had a very high percentage of winning. (According to Time, "Obama usually left [the game] a winner.")

In hold em, on the other hand, there's usually much more of an incentive to play past the flop: after putting in only one bet, you already have five cards to play. Which means you may be looking at a pair, two pair, trips, a straight, a flush, a four-straight, or a four-flush, or a gut shot. Which also means that you're more likely to chase--especially in a limit game, and especially if you're a loose player--all the way to the end.

In five-card stud, by contrast, most of these potentialities aren't present on second street--no sane player is going to chase a two-straight, or a two-flush--so there's very little reason to stay in for the first round of betting unless you already have a solid hand. And if you're a very tight player, there's no reason to stay in for the first round of betting unless you already have ,made a hand, a high pair, or a pair higher than every other (or almost every other) card on the board.

All of which is to say, Obama would have almost no reason to chase in five-stud, and if he's a tight player, he'd be playing only a very tiny minority of hands beyond second street, beyond the $1 ante.

_______________________________________________________________________________

aeromonas, adamvaught, williamyard, tep, & blackton-

One more thing to consider: according to the Time article, Obama wasn't just throwing away $20 or $50 or (rarely) $100 for an evening's entertainment (actually, according to Time, he usually came away from the table a winner); he was playing poker with other politicos, other persons of influence. In other words, he was networking, even as he was playing poker. So the money he lost (whenever he did lose) would appear (at least to him) to have been rather well spent.

According to Time: "Obama used the sessions to bond with those who could aid his political ascent, including several lawmakers with whom he forged lasting political alliances, as well as some lobbyists. The banks, utilities and insurance agents were often represented. . . . When [BHO] announced his plans to run for the U.S. Senate, his poker pals--white guys from small-town Illinois--were among his earliest supporters."

McCain, by contrast, wasn't playing craps in a home game with other legislators; he was playing, according to Time, on "Mississippi riverboats, on Indian land, in Caribbean craps pits and along the length of the Las Vegas Strip."

If the results were in reverse, TNR would have it that McCain prefers a quiet, calm game that allows him to sit down whilst Obama prefers an exciting, vital game that fosters cameraderie.

Oh well, craps for me  - I get paid to sit down and outmanuever people at my day job.  

Reading the above comments, I can safely say that you will never get me to sit at a poker table with JosephCuomo.  If he ever invited me to a "TNR commentator bi-weekly poker game," it would only sound to my ears like "JosephCuomo-needs-his-bathroom-remodeled charity poker game."

So by JosephCuomo, Obama was all about poker as a means to an end; McCain was in it for the thrill.  Again, I don't know what this says about either one as a president, but that's about what I get out of this thread.

Cuomo. Was the Cuban Missile Crisis craps or poker? It doesn't do you a whole lot of good to be sitting at the craps table with a deck of cards. Vice versa. However it might be useful to have a rep as a resolute chicken player. Even at the card table. Which ever way you might choose to play it.

Actually all of this is pretty silly.

Hey, I'll bet all you guys $1000 McCain wins...

I'll bet you $5000 he when he wins the electoral college, he wins the popular vote too.

Double down on the first bet he wins all but 1 swing state...

boxofrox-

You write: "Cuomo. Was the Cuban Missile Crisis craps or poker?. . . .Actually all of this is pretty silly."

If you had read my post above, boxofrox, you wouldn't have responded as you did.

To save you the trouble of scrolling up the thread, I'll repeat it here (so you can't miss it):

____________________________________________________________________________

I have found that there is indeed some degree of correlation between the way a player acts at a poker table, and the way that same person thinks strategically, even when he's away from the table.

For instance, a player who can't read others, but just bets out blindly, trying to bully pot after pot (with no sense of what anyone else has), is usually not someone who can design a strategy to win others over to his side.

But in order to make such a judgement about a player, you would need a hell of a lot more information than was provided in the Time article. You'd need to have very direct (and somewhat thorough) knowledge of how that player behaves at the table in order to get any clear sense of how he might think strategically away from the table.

This is the problem with all such pop psych presumptions: they are often based on very little--too little--information, and consequently, they are usually meaningless.

cspencef-

You write: "So by JosephCuomo, Obama was all about poker as a means to an end; McCain was in it for the thrill."

These weren't my points, cspencef, but those made in the Time article itself.

My point about Obama was that, being a very tight player (at least according to Time), he couldn't lose very much money in a $3-limit, five-card stud home game, especially as he would be familiar with the play of the others at the table, and especially as he would only be playing high percentage hands. And whatever money he did lose (if he lost), he would probably consider the money well spent as (again, according to Time), Obama used these games "to bond with those who could aid his political ascent."  

My point about John McC was that, being a player (again, according to Time) who played for much higher stakes with a much lower percentage of winning, he would be seen (at any serious poker table) as something of a fish. According to his former chief advisor, John Weaver, McCain loves "taking a chance, playing against the odds." And this approach is a "central thread constant in John's life." Which is virtually the definition of a loose player, the kind of player who (if he were to play poker) the grinders would love to see at their table.

bigfish-

Thanks for the kind words.

But are you sure I couldn't interest you in a little $1-$2 no-limit hold em?

jet, are you serious?

There's no way I'd make a significant bet with any of you guys.  I know that if I lost, I'd pay up, but where's the guarantee you'd pay me?  As good as the odds are of me winning your proposed McCain/Obama bet, the odds of me collecting on such a bet are unkknowable and likely long.

So, no wagers from me.  But not because I'm not tempted.

If you're serious about such a bet, you should trot right over to intrade and invest your $1000 there.  Right now McCain's selling at 31, so if you're right and he wins, you'd get paid off at better than 3 to 1.  

Yeah, but who's the better chess player?

Oh wait - this is TNR in an election year, it must be OMG OMG OMGbama.  Although if the Democratic nominee was somehow, say, Jimmy Carter, it would suddenly be him.  Here.

Wouldn't the best measure of how well the next president would handle Iraq be a game of 52 card pick-up?

And Joseph, yes, I'm sure.

JC, my point was not to pick on you, just the subject in general, Time and subsequent posts.  I won't always say such scenarios are not illuminating, but this one frankly doesn't do much for my appreciation or approbation of either candidate.  Or at least it doesn't tell me much I couldn't figure out otherwise.  I don't bet--that typically requires money, and I generally don't have enough of that around to give it away in such fashion, so perhaps that limits my ability to appreciate.  Then again, I hope either one of these guys can tell the difference between a high-stakes international negotiation and a poker table...

cspencef-

You write: "I won't always say such scenarios are not illuminating, but this one frankly doesn't do much for my appreciation or approbation of either candidate. . . . I hope either one of these guys can tell the difference between a high-stakes international negotiation and a poker table."

I think we're in agreement in this respect: as I suggested above in an earlier post, based upon the very little bit of information provided in the Time article, it seems unwise to extrapolate from the way the two nominees gamble to make any kind of serious point concerning the way they might behave in the Oval Office, or anywhere else for that matter, other than a casino or a home game.

And this, in the end, was all that I was saying: that if the two candidates were to play poker at a serious table, Obama would probably be seen as a rock, and McCain would probably be seen as a fish.

The Time article doesn't provide us with very much more than that.

I always read "boxofrox" to mean the box o' frocks. Pretty dresses. Oh well.