I have posted this before...but here we go again...

Poker has 4 idenitifiable qualities: 5 or 7 cards, vying (vying means that the best hand may not always be the winning hand), lexically ordered hands, and a pot. So any game with these qualities can suffieciently be considered poker. These are minimums, mind you. Without anyone, it would be a different game.

So you can see here why video poker is not real poker. it lacks one essential element.

But this list is not exhaustive, as these are only the elements that constitute "how" the game is played. This brings us to, what I would like to call secondary elements, mostly as they relate to the concept of vying.

One secondary element is deception. Deception is essential to vying. If you can't deceive, you can't vye.

Some have mentioned that "betting" alone in an online game can be sufficient to deceive your opponent. However, deception in this context is a one shot deal. A "bet" is a single event. However, in a live game deception can be ongoing, and extend across many hands. So online, we have a restricted sense of deception and our ability to deceive, especially with the software alex touts as a "neccesacity".

That is about all I have worked out...if you have thoughts to share...I wouldn't mind reading them.

Okay, we have a list of one: deception.

And your argument seems to be that you can't deceive your opponents online as you can in real life.

Online bets are isolated events, while live betting is part of a continuum? This is only true if you don't make a note of what that little avatar did in its previous hands. In one sense, it's actually easier to detect patterns online, because human perception can be skewed - anyone who shows just their good hands or just their bluffs is not showing a true picture of their play.

Here's an example: You've been getting crap cards for the last thirty hands and haven't entered many pots. So you know that those two players who recently entered your table are being told by their Poker Tracker databases that you're tight as anything. Now's the time to bluff them! So what if they can't see you? They're still getting information on you and you can use that to your advantage.

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... can't sleep, blinds will eat me ...

LIve bets are single events as well, don't egt me wrong. However, there are other aspects of deception, or deceiving about your own deception that are continuous. Body language, conversation, etc are decent examples. A couple of other examples; you can't "advertise", or bet in the dark.

You are probably right with your example, but lets note one thing here. You have now used a program to remember for you. You have replaced the mind's falibility with a computer. Just another example of stirpping the game of it's human element.

Running with this "human element" theme for a moment, how do you even know you are playing real people?

So does that make it a list of two?