The Indian Poker Scenario

                  

The biggest mystery associated with this wonderful game is that whether is it a  game of skill or a game of luck? If the poker pros like Daniel Brunson, Steve Gee, JC Tran, Phil Helmuth are to be believed, its definitely a skill-based game. They say that in order to be a good poker player you should know when is the time to fold’em or hold’em, you have to be attentive all the time and you have to think about various permutations and combinations before checking or raising, you are required to read the strength of your opponent’s hands.

But on the other hand we have seen Dan Brunson winning a World Series of Poker(WSOP) event by going ALL-IN pre-flop on as week a hand as 10-2 off-suite. Even when we as a player experience bad-beats on the river(last card) then the first sentence which we say  is that our opponent’s luck was very good or luck didn’t favoured us. There are a lots of times when we experience a bad-beat, for instance one card straight or one card flush. You have the best hand on the flop(1^st three cards) but somehow your opponents’ hand improves over the turn and the river.

So it can be said that luck and skills are two different sides of the same coin in a game like poker.

Over the past few years poker as a game has been developed manifold in a country like India. Nowadays people spend a lot of time playing poker. Around 90% of the people playing poker in our country falls in the age category of 16-35 years and it can be said that it is slowly and gradually replacing the traditional card game called teen patti in our country.

College students spends around 6-8 hours a day playing poker with their friends or online. They don’t think that they are addicted to this game, they say that they just play it for fun and in the process they learn a lot of things. Eventually they are making their minds work in the things which they like.

Raunaq Bhatnagar(name changed), 20, studies in Mithibai College,  has taken part in the Indian Poker Championship(IPC), makes it a point play poker in his free time and as well organises poker scenes regularly, where he arranges for a poker table and calls a professional dealer from outside. In return he collects rakes from each deal which ranges from 3-10% of the pot-money, which depends on the additional services which are provided during the scenes such as free smokes, beers, hard-liquor, food, etc. His rationale of organise such scenes is to provide the players with an experience which they see in high stakes poker videos on television or online. He says, “The people don’t mind the rakes which is a small % of the total pot value, since they are relieved of dealing cards on their deal and the feeling which they experience while playing on a poker table as compared to when they play in their houses on their beds.” He further says that, “He has to be careful while organising such scenes, since gambling is illegal in India so he cannot tell about the scenes to everybody.” He just invites the people who are very close to him and who won’t report it to the police.

Nowadays people have started organising such scenes at their farm-houses which are located far-away from the main city, to be a little relieved from the cops. There are farm-houses in places like Alibaug and Matheran which the organisers hires for poker scenes for as high a rent as 25-30000 per night. They don’t mind paying such high rents since the privacy offered by these places is of top-level and they generally organise high stakes poker events there, hence they are successful in covering all their costs and make a profit  out of  the event as well.

The craze for poker is growing very rapidly in India. This fact can be proved by the fact that you get to see packed houses at Casino Pride, Goa where there is a dedicated poker room comprising of 9-10 poker tables. There are some poker clubs opened in Bangalore which are approved by the Karnataka government, which runs to almost full capacity throughout the year.

To conclude I would like to say that poker as a game has a lot of scope for further development. If the government approves poker as a recreational activity and make it legal in India then it(i.e. Government of India) can earn a lot of revenue in the form of entertainment taxes.