Poker Pros Doyle Brunson and More Declare Support for Barack Obama

Poker legend Doyle Brunson, formerly a life-long Republican, has made it known that he supports Barack Obama and the Democratic Party in the upcoming U.S. presidential race. Obama also has the support of well known poker pro Andy Bloch, who also told The Sunday Telegraph that most players in Las Vegas for the main event of the World Series of Poker are backing the Democrat. There is even a group called Poker Players for Obama that is writing a blog on his campaign website.

When Brunson declared his support for Obama, he explained that he could not back Republican candidate John McCain because the Republicans support the UIGEA which in effect blocks US residents from gaming online (except for carve outs like lotteries and betting on horse races). Obama has stated that he prefers to regulate online poker and Internet gambling, rather than criminalize it.

"Poker players have to support Obama," Brunson said. "God help the internet gambling business if McCain does happen to win."

THE GAMBLING CANDIDATES

Interestingly, both presidential candidates John McCain (Republican) and Barack Obama (Democrat) are gamblers. It has been commented that their choice of game reflects their political styles. Obama regards poker as one of his hidden talents, while McCain is a dedicated gambler who enjoys few things more than a 14 hour session at the craps table.

The Telegraph reports that "McCain has enjoyed the camaraderie and the thrill of chance in the dice game, where players bet on the outcome of the throw, since his days as a tearaway pilot in the Navy. He is reputed to wager several thousand dollars a session, and had to be prevented from gambling when a campaign trip took him through Las Vegas earlier this year.

"By contrast, Mr Obama used his love of poker to get to know rivals during his days as an Illinois state senator, where he developed a reputation for playing to win, usually doing so with strong cards, and rarely bluffing. "If he runs his presidency the way he plays poker, I'll sleep good at night," Terry Link, a fellow state senator at the time, told Time magazine."

Andy Bloch, who has accumulated nearly $715,000 so far at this year's World Series of Poker, sees skills learned from playing poker as contributing much to Obama's ability to govern.

Bloch told The Sunday Telegraph: "There are a lot of skills playing poker that would help the chief executive. In poker you have to put yourself in the shoes of your opponents, get inside their heads and figure out what they're thinking; what their actions mean; what they would think your actions mean; and reading people's bluffs.

"One thing that got us into the Iraq War was that George Bush didn't realize that Saddam Hussein was basically bluffing, trying to look like a big man, when he really had no weapons of mass destruction."

British poker player and writer Anthony Holden, whose book Big Deal did much to popularize poker in the UK, said Obama is following in a long tradition of poker playing presidents, from Andrew Jackson, Ulysses S. Grant, Teddy Roosevelt and Warren Harding to Harry Truman.

He told The Sunday Telegraph: "Eisenhower was a good player who did not like winning money from fellow officers, let alone other ranks, and he was a nice guy. Nixon had no such scruples at all and funded his first political campaign from his wartime winnings. He turned out to be just as unprincipled in power.

"Barack Obama, like Lyndon Johnson, used poker to make political connections. He seems not to be much of a bluffer. The Cuban Missile Crisis was a giant bluff by JFK, which was not called by Khruschev. I don't think we'll get those kind of geopolitical gambles from Obama."

Both Bloch and Holden expressed concern about aspects McCain playing craps. "You're always at a disadvantage at craps," Mr Bloch told the Telegraph. "It's a problem, if you have a leader who believes they can beat the odds. You don't want him shooting dice with the economy." Mr Holden added: "We poker players don't call poker gambling. It is a game of skill. Craps is an absurd game of luck. You may have thrilling short term wins but only madmen play craps."

Original Telegraph Article by Tim Shipman in Washington

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