Gaming & Poker Gaming

Well, I just wanted to write this cause this poker blog will likely be viewed by many gamers who may or may not be warm to the idea of Elky not being as active in the gaming community and moving away from Pro-Gaming. I think I'm qualified to address this cause I'm one of Elky's flat mates and I have some experience in both the Pro Gaming and the Poker gaming world.

I think for Elky, he isn't like a regular gamer or even regular person. Not to say that he is better because he does have his faults, but Elky has really spectacular powers of intense concentration/focus and observation. For instance when we go work out, this crazy mo-fo who hasn't played any sport (except for tennis, like a few times) works out like nothing else in the world exists. He runs for 10 km, then works out for another hour until he is soaked in sweat (like he is drenched or got out of a shower). And when he gets into a routine, nothing can stop this guy from improving and just doing it. Also, I have a friend who is a Muay Thai master, truly a bad mo-fo, and so I asked him to show Elky a low kick. And so my friend showed him. Elky tried it once, my friend showed him again, and Elky got it perfectly the second time.

My friend was amazed because Elky does not have the most athletic looking form (sorry Elky! you're still good looking!) but he was able to do the physcial mechanics on the second try, which is freaking difficult to do properly. So when it comes to gaming, Elky practiced like a manic possessed, but he has always been so friendly and easy going, except when something is on the line. So for Elky its always been all or nothing. If he works out, he works out, if he plays starcraft, he plays starcraft and now he is playing poker.

So sometimes I go to work in the morning and I know that Elky has been up all night playing on-line poker, then i get home at around 7ish in the evening (and of course he is still playing) and by 11ish, he is passing out while playing 5 tables, but still playing and then finally around 3 in the morning he goes to take a nap, and wakes up by 7am and starts playing again, refreshed to start another 36 hour session of having fun. Well I think people get my point.

Elky has a lot of friends, but all of his friends are from the gaming community. So he does have friends all over the world, and they mean a lot to him. So myself, Giyom and Elky we do take time to play some games together, Warcraft 3 (cause its not fun to play with them in Starcraft cause I suck) modification call DOTA. So I think that while some people might use Elky as an example of the destruction of the gaming community; i think that for Elky the situation is different in that this is his only source of income now and its the way he is a person.

It would be impossible to divorce himself from the gaming community as even it was some of his friends from the gaming community that introduced him to poker and on-line poker. I think there will be a balance for most people because poker itself is a very community based game and its fun to make a weekly home game with friends. But I think what makes it different for gamers is that; online poker can be a source of income; and it can be a source of income because gamers have a community that can support and teach one another. And that is what is happening as generally gamers who start playing poker on a causual level don't incur huge losses, but can enjoy the game as it is and not as a gambling type of adiction.

Its not to say that the risk isnt' there, cause online poker could lead to an addiction, just like starcraft was for me when i was in my grad school, I just couldnt' stop thinking, dreaming, playing starcraft even though I had a thesis due the next week, i still had to play. But, if you look at on-line poker as a game, rather than gambling, your priorities and objectives change as to why you play. No doubt, this can be a very thin line/distinction, but I think in terms of balancing poker with gaming, its very reaonsible as a lot of our gaming friends are introducing us to on-line poker and keeping an eye on us.

But i think playing for your income is something of a freedom, but also something that needs to be seriously viewed as a job and that is what Elky sees poker as. I mean you see in Korea too, the top pro gamers of yesterday when starcraft first started, some of they are still trying to get back to the top, you don't hear about them, you don't see them cause they are entering off line tournaments that are the pre tournaments to other offline tournaments that lead to a real offline tournment that will get you a chance to enter into a minor/challenger league. But its like, those pro gamers from like 4 years ago, some of them just had some talent or some new strat that people couldn't counter, but with 3 tv game stations and people like Imyohwan who take starcraft to the limit, those guys who just kinda were talented but never developed a pro gamer's work/practice ethic, they can't make it. But Elky he's got that kind of ethic, so he sees poker as a job and he takes it hard when he loses and tries every day to be better. So guess my point here is that Elky is aiming to be Pro Poker player as he was a Pro Gamer.


When i visited Elky in France, I met a lot of poker people and taked to the Pokerstars marketing staff and everything and I was surprised to find out that some people came all the way from the US as a kind of vacation/trip. They qualified online, but they paid the rest of their expenses and they only played like 5 hours a week, but they came to have fun. And I found out that some people only play on the play money sections, and never have played for money, but its fun for them.

I guess my conclusion is, Elky is being Elky, but playing poker can't take him away from the gaming community that has all of his closest friends, in fact it something else that they share between them. And as far as the gaming community goes, Im sure that a kind of symbiotic gamer/poker community is actually forming where the gaming community may not be fully engaged with those professional poker players who never hear of starcraft, but we can make our own players that we respect and root for in poker.