Poker vs Starcraft

By Aslam Abdulla

Does being a good poker player translate into being a good Starcraft player? I believe so. In order to become a good poker player, one must educate themselves in the mechanics of the game and constantly learn and tweak their skills in order to get to the point where consistency in earnings is obtained. I don’t see how that’s any different than starcraft. The only difference I see is that poker enables you to make a living out of it while Starcraft doesn’t.

Being a good starcraft player requires training in mechanics, builds, strategies, and adaption. Those are the exact skills you need to be a good poker player. I originally played a lot of poker and was quite good at it. I loved the thinking aspect of the game. I loved that there is so much knowledge out there on how to be better on all aspects of the game. Starcraft 2 is exactly the same. I made the transition into starcraft because of the exact similarities as poker.

Which do I prefer? To be honest its quite an easy response. I would definitely choose Starcraft. I have completely stopped playing poker and have taken up Starcraft. There are a few reasons for this.

1. I can take breaks while playing SC. Each game lasts 30 minutes at most. Poker on the other hand usually takes 6-8 hours (tournaments) in order to have a good profitable run. Some of their major tournaments take 10-12 hours at least.

2. SC is very interactive. You can have a community of friends on your home SC page while in poker there is no such application. I love being able to play with friends or against them. Its tough to organize that with money involved in poker.

3. There is no long term stress with SC. Poker can have its devastating runs which can be extremely frustrating.

4. SC can have teams. You are all alone in the gloomy world of poker.

Which is more addicting? I find starcraft to be a lot more addicting. SC has a lot more reasons as mentioned above to remain an addiction. If you run out of money in poker, its not like you can satisfy your addiction.

Starcraft is my major form of entertainment. Poker used to be but once Starcraft was discovered, I find poker to be boring and well the hours I used to put into it just isn’t worth the amount of money that I could potentially win.

Aslam is our first play to get paid employee. Last season his record 4v4 record was 504-234 and he was ranked 2^nd in North America. He is currently a Terran diamond player in every category.