I play agreat deal of poker, and on my way home today I passed by the place where my dad used to play poker a lot, Montgomery Brothers Trucking. As far as I know, no one plays poker there anymore. That got me to thinking about the shift I have seen in poker players over the last few years. My dad is retired from the game. He was widely recognized as one of the best poker players around, but he invested so much time in the game that when my parents got remarried a few years back, my mother made him give it up. Of the people that I saw him play with time after time, I don't remember seeing any at any poker game I've ever been in. It makes me wonder if all these players gave up the game within just a few years of each other. There was about eight years or so between the time that my dad played a lot, and when I started playing a lot, so that's a pretty short perioed for so many people to quit poker. Even the players I play with that have been playing a long time aren't doing so good though. There is a guy at our regular game that brings an oxygen tank, and can only play as long as his tank lasts. Same goes for another guy who was a great friend of my fathers that I know doesn't play anymore. Perhaps years in smoky back rooms takes its toll on people's health. Three others of my dad's cronies have bid adieu now that I think of it, two to heart disease and one to cancer. Still, it's pretty hard to have a poker game where people aren't allowed to smoke.What I was actually thinking of however, is that those guys had a lot of class. They'd show up for the game in hats and overcoats. Many of them actually wore berets. Most were politicians or business owners. As a matter of fact my dad might have been the only wage earner a lot of times. The little idiosyncracies of the upper-middle class made the game enjoyable to watch. Beer was drunk with abandon, cigarettes and cigars littered the ashtrays, and loud but coherent talk was a constant, only interrupted with the regular "Pot right?"These days, at least the games I play, there are about five types who play. There are the business owners, of which I am a part. We are there because we love the game of poker and always have. We take occasional hits, but most of the time we walk out with a good deal of money. There are drug dealers, who always lose, and sometimes offer to pay off losses with drugs. They're usually good guys but definitely worth watching. There are the retirees, who always get skinned, and don't seem to care by the next week. These guys must be getting better than just social security, because they couldn't eat and play poker on an SS check. There are the wage earners, who you don't see too often. It's too hard to play til three in the morning and be at the assembly line by seven I guess. When they do show up, they're usually decent players. They lose a little. Lastly there the professional gamblers. These guys do very little other than play cards, or take book, or whatever else pro gamblers are apt to do. These guys are tight players, and often it's better not to give them action at the risk of being bluffed out. Generally they bluff too little, though, given their reputation. They always make money, but they could make more. But the point is, none of these guys are very classy, except maybe the retirees, and they are perpetual losers. Has poker become so popular that the upper-middle class has been pushed out of the game, other than the business owners? Definitely the competition level has gone up. I remember how those guys I used to watch played. They bet too much and called too much, and often even raised too much with too little in their hand. Which is maybe the reason I miss them.