[vintermann]

Yeah, and I think it's also an indictment of poker as a game. It's exciting? So would most games be, if played for high stakes! It can't be a very fun game in itself, if it needs stakes to be fun.

There are so many games out there. If it's really about the satisfaction of getting better, the social aspect, and all those other things, why not pursue it in one of the other games?

[somenameforme]

It's fun even for imaginary stakes, so long as they're limited. The reason you need stakes is not for the adrenaline, but because the stakes work kind of like 'life' in a video game. If you had infinite life the game would be stupid, because you could just rambo through everything. Same thing in poker. You could just go all-in every hand, because why not?

This is why some people like things like sit-n-go's or tournaments, where you pay a fixed sum once and then get a good amount of play in but where people will still take it very seriously.

[Rastonbury]

Poker is hugely fun in and of itself to most people, the amount of imperfect information, dealing with human nature, mental calculations under pressure. I love playing house games with my friends

That said poker for fun and poker to make a living are almost indistinguishable, to make serious money multi-table grinds for 8 to 10 hours a day and the reasons outlined by OP article

[Semaphor]

I used to have a lot of fun playing poker for pennies, started in high school (we literally saved up pennies to play with during breaks), later online once that became a thing. The only requirement was that some stake existed, without any, it was a different game