The Poker Chip

If money represents some abstracted notion of value-the reward for one's labors or the ability to purchase something new-then chips are an abstraction of money, the reward for a hand well played, the ability to see another one. That's a lot of abstraction, which might explain why so many people seem to lose the ability to connect a chip to any tangible notion of value. How much harder it would be if you had to call a $5 bet, a $50 bet, a $50,000 bet with actual cash. Tossing chips into a pot is easy. Sometimes frighteningly easy.