In poker there is, of course, no attempt to disguise the aggressive element. Poker is a fighting game, a game in which each player... tries to get the better of every other player and does so by fair means or foul so long as he obeys the rules of the game. He may bluff or lie about his own strength, the object of the game being either to frighten the other players into believing that he has greater strength or else to prove it. Chess is a more highly symbolic game, but the aggressions are therefore even more frankly represented in the play. It probably began as a war game; that is, the representation of a miniature battle between the forces of two kingdoms.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It might seem desirable to attempt a definition of play--not a dictionary definition but one that takes into account the psycholog...ical principles involved. We might define it as pleasurable activity in which the means is more important than the ostensible end. This clearly distinguishes it from work, and is in line with our hypothesis that, like work, play is an end in itself, an opportunity for the discharge of aggressive energy in not only painless but actually pleasurable forms, energy which would otherwise be repressed at a definite psychological expense or else expressed in harmful ways. Play acts out timelessly in pantomime, symbol, and gesture the unfulfillable aggressive and erotic wishes of the players. I say unfulfillable, although the fantasies of some play are actually realized later, as, for example, in the little girl's play with her doll.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »