"Poker expresses the tension between nature and civilization, between order and lawlessness."
So writes Associate Professor of Humanities Kevin L. Stoehr in a 2006 essay focusing on the role of poker in Western movies, "Civilization and Wilderness: Poker, Hobbes, and Classic Westerns."
In his essay Stoehr highlights several different paradoxes of poker, many of which aren't actually specific to the Old West such as the way luck and skill coexist as factors affecting the game, or the way players employ both logic and intuition when weighing decisions. But the paradox that most intrigues him concerns the way poker — particularly in the handful of Westerns he examines — represents a kind of isolated, curious example of civilization amid the chaos of the Old West.