"Bargaining Chip": Antedating & Mystery

[Rick H Kennerly]

|o| For years I have been posing a question about "bargaining chip" that no
|o| one has yet answered.  This is widely assumed to be a poker
|o| metaphor, but
|o| I do not know of chips being used for bargaining in poker or any other
|o| game.  What exactly is the metaphor?
|o|


I'm not ready to give up on the poker metaphor entirely.  After all,
negotiating--diplomatic & otherwise--often takes a poker metaphor (show your
hand, tip your hand, up the ante, put your cards on the table, my hold
(hole) card, poker-faced, ace up our sleeve).

I do not understand "bargaining chip" in any context other than a commodity
(money, points of argument, Czechoslovakia, or goods) that is sacrificial
and used to draw your opponent deeper into the game (incrementally upping
the ante with each round of bidding when you're holding, say,  three of a
kind and a pair) but that you are also willing to lose of need be).

I imagine it's a coined expression.

rhk