http://onlyagame.wbur.org/2011/11/12/harvard-poker

THis is the kind of article that will help tremendously in legitimizing poker.

NEW SECRETARY OF EDUCATION, PLEASE.

Good stuff

I will be sending this article to my Congressman...and you should too

amazing news!

Solid article.

short vid, good nonetheless

and lol at the girl betting one chip

Some one get this guy to the hearings coming up this week.

interesting article. don't ever see sponsors putting up the prize pools but its an interesting idea

i definitely like the article

Great article, thanks for the link.

I hope people sit-up and take notice.

great article - an intelligent person understanding that poker is not solely luck. That's what we like to see.

Teaching people how to play poker in elementary school would be terrible for the game imo.

Brandon Adams teaches at Harvard

good stuff

This is what I was thinking. Even though it's true... poker skill has progressed to the point where it doesn't hurt the game nearly as much for this professor to be doing what he does now, compared to if he did it five years ago. I'll deal with it. To me it seems like the poker average skill level situation has advanced over the last decade what chess did over the last 200 years. My choice is to focus on how good it is that intelligent people, with far more credibility in the real world than poker pros have... such as this professor... are concerning themselves with the game.

Of course, if this guy breeds 10 poker pros out of each of his classes, then he could become responsible for draining millions out of the economy. I'm still not convinced that's a big deal... they live in the USA, and rake necessarily drains millions out of the economy weekly.

i trust the inability of public school teachers to teach concepts effectively and correctly to most students . and tons of people would stop studying early because they believe they've figured it all out and they're the greatest already (case in point-- 4/10 high school freshmen in detroit drop out before they're seniors because they've got better stuff to do).

it should be our national game, imo. it's chess+capitalism. it should be held in the same regard as baseball from jr high onward.

great stuff! i have a 15 month at home and am already counting down the days where i can start teaching him math through poker (odds, draws, etc.) come on U.S. Gov, get on the same page as the rest of us!!!

Man, I really don't think so. If poker had been studied as extensively as chess and had the same player base, the games would be WAY WAY WAY harder. I mean I'm not an expert in the field but I'm pretty sure there are kids in Russia who are sent off to chess school/university, and just in general a lot of kids being taught formally from a young age. Can you imagine how good the best nosebleeders would be nowadays if they had been trained 3+ hours a day for 5 years before they turned 18? And they had PHd level material to learn from? Pretty sure they'd **** all over anyone we have playing today. Same with other stakes, if the relative skill of msnl was the same as a similar level in chess pretty sure they'd be unbeatable for 90%+ of today's msnlers.

I don't think it's a big deal either way as I can't realistically see poker ever being taught in school as a standard. I think this is much more good than bad.

There will always be new games and new areas of competition, unlike chess where players have been staring at the same 8x8 board for centuries. In fact, I believe Casablanca once said that even an 8 year old can gain an advantage over a grandmaster with modern opening theory, which is why he created Casablanca chess. Though unfortunately, chess variants haven't gained much popularity in formal competition as much as the various poker variants have.

great stuff ... he goes a lil over the top in some spots(teaching the game in elementry school obv.) but the base of his argument is very strong and very true!
put this guy in office!!!!!!!!!

nice

This is all fine and dandy as long as you're playing for Hoyle's plastic chips but uh...

What happens when Johnny puts half his paycheck on the line? Did he teach his students that dimension? The value of hard earned money?

+1

AINEC!