Wow. A+.

I expect this article to become an important source in the struggle for legitimacy for poker.

Excellent article. I think it is a bit of a shame that some of it has been tailored to the US, but overall I like it very much.

No he did not:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There's_a_sucker_born_every_minute

Great article otherwise.

It's a good article and all true, and Mason's comments are fair and accurate in the editors note, however these guys are vested interests of poker, and as such, rightly so, the people who matter will not give their opinion any weight at all.

Mack

One of the best articles I ever read. A++.

Juk

My first objection, and an objection non-poker players may have, is that there are a couple of words missing after every 'headline'. Let me give an example.

Poker teaches you to how to adjust to diverse people "AT THE POKER TABLE."

Poker doesn't teach me what I should do in different situations in college or at work. It teaches me to adjust to diverse people so I can take more money from them at the poker table.

That is highly unlikely. Just about anything said in that article about poker could be said about chess or other games not played for money. People opposed to poker will not be swayed by logic.

The people who oppose poker do so because they want to impose their morality on others or because they think that people who gamble are too stupid to make their own decisions. You cannot reason with such people. The moralists are on a mission from God. The nanny-staters are equally irrational in their beliefs that they know better than you how you should live your life.

It is a well-articulated statement, but it is preaching to the choir, and will have zero impact on those mindlessly opposed to gambling.

great article tho. I emailed it to many people who know that I play poker but may not know why.

Thx David and Dr Al.

I agree with the first part of your argument, not so much with the second part. Don't forget that poker can be addictive and is an addiction to many people. This is a big reason why 'they' want to ban poker and unfortunately Sklansky's doesn't say anything about this in his article.

Just submitted to digg. I copy/pasted to a blog because twoplustwo.com is blocked for submissions.

http://digg.com/other_sports/Why_Poker_is_Good

Your position is contrary to the fundamental assumption of ALL education: Lessons learned in one place are applied to other places.

If that assumption is not made, then there is no reason to go to school.

Regards,

Al

Banning something because it can be addictive to a small number of people is silly.

Should alcohol be banned because some people choose to misuse it/abuse it?

And why would it be a better idea to ban poker than cigarettes, which are also addictive, but cost many people their lives and not just some poker chips?

While I love the intent and content, the fact I come from a family of teachers means the key point and title of this article bothers me considerably. Poker actually teaches you nothing.

You can use poker as a great learning tool, but in itself it teaches nothing. Like how baseball is supposed to teach teamwork. Barry Bonds is the proof baseball did not teach it at all.

The person has to want to learn. Poker is a tool, not a teacher.

You wrote: "it is preaching to the choir, and will have zero impact on those mindlessly opposed to gambling."

First, as Mason clearly said in his Publisher's Note, this article is not addressed to you. It is addressed to the general public.

Second, it may not convince some people who are "mindlessly opposed." By definition, someone who is "mindless" is immune to logic. But it will have some impact on a few of the people who dislike poker, but don’t understand it. We also hope that it will have substantial impact on the most important group, the people who don’t have strong opinions either way.

A central principle of political science is that most elections are won in the center. Some people will always vote this way, and some people will always vote the other way, no matter what you say or do. Their minds are often made up before the campaign begins.

So smart politicians aim for the center. They spend their time and money trying to appeal to the “undecided” voters. The party or candidate who wins their votes wins most elections. They are the people we hope to reach, and we would appreciate the help of anyone who is worried about poker’s future.

Regards,

Al

There seem to be several negative reactions to this article throughout the forums. It may be that those who react positively are less likely to comment. So let me post my thoughts in an attempt to balance the negativity.

I thought this was an excellent article. (Typos should be fixed, though.) I actually sat down to write an article with this exact same theme two years ago. I got busy with other things and never finished it. The present article is substantially better than anything I could have come up with.

At its core, poker is just a game. It is a recreational competition between human beings. I believe such games, of all forms, are important for us as a people, because they provide an environment in which we can learn important lessons that can be carried over into the more serious competitions that constitute our life. Poker can teach us some very unique lessons that most other games cannot. For example, in poker it is possible to make all the right decisions and still have negative results in the short run. This phenomenon is so obviously ubiquitous in life in general, and yet many people are unable to deal with it properly. In life, we tend to think in terms of the following dichotomy: either a situation is governed by chance, or it is governed by our decisions. In the former case, it hardly matters what we do. In the latter case, it is important for us to make the right decisions. In poker, we see that this is a false dichotomy. In the short run, chance is the ruler. It is the dominant force in dictating the immediate outcome of things. And yet it is the farthest thing from the truth to say that our decisions hardly matter. In fact, it is just the opposite. Habitual bad decisions will ruin us. A successful poker player must constantly have his eye on the long run and be ever vigilant against bad habits whose effects may not be seen for a long time. Many people would benefit greatly from learning this lesson and carrying it over into the broader range of activities in their life.

I play poker in order to strive toward mastering the game. My goal is to constantly learn and improve. Not only do I strive toward mastering the strategy of the game, but I also strive toward mastering myself and my emotions. The lessons I learn as I travel this path are extremely important to me in other areas of my life.

I realize, however, that I am probably in the minority. Most people here, it seems, view poker and their reasons for playing poker very differently. Here are some quotes:

This poster clearly does not agree with me that the goal of playing poker is to strive toward mastering the game and mastering yourself. Perhaps for this poster, the goal of poker is simply to make a lot of money.

This poster does not agree with me, either. He believes the goal is not only to make a lot of money, but to make it from weak people in a predatory fashion.

For this poster, learning to master the game is important, but it is not the goal. It is simply a means toward the goal, which is to make a lot of money. To further the true goal (making money), we should in fact try to prevent others from learning about the game. Many people replied to this poster and disagreed, saying that Stars' school is not a bad idea. However, most of them argued that the school will not really teach people the game, but instead teach them only enough to give them a false sense of security. Therefore, the pool of losers will not be lessened, and we can continue to make a lot of money.

Sklansky and Schoonmaker have said that their article is not intended for the 2+2 readership. But I think it should be. Granted, many 2+2 members, in the course of their study, have learned the lessons described in the article. But many, perhaps most, do not focus enough on the intrinsic value of these lessons. These lessons are what poker is all about. It is not about preying on the weak, or making lots of money, unless you choose to make it about that.

From Dead Poets Society:

I thought about writing an article along these lines. I'm glad I didn't, because my article would not have been anywhere near this good.

From the article, footnote number one:

1 We assume, of course, that you will not become obsessed with poker or play for higher stakes than you can afford.

The people in the center on this issue do not care enough about it to do anything. If they are currently vaguely against poker and logical arguments change their minds so that they are vaguely in favor of legalizing it, nothing has changed enough to make it happen. The center is still going to be ruled by inertia, and any action will be spurred by the extremes, where people do care enough one way or another to do something.

My own view is that online poker will be legalized in this country, and that the impetus will be economics. One option is that the Feds will see that prohibition is unenforceable and will opt to regulate and tax it. Another option is that some party of interest with sufficient resources will challenge the Feds in court and win.

A scenario for the second case would be a state legalizing online poker and offering to serve any US player. Any number of states would love to have some big internet poker sites as part of their tax base. Few states actually ban playing online, and most experts believe that the federal wire act does not apply to poker. But it will take a definitive court case to settle the issue.

None of the scenarios discussed above would be affected by changing anyone's mind with logical arguments about the non-economic benefits of poker. Frankly, I believe that even a disinterested reader with an open mind would dismiss this article as self-serving and as failing to address the core reason for playing poker: to try to win money. (That was my general impression of the article, and I am 100% behind the intent.)

I disagree that it doesn't teach you things you can apply other places. Poker is about risk and investment, reading people, and making predictions based on an unlimited amount of variables.

The difference between a good poker player and a great one is the ability to coordinate as many variables as possible and as quickly and convincingly as possible.

The problem that you're alluding to is not related to poker itself but the competition factor that's involved in any sport.

I don't think there is such a thing as a game not played for money. I have rarely been in a chess tournament where there weren't cash prizes involved. And the last I heard, the World Scrabble Championship had a first prize of $50,000.

Actually, I would make the case that if any one substance should be banned, then it should be alcohol. I worked in a rescue mission for 12 years, and just from that small sample, which you can extend to an awful lot of friends and family members that are affected, alcohol definitely has a negative affect on more than a few people.

Some of the effects are obvious and intuitive, such as drunk drivers, lost jobs, and broken homes(often including domestic violence). But there are other, less obvious costs both to individuals and society.

I saw a television show on one of the big three networks where an ER doctor was asked what percentage of what he sees in the ER is alcohol-related. Without hesitation, he said 50%.

He gave as a typical example someone who is treated for a broken arm, when the cause is the person getting drunk and falling down the stairs.

To put it another way, 50% of the cost of running an ER, and who knows what percentage of other health care costs, is devoted to alcohol

If we are going to talk about which habit or addiction is worse, it's alcohol. Nothing else comes close.

i thought it was well written and certainly brought up many good points, hopefully it will have the desired effect.

unfortunately i don't think it will, at least to me it came across as too much propaganda/biased agruments. i don't disagree with anything said in the article, just the tone in which it was delivered.

maybe (hopefully) it's just me.

Poker doesn't teach you any of the things listed in the article. The best poker players have those skills (did they learn them because of poker, or are they good at poker because they already have those skills?), but there are plenty of people who have played poker a long time who do not have those skills.

To learn to play poker well one must either already have many of the skills listed, or be able to learn them. But the vast majority of poker players never become good. I wouldn't be so quick to proclaim poker to be the solution to the United State's educational deficiencies.

It's a pretty good read, but I wouldn't expect this to affect the public opinion on poker in any significant way. Only someone who has played the game can understand how it can change the way you look at situations in your life away from the table. Besides that, there are no statistics or even examples provided to support any of his claims, some of which seem pretty far-fetched.

I have a contention with the "Poker is a great teacher" part of the article:

This makes the assumption that winning or making money is the "reward" for people playing poker. As Dr. Schoonmaker has pointed out himself many times, this is not the soul reason a person plays poker. In fact, many people play poker knowing full well that they expect to lose money. But they play because they recieve various other "rewards" including but not limited to a) friendships, b) a good time, and c) fulfilling gambling impulses.

For these people, poker does not necessarily teach them to think logically and to pay attention to odds. In fact, for people who gain the aforementioned rewards by losing, poker reinforces illogical thinking and ignorance of odds because in doing so, they gain friendship and fulfill their gambling impulses.

Sherman

Edit: For spelling.