learning with poker

High Stakes for Poker as a Learning Tool

A Harvard
Law School professor and a group of his students formed an organization
this fall — the Global Poker Strategic Thinking Society — dedicated to
demonstrating that poker has educational benefits. They argue that the
game, which is probability-based and requires risk assessment,
situational analysis and a gift for reading people, can be an effective
teaching tool, whether for middle school math or in business and law
classes.

“I see great advantage in hitting kids as early as
sixth grade, when they’re dropping out of math,” said Charles R.
Nesson, the Harvard Law School professor who began the society with a
group of his students. “I’m thinking of kids who are into their video
games but instead of Halo-3
and World of Warcraft, we lead them into a game environment that has
real intellectual depth to it, and feeds their curiosity rather than
snuffs it out.”

Although I completely disagree that games like WOW lack intellectual depth (the Harvard professor obviously does not play video games), the benefits of poker listed here are intriguing. In my experience kids aged 10ish and up tend to really enjoy poker, and the more they learn about probability and human behavior, the better at it they become.

Of course, Christian conservatives disagree. From Focus on the Family,

“Kids are extremely vulnerable to gambling addiction,” said Mr. Hills,
who likened poker to a “gateway drug” that leads to the harder stuff
like craps and slot machines.

Who said anything about kids gambling? Playing poker doesn't have to involve chips at all, but even if it does the chips don't have to be connected to anything of value. People play for matchsticks, for paper clips, for plastic poker chips, for pennies, for absolutely nothing. This is slippery-slope fear mongering.

From Arnold I Barnett, who teaches mathematical modeling at the MIT Sloan Management School:

“I’m not saying poker should replace algebra,” he said. “But you
have problems to solve in poker, and for students to see how
mathematics can help them in real-life situations seems a whole lot
smarter than having them determine the volume of some strangely shaped
object.”

He added that he could see the educational value on the
graduate level, too, because the game involves not only figuring out
your own hand but also deducing your opponents’ cards — skills, he
said, of use in law, business or real estate.

Cross posted at Rational Homeschooling