«

Harvard Gets in the Game

by , Oct 18, 2007 | 1:31 pm

Comments (10)

Law professor Charles Nesson and his students have formed a group at Harvard University to use poker to teach life skills and examine important issues like the WTO v. US conflict. The Global Poker Strategic Thinking Society (GPSTS) started off their lecture series this week with a panel featuring Crandell Addington and Howard Lederer.

Nesson explained about the group:

The Global Poker Strategic Thinking Society views poker as an exceptional game of skill that can be used as a powerful teaching tool at all levels of academia and in secondary education. We use poker to teach strategic thinking, geopolitical analysis, risk assessment and money management. We see poker as a metaphor for skills of life, business, politics and international relations. Our goal is to create an open online curriculum centered on poker that will draw the brightest minds together, both from within and outside of the conventional university setting, to promote open education and Internet democracy.

Founded by Harvard Law Professor and Berkman Center founder Charles Nesson, GPSTS has three programmatic goals: offering poker strategic thinking workshops to schools and community centers, particularly in underprivileged neighborhoods; sponsoring team poker matches between law, business and other professional schools; and conducting seminars, panel discussions and conferences that explore poker as a means to teach strategic thinking and related public policy issues.

The poker matches that are part of the GPSTS schedule will take place in November, first pitting Harvard v. Yale, then taking it to the West Coast for a UCLA v. USC showdown.

Harvard folks obviously see the importance of poker in society. Can the U.S. government possibly show up for class and take some notes?


Tags: , , , ,

10 Comments to “Harvard Gets in the Game”


  1. DanM     says:
    October 18th, 2007 at 1:54pm

    Crandall is great, but I can only imagine him as a collegiate lecturer … yeow. (You shoulda heard him try to explain the concept of pocket deuces to the Texas legislature.)

    Have fun at the conference Jen. We look forward to hearing all about it.


  2. NickO     says:
    October 18th, 2007 at 2:08pm

    Harvard kids don’t know how to play poker. Or, um, at least I don’t. But the ones that do are the crazy statistics and economics people who go on to manage hedge funds and investment banks in New York.


  3. California Jen     says:
    October 18th, 2007 at 2:13pm

    Thanks, Dan, but the conference I’m going to is the California Poker Players Conference at Hollywood Park in L.A. Not exactly Harvard, but it should be interesting anyway!


  4. DanM     says:
    October 18th, 2007 at 2:48pm

    Oh, right. Wow, lot’s of conferences going on. Cut me some slack, as I am scrambling to get a bunch of shee-ot done before catching a flight! I wish the poker news would take a break sometimes, so we could catch up with it all. But it just keeps on coming!


  5. California Jen     says:
    October 18th, 2007 at 3:06pm

    By lots of conferences, you mean two? Harvard is holding their lecture series at Harvard, and the California Poker Players Conference is at Hollywood Park. That’s it – just those two.

    And by bunch of shee-ot done before catching a flight, do you mean browsing Craigslist strip poker listings?

    I’ll do a post later today about the CPPC… Patience, please. 😉


  6. Crandell Addington     says:
    October 22nd, 2007 at 6:19am

    Good morning, Dan:

    You might want to review my testimony before the Texas legislative committee in re HB 3186 that was held on April 16th of this year. It can be found on the internet.

    Nowhere in my testimony did I “try to explain the concept of two deuces to the Texas legislature.” The only instance in which I mentioned a deuce was the example of A 2 versus J 10 that I used to explain outplaying your opponent after the flop.

    I’m sure that you know that it did pass out of committee, but as is often the case with our dysfunctional biennial legislature, it was not brought to a vote before the full house due to the sheer number of bills awaiting action at the last moments of the session.

    In any event, I enjoyed interacting and playing poker while at Harvard with some of the brightest young minds in the country.

    Have a nice day.

    Crandell


  7. DanM     says:
    October 22nd, 2007 at 6:31am

    Mr. Addington, my apologies for mis-recalling the hand. You know, back in journalism school, not only did our professors teach us to check facts, but also we received automatic F’s for misspelling a name … as I did yours in the comment referenced above. So that pretty much leaves me with an F-minus here.


  8. GPSTS | holdem’ early days — crandell addington     says:
    October 22nd, 2007 at 9:01pm

    […] thank you 1-2-3 thank you bodog news thank you pokerati […]


  9. Jbonemalone     says:
    December 21st, 2007 at 10:20pm

    i’m drunk and i’m gonna say it

    I LOVE THIS EFFIN BLOG!!

    Happy Holidays


  10. Pokerati | Texas Hold’em Blog | Semi-live and Unofficial at the WSOP » Blog Archive » Let’s Talk about Sets, Baby …Level of American poker discourse to hit a high note in coming days     says:
    August 25th, 2008 at 7:06pm

    […] « Harvard Gets in the Game 2007 CA Poker Players Conference […]