Shamus pointed out in a comment below that poker’s favorite academic, Charles Nesson, of the Global Poker Strategic Thinking Society, may well be the Dr. Timothy Leary of Poker. Hmm … so to see what this Harvard Law professor is really all about, I did a Google search for “charles nesson” MINUS poker and found:

Wow. So obviously he is a total wackjob visionary genius little kooky not afraid to speak his well-reasoned mind. Over at Ivygate they call him “the William Shatner of Academia” … and tag his post with “batshit crazy.” The Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics says he’s “one of the country’s leading authorities on evidence law and a maverick in encouraging his law students to go beyond status quo legal thinking, to challenge authority, and to fearlessly innovate.”

But perhaps the most telling assessment of this poker “champion” (not to be confused with, um, a poker champion) comes from a commenter on his youtube vid:

Lumping Charlie Nesson in with the “douchebags” shows how grossly uninformed you are. Have you seen him on Stephen Colbert arguing for including poker in public school curricula? Making chemical companies pay through their nose for polluting people’s drinking water? Openly admitting that he smokes weed before teaching class?

He is a giant among men; you are the douchebag.

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?