Should We Teach Poker To Our Kids?
The first time I played poker, I lost every penny. My allowance was gone. My spirit was broken. I decided right then and there never to be taken again – especially by my Grandmother. Ultimately, Grandmother taught me to put up a tough fight and never lose for lack of patiently trying.
Many years later, I was playing a tournament in a Caribbean casino swarming with Brits. One asked me if everyone in the US was trained in poker in childhood. I said, “Yes.” What struck me at that moment was how we take such an American institution for granted. The question was not as funny as it sounded.
Our country has an age-old love affair with poker. It was invented here and is as American as wild turkeys or apple pie. Past presidents, federal judges, and other distinguished figures have played the game. Poker is ingrained in our history and language. When Harry Truman said, “The buck stops here,” he was referring to what we now call the dealer button.
Poker is now the third-most watched sport on cable TV, behind auto racing and the NFL. Decks of cards are sold in convenience stores. Texas hold ’em games, spades, bridge, Uno, Monopoly, backgammon, and chess, are sold in groceries and department stores. Poker professionals are very popular, and some are even considered role models. With Texas hold’em inundating our lives, some of us are now asking ourselves whether or not it is a game we should teach our youth.
Texas Hold’em will teach math and influence a person’s development of good sportsmanship, confidence, discipline, and analytical thinking. When explained through poker, many learning skills and qualities are more tangible because it has some good jumping-off points to teach what is required for life.
Summary of Poker’s Benefits:
- Develops Math Skills
- Develops Sportsmanship
- Develops Confidence
- Develops Analytical Thinking
- Rewards Planning For The Future
- Rewards Good Money Management
- Teaches Psychology
- Teaches You Patience
- Teaches You Concentration
- Teaches You Self-Knowledge
Poker demands hundreds of decisions a session. Because there is instant gratification, concentrating on complex strategies and adjusting to different situations becomes part of the game. Poker has immediate consequences, rewarding desirable actions such as being logical, understanding probability, having a good memory, knowing statistics, body language, and psychology. Poker punishes undesirable activities such as ignoring the pot odds, ignoring rules, denying reality, and acting impulsively.
Difficult concepts can be made easier to grasp through poker. You can get kids to love math; they will even do it in their heads! Though just a game, poker helps develop social skills and good decision-making that will be useful in business. The very stuff poker is made from- managing money, adjusting to changing situations, planning for the future, cooperation, depersonalizing conflicts, and doing your best with incomplete information- is the backbone of corporate decisions.
One must play a good, patient game while analyzing risk and reward, realizing short-term losses are acceptable, learning to size up the competition quickly, and reacting immediately. If players are impatient, illogical, or refuse to analyze risks, they will lose at poker and make many mistakes in business and personal relationships.
Poker’s psychological lessons are huge. A player learns to “walk in another person’s shoes,” how another person thinks, what they want, and perceive. It teaches one to relax and control one’s emotions. And, maybe, most importantly, a person learns about their nature. You must have self-knowledge and admit your flaws to work on them. Otherwise, you may never reach your full potential in poker or life. Poker develops realism in the cruelest but most effective ways. You quickly pay for it if you deny reality about yourself, the cards, odds, opposition, or almost anything else. If you are realistic, you win. If you reject the existence, you lose.
Children can be taught to play poker without gambling for money by just using chips, or even perhaps for small stakes, which we used to call ‘penny ante.’ The real question is whether we should teach our children how to play poker or continue teaching them to play. I think you know which way Nana and I would vote.
