Poker should be seen as an educational tool that can build strategic thinking skills, a Harvard law professor said yesterday, announcing a plan to offer poker workshops to schools and universities worldwide.
"It teaches life skills, it teaches numeracy, risk assessment, resource management, and it teaches a lot about psychology," Harvard Law School's Prof Charles Nesson said on the sidelines of an internet conference in Singapore.
Poker "teaches you to rely on yourself, assess the situation yourself and make the play," Nesson said.
He said he was forming a "global poker strategic thinking society" that would offer poker workshops to schools and community centres, sponsor team poker matches between professional schools, and hold seminars and conferences that explored poker as a means to teach strategic thinking.
For example, Nesson said, poker taught the importance of not making the first bet in a game a lesson he said could be extrapolated to the advantages of not making the first offer in business negotiations.
Nesson said the society would be started at Harvard, but that chapters could be set up at colleges such as Yale University and Brown University as well as the National University of Singapore.
Plans were under way to promote poker in developing countries such as Jamaica as a form of nation-building, Nesson said.
"The teaching of poker strategic thinking is a way of thinking suited to national development," he said. "If you have a populace that comes to believe in their own skills, they become much more empowered individually and collectively." Interest in poker has exploded in the United States in the past few years with the advent of televised tournaments like the World Poker Tour.
"It teaches life skills, it teaches numeracy, risk assessment, resource management, and it teaches a lot about psychology," Harvard Law School's Prof Charles Nesson said on the sidelines of an internet conference in Singapore.
Poker "teaches you to rely on yourself, assess the situation yourself and make the play," Nesson said.
He said he was forming a "global poker strategic thinking society" that would offer poker workshops to schools and community centres, sponsor team poker matches between professional schools, and hold seminars and conferences that explored poker as a means to teach strategic thinking.
For example, Nesson said, poker taught the importance of not making the first bet in a game a lesson he said could be extrapolated to the advantages of not making the first offer in business negotiations.
Nesson said the society would be started at Harvard, but that chapters could be set up at colleges such as Yale University and Brown University as well as the National University of Singapore.
Plans were under way to promote poker in developing countries such as Jamaica as a form of nation-building, Nesson said.
"The teaching of poker strategic thinking is a way of thinking suited to national development," he said. "If you have a populace that comes to believe in their own skills, they become much more empowered individually and collectively." Interest in poker has exploded in the United States in the past few years with the advent of televised tournaments like the World Poker Tour.
