Is Poker Socially Useful?: Part I by Alan N. Schoonmaker, Ph.D.

[Lawrence Ng]

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While I agree with much of the sentiment of the article, Alan presents no actual evidence to support his opinions.


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This is not a thesis. Mason also placed a restriction to the length of the articles.

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And as to the assertion that "Because of anti-competitive attitudes, our economy and living standards are at risk. In a few decades America has gone from being the world's largest creditor to the world's largest debtor...", forgive my stupidty, but isn't your national debt rather more to do with budgetary policy than 'anti-competitive attitudes'.

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But the attitude of anti-competitiveness is surely one of the key driving forces behind sloppy budgetary and monetary policy, is it not? The fact that that America is importing far more than than it's able to export in terms or goods and services now goes down to a micro-economic and fundamental level that something is just wrong. And the heart of that problem severely lies within the competitive spirit.

It may be an area where little literature exists, but to deny it is dangerous.

The primary example, is within the Automobile Industry. For over 20 years Americans had the important dominance in the automotive sector. Yet, in the 80's they lost huge market gains across the world to the Japanese and Europeans. Why? Because the Japanese and Europeans got smart, competed and thrived on it while the Americans sat back and refused to change.

I don't want to go into a thesis here, but without competitivess, the detriment to society is harmful to say the least. When China and Russia when through heavy reform during the 60's and 70's under Communism, competition ceased to exist and the result was chaos, poor quality of goods and services, and an economy in turmoil.

Lawrence

[pokeraz]

Not only is this article dissapointing but dangerous in its thinking. The author seems to advocate that a young persons' (or the nations' for that matter) future rests on learning to gamble. Yes gamble. While the card game of poker may have valuable, certainly teaching Americas' youth to gamble in order to succeed in life borders on the ludicris.

Maybe I'll go read the article again. Surely I misread it.

[itsmarty]

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In mid-November Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve Chairman, stated that our trade deficit threatens the economy, and the stock market dropped precipitously. It may have been news to the public, but it should have been obvious that we could not continue indefinitely to spend more than we earn.

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I don't know what the author's phd is in, but we can eliminate Economics from discussion.

The trade deficit means we spend more overseas than people overseas spend here, not that we spend more than we earn.

Martin

[Sluss]

I don't think the article advocates gambling for teenagers. What the article does do is point out a problem that is arising in our school system.

With a wife and mother who are teachers and a father who is a school administration I have heard these horror stories. From removing dodgeball because it is too competitive. To teachers being approached to raise grades because the child has "low self esteem." "No child left behind" removing subjects such as history from school. There are also stories from Ivy league schools about two different grades. One grade for the student and one for the permanent record of the student. Because god forbid, if someone was to get a B it would destroy their chance to get a big time job.

There is a glaring lack of competitive spirit in schools and this may be what is drawing so many teenagers to poker to start with. It feeds the competive drive that some kids have. One that I know I had that poker filled and fills very well.

A great article that I passed on to my father and wife, really outlines a true problem. Interesting solution, that would have little traction. Still very thought provoking, which I believe was the true intent.

[Toonces]

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From removing dodgeball because it is too competitive.

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For the record, I think the major imputus for removing dodgeball is that it is an "elimination game", and thus the first people knocked out get little exercise, as well as promoting bullying, I assume.

[Al Schoonmaker]

You must distinguish between the national debt and our massively negative trade balance.
The national debt is money owed by the government because of budget deficits. It is trillions of dollars. Some of it is owed to foreigners, some to Americans. It is not directly related to our lack of competitiveness.
The trade deficit is caused by our buying more from foreign sources than we sell in foreign markets. It is many billions of dollars per month. We simply can't compete in many markets.
It appears that I was not clear enough. I wrote: "we are losing the world's most important competition." I was referring ONLY to international trade. If we don't win that competition, it is literally impossible for us to preserve our international position and standard of living. You, I, and our economy as a whole must either earn more than we spend or pay severe consequences.
To put it in poker terms, if you lose a lot of money every month, sooner or later you don't have a bankroll.
Regards,
Al

[Zetack]

I had some similar reactions as MicroBob.

I do think Poker is socially useful, but because it teaches competitiveness in a pure meritocracy?

Our culture is a great big messy, sloshy morass of competing and often contradictory impulses, ideas, and directions. But to suggest that competition is being eradicated and devalued in our culture instead of glorified is to look at our world through a bizarre set of blinders. Competition is glorified and promoted in so many different areas that its hard to avoid it, from sports to business, to--I don't know--American Idol?

Go on, just for fun, why don't you sit down and think of a dozen endeavors, areas, activities where competition is embraced, promoted, glorified. Or heck, why not two dozen, or three, or a hundred? I bet you can do it.

Are there also places and impulses to mute competition, to promote alternative values? Sure. But to suggest that somehow the spirit of competition is being wrung out of our culture because of that is simply to deny reality.

But even if you were to take the loss of competitiveness as a given, the idea that Poker is tremendously valuable in teaching competitiveness is also silly. To begin with, you can't even get to play serious poker (generally speaking) until you are 18 or even 21--if you don't know anything about competition by then its getting a little late, and in any case, life is certainly going to start slapping you in the face with the necessity to compete in the world at that point.

And a meritocracy? Bah. I'd suggest that there are tremendous numbers of losing poker players who aren't even aware that they are losing poker players. Good lessons it merit being learned by all eh? And unlike sports, where, although luck often plays a factor, a great athlete or team at the peak of it's performance can often take luck out of the equation, a great poker player can be at the peak of his skill, playing his best and be crushed in any given session, any given tournament and even in a long series of sessions or tournaments.

Nine people at the final table of the WSOP, how many of the top 30 players in the world made it there? Heck how many of the top 30 players in the tournament made it? One?

Over the long term poker may be a ruthless meritocracy, but its been demonstrated on this forum many times that the long term is incredibly long...too long I would suggest for it be a meritocracy in fact or appearance for the vast majority of players.

Not very well expressed on my part perhaps, but hopefully the gist is there.

--Zetack

[Al Schoonmaker]

You wrote: "Still very thought provoking, which I believe was the true intent."

You're right. I had hoped to get a rather different discussion going, and it appears I've succeeded.

Let's look at poker in as many ways as possible.

But let's never forget that it's just a game, and that is should never become too important to us.

I am appalled by the stories and posts I've read about students' failing exams because they have played too much poker.

Regards,

Al

[Zetack]

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You must distinguish between the national debt and our massively negative trade balance.
The national debt is money owed by the government because of budget deficits. It is trillions of dollars. Some of it is owed to foreigners, some to Americans. It is not directly related to our lack of competitiveness.
The trade deficit is caused by our buying more from foreign sources than we sell in foreign markets. It is many billions of dollars per month. We simply can't compete in many markets.
It appears that I was not clear enough. I wrote: "we are losing the world's most important competition." I was referring ONLY to international trade. If we don't win that competition, it is literally impossible for us to preserve our international position and standard of living. You, I, and our economy as a whole must either earn more than we spend or pay severe consequences.
To put it in poker terms, if you lose a lot of money every month, sooner or later you don't have a bankroll.
Regards,
Al

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I don't know enough economics to assess the validty of the above. However, I question the trade imbalance being a function of our being outcompeted by the rest of the world. I would suggest instead that it is the incredible comptetitive drive of americans that has created vast national wealth with which to out consume the rest of the world. (Or perhaps we are simply more competitive consumers [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] ). And the ruthless comptetive spirit of american businesses which lead them to internationalize, to seek any comptetive advantage and to produce goods in locations outside the United States.

Just a thought.

--Zetack

[fimbulwinter]

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Great Job Doctor Al, my favorite article this month. I look foward to the mext installment.

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hear hear. i bought psychology of poker after having read this article. Dont feel so good about myself after having read the section on loose, agressive players... [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

fim