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

[Non_Comformist]

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

[Nacarno]

While I also enjoyed the article, I was left wondering...

I agree that poker is a great medium that teaches competitiveness, but if a person applies those lessons only to poker, where is society's gain?

At least in my experience, those who claim that poker has no societal use are usually refering to professional players with no other job. If the poker player in question has a "day job" and plays poker as an addition source of income (rather than his or her only source), then people tend to view it as a hobby and they don't seem to take as much issue with it. Am I wrong here? Do others have similar or different experiences?

Going back to my original question, I'm still having a hard time seeing society's gain from someone who applies his competitive drive only to poker and not to another vocation. Perhaps this will be discussed in part 2?

[Boltsfan1992]

Hiya -

Right now, I play poker as a hobby. I have a steady, secure full time job with benefits, and I'm still learning the game. However, my competitive drive compels me to learn as much as possible so that I don't become a weak player. Therefore, I read, study, and play as much as I possibly can.

The competition from poker has bled into my workplace in positive ways. I handle conflict better, without the emotional issues, my evaluation skills have improved recognizing what my weaknesses are and what I need to do improve them, and finally, I recognize the battles where I will lose and recognize those that I can win and act appropriately.

I do not think that is true for MOST of the hobbyist poker players right now, so in that sense you are right. However, I think the overall theme of Dr. Al's article addressed how competition is being squelched overall. I think schools can err on both sides - having learning situations so competitive that the weakest have no chance to succeed, but being so bland that everybody wins. There has to be moderation and there has to be some value on competition.

If the recreational player can learn to apply the skills learned at the poker table to life pursuits, then society would improve. But many do not know how or care to learn the game with any depth to have these skills carry over, and I think that is a reflection of our society not wanting to learn how to learn more than anything else. Self-evaluation is difficult, but once applied, can be a very useful tool in living life better.

PB

[ZeeBee]

Am I the only person who found this article very, very disapointing.

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

While the statements from the educators implying that "cometition is bad" made me wince - I would like to see evidence as to whether their policies work or not before condemning them. Although stifling competition seems bad at face value, there are many cases where what works and what doesn't in education (as with many other areas) is counterintuitive (e.g. there is significant evidence to show that many incentive schemes which look good on paper actually have a negative effect). I am surprised that 2+2 - the home of "fighting fuzzy thinking" - promote such a weak analysis.

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'.

Don't get me wrong, I'm absolutely in favour of competition - but in my view we should be applauding articles because of the quality of their analysis, not just because we happen to agree with the points beign put forward. This article may have a good point to make, but the analysis and evidence used to support it is shoddy.

ZB

[Clarkmeister]

I agree with the sentiment that Al's section relating to the US economy left much to be desired. In particular, the trade deficit is essentially meaningless, and the national debt is an acceptible % of GDP.

[MicroBob]

I found it to be an interesting article. There are some aspects I agree with...others I didn't. But it did make me think.

Some thoughts/observations:

I think the incidents of downplaying competitivenes in American schools may be exaggerated (although I have no data or evidence for this opinion).
There are many situations I'm sure of where some honor-society student commits suicide because they couldn't deal with the pressure and eventual disappointment of NOT making valedictorian or first-flute in the orchestra, or whatever.

There are many suburbs in America where all you need to do is swing by a little-league soccer or baseball game to draw an opposite conclusion from what Dr. Al represents in the article: That we are actually getting a bit carried-away by our competitiveness and are perhaps pushing our kids to hard.

Seems that the incidents that Dr. Al sited were just exaggerated rebound-responses to some of the over-competitiveness that is out there.

A little balance would be appropriate of course. Fostering SOME degree of competitiveness without going over-board and putting an excessive amount of pressure on our youth.


I feel my background had a fine amount of balance in competitiveness.
I have always been a fairly competitive person even though my parents never really pushed me a whole lot. I simply enjoyed competing.
My Dad taught me to play chess when I was 6 and we played every single night. I was determined to beat him and I eventually did when I was 9. I never got frustrated. I just liked trying to play.
When I would play with my friends it was kind of boring because I was so much better than them and there was no challenge.

Since I was so small growing up I had little chance to succeed too much in physical sports....but I enjoyed the experience of playing as hard as I could...and still do.
I played in a couple of adult-soccer leagues this year...I'm 34 and was trying to run-around and keep up with faster and bigger 25 year-olds (with only marginal success).


I played little-league baseball (I was awful) and my Dad was our coach for a couple of years. We had a competitive drive and succeeded without any pressure. Just go out and have fun and play hard.
But we did whatever it took to win...pulling the 'hidden-ball trick' or telling the umpire that their player should be out because he took his helmet off while the ball was still in play.
you can play hard and be nit-picky about the rules in your efforts to win without enforcing a "if you don't throw a strike your world is going to come to an end" type of mentality.
We had the least amount of talent in the league but finished 8-6. If we lost we were okay....because we put forth a solid effort and played hard.

Later in college...I was an umpire in that same little-league for $8/gm.
For some reason we didn't have any mightmare issues with parents that are common-place elsewhere. The kids played hard and enjoyed themselves. Even the team that was grossly out-manned and lost virtually every game 25-2 before eventually winning their last game of the year I think benefitted from the lessons of little-league baseball.


I worked for a couple of individuals who were die-hard Tennessee football fans. Would drive 7+ hours for every home game, etc.
If Tennessee lost they took it very personally to the extent that they would get extremely depressed. They just took the games WAY too seriously.

I believe I have read of studies that fans who take too much joy or sadness in the results of their pro or college sports team typically have other psychological issues (perhaps including not enough involvement with one's family while growing-up although I can't remember for sure).


Okay - One last little tale...sorry...I know it's long.
Dr. Al's article reminded me of my grade-school gym-teacher (named Richard Simmons....seriously, that was his real name).
We would be playing soccer or basketball or something and Mr. Simmons would wait for the game to be tied...and THEN he would blow his whistle signalling the end of the game and the end of gym-class for the day.
"Final score is 9-9!! It's a tie so EVERYBODY WINS!!"
All of 4th graders were REALLY pissed-off every time he did that. We would call him "Mr. 'Everybody-Wins!!' Simmons" because he did it so much.
15-20 years later I worked with Mr. Simmons for several years in a college-athletics environment (he was no longer a gym teacher) and he was actually just as interested in the results of the home team as the next guy. I think he did the Tie-Score thing for us 4th graders because he saw that we were taking the game TOO seriously.
no real point....just a funny little story that the article reminded me of.

[theBruiser500]

Alan - good article, you have good thoughts. I disagree with one prat though

"Many people would say, "No," but they would be wrong"

Poker is very complex and how it interacts with society is very complex I don't think we can know for sure one way or the other if it is good for society or bad. I think it's a alot more accurate to say something like "poker has socially useful aspects" or something like that, anyway you should get the idea of w hat I'm saying.

Microbob - please make your posts shorter, everyone of them is an essay.

[soah]

[ QUOTE ]
I think the incidents of downplaying competitivenes in American schools may be exaggerated (although I have no data or evidence for this opinion).

[/ QUOTE ]

I think you're quite wrong about this. When I was in high school (which was not very long ago) there was actually an effort made to eliminate all honors and advanced placement classes on the premise that all of the students were equally intelligent. Supposedly the disparity in results was entirely due to self-esteem and the higher-quality instruction that some students received in their honors courses. It "wasn't fair" that some students were singled out for special treatment (even though each student had the option to sign up for whichever course they wanted).

I recall at one sporting event where an announcement was made which began: "At the conclusion of the match, the non-winner will...."

Grade inflation is very real as well. C is most certainly not average, a C is bad. The honor roll is such a joke that they'd be better off eliminating it -- to not make the list is actually pretty embarrassing since nearly everyone makes it.

[MicroBob]

Well....not quite EVERY one of them.

But you are correct, I get rather wordy far too much.
When the caffeine hits me I guess I can't shut-up.

My apologies.



Soah - Perhaps I wasn't aware of the length of this problem. Your school situation sounds really ridiculous.

i made the honor-society (just barely really) in H.S. I think we had 40 members out of a class of 350 which I think is a reasonable number.

You're right that a C is certainly not the average.
I'm reminded of several Fox-Trot comic strips where the nerdy kid is upset that he only got an A++ and that is going to completely screw-up his A++++++ average.

[Smallyea]

Greetings.

Would someone be so kind as to provide a link or info relating to accessing the footnoted article on "Ten lessons poker teaches great investors"?

Thanks to all, and special thanks to twoplustwo for giving us another great resource.