more evidence of the poker boom - scary

[NoRiverRats]

So I am picking up my stepson from his afterschool program today and I find him sitting watching a table of four kids. I wander over and low and behold, they have cards and chips in front of them. I ask my stepson what is going on and he says they are playing poker. No big deal you say? Poker is everywhere you say? The oldest kid was nine!!! And this is in an afterschool program full of kids from the Catholic school....bye bye bingo....

[Dynasty]

I was caught off guard when my friend told me he plays heads-up hold 'em with his 6-7 year old son.

[MicroBob]

I remember playing stud and 5-card draw for pennies with my friends when we were 10 or 11 years-old (I'm 34 now). We thought that QKA23 'counted' as a straight and usually the dealer made so many different cards wild that the pot would be split by multiple players who made '5 of a kind Aces'.
But we did play poker (or something kinda/sorta similar to poker I suppose)....so it's not THAT uncommon.


But kids are obviously playing it more now then they did before thanks to all the TV coverage.


I hang out sometimes at a couple of wireless-internet coffee places.
At the one I am at currently the owner's 14-year-old son (who is taller than me...geez) likes to sit with me sometimes and watch.
He says he sometimes plays on the play-money tables at Pacific...he also likes to play the play-money blackjack there too (this is when he isn't playing Halo2 or whatever other game he is in to).


It's difficult for me to imagine that the popularity of poker is going to just completely die when there are so many kids who are into it.
Then again, Pokemon and Bay Blades aren't exactly big anymore I suppose....and Magic, The Gathering isn't nearly as big anymore either I think.

[cwsiggy]

My nine year old nephew plays (with me watching) and regularly "cashes" the play money 9 person sit n' go's. He's getting pretty good (for a nine yeaer old) When he watches me he'll say "why did you fold that? (J2os) oh yeah the kicker" lol

[eleventy]

I've been reading my 2 week old boy the Theory of Poker. He just likes hearing my voice but hopefully some of it sinks in.

[gambool]

[ QUOTE ]
I've been reading my 2 week old boy the Theory of Poker. He just likes hearing my voice but hopefully some of it sinks in.

[/ QUOTE ]
I thought I was the only one. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[johnfromvirginia]

My friends and I used to play at sleepovers when I was 11 or 12 (I'm 36 now). Sometimes we'd just play for fun and sometimes we'd play for a small amount of real money. I don't think kids playing poker is anything new. What might be new is that we were playing games like low spade in the hole and anaconda; kids today might be a little more organized and are probably just playing hold em. It wouldn't suprise me to see a 12 year old digesting a 2+2 book.

[mshalen]

My 8 year old son likes to play holdem on Yahoo Games that is when he is not playing basketball, baseball, soccer, yu gi oh or bay blades. I guess to kids it is just another game to play. The player who scares me is my 11 year old daughter. She always comments on my play and has become a good holdem and omaha8 player. Last week at a Bat Mitzvah party she beat most of the boys in holdem. Yes a popular thing at kids partys is having poker tables!

[magithighs]

I play with my six year old daugther (cough!). The scary thing is she knows how to use a big stack. She pushes me around! Only problem is that I've got to stop her from jumping up and down when she sees a card fall that she likes!

Sick? Well, I don't think so. She's learning how to add/multiply and some deductive reasoning. So, I think there's some good things to learn from playing, and as long as she sees me play responsibly, she'll have a good example.

Cheers
Magi

[bholdr]

My grandparents taught me how to play when i was about seven. we played for quarters, and didn't screw around- it was a pretty cutthroat game- i almost always lost. I would save up all my quarters for a month (i spent one weekend/month with them) and play all night with them, their freinds, my great-aunts, etc... i never played with other young kids.

it was mostly draw (they're from cali) with a little 5 stud mixed in. I played with them until they got old, i was about 16. by that time i could beat my freinds out of THEIR quarters... but it was always dumb games like baseball, follow the queen, etc...

I played a little bit in college, for a few bucks at a time... more dumb wild card games- i never liked them, as i learned to play by the 'real' (that is, cardroom) rules

then, a year and a half ago, somebody turned on the WPT one night at the ski lodge where i was living... 'we should play a game for like five bucks' sez someone there. I found that the very little experience that i had was still far more than anyone else, and being a greedy broke ski bum, i saw some potential there... i went out and bought TOP... saw the URL on the back cover... and here i am, winning 3.2 BB/100 at 1/2 6max and bonuswhoring like a madman.

My experience has been good, but i am generally against teaching kids about gambling. it's just too potentially addictive to be a good idea, IMO, people under 18 just don't have the facilities to resist such temptation.