Teach your kids poker, not chess
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Teach your kids poker, not chess
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Re: Teach your kids poker, not chess
#2There is an element of chance in chess. Whether an opponent plays an opening you have recently studied and how many mistakes your opponent makes is out of your control. The author says poker teaches you to focus on the process rather than the outcome. A chess player who wants to improve will not assume that winning a game means he played well -- he will analyze the game later, perhaps with a chess engine.
Re: Teach your kids poker, not chess
#3>However, it is important to distinguish poker from a pure game of chance, like roulette.
I feel like this is becoming an all too common trope on social media and for young people, where poker is portrayed as a risky but cool thing to do because you can convince people you’re skilled or better than others at it, and that means taking other peoples money with skill. Which is indeed something cool. Sure there’s reading people. But it’s a game of chance. Selling it as something more has literally no benefit.
Re: Teach your kids poker, not chess
#4>However, it is important to distinguish poker from a pure game of chance, like roulette. I feel like this is becoming an all too common trope on social media and for young people, where poker is portrayed as a risky but cool thing to do because you can convince people you’re skilled or better than others at it, and that means taking other peoples money with skill. Which is indeed something cool. Sure there’s reading…
That's a naive view of poker, which is absolutely a game of skill. You can't force a good hand, but you can use your understanding of probability and human behavior to estimate the value of the hand you are dealt. The bets you place can be more important than the hands themselves. In fact, the best hand can lose you a lot of money if you play it wrong.
Re: Teach your kids poker, not chess
#5>However, it is important to distinguish poker from a pure game of chance, like roulette. I feel like this is becoming an all too common trope on social media and for young people, where poker is portrayed as a risky but cool thing to do because you can convince people you’re skilled or better than others at it, and that means taking other peoples money with skill. Which is indeed something cool. Sure there’s reading…
That's a naive view of poker, which is absolutely a game of skill. You can't force a good hand, but you can use your understanding of probability and human behavior to estimate the value of the hand you are dealt. The bets you place can be more important than the hands themselves. In fact, the best hand can lose you a lot of money if you play it wrong.
Those two things, skill and chance, are not mutually exclusive characteristics. My point is more so that poker should not be treated as if all the skill in the world can account for all the bad luck in the world. I mean there’s a reason there’s no equivalent of the patriots in professional poker. No one is going to win every single game every single time. And I think that forgetting that in the games portrayal is moderately dangerous. Because it is a game played with money. Sure you can mitigate your risk of loss with skill, but it’s never 100% controllable, and that should be acknowledged with more weight in my opinion.
Re: Teach your kids poker, not chess
#6>However, it is important to distinguish poker from a pure game of chance, like roulette. I feel like this is becoming an all too common trope on social media and for young people, where poker is portrayed as a risky but cool thing to do because you can convince people you’re skilled or better than others at it, and that means taking other peoples money with skill. Which is indeed something cool. Sure there’s reading…
I play poker and I used to play chess. Explaining the rules, tactics and strategies of poker is a lot easier than chess. It is also more exciting (subjective opinion rather than a statement of absolute truth).
The various strategies of poker (including playing ‘hail Mary’ hands, I’m sick of you bluffing hands and more) versus the play-book of chess (opening moves determine much).
A single mistake in chess can be irredeemable. In poker (unless you go all-in) a misstep can be rectified.
Chess has an elitist/bookish stigma. Poker is for beers, snacks and a game on the TV
Re: Teach your kids poker, not chess
#7>However, it is important to distinguish poker from a pure game of chance, like roulette. I feel like this is becoming an all too common trope on social media and for young people, where poker is portrayed as a risky but cool thing to do because you can convince people you’re skilled or better than others at it, and that means taking other peoples money with skill. Which is indeed something cool. Sure there’s reading…
> But it’s a game of chance.
This is fundamentally incorrect. Knowing when to fold is absolutely integral to being good at Poker (assuming tournament/competitive play). In some cases, you might be absolutely screwed by bad luck (like you can be in football if you tear your ACL), but Poker is not a game of luck. It's a game of probabilities and social engineering.
Re: Teach your kids poker, not chess
#8>However, it is important to distinguish poker from a pure game of chance, like roulette. I feel like this is becoming an all too common trope on social media and for young people, where poker is portrayed as a risky but cool thing to do because you can convince people you’re skilled or better than others at it, and that means taking other peoples money with skill. Which is indeed something cool. Sure there’s reading…
You can tell poker isn't a game of chance, because you consistently see the same handful of faces at/near the final table for the world series of poker out of a field of many thousands.
You don't see that happen on other games of chance, only games of skill. For example, there has never been a repeat winner at the Rock-Paper-Scissors world championship.
Re: Teach your kids poker, not chess
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a naive view of poker, which is absolutely a game of skill. You can't force a good hand, but you can use your understanding of probability and human behavior to estimate the value of the hand you are dealt. The bets you place can be more important than the hands themselves. In fact, the best hand can lose you a lot of money if you play it wrong.
Those two things, skill and chance, are not mutually exclusive characteristics. My point is more so that poker should not be treated as if all the skill in the world can account for all the bad luck in the world. I mean there’s a reason there’s no equivalent of the patriots in professional poker. No one is going to win every single game every single time. And I think that forgetting that in the games portrayal is mod…
I think that is exactly the article’s point: even with perfect play, you can lose hands or even tournaments. But over time, it is a statistical inevitability that you will win on average.
That is an important life lesson! If you’re doing a startup, you might execute perfectly and just hit a run of bad luck and have to give up on that idea. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try again!
Re: Teach your kids poker, not chess
#10There is an element of chance in chess. Whether an opponent plays an opening you have recently studied and how many mistakes your opponent makes is out of your control. The author says poker teaches you to focus on the process rather than the outcome. A chess player who wants to improve will not assume that winning a game means he played well -- he will analyze the game later, perhaps with a chess engine.
Sure, but in the same sense that there's a chance in Chess because you could be sick the day of your game and play worse as a result.
The game itself doesn't have intrinsic chance, but as with everything in life, the players do.
I do agree with your last point though, winning doesn't mean you played well, it just means you played better than your opponent.