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Teach your kids poker, not chess

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Re: Teach your kids poker, not chess

#51

Post by derivagral »

dragontamer wrote: post #20

How about we play competitive Pokemon instead? Its got all the reads, bluffs, random chance, meta-gaming, math and strategy, and none of the gambling. ------ Don't get me wrong. Poker is a great game. But if we're talking about "reading" the opponent, relatively simple decisions that have deep mathematical backgrounds... a large variety of "simultaneous choice" video games (Pokemon, being a turnbased game with 60% to…

I grew up on Pokemon & MTG. Got competitive, made the Tour, etc. I am not sure I want to repeat this with my son. A friend is going through this with his child (The upside is that a healthy exposure to "work doesn't equal outcome", risk calcs, and reading people are very helpful lessons to learn, so personally I'm a bit torn on this. I wonder if there isn't a happy middle ground these days that doesn't require a "buy packs" element.

Re: Teach your kids poker, not chess

#52

Post by pessimizer »

dragontamer wrote: post #20

How about we play competitive Pokemon instead? Its got all the reads, bluffs, random chance, meta-gaming, math and strategy, and none of the gambling. ------ Don't get me wrong. Poker is a great game. But if we're talking about "reading" the opponent, relatively simple decisions that have deep mathematical backgrounds... a large variety of "simultaneous choice" video games (Pokemon, being a turnbased game with 60% to…

> Its got all the reads, bluffs, random chance, meta-gaming, math and strategy, and none of the gambling.

The gambling is the most important part, it's balancing between risk and concealing the signal you're sending. Bridge would be another option with a similar problem to be solved, but I don't think pokémon has any of that.

edit: also, the last thing you want to do is get your kids addicted to a pay-to-win game. It's child exploitation.

Re: Teach your kids poker, not chess

#53

Post by TacticalCoder »

turtledove wrote: post #28

Yeah... Teach your kids the games they are interested in, and use that as an opportunity to build bonds. Poker, chess, go, Catan, Magic, whatever. Trying to optimize your child is so backwards to me.

> Trying to optimize your child is so backwards to me.

I agree. My daughter loves Catan: we'll play on sunday even though she's a bit young for Catan.

Recently she discovered hexagonal grids in which you have to find words placed randomly... She loved it. So I quickly wrote a little program generating hexagonal grids and placing words randomly (and then filling the remaining empty hexagons with random letters). Now she gets to pick the words (the name of the cat, the names of her plushies, etc.) and I generate a random grid and print it. She loves it even more because now the game is tailor made!

As a bonus I got to introduce her to some programming concepts: showing her first how the program can generate a little grid of only 2x2 hexagons, then 3x3, then a bigger but still empty grid. How I can then have the computer put a word randomly on the grid. Then another word. Then fill the remaining empty hexagons with random letters. She was sitting on my lap looking very interested... Then I told her she could now choose which word she wanted and from there she was totally hooked.

It made for a happy mom too: it's the first time I coded something for my daughter and it felt good!

Re: Teach your kids poker, not chess

#54

Post by teej »

le-mark wrote: post #39
dragontamer wrote: post #20

How about we play competitive Pokemon instead? Its got all the reads, bluffs, random chance, meta-gaming, math and strategy, and none of the gambling. ------ Don't get me wrong. Poker is a great game. But if we're talking about "reading" the opponent, relatively simple decisions that have deep mathematical backgrounds... a large variety of "simultaneous choice" video games (Pokemon, being a turnbased game with 60% to…

I’m a noob when it comes to Pokémon, I only learned to play with my kids. Seems like Pokémon alway devolves to who has the strongest (most hp, best attacks) characters. Sure there are all the special attacks, deck manipulation that can be done but it seems very shallow to me. What am I missing?

Just like in real life sports - high school basketball often devolves into who is tallest. That's a little different than professional basketball, where being tall is necessary, but not sufficient to compete.

There's lot available on the internet to learn about competitive pokemon. Something like this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBw6UXAiq0A) is a good entrypoint. But even better - go to a competition with your kids! If they're interested, of course.

Re: Teach your kids poker, not chess

#55

Post by pessimizer »

Asraelite wrote: post #44

One of the worst things about poker IMO is that everyone unnecessarily links it with gambling. It's one of my favorite games to play with friends and money is never, ever involved. You just play to win as many games as possible. I feel like a lot of people miss out on a very fun game simply because they don't want to gamble and can't imagine playing without doing so.

It loses a lot of strategy without the gambling. The way to fix it isn't to nerf it, but just to give everyone the same amount of "funny money" to start. Raid that old copy of Monopoly.

Re: Teach your kids poker, not chess

#56

Post by kelnos »

bush-bby wrote: post #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…

> But it’s a game of chance.

I mean... no, it's not? Certainly there are elements of chance, but there are elements of chance in playing soccer or basketball, too, as well as Catan or Monopoly. But I wouldn't call those "games of chance".

I would define "a game of chance" as something where the outcomes solely depend on you betting on the result of a random process. Games like blackjack and craps are like that: even if you learn all the odds on everything and play "perfectly", your outcomes are still fully dependent on the randomness of the shuffle or the dice roll.

Poker is not like that at all. Yes, your outcomes are in part defined by the shuffle of the cards, but you are not playing against the deck or the dealer; you are playing against the rest of the players at the table. You can win with the worst hand if you make the other players believe your hand is better than it is. You can lose with the best hand if another player makes you believe their hand is better. That's just not possible with games like blackjack or poker. Either your cards are better than the dealer's, or vice versa; that's it. Either the dice roll matches with bets you've made, or not, or the shooter craps out. There's no ambiguity there, and you can learn the odds of winning or losing each particular bet that you can make.

(Just a note that you can also learn the odds of having the best or worst hand in poker based on your initial cards, and then update those odds as more cards appear. But in the case of poker, having the best or worst hand is not the same as winning or losing.)

Re: Teach your kids poker, not chess

#57

Post by mirceal »

ohwellhere wrote: post #43
plandis wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Downside is you might lose money faster than gambling lol

Right out of school I lost $300 playing poker at a casino and it stung for years. It stings a lot less now thinking of my MtG, Pokemon, and Hearthstone spending.

Lol. For mtg 300$ is a couple of card sometimes :))

Re: Teach your kids poker, not chess

#58

Post by kelnos »

bush-bby wrote: post #5
schwartzworld wrote: post #4

Earlier 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…

> 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 don't think anyone is arguing that?

But regardless, in poker you can still win money even if you have bad luck and draw bad cards every single hand. Just as you can still lose money even if you have great luck and draw great cards every single hand.

I think the point is that yes, there is an element of chance, but there's an element of skill beyond just memorizing odds and probabilities. Most people probably do have a better chance of winning more money if they are lucky and end up with better cards more of the time, but that's not always a reliable predictor of success.

Re: Teach your kids poker, not chess

#59

Post by pessimizer »

somethoughts wrote: post #36

According to Reid Hoffman (Linkedin) - Avalon Hill and Runescape are the games to play - YMMV. Reid Hoffman: Board Games Led To My Success https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqwOLhSkn3g Military-themed games helped him combine tactics into a strategic plan, while role playing games like Dungeons and Dragons and Runequest taught him problem solving. Playing against real people and not computers helped him keep his compet…

At least two tech billionaire wargamers: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2019/04/29/meet-matt...

I'll play Sekigahara anywhere anytime with anybody.

Re: Teach your kids poker, not chess

#60

Post by kelnos »

floxy wrote: post #26
bush-bby wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>no equivalent of the patriots in professional poker Daniel Negreanu?

Who?

I'm being flippant here for a reason. I don't care at all about football, and can't remember the last time I've even seen the Super Bowl (or even have notice who was playing). My eyes glaze over if I'm with friends and they start talking about football. But I've heard of the Patriots. Hell, I even know the name of their head coach.

I'm an on-and-off recreational home/casino poker player, but I've never heard of Daniel Negreanu. Professional poker just hasn't achieved popular culture penetration to the degree that football has.

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