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Teach your kids poker, not chess

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Re: Teach your kids poker, not chess

#121

Post by creakingstairs »

Asraelite wrote: post #110
creakingstairs wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's one of my favorite games to play with friends and money is never, ever involved. I personally hate playing poker without real money. I feel like taking out money gets rid of one of the most interesting thing about poker. I don’t really like fake money either as many people don’t play as seriously as when there is real money involved. I noticed that even when the amount is very small (so it might as well be fak…

> I don’t really like fake money either as many people don’t play as seriously as when there is real money involved. I've noticed this with some people too and it's really baffling to me. Do you not play any other games seriously? When you're playing a video game or a board game do you also just not bother trying to win because there's no money involved? Why do people take exception to this for poker but not for any…

> Do you not play any other games seriously? When you're playing a video game or a board game do you also just not bother trying to win because there's no money involved?

I am competitive and will try to play seriously without money. I don’t know but the quality of game seems to be significantly higher (eg people play more seriously) when real money is involved online or offline. So I just don’t play poker without real money. I acknowledge that this can be a false heuristic.

> Why do people take exception to this for poker but not for any other games?

Maybe because risk management is such a core part of the game and having real money involved makes the risks seem more “real”.

Re: Teach your kids poker, not chess

#122

Post by lucumo »

jimmygrapes wrote: post #97
spekcular wrote: post #85

My problem with this article: I did not see a concrete suggestion for where children should play poker. Clearly, they cannot play at casinos or for real money online. I suppose they could play for fake money online, but there the dynamics are much different. (Why not go all-in and risk it all if you can just create a fresh account if you lose?) Fake money tournaments, where the goal is to come out on top instead of m…

Maybe they could play with their parents, at home? Is that too bizarre to consider these days?

You are so quick to pass moral judgement on parents that you didn't even bother to read (or understand) the post you're responding to.

Good lord, if you want to talk about "these days": apparently it's more important to condemn someone than to understand them "these days".

Re: Teach your kids poker, not chess

#123

Post by kstenerud »

Or better yet: Let your kids play whatever they want to play. There is no wrong game or inferior game.

Introduce them to many games, sure, but then back off. Once you start directing their play or supervising their play, you do more harm than good.

Re: Teach your kids poker, not chess

#124

Post by 988747 »

creakingstairs wrote: post #86
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's one of my favorite games to play with friends and money is never, ever involved. I personally hate playing poker without real money. I feel like taking out money gets rid of one of the most interesting thing about poker. I don’t really like fake money either as many people don’t play as seriously as when there is real money involved. I noticed that even when the amount is very small (so it might as well be fak…

Playing with money affects your strategy, because once you are out of money you are out of the game. Even if you play for pennies, you still need to think about how much can you put at stake in every single game in order to maximize profits. If you have 20c and your opponent has 70c then it will take you at least few games to come up ahead. Just counting number of times you won a hand removes a lot of complexity.

Re: Teach your kids poker, not chess

#125

Post by thatguy0900 »

derivagral wrote: post #51
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 "bu…

If you have a local scene, ive really been enjoying keyforged. Each "pack" is a unique standalone deck. I dont have that crushing need to keep buying hundred doar cards like I did when I used to play yugioh

Re: Teach your kids poker, not chess

#126

Post by lozenge »

derivagral wrote: post #51
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 "bu…

Star Realms is a simple game with everything needed included and is quick to pick up.

Dominion has more depth and variety.

Epic Card Game comes close to the complexity of Magic. The issue is most people willing to learn such a game will already be playing Magic or Pokemon...

There's more popular/newer alternatives, I haven't been following the scene.

Re: Teach your kids poker, not chess

#127

Post by LewisVerstappen »

HPsquared wrote: post #115
routerl wrote: post #95

Nah, teach your kids chess, so that they can exercise their deductive/calculating muscles during that golden phase of childhood in which our brains are malleable enough to easily learn new languages: realize that artificial languages (i.e. deductive systems) are all functionally equivalent, and use chess as just another avenue into building deductive fluency; use multiple such avenues (e.g. music, Euclid). Call this…

Chess is logic, poker is rhetoric.

This is not true in the slightest.

Poker is far, far more mathematical than chess. The idea that poker pros are only going off "reads" is completely ludicrous.

They have a set game-theory-optimal style of playing, and then use an opponents flaws/"tells" to deviate from the GTO style to exploit those tells.

An example of a flaw could be if the opponent is playing shitty hole cards.

If the opponent has played in every pot over the last 30 minutes (something you'll frequently see), then he's playing way too many hands preflop.

This is exploitable.

Just a super basic example, but you'd be surprised at how profitable this is. Beginners play way too many hands. If you want to make money, just fold every hand and let the beginner collect the blinds until you get AAs, KKs, QQs, etc. and then you should bet big. The beginner won't notice and he'll pay you off anyway. You'll be massively +EV.

A more advanced player will notice what you're doing and he'll immediately fold when you bet big. Therefore, you'll have to start incorporating "bluffs" into your strategy so his tactic of folding whenever you bet big becomes unprofitable.

Poker is about figuring out all of these things and then using these tools to make the most money.

Bill Chen wrote a great book called "The Mathematics of Poker" that goes through all the math involved.

It's all probability theory and game theory.

He gave a talk at MIT that goes over some of the basic concepts -> https://youtu.be/BuxCNZ0RVKA

The obvious issue with teaching your kids poker is that it'll be very difficult for your kid to find anyone else to play with. He/she can't go play poker in a casino obviously

Re: Teach your kids poker, not chess

#128

Post by ivan_gammel »

a_e_k wrote: post #99

Personally, my favorite card game is contract bridge. Imperfect information, randomness with room for skill, strongly asymmetric play and scoring, etc., but it also requires cooperation via rather narrow communication channels that your opponents get to observe. (For those not familiar, four play at a time and you are partners with the person across the table from you. After dealing, there's an auction phase and your…

I would suggest contract bridge or whist/preferans too. In my school years we played preferans a lot and bridge was the favorite game of our math teacher, so we could solve one or two bridge problems as a warming up on our math lessons.

Re: Teach your kids poker, not chess

#129

Post by Fidelix »

kstenerud wrote: post #123

Or better yet: Let your kids play whatever they want to play. There is no wrong game or inferior game. Introduce them to many games, sure, but then back off. Once you start directing their play or supervising their play, you do more harm than good.

That's not how parenting works.

As a parent, you are supposed to make the choices that increase the chances of better outcomes for the children, whatever the parent considers those better outcomes to be.

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