Harvard University has a new Global Poker Strategic Thinking Society (GPSTS) panel and this week guest speakers such as Howard Lederer and Crandell Addington will contribute to a debate at the university.
The GPSTS will look at how poker skills translate into life skills. This is to be the first in a series of debates to be scheduled by the GPSTS. They will also look at the World Trade Organisation dispute on Internet gambling and discuss the impact this has on the United States in financial, commercial, and reputation terms.
Students from other universities have shown an interest in the GPSTS. Chapters are being formed in universities across the United States such as, Penn State, UCLA, USC, Stanford, Brown, Tufts and Boston University. The GPSTS has also attracted attention outside the United States with chapters also being set up in the UK, Finland and Singapore. The GPSTS are hoping to have set up two dozen chapters in universities by the end of the academic year.
Harvard law professor Charles Nesson who has set up the GPSTS at Harvard has said about poker that its, “an exceptional game of skill that can be used as a powerful teaching tool at all levels of academia and in secondary education. The GPSTS recognizes that poker can be a metaphor for skills of life, business, politics and international relations.”
The GPSTS has three aims. Its first is to offer poker strategic thinking workshops to schools and community centres particularly in deprived areas. Its second is to sponsor team poker matches between law, business and other professional schools. And lastly, to conduct seminars, panel discussions and conferences that examine poker as a means to teach strategic thinking and public policy issues that are related.
A major goal of the panel is to open an online curriculum about poker that will draw “the brightest minds together, both from within and outside of the conventional university setting, to promote open education and university democracy.”
More events are to take place next month after this week’s launch. On 10th November Card player magazine author and educator Jim McManus and poker ambassador Mike Sexton will be part of a panel that will explore the educational utility of poker.
Also on the cards is a poker match between Harvard and Yale on 16th November. There will also be a poker game between the GPSTS members at USC and UCLA on 30th November.
The Harvard GPSTS are also due to hold more events next spring. There will be a poker educational workshop at the Smith Leadership Academy, a charter school in Dorchester, Massuchussets. This is to teach youths risk assessment, asset management, arithmetic and negotiation skills.
There will also be an Intercollegiate Poker Face-off. This will be a team competition between different universities across the United States, all battling for the first GPSTS collegiate team championship title.
