Poker to Become a University Activity

Ever said to someone “yeah, but poker helps you learn?” – well, now it’s been proven, and you have the experts at Harvard Law School backing you up. Poker is not just a game but also a tool for education and development, and as such it is now available around universities world-wide as an official club.

The Global Poker Strategic Thinking Society (GPSTS) has announced that poker clubs will now be formed at some of the world’s leading universities as a means of promoting the educational benefits of the game. The clubs, led by some top students, will be run by the Harvard Law School Professor Charles Nesson, and will also be part of the GPSTS. Next year, the clubs will come face to face for a national collegiate team poker tournament and conference.

Nesson first introduced the poker society as a way to bridge between the massive growth in popularity of poker played on campus, and poker as a tool for education in secondary schools and college campuses. Nesson explained that “Poker teaches many lessons that are transferable to the challenges of life, including strategic understanding of risk, resource management and self control…when to hold'em, when to fold'em, as the song says.”

There are already 62 Harvard Law Students who have joined the initiative, and other universities to participate in the program include Stanford, UCLA, Penn State, USC, Tufts, Brown, and Boston University. In addition, several overseas universities are organizing such poker clubs, in countries such as Singapore and the UK. As Nesson elucidated, “the level of student response to our announcement of GPSTS is overwhelming. Many people agree that poker itself, besides being fun, has an academic component that can bring great benefits to learning at all levels.”

The GPSTS has many events scheduled as part of its new plan, including panels, guest poker pros, lectures, matches, asset management and risk management courses, as well as several major events. The inter-collegiate face off will take place in Spring.