4 ms·

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

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 maximize profit, are probably the best option. But the word "tournament" doesn't appear in the article (and even then, is it really good for kids to be hanging around with the people on online poker sites)? I suppose implicitly the author is talking about playing heads-up against a parent at the dinner table, or with close family members, with fake money. But people who don't know anything about poker are going to play essentially randomly, and the game won't last long enough/will be too variable for the kid to see any reward from playing "correctly," so I'm not sure there's a point. Also, the first thing to teach the kid is to fold most of their hands. But sitting out of hands is boring and the kid is going to get bored. It's called "grinding" for a reason... Something like MTG that isn't pay-to-win would be a better choice.

christkv 4y ago
You can play for candy or video game time or any other non monetary value the kids value
- thih9 4y ago
  Somehow that seems worse than actual money. Personally I’d find it easier to risk a $100 than to risk e.g. a $100 voucher to a restaurant that I like.
- pawelmurias 4y ago
  This seems like teaching your kids gambling and greed.
iamevn 4y ago
There are so many other games that (in my opinion) better embody the sorts of lessons TFA describes. I feel something less commonly associated with gambling would be even better than poker. I remember as a kid I went to a summer camp and brought a set of poker chips and some cards in my bag to play purely for fun with people during some free time. My parents asked me to not do that and later let me know that some other kids' parents had taken issue with their kids "gambling".
jimmygrapes 4y ago
Maybe they could play with their parents, at home? Is that too bizarre to consider these days?
- lucumo 4y ago
  You are so quick to pass moral judgement on parents that you didn't even bother to read (or understand) the post you're responding to. Good lord, if you want to talk about "these days": apparently it's more important to condemn someone than to understand them "these days".
- chadcmulligan 4y ago
  Was talking to a young guy the other day about learning poker, he said, oh I'll just play in red dead redemption, apparently you can play poker in it :-)
goldeneye13_ 4y ago
They could play online with micro stakes. The smallest I know is 1p/2p game. Has a lot of players, people take it pretty seriously as these are the stages you play when learning. And you need about 50 buy ins (100$ total budget) to have enough to learn. This is not super cheap but can easily last for a year or more assuming the person is actually learning to play rather than doing mad gambling.
- mod 4y ago
  > you need about 50 buy ins to have enough to learn Says who? Did you make this up?
  - zone411 4y ago
    50 buyins is pretty reasonable for an average (which means losing because of the rake) player for a year. You can plug in the numbers into one of the poker variance calculators. At 1 hour per day (60 hands), 10 BB/100 rake, NLHE 6-max cash games only, you get the 95% confidence interval of -5150 BB to 770 BB after 1 year.
gexla 4y ago
This article seems to be more about what you can learn from playing poker rather than actually suggesting that you should teach it to kids or learn poker rather than chess. The kids and chess parts seem to be a theme meant to draw people into the article.
orwin 4y ago
And heads up is a different game than cash game or tournament. I don't think the author post really apply to HU games.
scotty79 4y ago
I played IRL with M&Ms as a kid.

christkv 4y ago

You can play for candy or video game time or any other non monetary value the kids value

thih9 4y ago
Somehow that seems worse than actual money. Personally I’d find it easier to risk a $100 than to risk e.g. a $100 voucher to a restaurant that I like.
pawelmurias 4y ago
This seems like teaching your kids gambling and greed.

iamevn 4y ago

There are so many other games that (in my opinion) better embody the sorts of lessons TFA describes. I feel something less commonly associated with gambling would be even better than poker. I remember as a kid I went to a summer camp and brought a set of poker chips and some cards in my bag to play purely for fun with people during some free time. My parents asked me to not do that and later let me know that some other kids' parents had taken issue with their kids "gambling".

jimmygrapes 4y ago

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

lucumo 4y ago
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".
chadcmulligan 4y ago
Was talking to a young guy the other day about learning poker, he said, oh I'll just play in red dead redemption, apparently you can play poker in it :-)

goldeneye13_ 4y ago

They could play online with micro stakes. The smallest I know is 1p/2p game. Has a lot of players, people take it pretty seriously as these are the stages you play when learning. And you need about 50 buy ins (100$ total budget) to have enough to learn. This is not super cheap but can easily last for a year or more assuming the person is actually learning to play rather than doing mad gambling.

mod 4y ago
> you need about 50 buy ins to have enough to learn Says who? Did you make this up?
- zone411 4y ago
  50 buyins is pretty reasonable for an average (which means losing because of the rake) player for a year. You can plug in the numbers into one of the poker variance calculators. At 1 hour per day (60 hands), 10 BB/100 rake, NLHE 6-max cash games only, you get the 95% confidence interval of -5150 BB to 770 BB after 1 year.

gexla 4y ago

This article seems to be more about what you can learn from playing poker rather than actually suggesting that you should teach it to kids or learn poker rather than chess. The kids and chess parts seem to be a theme meant to draw people into the article.

orwin 4y ago

And heads up is a different game than cash game or tournament. I don't think the author post really apply to HU games.

scotty79 4y ago

I played IRL with M&Ms as a kid.