Posts Tagged ‘boston debate league’

Today’s the last day of March and the last chance for you to help out the Boston Debate League in its March for Goodness competition. This is an organization that’s near and dear to my heart, and if you’ve enjoyed and/or profited from this blog, a $10 donation is a great way to say thank you. If we secure the most distinct donors of $10 or more, we stand to win $10,000!

Please donate here, right now!

I’ve got another story for you today about the power of debate, this one actually from a similar organization that I worked with in Chicago before I founded the Boston Debate League. I was a junior at the University of Chicago: white, reasonably well-off, over-educated, and sheltered. I grew up in a solidly white, middle-class suburb of Baltimore and, aside from a few summers working at a 7-11 and a year of volunteering in the Chicago Debate League, I had very little experience interacting with people from backgrounds different than my own.

I’d just gotten a job as an assistant coach in the CDL and had been assigned to Orr Academy, an under-performing (to put it mildly) high school in Chicago’s Harlem. As the name suggests, the neighborhood was virtually all black (the only white person I ever saw on the streets there was selling pornographic DVD’s out of a briefcase) and economically depressed.  Read the complete post...

Big thank you to everyone who’s contributed to the Boston Debate League so far to help us get more unique donors for our “March Goodness” competition (details here). If you enjoy reading this blog, and especially if you feel like it has helped to make you money, please donate to the Boston Debate League using this link. With as little as $10, you will make my day and contribute to an incredibly valuable program for young people who badly need and deserve such opportunities.

I want to share with you the story of one of the first BDL students to really make an impression on me. “Angela’s” school didn’t join the League until her senior year, so she only had one year to compete, but she really tore it up. She steamrolled the Novice division in her first tournament, won first prize, and immediately moved up into the Varsity division. She won two tournaments in the Varsity division that year and ended up taking second place in the City Championships.  Read the complete post...

A lot of commenters tell me that while the weird bluffs and thin value bets I post here are fun to read, they don’t feel they can apply them in the games they play. Well, today I’ve got a great investment that’s available to everyone! As little as $10 has the potential to return $10,000 and a world of opportunity for some very deserving young people.

The Boston Debate League, a non-profit organization that has been near and dear to me for some time, has entered a “March Goodness” competition. We are competing against 64 other non-profits in hopes of ultimately winning $10,000. To make it to the final four, we must generate more “unique donations” than the 16 other non-profits in our group.

I’d really appreciate your help with this. The goal isn’t necessarily to raise the most money, but to have the most individuals donate. You can donate as little as ten dollars, but of course we won’t complain if you would like to donate more.

To donate, please go to http://www.razoo.com/story/Mg2010-East-Boston-Debate-League

I can personally vouch for the quality of this program, the integrity of its leadership (I’m on the Board), and the overall good that your donation will accomplish. I strongly encourage you to watch this five-minute film that highlights some of the ways in which debate improves the lives of underserved youth. You can also learn more about us on our website.  Read the complete post...

The Boston Marathon is the most prestigious and oldest continuously-run marathon in the entire world. Many people dream of running it, but participation is extremely limited and exclusive. The only way to get a spot is either to qualify with a world-class time in a different marathon or to earn a waiver by raising money for select local charities.

I’m proud to announce that the Boston Debate League, a non-profit organization that I founded 5 years ago and on whose Board I now serve, has been selected as one of these charities. If any of you, or anyone you know, is interested in this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to run the Boston Marathon and support a valuable cause, please e-mail me (andrew@thinkingpoker.net) for more information. Running for our team will get you weekly training and advice from a professional coach and the opportunity to share this experience with other motivated individuals like yourself. And the best part is, you don’t have to be an experienced distance runner already- that’s what the training is for!  Read the complete post...

Maryland-based freelance reporter Bill Ordine recently penned an article for the LA Times entitled “Poker Professionals Ante Up for Charity“. While it’s primarily about high-profile projects like Ante Up for Africa and Bad Beat on Cancer, he uses yours truly as an example of smaller scale philanthropy enabled by poker:

“But the 26-year-old Brokos’ real passion isn’t poker. It’s coaching inner-city schoolkids in the art of debate. When he couldn’t get a paying job in education pursuing his interest in forensics, he used his poker winnings to support himself while he started the Boston Debate League, which has grown from three schools in 2005 to eight. Impressed with Brokos’ bootstrap work, the city school system provided funding for a full-time executive director to run the league, but Brokos continues to donate his time several days a week — with poker remaining as his means of support.”

I should clarify that technically, the Boston Public Schools (BPS) is not providing the full-time executive director. He’s solely an employee of the Boston Debate League (BDL), which is an independent 501(c)3 non-profit organization that raises funds from individuals and public foundations (no poker tournaments yet). BPS does, however, provide stipends for teachers who coach debate, food and supplies for participating students, and train fare to help low-income students attend BDL events. Still pretty sweet to get this kind of national attention though!

The Boston Debate League’s Fifth Annual City Championships took place over the weekend, and it was a great event. Nearly sixty students competed, which is actually a little low compared to the numbers we’ve had recently, but their enthusiasm more than made up for it. In the Varsity division, the reigning City Champions narrowly defended their title against a very promising upstart team. Meanwhile, a young school found a much-needed morale boost by closing out the JV division (that is to say, they won first and second place).

The BDL also got its first mention, and a fairly substantial one at that, in the Boston Globe, the city’s most prominent daily paper. The reporter did a nice job speaking with a variety of students, coaches, and administrators, and ultimately presented two of our most important themes: that debate is a rigorous academic activity that students nonetheless enjoy, and that it attracts all types of students, not only those who are already high achievers.

The credit for this goes to my girlfriend, who diligently reached out to nearly one hundred contacts at a wide variety of news outlets. Thanks, Em!

The Boston Herald ran an article this morning about the Boston Debate League and one of its member schools which was nearly closed by the school district:

The debate team at the Academy of Public Service sailed into the “elite eight” last year at the national championships in Chicago.

Now, thanks to that oratorical success, the debaters have talked their way into another year of funding as their school merges with the nearby Noonan Business Academy in Codman Square.

“The output of the debate team was a big part of the decision,” said team coach Locksley Bryan. “They saw these kids doing academic calisthenics at a very high level and it impressed them.”

The backstory, as I understand it, is that several years ago the Boston Public Schools received a multi-year, multi-million-dollar grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to support a transition to small schools. The grant funded the dissolution of Boston’s large public high schools into multiple small schools sharing a single building. Thus, what was Dorchester High School became three schools within the renamed Dorchester Education Complex: Tech Boston, Noonan Business Academy, and the Academy of Public Service (APS).  Read the complete post...

Had a decent morning at the tables but the real brag is for the Boston Debate League, which was awarded today a $50,000 grant from the Carl and Ruth Shapiro Foundation. The grant will support the BDL’s work with debate programs in the Boston Public Schools over the next two years, most especially that of the League’s new director (who’s probably reading this- congratulations, Steve!).

Here’s another random brag, this one from the Stars weekly $500. Sorry was having trouble with the converter, basically I had an open-ended draw on the turn and overbet shoved when a flush card came on the river:

PokerStars Game #21709641365: Tournament #116152197, $500+$30 Hold’em No Limit – Level III (100/200) – 2008/11/02 18:23:05 ET
Table ’116152197 23′ 9-max Seat #7 is the button
Seat 1: nofingclue11 (11900 in chips)
Seat 2: tiger76 (9370 in chips)
Seat 3: jesseluke82 (5480 in chips)
Seat 4: berra86 (13699 in chips)
Seat 5: lowlife039 (13250 in chips)
Seat 6: Mia_121 (9276 in chips)
Seat 7: Joao M. (10835 in chips)
Seat 8: foucault82 (8390 in chips)
Seat 9: Psychout (8600 in chips)

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to foucault82 [Tc 9s]
nofingclue11: folds
tiger76: folds
jesseluke82: folds
berra86: folds
lowlife039: folds
Mia_121: folds
Joao M.: folds
foucault82: calls 100
Psychout: checks  Read the complete post...