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!
tough run in the WSOP i love reading your blog especially the hand histories one and we get “inside your head” to see what your thinking, thanks for blogging, check my blog out it’s poker life related, idk if u have time keep it up with good stuff like this doing stuff for other people is always nice. God bless you man.
It’s thank to people like you we are going to prove to the world that poker is positive and valuable game that benefits everyone.
Poker is a positive and valuable game that benefits everyone? ……
Just because you have some good people that happen to play poker doesn’t make poker good by association.
Unlike, for a example, a profession where you provide a service in exchange for a fee, in poker, your entire goal is to take money away from someone else while leaving them nothing.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s your (the non-pro’s) own choice to participate, that’s all fine and good.
But the very basic difference is that poker is a pure win-lose situation. There is exactly zero element of win-win and that makes it NOT valuable and NOT a benefit.
That aside, having participated in debate in highschool and seeing how it’ benefited me, I really applaud what Andrew is doing as awesome and very valuable. Love reading the blog for the (often) unique insights into poker strategy and thought process… one of the best I’ve found. Thanks for sharing your mind with us!
Hi guys, thanks for the comments. For what it’s worth, I don’t think it’s true either that “poker is positive and valuable game that benefits everyone” or that “poker is a pure win-lose situation”. Even losing players can and do derive benefits from studying and playing the game. These include entertainment, the chance to win a large sum of money, and the development of certain business/negotiation/decision-making skills.
But of course there are also people who get in over their heads, lose money they can’t afford to lose, make bad decisions, or develop a gambling problem. Not to mention that even winning players sometimes develop undesirable personality traits such as callousness, selfishness, arrogance, etc. These are serious costs that need to be considered by any player, especially a professional, as well as by the operators and policy makers who determine the conditions under which games are available.
For me, poker is a source of freedom that enables me to do what I want with my life. That includes travel and entertainment that benefit primarily myself and other projects designed to benefit others. I do think it’s important to highlight the ways in which poker can be both intrinsically (ie cultivating valuable skills and ways of thinking) and extrinsically (ie raising money for charity through poker, potential tax revenue, etc.) beneficial, not because it is unambiguously beneficial, but because the other side of the argument is so loud and well-represented.
The argument that you can learn good skills and get entertainment playing poker doesn’t negate the fact that if you win, someone else loses, and it’s a 1:1 ratio, ie, pure win-loss. There are life skills and entertainment to be had everywhichwhere. If someone kicks the sh*t out of me, it will make me tougher… does that mean kicking the sh*t out of someone is a valuable and beneficial activity? The poker player’s job is to take the fish’s money regardless of whether they have gleaned entertainment or education from the experience and that’s what makes it so different from most any other professional activity. (insert lawyer joke here… )
I guess that the car dealer, in his attempt to get the highest price possible, doesn’t gain a dollar for every dollar that I lose in paying a higher price? Or the real estate agent? Or any other seller of goods?
If you define the exchange as narrowly as the dollars exchanged, then there is always a winner and loser at your 1:1 ratio. Obviously, there is more to the exchange than just the dollars won or lost at the end of a session. In reality, the players that sit down are trading the opportunities to win money from each other. Whoever manages those opportunities of winning better will, over the long run, win money. Just like whoever is better at valuing the long-term value of stocks will, in the long run, make more money.
JV, can I assume that any evils associated with poker also apply to any sport? After all, I know of no sport where one team can win without another team also losing. And your example of an assault is a non-starter because one person is an involuntary member of the exchange.
Poker can have positive and negative influences. Just like most things in society. But it certainly doesn’t deserve to be singled out as some sort of special evil.