{"id":276,"date":"2007-05-01T02:11:01","date_gmt":"2007-05-01T07:11:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/nesson\/2007\/05\/01\/poker\/"},"modified":"2007-05-01T02:11:01","modified_gmt":"2007-05-01T07:11:01","slug":"poker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/nesson\/2007\/05\/01\/poker\/","title":{"rendered":"poker"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/a>
\npoker is quintescentially an american game, american invention, universal in its appeal, open as the frontier to anyone to learn the skill of bid and call and bluff and raise and fold. no better game to learn how to win and lose and how to feel about it. no finer way to come to terms with your personal relationship to risk and resource, finding balance in the flow of signals in the brain for defense, for aggression, for neutrality, women, men, old, young, every race, every religion, a moment to learn a lifetime to master, understanding that the ante and the blinds buy you the privilege of neutrality in the choice you have to fold, but every time you fold you pay a little. you need a little aggression to offset this leak in the assets you have to live with. you start to feel and see that this is how you play not just this game but the game of life.<\/p>\n

here’s email from amwoods at hlcentral<\/p>\n

“Andrew M. Woods”
\nto me<\/p>\n

show details
\n\t 7:25 pm (7 hours ago) <\/p>\n

Professor-<\/p>\n

I happened upon this the other day, and have been meaning to forward it to you:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/media.www.hlrecord.org\/media\/storage\/paper609\/news\/2006\/03\/16\/News\/FirstTimer.Wins.Charity.Poker.Tournament-1688977.shtml
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

While the article isn\u2019t exactly a stirring defense of the importance of skill in poker \u2013 a first time player won the tournament, you may be interested to notice at the bottom of paragraph 2 the article describes the faculty participation in the public interest charity tournament. That faculty included one Professor Charles Nesson, \u201cwho hung in for several rounds before being knocked out by 1L Andrew Woods\u201d. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

(While I may have put you out, you do look better in the photo \u2013 they only got the side of me\u2026)<\/p>\n

-Andrew<\/p>\n

——————————–<\/p>\n

Andrew M. Woods
\nDirector of Events
\nHL Central
\n(310) 254-5218
\namwoods@law.harvard.edu<\/p>\n

as we spoke last night poker university took shape
\nenquiry into the genius of the game top down
\nprofessor and professor with sister annie
\nandy bloch producer
\nfull tilt on a table of ten
\navatars driven by students of all ages in classrooms round the globe
\nglobal classrooms to engage our poker curriculum in which the culmination course is tournaments
\nopen to developing nations as an expression of american democracy<\/p>\n

eon here
\nthe crazy guy of lessig’s dedication
\nlet poker be the message that goes out through libraries and classrooms
\nit’s the spirit of america we are fighting for<\/p>\n

assume you are playing poker with a fundamentalist
\nschelling’s madman at the door<\/a>
\nare you bargaining with him or is he bargaining with you<\/p>\n

this is a better game than the game with bombs and guns
\npeople who make bombs and guns are the enemy
\nwhy prefer their game to ours<\/p>\n

we make the bombs and guns and the markets into which to sell them
\nwe are on a road to blowing ourselves apart if we can’t figure out how to find our norms<\/p>\n

one thing you can say about a fundamentalist
\ntheir action is grounded in deep spirit
\ntwisted we may think to evil ends yet spirit nonetheless<\/p>\n

suppose a poker game between the avatar of our spirit and the avatar of his
\nwhat would be our conversation
\nwhat have i got that he wants that i can give him
\nwhat is he looking for
\nhe says he’s looking for one thing but you know he is looking for another<\/p>\n

suppose the chips in the game are the minds of people
\nthe question in each individual mind which spirit speaks truth in its understanding of the world
\nquick
\nthe stick
\nfight
\nyoure right<\/p>\n

so okay let’s get to it
\nteresa and librarians of the world
\neIFL.net<\/a> consortium of consortia of libraries
\ncommunia thematic network
\nwhere better to assemble to play a global online poker game than is community libraries and schools starting with solar power electricity, hardware to structure and control the flow of electric bits, connection to the net and thus to UNIVERSITY<\/p>\n

the berkman center has a grant from the state department of the united states of america to teach democracy. american democracy is spirit in US to express. <\/p>\n

as i type into this blog i am listening to the recording of our poker meeting before the formal meeting began, low murmers and talk of separate conversations with lovely jokes. annie tells the story of a man addicted to water, was drinking eight gallons a day, he died, and me telling the story of last year’s public service poker tournament pictured above in which andrew m woods knocked me out, how we couldn’t do it this year because of government regulation.<\/p>\n

uploading it to z share<\/a>
\nhope it works
\ni’ll bet there are some folks out there deep enough into the game to listen to poker pros talking poker to each other
\nyes it does! here it is: http:\/\/www.zshare.net\/audio\/poker1-mp3.html<\/a><\/p>\n

last night another berkman book party, david weinberger, everything is miscellaneous, a gift to all librarians as we come to see internet as library. david, a poker question. i have written to game theorists asking them how they classify texas hold’em poker in the taxonomy of their rigorous systematic way of understanding our reality. in answer to the conceptual question of relationship of one think to another miscellaneous doesn’t tell us much. are you speaking to scientists as well as to librarians?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

poker is quintescentially an american game, american invention, universal in its appeal, open as the frontier to anyone to learn the skill of bid and call and bluff and raise and fold. no better game to learn how to win and lose and how to feel about it. no finer way to come to terms […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":370,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2179,127,439,2176,2177,2178],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-berkmania","category-general","category-harvard","category-poker","category-rhetorical-space","category-trust","p1","y2007","m04","d30","h21"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/nesson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/nesson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/nesson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/nesson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/370"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/nesson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/nesson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/nesson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/nesson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/nesson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}