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ATHLETES KEEPING THEIR MINDS SHARP

Track 1june12For an activity that is often erroneously regarded as gambling, poker appears regularly in popular culture, whether it’s a televised game broadcast around the world, or in the parallels it has with other sports and endeavours that tap in to the same qualities required to succeed.

Jamie Kimber is one such example. The British fencer, who is likely to compete at the Olympic Games in London this summer, has spoken of how he not only plays online poker for fun in his spare time but also sees parallels between the Mind Sport and his performance on the fencing piste.

For Kimber, 25, poker serves as more than just an additional competitive outlet.

“There are comparisons,” Kimber told the BBC earlier this year. “In fencing someone might show you something and you don’t know whether they’re actually going to go through with it or if it’s just an early bluff. That happens in poker as well. And if you think people are doing things for the wrong reasons you can end up losing. It’s no coincidence that I enjoy both of them.”

Kimber is not alone as a sportsman turning to poker to feed their competitive spirit, although for others poker becomes something they play once their first career comes to an end.

Boris Becker is perhaps most notable, the former Wimbledon champion swapping rain delay games in the dressing room for major poker tournaments around the world. Former international footballers Teddy Sheringham and Poli Rincon have appeared in similar fashion, as has former Dutch field hockey Olympic gold medallist Fatima Moreira de Melo. Each has turned to poker as a way of satisfying their competitive instincts.

It seems while the body may eventually give way to athletic demands the mind remains sharp and eager for competition as it ever was.
Studies, such as that produced by The Franklin Institute, continue to show how continued mental stimulation can protect against cognitive decline and that the more the brain is used for mental exercise, the longer it will remain healthy.

Poker is reckless gambling? You could argue that in some cases it would seem more straightforward to play.

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QUOTE FOR THE WEEK – MARK PILARSKI

4-6-12 - Mark Pilarski

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STUD FINAL OFFERS SOMETHING FOR THE PURISTS

For spectators prepared to stay up until past 3am at the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas last Friday, there was a treat for purists as Event #3 concluded after three days of play.

A field of 622 players had taken part but as Thursday night became Friday morning just two remained to contest the Seven Card Stud High Low Split-8 or better event, one of the more intricate variations of poker that divides each pot between the player with the “high” hand (the best hand) and the “low” hand (the worst), with the 8-card serving as the dividing line.

Head-to-head were Cory Zeidman and Chris Bjorin, Zeidman ultimately going on to win his first bracelet after eight WSOP cashes in his 15 year career.

Chris Bjorin

Chris Bjorin

But for Bjorin, one of the game’s old guard and most respected players, it was a another near miss, the third runner-up finish of his career at the World Series, which started back in 1989.

From Sweden, but a resident of London, Bjorin was playing the game before the internet boom, before the Rounders boom, even before the television boom, back in a time when hold’em was not the only game available in poker rooms across the land. His combined achievements include two WSOP bracelets, earned in pot limit Omaha back in 1997 and no-limit hold’em in 2000, and the reputation of one of the game’s most consistently successful grinders, particularly in games such as Stud.

Seven Card Stud takes place away from the limelight. In the past Stud final tables at the WSOP have been played on a regular table, without spectators or fanfare, with a lone tournament official waiting patiently to make it official when play ends.

It’s also not a game given to spectacular action like hold’em can generate. Stud is a game that relies on patience, memory and skill. It’s difficult and hard work, just like anything worth doing, and as such is finding a growing player base among new young players such as Shaun Deeb and Xuan Liu, taking their success in hold’em to the Stud tables.

For Zeidman and Bjorin it was a long slog into the night, hours that they’ve no doubt grown accustomed to over the past 20 years. Zeidman had the lead heads-up before Bjorin, hand-by-hand, clawed him back, levelling the scores. But he was unable to get ahead of Zeidman who, as chip leader entering the final, kept his lead to the end.

A great event featuring some great players. Look out for Bjorin in other events over the summer.

 

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HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS BENEFIT FROM POKER AS A MIND SPORT

Poker can prove an invaluable learning tool was the sentiment raised in an article in the Wall Street Journal this week, which detailed the experience of a Lower East Side high school in Manhattan which stages a weekly poker tournament, one that has since impressed both education staff and poker advocates across the country.

As the article by Sophia Hollander reports, the Henry Street School for International Studies holds a weekly poker club for students, held in the office of the school guidance counsellor. The rules are simple: No cursing. No money exchanged. No innuendo.The club was founded in 2007 by Maurice Engler, a former guidance counsellor. Engler intended the club to reach out to children using math and psychology and create a network of teams, not unlike those that exist for chess.

So far the Henry Street team’s ten members are the only sanctioned high school poker club in New York, but they have become a team of skilled players.

In 2008 the team travelled to Harvard to compete against (and beat) the Law School. In 2011 they were invited to play the Oxford Cup in the United Kingdom, but were unable to raise funds in time.

One poker advocate who found inspiration from the school is Amy Handelsman, Executive Director of the United States Poker Federation as well as the US Mind Sport Association, whose aim is to steer connotations of poker away from stereotypical connotations, towards its’ more accurate Mind Sport status.

“Poker has been lumped in with some nefarious behaviour because of the way it’s been played,” said Handelsman, speaking to the WSJ.

“But if you take money out of it and look at it on a skill level, what makes somebody a good poker player we think can translate to other areas of cognitive learning.”

The school’s principle Eric McMahon was won over by the effects the weekly games were having on her pupils, and was not the only one to find encouragement from the club.

Harvard Law School Professor Charles Nesson, whose team was on the losing end of the match against Henry Street High School, and who is planning to teach a class that combined poker training with case law, was also full of praise.

“Poker’s all about who your adversary is and how much of your credibility you risk,” said Nesson, who gave the keynote speech at the 2011 International Federation of Poker Congress. “The metaphors of poker are vibrant in the context of legal adversarial action.”

Read the full article on the Wall Street Journal website.