Tony G Says Poker Should Be Taught in Schools Alongside Chess

Poker legend Tony G has come out and said that poker should be taught in schools alongside chess.

While most parents would be happy to see their children learning a game like chess, poker isn’t usually a pursuit that people associate with being suitable for children.

Tony G is never shy about saying what he thinks at the poker table and many people will disagree with him on this, but think about it.

There are plenty of good life lessons that come from playing either chess or poker.

Tony G (@TonyGuoga) on why poker should be taught in schools:

I think poker is a great game to be taught in schools alongside chess. I think poker is great because you do have to manage stuff. You have to think about things. And we see kids playing video games too much.

And I… pic.twitter.com/yGTCzKELBn

— Connor Richards (@crichards1995) May 2, 2024

In fact, Tony G says that the game of poker actually made him as a person in life. He also tells how plenty of poker players have gone onto working as hedge fund managers and sometimes even creating their own funds.

Okay, this point only really relates to the upper echelons of talent but there’s a lot more to consider.

Garry Kasparov, one of the greatest chess players of all time, wrote a book entitled How Chess Imitates Life.

It is full of examples of how learning chess can improve general life skills, particularly for children. These ideas run in parallel to the game of poker.

The most obvious example would be learning responsibility for your own actions. You and you alone are responsible for whatever decision is made.

While there is a luck aspect to poker, unlike chess, we all know that once a large enough sample size has been played it becomes a minimal factor.

Tony G even talks about this, stating that it is important that poker is understood to be a game of skill and not chance.

And because of this, there shouldn’t be any objection to teaching children the game and having them play instead of wasting time on random video games and being on their phones.

Another key skill for life is being able to make difficult decisions whilst under pressure and with limited information available.

This leads into adaptability and flexibility which are again great life skills that are best taught at an early age.

Poker is great at teaching us how to learn from our mistakes. The sheer number of decisions made during a session make it obvious that there are very few pursuits out there that can rival poker along these lines.

This point alone should be enough to pep up reluctant players who feel that they are too bad to continue playing. Every mistake is an opportunity to learn and, believe us, there will always be mistakes no matter how good you become.

This brings us to resilience. A common characteristic of successful people that can be taught by poker. There is no drawback to teaching a child how to be more resilient, especially in this high-stress modern world we live in.

Overall, although we are obviously biased, Tony G’s proposal to teach poker in schools alongside chess has many benefits with no downside, as far as we can see.

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