I Call

James McManus has an interesting article at The Chronicle of Higher Education that explores the impact of the game of poker in America. Bill Gates, for example, believed that poker helped him to learn to process information in a way that had real business applications:

Then there's the seminal influence of poker on Bill Gates during his four semesters at Harvard (1973-75). Twenty years later, in The Road Ahead, Gates recalled the marathon dorm sessions he believes were at least as productive and intellectually stimulating as his time spent in class. Dorm-mate Steve Ballmer calls Microsoft's early business plan "basically an extension of the all-night poker games Bill and I used to play back at Harvard." Gates put it this way: "In poker, a player collects different pieces of information—who's betting boldly, what cards are showing, what this guy's pattern of betting and bluffing is—and then crunches all that data together to devise a plan for his own hand. I got pretty good at this kind of information processing." Indeed, he won a substantial portion of Microsoft's start-up costs in those dorm games. But it wasn't just dollars reaped to be parlayed a millionfold; it was mainly, says Gates, that "the poker strategizing experience would prove helpful when I got into business."

I used to play regularly, myself, and truly love the game. I can't claim that I learned much - except, perhaps, never to play unless completely sober; although, come to think of it, that is a lesson with applications that go far beyond poker.