Poker pro on deck at nonprofit

Card whiz joins board at Decision Education Fund

Hoping for an ace in its hand, a Palo Alto nonprofit this weekend welcomed its newest board member - professional poker player Annie Duke.

The Decision Education Fund, an organization focused on helping children make better life decisions, met for the first time this weekend with the world champion poker player.

"Poker is this incredible game of skill that really is the ultimate decision-making problem," Duke said Monday.

Working with the foundation's current programs in schools both locally and nationally, the Los Angeles resident who has been playing professionally since 1994 said she plans to help the organization incorporate lessons from poker into their curricula, though whether students will actually be dealt cards is still being debated.

Locally the foundation has developed educational programs with the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University and with the East Palo Alto after-school training program, School After School for Successful Youth, as well as partnered with alternative schools around the country, according to a company statement.

Duke, who won $2 million in the 2004 World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions and continues to play professionally, said her game philosophy has long mirrored the foundation's mission of fostering better choices by children.

"Lots of people frame (poker) as a math or a probability problem," she said. "But I really do frame it as a decision-making problem. ... I talk about different alternatives."

Duke, a mother of four children between the ages of 5 and 12, said she approaches raising her family in the same way.

"When my children do something wrong, we don't talk about how 'you shouldn't do that because I'll punish you.' We'll talk about 'what were your other alternatives?'" she said.

In her role on the foundation's board of directors, Duke said she hopes to move students away from "emotional decision making" and into a more logical consideration of their options.

For example, she said, poker players often operate under a typical bias known as "sunk cost," in which they are more likely to continue with bad hands if they have more money invested in the game.

"If you already have $500 invested in the pot, you're more likely to make a bad call," she said.

With her own poker students, Duke tries to instill flexibility and logical thinking - a philosophy she hopes to see more teachers assume.

"Literature and history in particular are really well-suited to teaching decision-making skills," she said.

Tom Keelin, one of the foundation's founders, said the board still has to decide whether to allow poker playing in its programs. And he noted that Duke's previous articles and book already reflect the foundation's philosophy.

"She has a great passion for and great personal experience with the benefit of improved decision making, both in her profession and in her life," Keelin said.

Aubrie Lee, a sophomore at Gunn High School in Palo Alto, said playing poker at school "sounds pretty cool."

"I think many more people would be interested than if it was just a regular class they had to take," she said.
Palo Alto Daily News

News Added: 30 October, 2007

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