Poker Class?

[willw9]

I'm going to be a freshman in college next year, so forgive my ignorance.

What class ties in most closely with poker? I'm speaking in terms of an "elective" btw, a minor class I can select in order to explore a secondary interest like cooking or dance or something like that. Do they have straight up Game Theory classes at any universities? If not, what would be a close equivalent?

[Dan.]

I can't imagine any university not having a game theory course in either the econ or math departments. In the case of Northwestern, we have multiple game theory courses in both departments.

[chisness]

too bad the econ one doesn't seem to run

[XxGodJrxX]

Statistics?

[Tiburon]

i'm an HS senior and i'm taking stats & probability, which has a lot of concepts related to poker. We're currently in a unit where we learn about expected value

[Reef]

there's a gambling theory class here in WA but there are tons of pre-reqs

[Taso]

Greenstein recommended which majors to do in his book. I think one was Psychology, I can't remember the other [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] Might have been math related, also could have been business related. Sorry.

[Dan.]

Greenstein says: "The best degree for a poker player is a major in psychology with a minor in mathematics. A few business courses wouldn't hurt." (p. 88, Ace on the River)

[Dave D]

A statistics class, pretty far ahead as most important. Things like outs and EV should really be second nature to any good player, and that's what you study in stats class. It provides the groundwork that you build everything else on, so it's most important.

Game theory matters, but poker is different from most game theory I think (although I don't have a ton of experiance in game theory). The prisoner's dillema (and other permutations of the concept) apply in a lot of poker situations, as well as divide and conquer and "let them all fight each other" type concepts. But those are higher level, and more experiance based IMO b/c they're usually based on situations and lots of factors that are hard to quantify.

[yellowjack]

I recall reading Greenstein's recommendation and it seems awful to me. Does anyone know if he (Greenstein) has responded to it?