Teaching young people(<18) to play poker

[Faluzure]

I'd say as early as possible is best. Children for the most part are free from responsibility and are able to focus great deals of time into things like this. When I look back at all the time I wasted, even up through high school it makes me sad I didn't focus on something like poker sooner. It's much easier when you aren't bound by work, school (even the vast majority of high school work was trivially easy), having to pay rent/mortgage and provide for yourself to do something like learning poker at a high level. You can focus more on the game, and as Timex says, maximizing EV, than on having to make money to make ends meet. Also, I'd think as a result of young age and their mindset, the propensity to tilt would go down as well.

Of course there's the whole educational level too. Lessons in psychology, probability, and general math related concepts of variance, std. dev, etc...one can see in programs like poker tracker.

I would also think the chance of creating a problem gambler would be less at age 10 or so, than around age 16, when people are starting to think what they want to do for a living and where money might start becoming more important.

As long as its done responsibly (like it sounds like you would do), I'd say any age is appropriate. Just need to be forward with the pitfalls, the downswings, etc...when you are telling them that people are making millions playing poker yearly.

[teacher66]

Children at that age do not have the discipline to play poker. For the undisciplined mind, poker is pure gambling. I dont think that children need more "sit-down" activities either. I think that 12-14 depending on maturity is a good age to start.

[Jeffmet3]

realistically, if you take intelligent kids, I don't see why a middle schooler, age 13, wouldn't be able to be beat low level poker. but, the average person is really dumb, so you just have to find kids who are intelligent.

[UnblinkingEye]

My one concern, after considering this, is that I don't believe you could teach a child reads, psychology, etc.

This would be almost impossible because it requires life experience that the child would not have. It takes life skills to be able to look at someone and tell whether they're lying to you or telling the truth. Also, I don't know that a child would pick up on situations involving players going on tilt, tightening up against you, loosening up against you, etc.

So, in other words, I agree with Jeffmet. You could probably teach a kid to beat low limit poker, but, theoretically, even if I had several million dollars worth of bankroll to teach a kid, and allow him to play $1000/$2000 on FTP, I don't think that it would be possible for a kid to be a consistant winner at a level requiring that much psychology.

~Mike

[Teh1337zor]

my brothers 16 and has made like 10k from poker

[orange]

I would wait a bit to teach younger kids on how to play.

It's a very emotionally draining game at times, and unless you find a very mature individual, I'm not sure if they would be able to handle it.