Professor Nesson will offer the keynote for the UK Festival of Mind Sports this week, taking place at the London Eye.

http://www.squiresmedia.com/page1.php?post=35

Professor Nesson launches the Mindsport Research Network: a project of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University

The Mindsport Research Network aims to build multiple experimental frameworks for understanding human strategic thinking in mind sports. Research will extend not only to understanding the intuitive thinking process of outstanding competitors, but also to the potential educational, emotional, intellectual and economic benefits for students in mind sport cooperation and competition.

READ MORE

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/research/mindsport

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/mindsport/Mindsport_Research_Network:Commun...

From WBUR, "Only A Game"

By Karen Given | Saturday, November 12th, 2011

Early Wednesday morning, Pius Heinz beat out Martin Staszko to win the 2011 World Series of Poker. The event was broadcast nearly live on ESPN2, and the scene looked nothing like the poker scenes in old spaghetti Westerns.

As both players pushed all-in on the final hand, Heinz, a 22 year old German in a pristine white hoodie sipped from a bottle of what looked like tomato juice, while the 35 year old Czech, Stashko, sweated it out with water.

When the cards were revealed and Heinz was declared the winner, he ran into the arms of his parents, while his gallery serenaded him.

“If anything it looks like an incredibly boring place,” said Harvard Law Professor Charles Nesson. “No drinks. No smoke. No bad language. No nothing.”

Professor Nesson has been on the faculty at Harvard Law School since 1966. He teaches evidence and internet, and as strange as it might sound, he is an advocate for the sport of poker.

“I believe it’s time for it to shake loose from the awful reputation it built up through its genesis as a gambling game,” Professor Nesson explained. “It has had an equally distinguished history as an academic pursuit.

Professor Nesson says strategic thinking, taking risks based on limited information, empathizing with an opponent, and even showing strength from a position of weakness are all skills vital for playing poker and practicing law.

Through his poker reading group for first year law students and the Harvard Poker Thinking Society, which he advises, he’s brought the game of poker, and its higher level reasoning skills, to countless Harvard Law Students.

But he’s not done. He’d like to see parents play poker with their kids, and even suggests the game could be taught in elementary school classrooms.

FULL STORY >>http://onlyagame.wbur.org/2011/11/12/harvard-poker

face-off poker competition combined with clinical education in creating and contracting an artifact of intellectual property, not to mention a reason to party

date: october 15-16

place: berkman center, harvard university, cambridge, massachusetts, united states of america

sponsored by: federated sports

May 08, 2011|By Dan Eggen, Washington Post

WASHINGTON — Online poker fans are calling it “Black Friday’’: On April 15, the Justice Department charged the owners of three of the world’s largest Internet gaming companies with bank fraud and gambling offenses, shutting down their websites and freezing bank accounts around the world.

Now, poker advocates in Washington are attempting to turn the bust to their advantage by renewing a push to legalize online poker in the United States.

email sent out asking for support, let's turn poker, obviously a powerful force, to good purpose. charity poker headlines the boston globe. bring it out of boston with the mayor and the town and all around

http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/04/27/online.poker.protest/

http://opedpolitics.com/2011/04/saving-our-poker-face/

21st of February 2010

A new discussion on poker as a skill game

Last year’s attempts to bring the legalisation of poker on to the ballot in Massachusetts may have failed but fans of the game have not given up on lobbying for a more sensible classification of poker as a game of skill.

Tuesday next week will see a hearing in the Economic Development and Emerging Technologies Committee of the east coast state that will feature a discussion of whether poker should legally be considered a game of skill. And supporting the measure is the influential Harvard-based Global Poker Strategic Thinking Society (GPSTS).

More courts are supporting poker as a game of skill.

In Denver, the state's raid of a $20 Texas Hold 'Em tournament — and subsequent defeat for prosecutors during trial — could lead to a rewrite of Colorado's poker laws. According to the Denver Post, a group of five poker fans playing over a pot of $600 were jailed for illegal gambling. But instead of paying a $100 fine, the defendants have decided to take the case to court. In January, a Weld County jury acquitted one of the defendants who was the first to go to trial. The state has appealed.

In Pennsylvania, a judge tossed out charges against two people accused of illegal gambling after determining that "Texas Hold 'Em poker is a game where skill predominates over chance." The state has appealed the ruling.

In South Carolina, a judge ruled last month that poker is a game of skill, which could prevent future prosecutions of poker players. (The ruling, however, didn't help the defendants in that case because they violated other laws by running a gambling house.)

In the meantime, South Carolina Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell, is introducing pro-poker legislation to the state’s legislature in the hopes of slowly beginning to overturn the antiquated 1802 gambling law. According to the He has established two dates for hearings this week for two bills. The first bill looks to legalize home poker games that exclude rake that accrues income for the house, as well as odds or a house bank. The second bill intends to legalize charity events that involve “casino night” types of activities, including raffles, to raise money for charity events. The bills are 535 and 560, respectively, and are awaiting Congressional action.

The question of whether poker is a game of skill or chance, and what that has to do with its legality, is being debated anew in courtrooms in Pennsylvania. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette writes about the controversy in "Legal status of poker: Is it a game of skill or chance?"

Gaining the upper hand
CharLaw translates poker tactics to the courtroom

Published in The Charlotte Weekly by Jonathan Reed

Students crowd around three tables outside the mock courtroom at Charlotte School of Law for a recent Saturday friendly poker game against Elon University. Onlookers can’t tell from the T-shirts and jeans worn by the nearly 30 students and teachers gathered at the school, but poker isn’t the only high-stakes game being taught within these walls.

The gathering was sparked by CharLaw professor John Kunich, an avid poker player (he’s made his way deep into the World Series of Poker twice in the last three years) who came to the affair dressed to the nines. Kunich’s “Stan Laurel” getup is a trademark of his poker circuit matches– he uses the “nutty professor”act as a feint.

In the past year, Kunich has found a way to blend his love of the law with his passion for the gentleman’s game. His inspiration came from one of Kunich’s former professors– Harvard Law School’s Charles Nesson, one of the founders of the Global Poker Strategic Thinking Society.