On Saturday, November 22nd, Harvard’s and Yale’s football teams squared off against each other on Harvard’s campus. The Crimson shut out the Bulldogs 10-0 with Harvard running back Gino Gordon rushing for 177 yards and a score to lead his team to victory. The day before the big game, representatives from the Harvard chapter of the Global Poker Strategic Thinking Society (GPSTS) battled against their Yale counterparts on the poker felts. This time around, Yale won three games to two.
Poker News Daily sat down with Harvard GPSTS member Peter Ostrovski, who was an onlooker in the poker festivities. The Harvard-Yale poker tournament was held for the first time in 2007, with Harvard scoring first blood and claiming victory. Now, the tables have turned. The event is played as a series of five heads-up matches. The winner of each heads-up match is determined by whoever wins the best two out of three games against their opponent. The school who takes down the most heads-up matches wins.
This year, Yale emerged victorious in three out of the five heads-up matches. Ostrovski, a second year student in the Harvard Law School, told Poker News Daily why the decision was made to conduct the tournament in a heads-up format, as opposed to a traditional 10-handed setup: “We were trying to find something that would be the most entertaining to watch and the easiest to follow. Everyone sitting around one table wouldn’t be very exciting for observers. Also, there would be too many opportunities for collusion.”
The Harvard-Yale football game is one of the fiercest rivalries around. It’s on a similar level with Michigan against Ohio State and Alabama against Auburn. Similarly, the poker tournament has developed a highly-competitive atmosphere. Ostrovski explained, “In poker, anyone with a sharp mind can develop the skills necessary to beat an opponent. The game naturally appeals to a competitive setting and our players are used to mentally rigorous challenges.”
Harvard determined its roster of five players by holding a traditional poker tournament where the top two finishers automatically made the team. In addition, the Harvard GPSTS chapter also held a heads-up tournament; the top two on the leader board in that event made the squad that would take on Yale. Harvard’s final spot was determined by the leadership of the GPSTS chapter.
Ostrovski became involved in the GPSTS, which focuses on poker as an educational tool, because of his love of the game of poker. He told Poker News Daily, “I have always been interested in poker. I started playing after I graduated from high school. It’s always a game that I’ve found to be fascinating. I could see the skills that I had picked up from poker and how I have been applying them in the real world.”
The GPSTS stresses utilizing the skills found in poker and then applying them to scenarios in business and other areas. In essence, it serves as a valuable teaching tool and is another organization fighting for the rights of poker players around the world. Unlike other industry organizations, however, it is focused on college campuses in the United States and Canada. Besides Harvard and Yale, other GPSTS chapters can be found at UCLA, Cornell, Dartmouth, North Carolina State, NYU, Michigan, Minnesota, and the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. A bevy of other chapters are in the works as well.
The GPSTS was founded by Charles Nesson, the William F. Weld Professor of Law at the Harvard Law School. He joined the Law School’s faculty in 1966 and was tenured in 1969. His studies and courses have in part focused on internet law. Its Executive Director is Andrew Woods. Both Nesson and Wood are graduates of the Harvard Law School.
