WANT TO TEACH YOUR DAUGHTER ABOUT RISK? Teach her how to play poker…

Uncertainty

Risk isn’t a scientific word, but uncertainty certainly is. Fear, doubt, and anxiety balance on a shaky foundation of uncertainty. When a girl is uncertain and is pushed by friends urging, “Don’t be scared, just do it,” it can lead to consequences that definitely leave a mark.

When my daughter Sara was approaching puberty, I thought all the combat ribbons I’d earned traversing those same mine fields would help me get her through her trials, when a person’s physical changes  begin to outrun the brain’s ability to keep up. 

In our book, Letters in a Helmet, Bob and I talk about risks we’ve both taken in the last fifty years, and the wildly different consequences associated with them. I guess you can say we both recognize the humility that’s been hammered into both of us over the last fifty years.

But in 1987 I didn't understand the challenges girls face. Guys relate more to physical risk. Do I climb this tree? What are the consequences if I fall? Yes, the broken arm was a learning opportunity, but I could have used an easier alternative. Maybe one that would’ve helped me figure the odds a little better.

The Odds

Because that’s all life is, isn’t it? There are no sure things, only the odds. So when I dealt that first hand of 21 to Sara, a teaching moment slid into view with her first up card. It was a six. I had a jack showing. I explained her mission: make 21 without going over.

We weren’t betting that first day; those teaching moments would come later. To show her how to figure the odds of getting the cards she wanted, I smeared all the cards onto the table and we counted how many of the cards would help her, and how many would bust her. 20 good cards out of 48. With my jack showing, her chances were about even. 

I shuffled and dealt her one. A queen. She was so sad.

She got better every time we played. We moved on to stud and draw. But the thing was, poker gave us a way to openly discuss odds. 

And, over time, that opened a door to talking about the odds of ever more realistic things: what are the odds of you being hurt if you’re in the car with that guy who brags about how much he can drink? What are the odds you’ll lose some of your friends if you start hanging out with those kids? Playing the odds would let her win more than she lost, and that was the idea. In poker and in life.

Luck

And luck? In the beginning, she’d bet too much and lose hugely. But that’s a lesson. “Oh, Daddy, you have all the luck!” Big learning opportunity there, too. “Sweetie, Lady Luck doesn’t care about me. She doesn’t care about you, either. In fact,” I looked at her. “Lady Luck doesn’t care about anybody. Having that one piece of complete certainty in your hand is like gold.”

Consequence

I have a friend, Charlie, who, with his wife, Donna, has been climbing big ice for, easily, fifty years. He told me once that when he loses his grip on the mountain, climbing technique calls for him to  yell, “Falling!” to alert his belay pal. 

Me, I’d be screaming something else, but the point here is an acceptance of the consequence of taking risk. 

If the consequence is death, then Charlie and Donna’s massive preparation have reduced their risk to near nil. 

Years of practice on the ice, with a learned skill at assessing the climbing talents of partners and friends can combine to reduce their risk of ice climbing to one of welcome excitement instead of fear.

Poker

And the more Sara played poker, the better was her appreciation of the odds, which translated into other pursuits. Her confidence in figuring the odds became a currency which helped her negotiate a path forward. She could embrace risk, not fear it. 

In the abstract, Sara gambling with chips or gambling with her life was no different. They just had different consequences. She started by learning the rules. She practiced within those certain rules to make herself aware of the “feasible space” she had, so she had better odds of being a winner in that game. 

She also learned how to be honest with herself. When she was starting, winning several hands emboldened her to be less honest with herself and the odds. Repeated losing was a slap of awareness. Her eventual grasp of the odds created a poker whiz.

Reading People

Eventually, the same rules apply to figuring the odds that the guy across the table is over betting his hand because he’s scratching his lip. Reading people is the essence of negotiating peer groups. One must be casual but critically observant. 

Practice, practice, practice. And a lot of, “Tell me what you were thinking when you passed on betting the kings?” The poker table was a friendly place to address life’s questions, especially after I'd created that space for her to do exactly that.

Michelle

My beloved wife was a fabulous poker player. She smiled, always. After we married, we played lots of poker with our friends. She had as much fun beating me with a royal flush (once) as she did bluffing me out of my shorts with a pair of twos (more than I’ll admit). We were intimately honest but, at poker, she was impossible to read.

Once, when she and I were a fresh item, we visited my brother’s house for Thanksgiving. He has always fancied himself a wizard at cards. She and I had not yet played a hand. After dinner, he asked her if she knew how to play poker. She said she wasn’t very good. 

Rubbing his hands together, he smiled and said, “So, can we play a game?” and she said, ”Sure.” Later, after she had all his money, he said, “I thought you didn’t know how to play poker.” 

“I don’t,” she said, with the sweetest smile. “But I know how to bet.”