Penn Sports Plus: Penn Poker Club

Chang won Lee of Penn Poker Club fills us in on how to get your poker face on Penn.

How long has the Penn Poker Club been around? Has the activity been consistent over the years?

Yeah well the Poker Club was co-founded when I was a freshman. It’s been around a while. It has gone through its up and downs. You can think about it as active for the last year or so. We hold strategy sessions to teach new players about statistics and psychology. We hosted a couple of poker tournaments. A lot of trading students play because it simulates a lot of the pressure and the decisions you’ll have to make. It gauges the student’s ability to trade, and we’ve had a lot of success holding tournaments for trading students.

How did you first get involved in poker?

I guess funny story. I started poker around sophomore year in high school, when a couple of friends invited me to play some poker and I think they were trying to get some money off a newbie (laugh) but unfortunately for them I actually won. I’ve been playing for about 5 or 6 years now and I know now that the more you study the game the better decisions you’ll make. It becomes a more profitable and applicable skill and that aspect is really attractive to me. We improve our game in the way an athlete would by sharpening our mental skills. It’s hard for a beginner to tell the schemes and strategies that are used in poker. I’ve read about 8 books that help you make optimal decisions. Optimal is a term used a lot. It teaches you to look and really analyze a situation to make an optimal decision.

What is the club like in terms of experience? Is it comprised mainly of experienced players?

It’s a very mixed group. Some of our members are pretty new to poker and may not know the rules but are interested. So we hold workshops to teach them rules and the basic skills. Others are experienced and are looking to play with other players to improve their game. It’s varied quite a bit and [we] try to tailor to everyone that comes in. Recently we had success with an NSO late-night event and attracted over a hundred freshmen and sophomores. It was play money tournament and people really enjoyed it.

Does the Penn Poker Club encourage extracurricular participation? Like playing in tournaments outside of Penn?

The focus is harnessing and bringing together poker players in the Penn community and [to] provide information and facilitate information on Penn’s campus. Especially upper players because a lot of them are passionate about the game will play in the city. They form a network in the city and play and enjoy the game with each other. We are aiming to teach and inform players about poker and the enjoyment of poker which isn’t just about gambling (laugh).

How can interested members get information about the club and their various tournaments?

We’re pretty decent sized club. It’s not as easy to accommodate the diverse skills of the group. Some members may be looking for other players and others are just looking for tournaments. Our main resources to encourage participation are our website (http://www.pennpokerclub.us/) and we also have a Facebook page that will be more than enough to access information that reaches everyone.