Poker School Opens in Massachusetts

Alas, aspiring Massachusetts poker champs, this is not Dale Morrow.

The idea of a poker school is far from a new one. Internet video training sites have turned countless players into profitable online poker machines, and serving as a mentor to aspiring rounders is a viable second source of income for poker professional players who battle variance for a living.

But the Fifth Street Foundation poker school in Fall River, Mass., is a different creature for a number of reasons, the most obvious being that it’s a brick-and-mortar classroom with live people rather than a website with a bunch of videos. Then there’s the fact that, unlike the ubiquitous training sites, the Fifth Street Foundation is a non-profit entity. Its mission is to fund scholarships for at-risk kids in the local community. FSF set a goal of raising $20,000 by the end of the year and has already banked $2,000.

The minds behind this venture are Dale Morrow and Gregory Santos, two former corporate trainers turned pro poker players. The two say they wanted to settle down a bit more than the pro poker lifestyle would allow them and the poker school fit the bill. Besides helping to fund scholarships for local kids, the pair also emphasize the fact that poker helps people from all walks of life develop important skills and traits – critical thinking, basic math, patience – that the modern American testing-centered school system has mostly let fall by the wayside.

Whether those benefits will be enough to keep the school in operation remains to be seen. The Fall River City Council has already informed FSF that it can’t grant the poker school a license to operate, instead referring the foundation to the State Lottery Commission in Massachusetts. Morrow and Santos are confident that the Commission will see things their way but they’re not waiting around to get down to the business at hand. Until their request is heard, the doors of the FSF school remain open.