So I’m mowing my lawn on Saturday and is it’s wont to do my brain started wandering off without me.  During its journey it stumbled across an idea that I’m thinking of actually trying to implement.  Here it is in bullet point via the stream-of-conciousness path that my brain took:

• I wonder why I love playing poker in person, but not online.
• I miss playing poker.
• I should put together a poker game.
• Didn’t those Freakonomics guys say they were going to study the behavior of poker players and weren’t they looking for people who would keep track of how their hands were played? (Yep, it’s called Pokernomics).
• I wonder if people with different economic outlooks play poker differently?
• I wonder if liberals play differently from conservatives?
• I wonder if you could have a poker tournament with special rules that would somehow replicate economic or political situations?
• I don’t know crap about economic or political theory…maybe I could recruit someone to help me create rules and then see if peoples’ behavior changed.  I think we’d have to run two games: one a control with normal rules and then a second with the changed rules and then track how people play in each. 
• Is this even feasible?  I mean if someone is a horrible poker player it doesn’t really matter what they’re economic theory is does it?
• Yep, I need to recruit someone to help me with this.
• If we can make it work this would be a great fundraiser.  We could donate at least some of the pot to charity, although this might be an economic exercise in and of itself.  People will play awful loose if their stake is a sunk cost.  Maybe we’ll have to come up with another incentive for winning.
• Wow, the lawn’s done.

After mowing I researched this a little bit and I found a guy who posited the idea of using poker as an analogy in teaching law/economic theory.  I also found a site that has rules for something called Solidarity Poker; in my brief review it looks like it might be an interesting experiment for the liberal (i.e. communist) side of the spectrum, but I’ll have to review further.  I’m thinking this could be a fun thing to do, but I really need to get some help on this.  Maybe Boyd?  Suggestions are welcome.

And if we can’t make it work then screw it, I’ll just put together a good old fashioned game of 7-stud or hold ’em.