Know When to Hold 'Em, Know When to Fold 'Em: MBA Poker Championships This Weekend

If you find yourself in Las Vegas this weekend, stop by Caesars Palace and catch some of the annual MBA Poker Championships, which are held today through Sunday.

While it may surprise readers that there are enough MBA poker enthusiasts to necessitate their own tournament, the MBA-poker connection makes sense. After all, it's a game of numbers and strategy. And anyone incurring gigantic loans in hopes of securing a salary big enough to pay them off has at least a bit of a gambler's spirit.

Speaking of loans, winners can put a (small) dent in them with cash prizes in the thousands. The event also has a charitable angle: Part of the prize pool is donated to the Alzheimer's Association.
The Poker Championships may even provide a valuable networking opportunity. Harrah's vice president of talent acquisition, Brad Warga, told Pokernews.com, "This is an important networking and recruiting event for the MBA candidates and our recruiting team. MBA poker players tend to think quickly on their feet and be quite quantitatively apt -- two attributes highly coveted by businesses."

The event is open to full- and part-time MBA students as well as alumni. If past years are any indication, students from top MBA programs like Harvard, Kellogg, Stanford, University of Chicago's Booth School, Wharton and Duke's Fuqua School of Business will be there doubling down.

Poker chips image courtesy of Flickr user Jam Adams, CC 2.0.