SiliconBeat

Eric Brooks, a Pennsylvania businessman who serves as a director on the board of Decision Education Foundation, won the 2008 World Championship of Poker’s seven-card stud, held last week in Las Vegas. “But he won’t be takinig his $415,856 purse home with him,” says the press release put out today by the Palo Alto non-profit, which says he will be donating the money to it instead. Presumably, the above photo from the DEF Web site shows examples of folks who have benefited from the foundation’s efforts.

Brooks, a co-founder of Susquehanna International Group, has served since 2004 on the board of DEF, whose mission is “to teach young people how to make good decisions.”

The foundation develops classroom-ready materials and works with select schools and youth organizations, training teachers interested in making decision education a part of their curricula.

One thing’s for certain: there is no shortage of bad decision-making examples to make use of in
the real world. Of course, gambling might be one, but we digress.

Brooks seems like a genuinely nice guy who gets kinda choked up in this interview with Amanda Leatherman of PokerNews.com. (Who knew?)