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Short answer: no

Longer answer: as a novice, calculus is probably the least of your worries. you can get up to par just knowing some algebra-level concepts, and also ratios/odds, and multiplication.

Whenever a site writes an article and then goes to play a tournament, it always annoys me that they never bother writing more clearly about it (I know it's also a brevity and reader attention span thing, but still). Should the author have just called with AQ? Who knows, it all depends on who raised, which position that player raised from, the author's current position, and the stack of each player (there's more but at least what I mentioned).

Position is one of the most important concepts in poker, and it's simple to understand and explain. The fact that this article never uses that word once means it has failed, even as a basic introductory article.

Back to the tournament: the author suddenly remembering effective stack, while also having an M barely >0. This is hilariously awful. It also means that the author losing was probably not unlucky since the author barely had any chips. I just glossed through the MIT site, and if you read page 10 on the tournament lecture from the MIT website, it pretty much spells this out.

Also, there's just some plain painful stuff in there. "(the flop) reveals the straight I've been chasing is no longer a possibility"? You don't really "chase a straight" preflop and AQ is a not a hand that even the biggest noob would refer to in that way preflop. It seems the author just wanted to include something about "chasing", context be damned.
I got the same feeling reading the article, but you have to realize that it's written by a self-proclaimed "total novice." There's obviously going to be some misuse of poker concepts and terminology.
Link to the actual course (as the article doesn't really provide any information, much less answer the question posed in the title): http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/sloan-school-of-management/15-s50...
Someone drops the c-bomb in the title thinking it will appeal to a technical audience (because like math is like calculus right? and like poker is like math right?) then rambles about watching an online course and going to a casino. Not super exciting.
It's just a story about some guy going to a casino. Next to no insight of how calculus can or did help.
tl;dr - It can't turn a novice into a pro
Would love to know if anyone who officially took the class later found success as an online poker pro.
I've never taken the class, but as someone who plays semi-professionally, it sounds like the class would be a great start for someone who has played poker recreationally and is looking to understand some of the basic strategies of tournament poker. It might turn a losing recreational player into a small winner at lower stakes, but it by no means would all of a sudden make them some sort of professional.

It sounds like the course introduces concepts that would otherwise take a while to learn by yourself (M, implied odds, etc); however, understanding those concepts alone won't make you a winning player. Experience and surrounding yourself with other successful players are the two biggest factors. Most online pros have literally played millions of hands and have other poker friends to discuss strategy with. If you don't have those two things it's very difficult to succeed playing poker professionally.

It's important to mention that the reason a lot of us left poker is that the current climate for the games is abysmal. Government legislation and fragmentation of the markets, along with corporations imposing rake structures that make poker less profitable for players.

If anyone can become a pro if they are smart enough and work hard enough is still true, anyone with the same qualities can make even more in the tech sector with way less effort and stress.

Gamblers hate him!
Poker is played against other players, not against the house.
My sincere apologies. Fixed.