“Starcraft Players Should Give Poker a Try”

Elky said that in an interview from 1/14/14. I'll just paste the interview because there are a fair bit of ex-sc/bw/sc2 players here. I didn't know that Boxer is going to play poker and I liked the way Elky praised both Boxer and Nada as well as mentioned Daut and Rekrul. When i read that title i thought i was in 2005 or 06 for a second lol.

original link: http://www.pokerlistings.com/elky-sta...players-should-give-poker-a-try-35457

In December StarCraft legend BoxeR announced he would become a poker pro so we spoke to Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier to find out who has a shot at following in their footsteps. Grospellier transitioned from StarCraft to poker in the mid-2000s and has since earned more than $11 million playing live and online. He's the highest-earning poker player from France and was the fourth player to ever win poker's triple crown. According to ElkY StarCraft players already have what it takes to become good poker players and should look at poker as a way to make money with their gaming skills. ElkY says willpower, performing under pressure and creative thinking are just some of the abilities StarCraft players have already developed that would serve them well at the poker table. And SC skills lend themselves especially well to online poker where quick clicking and decision-making allow you to make more money by playing more tables at the same time. ElkY used the skills he learned in the pro-gaming world to set the Guiness World Record for most single-table sit & goes in one hour. We reached the French poker pro via email to find out who else in the pro-StarCraft world should consider making the switch to poker. PokerListings: Recently the Starcraft player Lim Yo Hwan (BoxeR) signed an endorsement deal with a poker room and said he's going to become a poker pro. Is BoxeR really the best SC player of all time? ElkY: He is in the eyes of many, myself included. He had the longest period of dominance over the whole scene and stayed on top forever. I really have utmost respect for him and all he's achieved. He truly is the biggest legend of the game. Of the other top SC players who do you think would make the best poker players and why? Grrr is my good friend and a very good poker player. Although he stays most of the time under the radar he did final-table APPT Macau with me in 2007. Nada is such a creative genius, I don't see how he could fail at anything he tries. He's probably the second-biggest legend behind boxer! Most of the other top players now started to excel either towards the end of my career or when I quit so it’s hard for me to make a good judgement, but in general they all would be really good if they give themselves the opportunity. What skills do you develop in SC that lend themselves to online or live poker? There are so many skills that SC Pros can use in poker. First, as with every every world-class competitive discipline, the willpower and ability to perform well under pressure as well as resilience and mental strength are a huge pre-requisite. It’s critical in poker as well to be able to keep your calm and focus under pressure, as you need to when you play huge finals in a stadium of 30,000 people or more! Also the fact that both games are of incomplete information due to the fog of war in Starcraft, it makes meta-game very important and a psychological war as well as technical and strategic. Add to that the fact that Starcraft requires insane APM (Action Per Minute) of up to 400 for the best players to perform at top level, as well as crazy hand-eye coordination, and no wonder they can multi-table effortlessly. SC requires a lot of creativity also to be able to come up with new strategies all the time, and the same is true for poker in order to surprise your opponents. Is poker something that all good SC players should consider as a way to make money with their gaming skills? For the top players I think they can easily make the switch. As they both require willpower and discipline at the top level. Poker needs more of it because the variance can be tough to handle, but I suggest SC players give poker a try for sure! Are there other SC players we don't know about that have successfully taken up poker? Ryan Daut used to be an SC player (winner of PCA 2007), as well as my friend Daniel Schreiber (rekrul, WSOP HU bracelet winner in 2007) and a bunch of others.

Yellow should def give poker a try... oh wait...

time to get flamed,

but there is no doubt in my mind that the world would be better without gambling.

i'm not even trying to say that my life has turned out for the worst. in fact poker has taught me MANY things. especially in terms of patience and the ability to re-evaluate things that happen in your life (how much was it actually your fault. sometime's you have no control over the outcome)

i'm not even trying to say that ppl who play poker are bad ppl.

but i am trying to say that most of us, have encountered that desperate degen who is gambling his entire bank account, or mortgage at the poker tables or roulette/bj tables.

i still play poker today. and i'm sure i rationalize by saying things like "these guys are addicted and losing anyway, i might as well be the one who wins their money."

i prob have told this story before, but i met a korean war veteran at the tables. a guy who risked his life (whether he realized what joining the armed services would entail or not) fighting for my home country. i'm probably indebted to him, and my parents are probably indebted to him and if felt so immoral taking 1k stacks away from him.

once again, i continue to rationalize, saying things like the taxes my parents pay to give this pos money, i'm just equalizing things, i'm just taking it back.

but anyway, it's hard for me to believe than any of u actually think poker is a good thing.

but i understand why most of us play, and why i continue to play even now.

On January 23 2014 13:27 Raidern wrote: Elky said that in an interview from 1/14/14. I'll just paste the interview because there are a fair bit of ex-sc/bw/sc2 players here. I didn't know that Boxer is going to play poker and I liked the way Elky praised both Boxer and Nada as well as mentioned Daut and Rekrul. When i read that title i thought i was in 2005 or 06 for a second lol. original link: http://www.pokerlistings.com/elky-sta...players-should-give-poker-a-try-35457 Show nested quote + In December StarCraft legend BoxeR announced he would become a poker pro so we spoke to Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier to find out who has a shot at following in their footsteps. Grospellier transitioned from StarCraft to poker in the mid-2000s and has since earned more than $11 million playing live and online. He's the highest-earning poker player from France and was the fourth player to ever win poker's triple crown. According to ElkY StarCraft players already have what it takes to become good poker players and should look at poker as a way to make money with their gaming skills. ElkY says willpower, performing under pressure and creative thinking are just some of the abilities StarCraft players have already developed that would serve them well at the poker table. And SC skills lend themselves especially well to online poker where quick clicking and decision-making allow you to make more money by playing more tables at the same time. ElkY used the skills he learned in the pro-gaming world to set the Guiness World Record for most single-table sit & goes in one hour. We reached the French poker pro via email to find out who else in the pro-StarCraft world should consider making the switch to poker. PokerListings: Recently the Starcraft player Lim Yo Hwan (BoxeR) signed an endorsement deal with a poker room and said he's going to become a poker pro. Is BoxeR really the best SC player of all time? ElkY: He is in the eyes of many, myself included. He had the longest period of dominance over the whole scene and stayed on top forever. I really have utmost respect for him and all he's achieved. He truly is the biggest legend of the game. Of the other top SC players who do you think would make the best poker players and why? Grrr is my good friend and a very good poker player. Although he stays most of the time under the radar he did final-table APPT Macau with me in 2007. Nada is such a creative genius, I don't see how he could fail at anything he tries. He's probably the second-biggest legend behind boxer! Most of the other top players now started to excel either towards the end of my career or when I quit so it’s hard for me to make a good judgement, but in general they all would be really good if they give themselves the opportunity. What skills do you develop in SC that lend themselves to online or live poker? There are so many skills that SC Pros can use in poker. First, as with every every world-class competitive discipline, the willpower and ability to perform well under pressure as well as resilience and mental strength are a huge pre-requisite. It’s critical in poker as well to be able to keep your calm and focus under pressure, as you need to when you play huge finals in a stadium of 30,000 people or more! Also the fact that both games are of incomplete information due to the fog of war in Starcraft, it makes meta-game very important and a psychological war as well as technical and strategic. Add to that the fact that Starcraft requires insane APM (Action Per Minute) of up to 400 for the best players to perform at top level, as well as crazy hand-eye coordination, and no wonder they can multi-table effortlessly. SC requires a lot of creativity also to be able to come up with new strategies all the time, and the same is true for poker in order to surprise your opponents. Is poker something that all good SC players should consider as a way to make money with their gaming skills? For the top players I think they can easily make the switch. As they both require willpower and discipline at the top level. Poker needs more of it because the variance can be tough to handle, but I suggest SC players give poker a try for sure! Are there other SC players we don't know about that have successfully taken up poker? Ryan Daut used to be an SC player (winner of PCA 2007), as well as my friend Daniel Schreiber (rekrul, WSOP HU bracelet winner in 2007) and a bunch of others.

Fuck those nerds.

Elky forgot to mention the degen tilt monkey that resides within all of us koreans. We must chain the beast before we can continue in the poker life imo

Yeah cause there isn't enough breakeven rakeback masstabling grinder nits yet!

so 2004

On January 23 2014 16:28 ggplz wrote: so 2004

dude... clearly 2007. c'mon

On January 23 2014 15:24 mnj wrote: but i am trying to say that most of us, have encountered that desperate degen who is gambling his entire bank account, or mortgage at the poker tables or roulette/bj tables.

If you've done this, you shouldn't be playing poker. I used to think like you to some point. but honestly you cant control other people's decision. We don't live in an utopia, nobody made the korean veteran go sit on the table. It's a free choice and who are you to judge him that way? Its hypocritical to think that its immoral to take his money, because you're implying you're a good person while you actually imply that he shouldn't be playing poker at all aka. taking away his personal right. Its irrelevant if he's risked his life for you or not - that doesn't put him in a superior position. He was doing a service and he received all the benefits out of it. Its not like it was a charity or something. You're in no way indebted to him. And I dont even want to start on wars creating certain ways of mass social behaviour
What you're doing is masking your own psychological flaws and putting them on the shoulders of others. Not saying this to provoke you or piss you off, saying it so you can think about it. And I'm not implying that you're a bad person - just that you have a really flawed,weak point of view on this.

On another note I do think there should be some sort of restrictions to people in certain situations (financial status, psychological status etc.) that should not be allowed to gamble simply because it would hurt them majorly. However I think we're still far from reaching that point


Hope the chinese legalize poker so PS can invade the market and create a new poker order

On January 23 2014 16:27 LemOn[5thF] wrote: Yeah cause there isn't enough breakeven rakeback masstabling grinder nits yet!

cookie cutter economic theory would predict that exactly enough breakeven rakeback masstabling grinder nits will enter until an equilibrium point where the marginal nit is making no economic profit: his end of year winnings are exactly equal to his opportunity cost, or what he could have gained doing the next best thing with his time so your margins will continue to shrink, and the regs at whatever stakes you play will increasingly be people from regions with low living expenses and people with few other viable professional prospects

if you want to improve this situation for yourself, try to find a soft juicy private game (get in a space with barriers to entry)

On January 25 2014 08:50 Spitfiree wrote: Show nested quote + On January 23 2014 15:24 mnj wrote: but i am trying to say that most of us, have encountered that desperate degen who is gambling his entire bank account, or mortgage at the poker tables or roulette/bj tables. If you've done this, you shouldn't be playing poker. I used to think like you to some point. but honestly you cant control other people's decision. We don't live in an utopia, nobody made the korean veteran go sit on the table. It's a free choice and who are you to judge him that way? Its hypocritical to think that its immoral to take his money, because you're implying you're a good person while you actually imply that he shouldn't be playing poker at all aka. taking away his personal right. Its irrelevant if he's risked his life for you or not - that doesn't put him in a superior position. He was doing a service and he received all the benefits out of it. Its not like it was a charity or something. You're in no way indebted to him. And I dont even want to start on wars creating certain ways of mass social behaviour What you're doing is masking your own psychological flaws and putting them on the shoulders of others. Not saying this to provoke you or piss you off, saying it so you can think about it. And I'm not implying that you're a bad person - just that you have a really flawed,weak point of view on this. On another note I do think there should be some sort of restrictions to people in certain situations (financial status, psychological status etc.) that should not be allowed to gamble simply because it would hurt them majorly. However I think we're still far from reaching that point Hope the chinese legalize poker so PS can invade the market and create a new poker order

i respectfully disagree that your pov is somehow more objective than his, and that for him to not see it your way is a 'psychological flaw'. to me it only looks like you've done a better job at rationalising than he managed to. in reality it's clearly a very grey and subjective issue

There's probably any number of things you have done in your life at the expense and detriment to someone else. The clothes you are wearing were probably stitched by children in a sweat shop being fed only a spoonful of rice per day. The computer you are using was produced with toxic chemicals that someone had to inhale and create breathing problems for 20 years from now. The road you drive on to save yourself 15 minutes on your commute to work probably razed 100 peoples homes.

The thing you have to realize is that most people are survivors. People will heal and go on to something else when they truly have to. This whole idea that we've all played with some degen who's family was being held hostage at gunpoint by masked men who were going to assassinate them all unless he won tonight's session is silly. I've been playing poker for 4 years or so, both live and online, and I have never once had the feeling that I was playing with someone who couldnt be playing. Emphasis on "couldnt", not "shouldnt". "Shouldnt" entails the guy from Domino's pizza who reloaded 5x for a total of $1000 and then did it again next week. "Couldnt" entails this mystery man who's going to literally DIE and lose his home and family if he plays.

I really dont feel these people exist in any scale relevant enough to concern yourself with.

So did lowering the vpp per hand make the nits go away or make the games any better?

On January 25 2014 08:50 Spitfiree wrote: Show nested quote + On January 23 2014 15:24 mnj wrote: but i am trying to say that most of us, have encountered that desperate degen who is gambling his entire bank account, or mortgage at the poker tables or roulette/bj tables. If you've done this, you shouldn't be playing poker. I used to think like you to some point. but honestly you cant control other people's decision. We don't live in an utopia, nobody made the korean veteran go sit on the table. It's a free choice and who are you to judge him that way? Its hypocritical to think that its immoral to take his money, because you're implying you're a good person while you actually imply that he shouldn't be playing poker at all aka. taking away his personal right. Its irrelevant if he's risked his life for you or not - that doesn't put him in a superior position. He was doing a service and he received all the benefits out of it. Its not like it was a charity or something. You're in no way indebted to him. And I dont even want to start on wars creating certain ways of mass social behaviour What you're doing is masking your own psychological flaws and putting them on the shoulders of others. Not saying this to provoke you or piss you off, saying it so you can think about it. And I'm not implying that you're a bad person - just that you have a really flawed,weak point of view on this. On another note I do think there should be some sort of restrictions to people in certain situations (financial status, psychological status etc.) that should not be allowed to gamble simply because it would hurt them majorly. However I think we're still far from reaching that point Hope the chinese legalize poker so PS can invade the market and create a new poker order

I find this free choice argument to be extremely superficial.

It may be a free choice in a parochial sense of the word. But that Korean war vet probably doesn't go home every night and celebrate the free choice he made to gamble away his money. He probably regrets his free choice at the end of every day, and may even want to end this serious of free choices he makes, unless he has the self delusion of someone like Neilly.

Furthermore, the conditions set for so called 'free' choices in this world are mostly set by others. One may see that the cultural and social values imposed on us by modern states have serious affects on the so called free choices we make. A well off family will teach their kids that buying lotto tickets is stupid, and narrow the chances of that free choice happening. Someone that was poor and drafted into the military, and grew up in a south korea probably wont be taught that buying lotto tickets is like throwing money away.

Free choices should be choices that try to be knowledgeable. Basically the more knowledge you have the more rational your free choices can be.

I would argue that privileged citizens of the world are extremely indebted to the rest of the world just based on their ability to help people. Being apathetic seems hypocritical in itself to me since an apathetic person stuck in a desperate situation would want someone else to help them. So they cannot argue that they are ok citizens by doing nothing wrong. For example I don't think it's ok to walk past someone drowning in a swimming pool if you can go in there and just pick them up and take them out, it costs about 5 minutes of your time to save their life. Apathy is in fact an extremely dangerous amorality that is not normal to human beings but imposed on them by states which use distractions and spectacles like TV, gladiators, long work hours or public executions, or bad arguments by academics.

Thumbs up to mnj for being honest with himself and thumbs down to Elky.

Btw i think playing poker is mostly immoral.

I can bet you have never ever read a anything about psychology in your life since you cant even make the difference between apathy and ignorance. Pick up a book or 2 on psychology on masses and decision making then come and make the same post, believing the same things. I really cba explaining why both of you are wrong, because I'd have to write a tldr post, what I'll say tho is if you want to live in a society where everyone is that self-aware you'd live in a society where absolutely nothing gets done and there would be no progress in any way.
Also the example with the pool has exactly 0% similarity to any other previously discussed case.

lol @ feeling bad for taking someones money on a poker table

do you also feel bad when you hook up with a girl? Chances are there was at least a few dudes who wanted her aswell; this guy(s) prolly have worse looks, money and confidence than you do.

On January 26 2014 05:55 Spitfiree wrote: a society where everyone is that self-aware you'd live in a society where absolutely nothing gets done and there would be no progress in any way.

^^ I've been saying this for a while, people who sit and overthink (level themselves) everything tend to be significantly less productive on average then those who just do shit.

On a side note, why is everything turning into a psychology discussion.? Maybe we need to start "the great psychological debate" thread

Only if Floofy start the thread.

Huge nostalgia from some of the names mentioned in that article. The good 'ol days.