How is noone excited Wobbly won like 50k yesterday - Page 7

I never actually played even close to full-time poker. it's been a non-activity or a part-time hobby, I've been studying full time while working part time or working full time while studying part time for the past 7 years.

but okay, I guess I opened this can of worms so I'll write down some more of my thoughts.

I definitely don't have any problems with poker players. everyone wants what they perceive as best for themselves (not to be confused with everyone is inherently selfish), and we're all living in societies that to greater or smaller degrees cultivates this image that to be happy is to be successful and that to be successful is to be wealthy. 5-6-7 years ago, poker was arguably the best way for reasonably intelligent young people to quickly attain wealth, and the lifestyle it offered (choosing your own working hours) is also easy to combine with other aspects of living life to the fullest (for example travelling). I definitely do not blame anyone for jumping on the opportunity to make easy money. (and man, for anyone saying "but dude poker is so emotionally stressful, it's so fucking hard and challenging", just fuck off. it's the easiest possible way to make money for the mathematically and analytically capable, and for everyone else, it should never be more than a hobby. and don't kid yourselves, the reason why we, a bunch of ex-gamers, many of us whom would qualify for being the underachiever poster boy jumped on this, is because it allowed us to have fun and avoid responsibility for even longer.)

But: online poker is far and away from a noble profession. Virtually every online poker player I've encountered, has been absolutely delighted to find themselves on a table with a tilting whale. The way poker works, is that you have lots of guys who invest amounts of money that to them are insignificant, some guys who completely fuck themselves over (yes yes arguably many of these would've found equally devastating ways to addict themselves to death), some guys who win some money, a few guys who win a lot of money, and semi-criminal companies that are so greedy they can't even pay taxes from their 9 digit incomes from organizing this whole, redistribution of wealth. The sad thing is, that the way poker works, with it being a game of skill requiring a certain degree of intelligence, is that it redistributes wealth in the opposite way of what it should; you have some guys who work regular jobs, keep wheels of society running and whatnot, who donate money to a smarter segment of the population who don't work and who don't have to apply their intelligence into attaining an education that can somehow contribute to the betterment of the world. While I'm sad for those individuals who lost their professions and or money after black friday, I think it's overall positive that the option of poker is no longer attractive for intelligent 18 year olds.

So, while I'm not going to condemn poker players, I definitely don't think it's something deserving of props. And if you won a million from poker, it means you essentially caused others, who probably needed at least 800000 of that million more than you did, to lose money. And while you, the winning player, know that it's a game of skill and that the inferior player has no chance of winning on a long term basis, the losing player lacks this awareness, and thinks he has a fair chance at winning money himself. Traditionally, stuff that allows some people to profit from other people's faulty belief that they themselves might profit, has a name that brings up severly negative connotations; a SCAM.

Now, describing poker players as scammers isn't fair. Most don't consciously think about the societal consequences of their actions, or they live in worse societies than I do, ones where they don't feel that contributing to the status quo is a positive, and like I said, the motivation of poker players isn't any different from my own (wanting an as good life as possible). But there's nothing noble about it. It's not particularly challenging if the genetical lottery had a reasonably positive outcome for you. It's not demanding - it's lazy. And that's all fine and dandy, I guess I've specified it enough times, but I'll do it again; I have nothing against poker players. Until you try to use your success at poker to give yourself the leverage you need to convince yourself and others that you are superior to them, where you start rubbing your success at taking money from less smart people in the faces of others, when you're so arrogant that even fellow poker players part of the same community as you can't stand you. It's like, when someone is really really good at something, but still hated by others who do the same activity, when fanboyism is defeated by disgust, it indicates a serious, serious attitude problem. Normally, being successful at something gives you behavioral leeway (I've experienced this first hand), but there's a limit.

I mean, I know some people who are on the verge of finishing their medical education. For most, the desire to be a doctor stems from a combination of three different desires; wanting status, wanting money, and wanting to have a meaningful profession that helps out people. for some, the desire to be helpful is stronger in relation to the others, for others, the desire for status is the ultimate motivator. those people are now, 6 years after starting their studies, 6 digits in debt. wobbly has played poker during the same period of time, and has achieved the ultimate goal of having a 7 digit bank account. and he wants props? wtf. my doctor friends don't make even nearly as arrogant statements - but they deserve props. I'm happy this thread has turned out like it has, because if someone like wobbly wasn't bashed, it'd be a strong indicator of a sick society, but for those who actually aspire to be like him.. please find a better hero. You even have reasonably noble poker players, who use poker as a method of attaining great wealth which they can use to fund charities - this is also something you can aspire to. but wobbly who just wants it so he can be a rich baller yo?

no respect

congrats wobbly

wobby is now the coolest guy in school that everyone talks about and people love him, hate him, and love to hate him

jesus....so he has an ego, who doesnt? he doesnt come across as any more of a braggart to me than some of the 25nl and 50nl regs who post graphs . only difference is wobbles is doing it at high stakes and now some nosebleeds. and instead of spending lavishly and balling out of control it seems he saves some money, lives an expensive, but reasonable, lifestyle. and everyones online persona is probably a little different than in person.

cheers to ya

On February 04 2012 08:35 Loco wrote: Show nested quote + On February 04 2012 08:18 LemOn[5thF] wrote:   On February 04 2012 07:57 Loco wrote:   On February 04 2012 06:51 LemOn[5thF] wrote: Wobbly made a lot of money while working hard at what he loved. Really I don't get this hate to poker as a profession coming from eri and some other guys. Wobbly fails at what one thing most people that are the best in their field have - humility, be he will learn that one day too. I fail to see why people try to discredit his undisputed success he achieved in his profession, especially on a poker forum. Many people have worked hard at what they loved, and they don't have the desire to put it in other people's face about how great their lives are and how better than others they are in most aspects of life. Those people, I'm quite confident, loved what they did much more than wobbly does. What unconsciously drives us can be quite easy to perceive in certain individuals, and I think it's pretty easy to see in wobbly's case. He is clearly driven by a juvenile will-to-power, which isn't satisfying enough in itself. Dominance over people, by itself, can only be satisfying to a certain degree; the other part is having other people acknowledge your dominance, and envy it. He reacts so strongly to criticism because it's disconfirming to someone who must feed on other people's acknowledgments for his self-worth. As for the 'hate' towards poker as a profession, maybe it's because Eri has been there? Maybe it's just been his experience that it's not a very fulfilling life? Certainly he isn't the only one who has moved on to other things, I don't see the big deal. I remember SakiSaki's "life crisis" blog about feeling like he was just "that poker guy" now, and how much he had sacrificed for his success and that he didn't feel like it was worth it. It seemed to have left him hollow. I certainly relate to that feeling, because it was a big part of my life for some time as well. It is as good as you make it to be, there is no boss, no peers etc. Which means there is no external motivation either. I know long term players that are very fulfilled by playing poker, they enjoy the game and their life has changed to the better and they wouldn't swap. You see so many grinders that 'have been there' but they never really worked hard at using poker for living great balanced lives and they eventually burned out. Take Ali 'Somnius' from pokerstrategy, his way of poker is a way of a healthy lifestyle, contact with people and caring about his family (he does all these things because they increase his long term results in poker), there aren't many jobs out there that allow you to do this to the scale you choose He cares about people and his family because it increases his long term results in poker? lolz I know there are many advantages to poker. It has allowed me a lot of freedom. Maybe too much, in fact. The thing is, you just don't know if it ended up being a good thing or a bad thing. It might seem to be good right now, but in reality it might have come at a very hefty price. The idea of 'balance', to me, is absolutely ridiculous. Everyone aspires to it, but no one ever achieves it. To be a good poker player, you need to be obsessive, not balanced. If you are not pushed by an obsession, you are not going to be able to improve enough. And if you have to feed this obsession, it means other aspects of life have to suffer, there's no way around it. That's why I'm saying: you never really know if it ended up being for the better, unless you used it for a while as a means to an end and succeeded, and then moved on.

Yeah it does :O
Try getting your hands at neuropsychology of poker, and the impact of neurotransmitters.

Well and balance being ridiculous, that really depends on how disciplined you are no? It takes some 2-3 hours per day on average for social contact and excercise, healthy food takes almost no extra time. If you have strong discipline you can have 12 hours for poker per day and have a healthy lifestyle at the same time. It's not easy for sure though I know that, but I am anything but a disciplined person

So where's howard

At the end of the year someone should hold an LP Forums Oscars. We can nominate this thread for biggest pile of shit category. Lets go 10 pages!

I have to laugh a bit at this thread, and all the wobbly bashing going on.

LP is FULL of arrogant "I'm a baller, you're not" poker stars who have high opinions of themselves and low opinions of others. Apparently it's ok to be condescending and insulting to players below your ability, but hard to take when you yourself get the same from a player above your ability.

There is far too much of that attitude around this joint, a lot of pots in this thread calling the kettle black. Maybe instead of jumping on the "bash wobbly" bandwagon, one should take some personal reflection and examine the way they themselves act towards others, instead of this preachy nonsense about what a terrible attitude this one player has.

On February 04 2012 01:39 Daut wrote: jesus what a steaming pile of shit this thread is. thats exactly why im leaving it open. have at it you fucking lunatics

QFT haha Daut. That made me laugh pretty hard. Unfortunately I also just lost 20 minutes of my life I'll never get back .

On February 04 2012 08:44 Loco wrote: Show nested quote + On February 04 2012 08:30 LemOn[5thF] wrote:   On February 04 2012 08:12 Loco wrote: Humility is a trait you either have or you don't; it isn't something you cultivate. If wobbly learns anything about it, it will be about how to improve his skill at faking it. If you want to change and work on it, you eventually will. There is hope for Wobbly. It's just naive to think that. "Wanting and working" is not sufficient. We inherit our personalities: our drives, our likes and dislikes - we don't get to make them up. Humility comes out of a person who doesn't think highly of himself. It is first and foremost a relationship towards yourself, rather than how you appear to others. Like I said, he could very well work on the latter, and appear less vain than he is in reality. But he can't not, in reality, work on being less vain, because he cannot see through his vanity, let alone renounce it.

people have mentioned wobbly's insecurities a few times in this thread. insecurity is a sign of someone not thinking highly of himself but wanting to. i do believe wobbly has humility, but its not easy for his outward persona to show it if it has any ties to poker (a place where he doesnt have any insecurities). he definitely wants to be as powerful in all aspects of life as he is in poker, but i think its obvious he realizes hes not and is insecure about certain things.

i think wobbly has a deeper well for humility than I do. im a jack of all trades kind of guy who prides himself at being "good" at everything, but im really not great at anything. and i really dont like to suck at anything. wobbly definitely sucks at some stuff and he knows it, so i think he has humility, just not when it comes to poker. whereas i have some humility from knowing there are going to be others out there that are better than me in every single aspect of life, but not a lot of humility because i think i am better than most people at almost everything. so i do think wobbly has room to be more humble and respectful of others, especially in poker, if he draws from other areas of life instead of drawing from poker first. wont be easy, but i do think hes capable

i also think that a lot of the attacks in this thread are based on older things. wobbly has seemed nicer, more helpful, less arrogant and less of a braggart in the past ~8 months than he used to be. and i cant really blame him for resorting to his old ways in this specific thread. if for ~40 posts before I saw a thread everyone called me a shallow insecure asshole with an ugly girlfriend i cant say i would respond to well to it either.

On February 04 2012 08:18 LemOn[5thF] wrote: Take Ali 'Somnius' from pokerstrategy, his way of poker is a way of a healthy lifestyle, contact with people and caring about his family (he does all these things because they increase his long term results in poker), there aren't many jobs out there that allow you to do this to the scale you choose

On February 04 2012 08:35 Loco wrote: He cares about people and his family because it increases his long term results in poker? lolz

On February 04 2012 10:36 LemOn[5thF] wrote: Yeah it does :O Try getting your hands at neuropsychology of poker, and the impact of neurotransmitters.

lemon i think loco's comment was referring to the way you phrased that guy's "healthy lifestyle" (saying that he cares about people and his family because they increase his long-term results in poker, rather than caring about those things because he's a halfway decent human being).

i don't want to put words in his mouth but at least that was my reaction when i read it.

On February 04 2012 08:44 Loco wrote: Show nested quote + On February 04 2012 08:30 LemOn[5thF] wrote:   On February 04 2012 08:12 Loco wrote: Humility is a trait you either have or you don't; it isn't something you cultivate. If wobbly learns anything about it, it will be about how to improve his skill at faking it. If you want to change and work on it, you eventually will. There is hope for Wobbly. It's just naive to think that. "Wanting and working" is not sufficient. We inherit our personalities: our drives, our likes and dislikes - we don't get to make them up. Humility comes out of a person who doesn't think highly of himself. It is first and foremost a relationship towards yourself, rather than how you appear to others. Like I said, he could very well work on the latter, and appear less vain than he is in reality. But he can't not, in reality, work on being less vain, because he cannot see through his vanity, let alone renounce it.

Most of what you say is awesome, I have no life, therfor I read a lot, this right here, it goes against 80% of what I've read on similar topics.

We do not inherit personalities, we do not inherit our drives, we do not inhert our likes and dislikes. Have a great sense of certainty that this is flawed.

Okay this is what I think of you LP http://i.imgur.com/zs0to.gif

No more negativity.

Outward humbleness is different from an internal-looking view of humility. It is possible to be a humble narcissist. To be humble is a social behaviour.

Synonyms for Humility: lowliness, meekness, submissiveness.
Synonyms for Humbleness: unpretending, unpretentious.

Then again, both of these words have multiple meanings. Just thought it'd be some food for thought..

On February 04 2012 08:12 Loco wrote: Humility is a trait you either have or you don't; it isn't something you cultivate. If wobbly learns anything about it, it will be about how to improve his skill at faking it.

I disagree with your assessment that people can't and don't change their world-view and/or behaviour as time passes. I have seen it in myself.

Wobbly is the good kind of asshole

Die Howard

I didnt realise there were so many psychologists on this site.

O god. just read some of the posts, everyone is using so many assumptions to judge me.. . Felt obliged to respond coz I am the subject, but i think i'd rather go play some cards.

On February 04 2012 12:53 bigredhoss wrote: Show nested quote + On February 04 2012 08:18 LemOn[5thF] wrote: Take Ali 'Somnius' from pokerstrategy, his way of poker is a way of a healthy lifestyle, contact with people and caring about his family (he does all these things because they increase his long term results in poker), there aren't many jobs out there that allow you to do this to the scale you choose   On February 04 2012 08:35 Loco wrote: He cares about people and his family because it increases his long term results in poker? lolz   On February 04 2012 10:36 LemOn[5thF] wrote: Yeah it does :O Try getting your hands at neuropsychology of poker, and the impact of neurotransmitters. lemon i think loco's comment was referring to the way you phrased that guy's "healthy lifestyle" (saying that he cares about people and his family because they increase his long-term results in poker, rather than caring about those things because he's a halfway decent human being). i don't want to put words in his mouth but at least that was my reaction when i read it.

You got it right, that's what I meant :O

People need positive social contact, neurotransmitters being one reason of many. And if you don't try hard, in poker is SOO easy to become completely isolated and start lacking social life. That makes the probability of burnout and loss of motivation so much higher, and even though in the short run obsession and saving those 4-14 hours every week is +EV, in the long run it's definitely not - spending time with family and having a good social life is definitely +ev in poker in the long run.

And pretty much 100% of poker players have the time, but most don't have the discipline, just look at how many people spend time in bullshit threads like this one and in the Rofl thread

That's why poker is so hard to sustain it as a career, where in a normal job all the social contact and scheduling and motivation is pretty much forced upon you in poker you have to do everything yourself, it takes a lot of self discipline to make poker something that fulfills you and that you can do long term. Too hard for me because I am a super chaotic undisciplined person