deathstar   United States. Jan 27 2018 11:27. Posts 111
Baal, in the game of poker variance and luck causes players to have delusions about their profitability and skill level. Skilled players make a living off the delusions of others. Some players don't even understand return on investment and enter a poker tournament not knowing they have a higher roi buying a state lottery ticket. And that doesn't happen in any other game of
wit.
In a strategy game, like chess, Starcraft, Warcraft things become progressively worse for the worse player until hopelessness occurs. In poker hopelessness never occurs versus a better opponent even though it should.
Last edit: 27/01/2018 13:21
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Spitfiree   Bulgaria. Jan 28 2018 01:27. Posts 9634
okay, so you as a poker professional should be the one bearing the responsibility to enlighten them? that's not how the world works, every individual is responsible for him/herself (obv. excluding specific cases in which I believe society MUST be responsible for people that arent capable of taking care of themselves but thats a whole different topic)
why is it that there are people that LEARN about a subject before engaging in it, while others submit to instant gratification (or at least attempt to do so) - I've never invested a single dollar out of my own pocket in gambling yet I've managed to make a nice profit during the years, I've spent my most valuable resources - my time - to learn, I wont take the responsibility for others just cause they are lazy, don't have the time or whatever their reasoning is to learn
Obviously you don't bear the responsibility of educating them, if you're participating it is because you are morally ok with exploiting them. In fact you rely on them being as ignorant or emotionally unstable as possible, regardless of which circumstances caused it.
People have to be held responsible for their actions but that doesn't mean they have free choice, i.e. that they could have chosen to educate themselves but simply chose not to. Like you said: that's not how the world works.
fuck I should just sell some of my Pokemon cards, if no one stakes that is what I will have to do - lostaccount
Last edit: 28/01/2018 02:31
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Baalim   Mexico. Jan 29 2018 04:52. Posts 34246
On January 27 2018 10:27 deathstar wrote:
Baal, in the game of poker variance and luck causes players to have delusions about their profitability and skill level. Skilled players make a living off the delusions of others. Some players don't even understand return on investment and enter a poker tournament not knowing they have a higher roi buying a state lottery ticket. And that doesn't happen in any other game of
wit.
In a strategy game, like chess, Starcraft, Warcraft things become progressively worse for the worse player until hopelessness occurs. In poker hopelessness never occurs versus a better opponent even though it should.
And thats why you can play poker for a living gambling against other opponents and you cant in other games with lower vairance like Chess or most videgames.
Ex-PokerStars Team Pro Online
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MezmerizePLZ   United States. Jan 29 2018 05:55. Posts 2598
On January 08 2018 08:11 MezmerizePLZ wrote:
List of things to cut out of life so that we can help humanity optimally?
1. Milkshakes, they're really not worth it, even if you're spending money at a restaurant, they're pretty annoying to make and you probably negatively impacted the worker compared to ordering an iced tea, which is more healthy so you can live longer and benefit humanity better.
2. Fashion, in the future once we have all figured out that helping humanity is optimal, there will be no need for it. It's really pretty much just self serving to look cool, even if you're a designer, you should probably start designing things that can actually help people. Maybe like a new sweet hot tub or something.
3. Alcohol, you may think that it's fun, or that its helping you make connections, but really its just damaging ur brain cells which could be used to help humanity.
4. Any type of sports, pretty much just zero sum games, in the future no one will watch sports anyway cuz its -EV compared to helping humanity, so you won't be able to go pro anyway. Potentially good for health so maybe this one shouldn't be on here WHO KNOWS
etc. etc.
I mean I listened to the whole thing and I don't really get his point, obviously poker is not that great of a thing humanity wise, but there is a market for it where playing poker for a living is substantially more +EV for certain people than the alternatives of trying to work up through a 9-5 or risk starting their own business for god knows what. When that happens then people will play poker over their other options. I definitely think there are a lot of people who are just barely surviving in poker that would benefit from switching to something more stable/enjoyable for them. He seems to think its more important to be productive than to be happy, or maybe hes arguing that being productive will make you more happy? idk
Heh, you are still a master of humour-lubed persuasion Mez. Milkshakes and fashion do have value, I saw the point as being a comparison to what you could have done instead of poker-for-5-years. Could have been creating cutting-edge artisan milkshakes for example. Or could have been building a professional career for 5 years, or building a really nice house in the woods, or using your natural talents to entertain as a standup comic, or to lead a game design team to create games more compelling than poker which also improve lives rather than ruin them (as most modern games are just aimed at addicting the player to wring as much money as possible from him: examples - Candy crush, WOW, downloadable content etc, a game that is both compelling and aids people in understanding the world could have big value).
Over the 5 year period, some of these things might have had a higher payoff (in whichever metric you choose to measure value; money, status, health, number of babies produced etc). And your payoff from 5 years at a focused long term goal that is not poker might be significantly higher, like 10x higher AND they would almost certainly continue to pay off over the rest of your life too - e.g. the house you can live in, the career you still get asked to do high paid contracts, the milkshakes are immortalized in the National Food museum
I think it was Phil Galfond who said "if you are smart enough to make money at poker you are smart enough to make much more money doing something else"
We are just talking about opportunity cost, and yes the opportunity cost for getting good at poker is extremely high. Potentially years where you might not even get good or end up enjoying poker at the end. It really is a terrible enterprise to pursue.
Everything has opportunity cost, and its different for different people. If you have a PHD playing poker and making 100k/year might not be the best option, but if you have no skills/education it is hard to say to a guy like that that he should pursue his other option of going back to school or taking a risk and funding a business he has no experience in etc.
It's market based, this guy making 100k/year isn't swayed by the fact that he could be producing value to humanity for a big pay cut.
some of these things might have had a higher payoff in whichever metric you choose to measure value; money, status, health, number of babies produced
fuck I should just sell some of my Pokemon cards, if no one stakes that is what I will have to do - lostaccount
Last edit: 29/01/2018 06:35
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Spitfiree   Bulgaria. Jan 29 2018 11:29. Posts 9634
this reminds me of :
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RiKD   United States. Jan 29 2018 15:59. Posts 8431
On January 27 2018 10:27 deathstar wrote:
Baal, in the game of poker variance and luck causes players to have delusions about their profitability and skill level. Skilled players make a living off the delusions of others. Some players don't even understand return on investment and enter a poker tournament not knowing they have a higher roi buying a state lottery ticket. And that doesn't happen in any other game of
wit.
In a strategy game, like chess, Starcraft, Warcraft things become progressively worse for the worse player until hopelessness occurs. In poker hopelessness never occurs versus a better opponent even though it should.
I played Jungleman headsup before he was known. Things got progressively worse for me until hopelessness occurred. He was certainly beating me for 10+ ptbb/100. I used to play a lot of hands 6max with like deldar, kingofcards, nutsinho and it was pretty clear they were a cut above at the time. Then later in PLO I never played with anyone as solid as Galfond or anyone as hard to read as Dwan. I don't think I was delusional in any case I was more so stupid with bankroll management in the latter case. There is an education to be had playing better players. After going broke playing 25/50 I was the largest winner at 2/4 the month I came back. Was that worth it? No. I lost about $100,000 to win $20,000 and then I had a bad, tilty month at 5/10 where I lost about $10,000 of that and then quit again for good.
I also don't think the hurricaners are necessarily delusional. They all have different reasons for playing. I think most are just very rich and like to gamble. It is not as fun to play solid and disciplined.