Gambling sucks, video games suck, and poker really sucks

This is mostly nonsense.

On January 08 2018 18:26 Floofy wrote: Show nested quote + On January 08 2018 07:40 bigredhoss wrote:   On January 08 2018 04:48 Floofy wrote: I personally don't buy the idea that poker players "hurt" other poker players. Of course, there are some players who are degenerate that lose large ammounts of money they can't afford to lose, but obviously, the person responsible for this isn't his opponements. But overall, its a bit always this way is every competitive game or sport. The best MMA fighters "hurt" other ones. You could argue Connor McGregor greatly hurt many fighters's career (like Aldo). You could argue Kasparov is responsible for Karpov not being greatest chess player of his time. Can we blame Boxer for kinda "hurting" Yellow's career in starcraft. Its just the nature of competitive games, being good at a game or sport means other people won't be as good as you. Are we going to blame Connor Mcgregor for the dude who quit his job to become a martial artist and fail horribly? Of course, you could argue all of those things, pro gamers, pro sport players, etc, are "useless" to society and would be better off all researching cancer, but i think humans with talent are allowed to do whatever they really like doing and shouldn't feel bad if that means other less talented people won't be able to do it. I basically think people should do what they want including playing poker, but your analogies are off. It's impossible for a mediocre chess or starcraft player to believe he can become one of the best in the world without being dispelled of that notion very quickly. But there's hundreds of thousands of mediocre or worse poker players who have held the belief that they were the 2nd coming of phil ivey after going on a heater. Some go through a lot of suffering and pointless struggle chasing that idea. Also - while there are surely exceptions - being obsessed with martial arts or chess generally doesn't have the same level of detriment to someone's life that being an obsessed losing poker player does. I think you missed my point. The point of the guy in the video overall is "Spending time at competitive games is a waste of time, do constructive real life stuff instead". Of course, more poker players are "harmed" by playing the game than people playing chess. But i think its unfair to blame this on the better poker players. I left poker a few years ago, and as far as i know, i don't think i suddenly saved the live of people... people losing to money to me are still losing money lol

I watched like 20 seconds of the video, I was only replying to your comments.

8billion people , some gotta do some weird shit like poker. We cant all be elon musk or oprah

yeah this guy is not bright

not everyone is going to cure cancer and not everyone is even able to contribute to the effort

the human condition is not as narrow as he has been led to believe

there is a huge psychological basis for play

I like his jacket.

Had to stop listening when he said "its not hard to play poker, theirs guide books on it"

He may be clueless about how to learn poker, but we shouldn't dismiss him, he still has some valid points.

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"

hmm, if im smart enough to make money at poker im smart enough to make more at something else? could certainly be true, lots of mit graduates get job rejections from goldman sachs tho, and poker has the value of letting you be a free person. Freedom is highly underated, imo!

On January 26 2018 05:56 Stroggoz wrote: hmm, if im smart enough to make money at poker im smart enough to make more at something else? could certainly be true, lots of mit graduates get job rejections from goldman sachs tho, and poker has the value of letting you be a free person. Freedom is highly underated, imo!

This is true, being able to start and stop when you like, no one to answer to not even customers, relying only on your own objective skill (i.e. no "faking-it" or favoritism); is quite an unusual situation in the modern world. Very similar to being a hunter-gatherer.

Anything else you did would be just as highly specialized, but likely involve talking and socializing with some kind of customer, and that means deadlines and obligations to fulfill, and being a trustworthy and stable entity. Certainly a cost to the lifestyle.

Being paid for defeating others in a game of wit and emotoinal control is just amazing.

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.

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.

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.

On January 26 2018 05:22 Silver_nz wrote: Show nested quote + 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

this reminds me of :

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.