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What Winning $250k at Poker Taught Me About Money

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Re: What Winning $250k at Poker Taught Me About Money

#41

Post by MR4D »

Great article with many insights that I never would have expected!

This quote in particular gave me an interesting thought:

>> Trust everyone, and people will take advantage of you.

>> Distrust too much? That’s just as bad — you’re going to be the one calling every hand, thinking everyone’s always bluffing you, out to get you.

>> You need to figure out when to distrust and when to trust.

That last line is interesting, especially when compared to mutual funds. I wonder how comparable poker outcomes at a tournament (or many tournaments over time) compare to an active fund manager?

And then that leads me to wonder what a simple ETF comparison would be in poker - someone who always calls?

It would be interesting to see how that "ETF" poker player would compare the the rest of the people in a tournament.

Obviously a top poker player will not fail out early very frequently, so that's one difference, but on average, what does the "average" poker player at a tournament look like number wise?

Re: What Winning $250k at Poker Taught Me About Money

#42

Post by rhcom2 »

IshKebab wrote: post #29
kadabra9 wrote: post #11

Tournament poker is just brutal. It's entirely common to go 15, 20 tournaments without cashing. You can play great poker, sometimes over the span of a few days, and suddenly get hit with a cold deck or get unlucky and poof you are eliminated with nothing, along with your chance at a 5 or 6 figure top prize. Then you have to suck it back up and move on to the next one. The variance is just insane, which is why a lot o…

This is why I don't really like poker. There's just too much variance. Unless you play again and again and again there's not much correlation between skill and the winner. I think it's why people also believe there is "beginners' luck" - there isn't really - the entire game has tons of luck. But when confronted with someone who clearly isn't skilled but wins anyway , poker fans really don't want to face the reality t…

> Another issue with poker - at least Texas Hold'em - is that the best strategy is folding 90% of the time, which is just boring.

That's what I always appreciated about professional poker players. Their patience and their emotional regulation. Both of which made me terrible at the game.

Re: What Winning $250k at Poker Taught Me About Money

#43

Post by [deleted] »

IshKebab wrote: post #29
kadabra9 wrote: post #11

Tournament poker is just brutal. It's entirely common to go 15, 20 tournaments without cashing. You can play great poker, sometimes over the span of a few days, and suddenly get hit with a cold deck or get unlucky and poof you are eliminated with nothing, along with your chance at a 5 or 6 figure top prize. Then you have to suck it back up and move on to the next one. The variance is just insane, which is why a lot o…

This is why I don't really like poker. There's just too much variance. Unless you play again and again and again there's not much correlation between skill and the winner. I think it's why people also believe there is "beginners' luck" - there isn't really - the entire game has tons of luck. But when confronted with someone who clearly isn't skilled but wins anyway , poker fans really don't want to face the reality t…

[deleted]

Re: What Winning $250k at Poker Taught Me About Money

#44

Post by EGreg »

kadabra9 wrote: post #11

Tournament poker is just brutal. It's entirely common to go 15, 20 tournaments without cashing. You can play great poker, sometimes over the span of a few days, and suddenly get hit with a cold deck or get unlucky and poof you are eliminated with nothing, along with your chance at a 5 or 6 figure top prize. Then you have to suck it back up and move on to the next one. The variance is just insane, which is why a lot o…

Black Friday days?

Re: What Winning $250k at Poker Taught Me About Money

#45

Post by conover »

EGreg wrote: post #44
kadabra9 wrote: post #11

Tournament poker is just brutal. It's entirely common to go 15, 20 tournaments without cashing. You can play great poker, sometimes over the span of a few days, and suddenly get hit with a cold deck or get unlucky and poof you are eliminated with nothing, along with your chance at a 5 or 6 figure top prize. Then you have to suck it back up and move on to the next one. The variance is just insane, which is why a lot o…

Black Friday days?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Scheinberg

Re: What Winning $250k at Poker Taught Me About Money

#46

Post by raldi »

comboy wrote: post #28
DigiMortal wrote: post #3

"No one knows what cards you have. All they know is the information that you convey. I think that’s a very valuable thing to remember in any negotiation."

Well, except business is not zero sum. The game is not over when you lay all your cards on the table.

Nor is poker. You'll play with the same people over and over.

Re: What Winning $250k at Poker Taught Me About Money

#47

Post by hoorayimhelping »

Tangokat wrote: post #19

I used to play a lot of poker online back in the day, two lessons stuck with me: Speaking to the variance of the game: "Eventually you will run worse than you ever thought possible" Poker teaches, contrary to most business literature, to not be results oriented. It is the decision not the result that matters. "You can do everything right and still lose".

>"You can do everything right and still lose".

Super insightful and eye opening when I finally wrapped my head around it. The insightful and valuable corollary / takeaway I get from this is:

"But if you make the right move enough, you will win eventually."

Determination matters, in poker, in business, in whatever hobby you do. I've noticed this laddering Counterstrike and Overwatch. Individual losses are frustrating, especially when you feel you made the right moves. But if you keep making the right moves, you will eventually win more than you lose in the long run. You just need to have the determination and drive to stick with it.

Re: What Winning $250k at Poker Taught Me About Money

#48

Post by technofiend »

kadabra9 wrote: post #11

Tournament poker is just brutal. It's entirely common to go 15, 20 tournaments without cashing. You can play great poker, sometimes over the span of a few days, and suddenly get hit with a cold deck or get unlucky and poof you are eliminated with nothing, along with your chance at a 5 or 6 figure top prize. Then you have to suck it back up and move on to the next one. The variance is just insane, which is why a lot o…

>You can play great poker, sometimes over the span of a few days, and suddenly get hit with a cold deck or get unlucky and poof you are eliminated with nothing, along with your chance at a 5 or 6 figure top prize. Then you have to suck it back up and move on to the next one.

I specialized in small, quick tournaments for this reason. Live players still weren't used to the even faster pace of online play but with rapidly escalating blinds it was critical. They were lulled into indecision and procrastination by the low early blinds, not realizing that they escalated quickly to force stacking out of the small players. I could easily make $1k+ a day clearing Binion's tournaments.

I tried playing in a couple of Venetian Deep Stack events and usually busted out. I finally adapted to the slower play, longer rounds, bigger field and frankly better players to leave after two days of play with the same payout from winning one three hour Binion's tournament. The biggest upside being able to say I got my name published in Card Player magazine. LOL. Since for me it was just entertainment and I could reliably pay for my vacation in the smaller tourneys I went back to small ball.

Re: What Winning $250k at Poker Taught Me About Money

#49

Post by jandrese »

IshKebab wrote: post #29
kadabra9 wrote: post #11

Tournament poker is just brutal. It's entirely common to go 15, 20 tournaments without cashing. You can play great poker, sometimes over the span of a few days, and suddenly get hit with a cold deck or get unlucky and poof you are eliminated with nothing, along with your chance at a 5 or 6 figure top prize. Then you have to suck it back up and move on to the next one. The variance is just insane, which is why a lot o…

This is why I don't really like poker. There's just too much variance. Unless you play again and again and again there's not much correlation between skill and the winner. I think it's why people also believe there is "beginners' luck" - there isn't really - the entire game has tons of luck. But when confronted with someone who clearly isn't skilled but wins anyway , poker fans really don't want to face the reality t…

Beginners luck is notable because most of the time unskilled players get bled dry very quickly. When a beginner makes all of the rookie mistakes but still wins out of sheer dumb luck then people take note.

But then as you note the skill cap isn't very high. Once everyone figures out the strategy it goes back to being mostly luck and who has the biggest bank account to ride out the bad times.

Re: What Winning $250k at Poker Taught Me About Money

#50

Post by jandrese »

hoorayimhelping wrote: post #47
Tangokat wrote: post #19

I used to play a lot of poker online back in the day, two lessons stuck with me: Speaking to the variance of the game: "Eventually you will run worse than you ever thought possible" Poker teaches, contrary to most business literature, to not be results oriented. It is the decision not the result that matters. "You can do everything right and still lose".

> "You can do everything right and still lose". Super insightful and eye opening when I finally wrapped my head around it. The insightful and valuable corollary / takeaway I get from this is: "But if you make the right move enough, you will win eventually." Determination matters, in poker, in business, in whatever hobby you do. I've noticed this laddering Counterstrike and Overwatch. Individual losses are frustrating…

> "But if you make the right move enough, you will win eventually."

Or run out of money trying.

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