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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

#121
After always wanting to play poker in a casino, 2 years ago I did.

I payed 100$ sat down, played a few hands and 20 minutes lateri was done.

I liked the experience and I will not play again in a casino:

- dealer is really quick. It's stress and you can't think - you can see super quick who will lose all at the end of the day and who is here to grab it from the others - they don't like to talk just Don't see the appeal to learn to become so much better so that I might become good. Prefer to just go to work

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

#122
post #121

After always wanting to play poker in a casino, 2 years ago I did. I payed 100$ sat down, played a few hands and 20 minutes lateri was done. I liked the experience and I will not play again in a casino: - dealer is really quick. It's stress and you can't think - you can see super quick who will lose all at the end of the day and who is here to grab it from the others - they don't like to talk just Don't see the appea…

Hmm... I played online poker as a kid, between 16 to 18 for negligleble amounts. When I came into the casino, I was nervous but my math mind took over. I did well enough to get in the money of sit 'n go tables.

I got awkward in the beginning, by unintentionally straddle betting and violating all kinds of other table rules that I didn't know. But that irons out quite quickly.

It's a fun experience to feel awkward and realize you're still going to go away with the price.

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

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The variance is also what allows poker to thrive and pro players to have an income though. Since poker is zero sum (really negative because of the casino's take) there has to be a steady supply of losing money playing. That means bad players have to believe they have a shot. If they never or very rarely won against higher skilled players, they'd dry up. Imagine casinos that had cash chess tables or basketball courts.…

This is true for newbie investor after reading a book and investing in Wall-Street. They almost always lose the money and again Wall Street releases a new easy book on investing. I find a huge co-relation between how poker and wall street is aligned.

A book on the relationship between poker and wall street:

https://www.cfapubs.org/doi/full/10.2469/br.v2.n1.2

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

#124

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".

Being best friends with some of the best in the world (+1M earnings) I really want to emphasize this. I've seen my friends be happy after loosing a hand that would have won them an extra 70k in a tournament and really mean it when they say: I'm happy because I played that well, no matter the outcome. It's all about playing a lot. Eventually, statistics pay off.

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

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can do everything right and still lose This one. I'm not sure how many readers I would have if I tried to explain it in a book, but I'm tired (to the point that I don't read the books, just the covers) about how everything will be ok if you just wish. When you just learn that sometimes people fail even having taking the best possible decision at any point, you get another perspective for your life.

"Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts" by Annie Duke [1] is just that book. It emphasises that a bad result does not have to be the result of a bad decision. [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35957157-thinking-in-bet...

Annie Duke has a terrible history of being involved in high-profile scams [0], and a mediocre record of actually playing poker. I haven't read the book, but if there's anything I'd trust her advice on, it's how to always position yourself one or two steps away from the fall guy.

[0] https://www.cardplayer.com/poker-news/22503-why-does-mainstr...

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

#126
post #121

After always wanting to play poker in a casino, 2 years ago I did. I payed 100$ sat down, played a few hands and 20 minutes lateri was done. I liked the experience and I will not play again in a casino: - dealer is really quick. It's stress and you can't think - you can see super quick who will lose all at the end of the day and who is here to grab it from the others - they don't like to talk just Don't see the appea…

Hmm... I played online poker as a kid, between 16 to 18 for negligleble amounts. When I came into the casino, I was nervous but my math mind took over. I did well enough to get in the money of sit 'n go tables. I got awkward in the beginning, by unintentionally straddle betting and violating all kinds of other table rules that I didn't know. But that irons out quite quickly. It's a fun experience to feel awkward and…

Sure but when you go away with the price, 9 others don't :)

And every game was like 5$ min to just see the cards. 100/5 20 games later you have to win something.

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

#127
post #8

Interesting article. Interesting that her net take was $10,000 after subtracting expenses from the $200k win. I wouldn't say she won that money, I'd say she earned it. Lottery one wins at and is pure luck. Poker is some luck but mostly skill and persistance. FWIW, she refers to it as earnings and income in the quotes in the article.

You can win something with skill. The better team in wins the game. You also win an auction without luck.

> The better team in wins the game.

In response, I give you this snippet from "The Drunkard's Walk" by Leonard Mlodinow:

> ...if one team is good enough to warrant beating another in 55% of its games, the weaker team will nevertheless win a 7-game series about 4 times out of 10. And if the superior team could beat its opponent, on average, 2 out of 3 times they meet, the inferior team will still win a 7-game series about once every 5 match-ups. There is really no way for a sports league to change this. In the lopsided 2/3-probability case, for example, you’d have to play a series consisting of at minimum the best of 23 games to determine the winner with what is called statistical significance, meaning the weaker team would be crowned champion 5 percent or less of the time. And in the case of one team’s having only a 55-45 edge, the shortest significant “world series” would be the best of 269 games... (p. 70-71)

And that's the case of repeated games which would lower the effect of variance on the outcome. The saying "that's why they play the game" applies. You can get around it by defining the better team as the winner of the game but then "the better team wins the game" is tautological.

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

#128
post #36

Online poker was really interesting before Black Friday. I used to play back then. Nothing crazy, about 60,000 hands of NLHE at low stakes cash games for fun. But the really interesting thing to me was how successful the video learning platform SAAS business was for Poker. These sites started to pop up where high level players would record their sessions and talk through their hands, then you paid per month for acces…

hey man! used to follow the scene too! I remember cardrunners and deucescracked! Tri Ng also had his 99$ book w/c i beleive was scammy. Did you win a lot?

I came out ahead in the end but it wasn't a lot. I deposited $50 on PS initially, then grinded the micro stakes and mostly hovered around NL25 while taking shots at NL50. I still remember how gratifying it was to purchase PokerTracker with some winnings.

It's funny to think back then I was sitting there 4-6 tabling NL10 with a PT HUD thinking I was on the top of the poker world.

How about you?

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

#129

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".

On tip of that you can do everything wrong and still win.

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

#130
post #5

> When it comes to you, nothing is too good to be true. It’s too good to be true for someone else. But you always think, “Oh, I deserve this. This is evidence of how smart I was in making this decision.” Poker forces you to let go of that very, very quickly. That is indeed a very valuable lesson!

Day trading will teach a very similar lesson, in no time flat :)
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