How one guy turned his C&C skills into millions with online poker • Hacker News Board

Re: How one guy turned his C&C skills into millions with online poker

#51

Post by Eliezer » Mon, Mar 28, 2011, 10:03 PM UTC

danenania wrote: post #50

Eliezer wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still skeptical. What happens when you have pokerbots play against each other? Do they have similar variance across 100,000 hands?

Yes. Some of the first statistical analyses of poker I came across when I was learning were based on simulations using bots run by none other than Nate Silver (he used to be a poker pro). His conclusions were in line with what I've been saying, and these simulations were using full and 6-handed tables if I remember correctly. Heads-up has even more variance.

Er, sorry but I don't suppose you've got a link?

Let's say you came out even after 100,000 hands. If I randomly divided those hands into two sets of 50,000 each, would you expect one of those sets to be up by 10% and one of those sets to be down by 10%?

Re: How one guy turned his C&C skills into millions with online poker

#52

Post by nikcub » Mon, Mar 28, 2011, 10:33 PM UTC

danenania wrote: post #31

TY wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't agree more. I worked for an online gambling company for several years in the analytics area. I saw young players rise meteorically, win millions (not exaggerating) and eventually go broke. Almost everyone is human. Once losses start to mount, it's hard to play with according to the program and stay emotionally detached while your world is crumbling with every lost pot. Never underestimate the cheaters. Most onl…

Yeah, I was a pro for about 5 years before I got good enough at programming to do that instead. For the first couple years I was awed by the easy money (it was waaaay easy back then). Before really learning, I stupidly blew about $1200 doing all the stupid gambler things (was in college so that was like... all my money). Then I got serious about learning , put in another $200, and didn't deposit ever again. Worked th…

Interesting story. There seems to be a big overlap between poker and hackers/developers. I considered going pro a few years back but couldn't justify it considering the lifestyle (I spent a month in vegas for the WSOP two years ago, it was insane) and the swings involved. Not worth it and you have better opportunities in startup land.

The poker community is also crowded with degenerate gamblers, guys who pretend to be your friends one minute and then would kill your parents for $100 the next. They are difficult to avoid and their bad habits have a tendency to rub off onto otherwise good people.

I don't mind playing semi-frequently, even on the live circuit, but I would never make it more than a passing interest and hobby.

Re: How one guy turned his C&C skills into millions with online poker

#53

Post by danenania » Tue, Mar 29, 2011, 5:24 AM UTC

Eliezer wrote: post #51

danenania wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Some of the first statistical analyses of poker I came across when I was learning were based on simulations using bots run by none other than Nate Silver (he used to be a poker pro). His conclusions were in line with what I've been saying, and these simulations were using full and 6-handed tables if I remember correctly. Heads-up has even more variance.

Er, sorry but I don't suppose you've got a link? Let's say you came out even after 100,000 hands. If I randomly divided those hands into two sets of 50,000 each, would you expect one of those sets to be up by 10% and one of those sets to be down by 10%?

Wish I did but it's buried deep in the archives of the twoplustwo.com forums. You'd probably stand a better chance of finding it by contacting Nate and seeing if he has a copy of the writeup lying around still than using their godawful search interface.

Not sure I understand your other question. There are no percentages in particular that I would 'expect', but if you ran the sim enough times then yes they'd revert to some mean. I've never done such analysis so I don't know what the results would look like.

Re: How one guy turned his C&C skills into millions with online poker

#54

Post by danenania » Tue, Mar 29, 2011, 5:34 AM UTC

nikcub wrote: post #52

danenania wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I was a pro for about 5 years before I got good enough at programming to do that instead. For the first couple years I was awed by the easy money (it was waaaay easy back then). Before really learning, I stupidly blew about $1200 doing all the stupid gambler things (was in college so that was like... all my money). Then I got serious about learning , put in another $200, and didn't deposit ever again. Worked th…

Interesting story. There seems to be a big overlap between poker and hackers/developers. I considered going pro a few years back but couldn't justify it considering the lifestyle (I spent a month in vegas for the WSOP two years ago, it was insane) and the swings involved. Not worth it and you have better opportunities in startup land. The poker community is also crowded with degenerate gamblers, guys who pretend to b…

Yeah, the culture surrounding poker is quite seedy and materialistic. I much prefer the hacker community.

It also doesn't feel great to think about where the money is coming from. Who knows if that pot you just took off a degenerate gambler is his mortgage or child support for the month. I'm not trying to accuse pros of anything unethical--people are responsible for themselves and he's going to blow that money anyway, so you might as well take it. Just the rules of the game. But still, I feel better about creating value in the world than taking it away from someone else, even if it's fair.

Re: How one guy turned his C&C skills into millions with online poker

#55

Post by Eliezer » Tue, Mar 29, 2011, 7:14 AM UTC

danenania wrote: post #53

Eliezer wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Er, sorry but I don't suppose you've got a link? Let's say you came out even after 100,000 hands. If I randomly divided those hands into two sets of 50,000 each, would you expect one of those sets to be up by 10% and one of those sets to be down by 10%?

Wish I did but it's buried deep in the archives of the twoplustwo.com forums. You'd probably stand a better chance of finding it by contacting Nate and seeing if he has a copy of the writeup lying around still than using their godawful search interface. Not sure I understand your other question. There are no percentages in particular that I would 'expect', but if you ran the sim enough times then yes they'd revert to…

K - thanks for answering!

Re: How one guy turned his C&C skills into millions with online poker

#56

Post by danenania » Wed, Mar 30, 2011, 10:06 AM UTC

Eliezer wrote: post #55

danenania wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wish I did but it's buried deep in the archives of the twoplustwo.com forums. You'd probably stand a better chance of finding it by contacting Nate and seeing if he has a copy of the writeup lying around still than using their godawful search interface. Not sure I understand your other question. There are no percentages in particular that I would 'expect', but if you ran the sim enough times then yes they'd revert to…

K - thanks for answering!

Not sure if you're still following this thread, but another major factor is that only a very small percentage of hands actually have much monetary significance. At a full table in limit Hold 'Em, a strong player will fold ~80-85% of his hands preflop, and of those that go to the flop, only ~40% of those go to a showdown, and only a fairly small percentage of those are medium to large pots.

Luck on these bigger pots has a huge impact on overall win rate, but in a set of 100,000 hands, you may only be involved in 2-3000 of them, and you may only expect to win something like 400 or 500 (very rough estimates). Maybe that helps explain why there's more variance than you might expect in a seemingly large sample.