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How to make decisions like a poker player

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Re: How to make decisions like a poker player

#71

Post by angarg12 »

totorovirus wrote: post #51

Well you can play millions of poker hands online. Life isn't like that. You have only ~30 years, and you have 30 * 365 = 10950 hands if we count each day as a hand. So what you need to work on is how you define "success" in life. Money is a high variance objective, whereas self-improvement is a low variance objective. I think finding a good balance of variance and tolerance to risk is a key to happiness.

Slight offtopic, but this is why the "if you try hard enough you will succeed" advice sounds like BS to me. Even if the most dedicated entrepreneur can only try so many startups in their lives. If the odds are vanishingly small then success is far from guaranteed.

Rejecting the role of luck in our outcomes is delusional, and people who support it have something to peddle (if only their own personal brand as thought leaders).

Re: How to make decisions like a poker player

#72

Post by CPLX »

mettamage wrote: post #3
ricardobeat wrote: post #2

I'm struggling to see how the advice applies to their own examples. Take Jane, who took a great offer but was hit by a recession: - potential reward of the decision: checks out - probability of getting it: 95% if you already have the offer in hand - resources (time/effort/money) to bet to get the reward: not significant Then there is 'imagining a bet' and 'analysing your past failures'. The first one might lead you t…

I think like a poker player, I skimmed the article. What they seem to fail to mention is that variance is important as well. In poker you need to play at least 10000 hands in order for variance to average down a bit. 10000 hands is still very little. So, if you have a 95% chance of going 10x that's great, but the question is: can you handle a 5% chance of having being potentially ruined for at least a decade? If not,…

> if I offer you a 99% chance to take make one billion dollars (legally) and a 1% chance of being killed, would you take it?

I'd take it in a heartbeat. I've done things that have a 1% chance of death just to have a good story to tell.

Re: How to make decisions like a poker player

#73

Post by ericdykstra »

This article, like Duke's book, has a solid premise, but fails to provide any actionable advice aside from a simple risk/reward framework. When I read the book, I was hoping there would be more information about how to properly handicap various situations, but there just wasn't.

Business and life decisions aren't as simple as calculating pot odds and outs. Anyone who has estimated a complex and unfamiliar programming task knows that the unknown-unknowns are the biggest part of any equation.

Re: How to make decisions like a poker player

#74

Post by ryandrake »

csa wrote: post #48
beginnercounter wrote: post #24

The author sounds like a losing poker player. If my calling frequency is based entirely on pot odds, a good opponent would just start bluffing me out of every pot by increasing their bet size to a point where I can’t profitably call.

> a good opponent would just start bluffing me out of every pot… People try this. > …by increasing their bet size to a point where I can’t profitably call. A good poker player will adjust your expected range based on your sizing and frequency of bets/raises, and they will adjust their calling/raising ranges accordingly. Most poker games, especially big bet games are played against a range/distribution of hands, not a…

Yes. The article makes its analogies with a "simplified" view of poker. I don't think the author's point was to go deep into the game. It's enough to describe the basics like bankroll management, pot odds and expected value, and then show real world examples of it.

I'll also point out that constructing ranges and thinking in terms of ranges/ hand distributions is a relatively new development in poker. I mean, the very good players were subconsciously doing it all along, but it's only been written down and analyzed in the last 10 years or so.

Re: How to make decisions like a poker player

#75

Post by dkjaudyeqooe »

Spooky23 wrote: post #32
mettamage wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you give an example of this?

People who describe themselves as super honest usually are self-deprecating. They tend to under value their knowledge and experience. The reality is, 95% of scenarios don’t require what is asked for, and stating your capabilities in the most generous way is the optimal decision. Just back it up with work.

This is another example I'd use of a bluff: basically saying that you can do a job even though you've never done it before. If you're good and confident in your abilities, it all works out in the end. Everyone wants ridiculous experience but at the end of the day they're just trying to make sure you can do the job.

Re: How to make decisions like a poker player

#76

Post by kqr »

necovek wrote: post #18
ricardobeat wrote: post #2

I'm struggling to see how the advice applies to their own examples. Take Jane, who took a great offer but was hit by a recession: - potential reward of the decision: checks out - probability of getting it: 95% if you already have the offer in hand - resources (time/effort/money) to bet to get the reward: not significant Then there is 'imagining a bet' and 'analysing your past failures'. The first one might lead you t…

I don't think the advice doesn't apply (they still claim Jane made a good decision, even though it led to a bad outcome: their point is that Jane should keep making good decisions, and not worry about bad outcomes because you can't control luck — if you mostly make good decisions, luck won't matter in the long run ), it's just that it's pretty much useless because > "Probability of getting it — you cannot know the ex…

There is no probability to know in the sense you mean -- probability is what we call our personal assessment of the situation, incorporating the (little) knowledge we have.

So sure, there is your probability. Will you make money knowing it? That's the question you're alluding to.

(As a concrete example: there is no "true" probability of rain six days from now. Either it rains or it doesn't. But a skilled meteorologist can give you a probability that would probably make you a little money over the climate average.

Both the climate average and the meteorologist's assessments are correct probabilities. They just reflect different amounts of information.)

Re: How to make decisions like a poker player

#77

Post by dkjaudyeqooe »

alasdair_ wrote: post #66
dkjaudyeqooe wrote: post #9

I've found that frequently bluffing in life pays off. Generally you don't get caught very often and the cost of getting caught generally isn't very high, even if the stakes are. You have to be prepared to take your way out of sticky situations though.

The main problem that I have with lying regularly is that in order to lie effectively, you need to somewhat believe your own lies. Eventually, you really do believe the lies you tell and then your ability to see the world for what it is is diminished. Additionally, when dealing with other people, we tend to fill in the blanks about the things we don’t know about them using information we have picked up from other peo…

Bluffing is indeed lying, but in a fairly innocuous way.

Say you're a physical coward and you're being picked on for a fight by someone. You can puff your chest up, put your shoulders back and put a sneer on your face, possibly scaring the bully off.

Yes you're misrepresenting yourself. You're lying. But how exactly is that corrosive to your character?

Re: How to make decisions like a poker player

#78

Post by ryandrake »

angarg12 wrote: post #71
totorovirus wrote: post #51

Well you can play millions of poker hands online. Life isn't like that. You have only ~30 years, and you have 30 * 365 = 10950 hands if we count each day as a hand. So what you need to work on is how you define "success" in life. Money is a high variance objective, whereas self-improvement is a low variance objective. I think finding a good balance of variance and tolerance to risk is a key to happiness.

Slight offtopic, but this is why the "if you try hard enough you will succeed" advice sounds like BS to me. Even if the most dedicated entrepreneur can only try so many startups in their lives. If the odds are vanishingly small then success is far from guaranteed. Rejecting the role of luck in our outcomes is delusional, and people who support it have something to peddle (if only their own personal brand as thought l…

If you're good, your profit depends on the number of hands you get to play. And that number of hands you get to play is based on your bankroll.

In the non-poker real world, most people maybe get to play one hand in life, and that’s it. One at-bat in a baseball game, to use a different analogy. You dump 20 years of savings into buying that laundromat, and that’s your only shot of making it. If we are really lucky we might get one or two more hands to play but that’s it for the vast majority of us.

The rich get as many hands/at-bats in life that they want to play, so they will eventually win one. They can just serially start business after business until one of them lucks out and succeeds, then do talks for the rest of their lives on how to be good at business.

Money buys you chances to make money.

Re: How to make decisions like a poker player

#79

Post by tokamak-teapot »

dkjaudyeqooe wrote: post #67
elliekelly wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people who tend to “bluff” often also tend to seriously underestimate how often they’re “caught”. Just because no one has called you on your bluff to your face doesn’t mean you haven’t been caught.

So in a requested example below I give "I was renting a flat in SF in 2010 and claimed I had a better offer elsewhere and got 5% off in order to take their flat instead." How do I get caught? If they say no I get up, pause then change my mind. I've never suffered from being caught by a bluff, but I structure them sensibly.

Everyone else who rented a flat negotiated 10% off. Your landlord guessed you were lying so altered subsequent planned rent increases to more than make up the difference - because they don’t like you.

It surprises and slightly delights me to see how often people who try to ‘game’ others, queue jumpers, and others who display selfish behaviour are then given special (negative) treatment from those who notice their behaviour.

Some seem to go around thinking that people are awful, but really people are just awful to _them_. People are generally kind and help each other.

Re: How to make decisions like a poker player

#80

Post by kqr »

DeathArrow wrote: post #45

As an amateur poker player, both at the table and in life, I can say that sometimes the biggest wins are the result of bluffing. It does not matter what hand an opponent has as long as you can convince him you have a better hand. Also, it is handy to recognize the situations when an opponent might bluff, so you can call.

When you put it this way, it sounds like you are referring to plain deception, and not actual game-theoretic bluffing.

Bluffing is about making non-optimal choices for the express purpose of making it more expensive for someone else to make optimal choices. If someone knows you're engaging in bluffing, that's fine, because by bluffing you're still forcing them onto non-optimal lines.

On the other hand, you would prefer people not to know that you're engaging in deception.

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