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Quitting the full-time poker scene

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Re: Quitting the full-time poker scene

#111

Post by Rastonbury »

vintermann wrote: post #95
Tarsul wrote: post #21

I find interesting that no one (yet) in OP or in the comments has talked about my main complaint about playing Poker as a living: it's a zero sum game where you basically only take money from other people. It's not productive. For me, that in itself is as depressing as the grind. But it appears most players don't really care about this, maybe because life oftentimes is not fair and thus being productive is not seen a…

Yeah, and I think it's also an indictment of poker as a game. It's exciting? So would most games be, if played for high stakes! It can't be a very fun game in itself, if it needs stakes to be fun. There are so many games out there. If it's really about the satisfaction of getting better, the social aspect, and all those other things, why not pursue it in one of the other games?

Poker is hugely fun in and of itself to most people, the amount of imperfect information, dealing with human nature, mental calculations under pressure. I love playing house games with my friends

That said poker for fun and poker to make a living are almost indistinguishable, to make serious money multi-table grinds for 8 to 10 hours a day and the reasons outlined by OP article

Re: Quitting the full-time poker scene

#112

Post by yccs27 »

robertlagrant wrote: post #103
frutiger wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This also applies to the crypto world, which, like poker, is zero-sum or worse. Can we please avoid derailing this interesting topic by mentioning the inflammatory crypto scene? We all know everything about it, and have all made up our minds about it, and no new information is being said about it. Thank you!

[flagged]

[flagged]

Re: Quitting the full-time poker scene

#113

Post by hugg »

politelemon wrote: post #86
greensoap wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Going “on tilt” is when you make emotional decisions because you are chasing the wins or running from the losses.

Thanks! Makes sense. Looks specific to poker but I can see it easily applying to other parts of life too

It's a common term in online video gaming as well

Re: Quitting the full-time poker scene

#114

Post by bluecalm »

coderintherye wrote: post #24
Tarsul wrote: post #21

I find interesting that no one (yet) in OP or in the comments has talked about my main complaint about playing Poker as a living: it's a zero sum game where you basically only take money from other people. It's not productive. For me, that in itself is as depressing as the grind. But it appears most players don't really care about this, maybe because life oftentimes is not fair and thus being productive is not seen a…

The poker player is providing entertainment for others. It's really not much different than working on a company backed by a rich investor where the CEO skillfully plays their cards to maneuver more money out of the rich fish while the other players also try to get what they can out of them.

Entertainment is much better for recreational players without pro players in the game maybe with the exception of occasional tournament celebrity. Pro poker player doesn't provide anything to anyone with the exception of a challenge to other pro players.

Re: Quitting the full-time poker scene

#115

Post by jjxw »

vintermann wrote: post #104
jjxw wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough, if you look down on games of skill which involve chance and wagering money then there's not much I can do to change your mind.

Look down on? I think gambling is harmful. That's quite independent on whether I "look down on" it or not. I do suspect that poker can't be as inherently fun as most other card and board games of chance and skill, because if it was it shouldn't need high stakes to be exciting. But that's just a suspicion. I have a philosophy of life, that I'd like to explain. Picture there's an immigrant. He comes from some far-off c…

The vast majority of people who play poker do not play it for the "high stakes, smoky rooms, and martinis". Speaking for myself, I regularly play for very low stakes with friends in my own place of residence and we enjoy it as both as an intellectual pursuit and something to socialize over.

Obviously your viewpoint is perfectly valid - there are plenty of people who have been irreparably harmed by gambling culture and the way that poker is marketed largely does itself no favors in that regard. My point is that degenerate culture and poker can be separated and there are absolutely healthy ways to enjoy a hobby which, yes, has a luck element to it, but also requires precise study and meticulous decision making to excel at.

From what I've read I think you are conflating the predatory nature of casinos with the game of poker. Those two things are certainly linked, but I would argue that it would be a mistake to write off a game like No Limit Texas Hold'em as irredeemably harmful due to the association.

Re: Quitting the full-time poker scene

#117

Post by Ekaros »

waprin wrote: post #46
Tarsul wrote: post #21

I find interesting that no one (yet) in OP or in the comments has talked about my main complaint about playing Poker as a living: it's a zero sum game where you basically only take money from other people. It's not productive. For me, that in itself is as depressing as the grind. But it appears most players don't really care about this, maybe because life oftentimes is not fair and thus being productive is not seen a…

Poker is one of America's favorite past time and many losing players enjoy the act of going to a cardroom and playing with others. We've often bemonaed the lack of "third places" like churches and the ensuing rise of loneliness, and cardrooms can serve as one of these third places. I find it interesting that professional poker players are frequently criticized for this but I've never seen someone criticize a casino d…

In same way I don't think I have heard fast food employees or employees in food manufacturing criticised for producing the food. Or candy or whatever.

The perception of role might be, but not for the product they are participating in ...

Re: Quitting the full-time poker scene

#118

Post by bashwizard »

97s wrote: post #15

I played back during the glory days of 2000-2004 and through the net-teller shutdown for America. Back then the money was absolutely absurd, because the game was very new online and very few people understood basics. This combined with the massive amount of marketing that was going on for television, tons of people were addicted to the thrill of the game. Every single year the game became more difficult as more peopl…

I used to play professionally during 2003-2007 until all the poker coaching sites started popping up everywhere. The money was indeed crazy and I was making roughly $400k/year at NL1000 back then. Eventually my winrate started dropping along with all the fish leaving the game and the whole boom died out. I did a year coaching but later decided to leave poker for good.

Good times though and kind of surreal for a 20 something year old dude.

Re: Quitting the full-time poker scene

#119

Post by somenameforme »

Tarsul wrote: post #21

I find interesting that no one (yet) in OP or in the comments has talked about my main complaint about playing Poker as a living: it's a zero sum game where you basically only take money from other people. It's not productive. For me, that in itself is as depressing as the grind. But it appears most players don't really care about this, maybe because life oftentimes is not fair and thus being productive is not seen a…

I think this is a rabbit hole that makes you want to pull out of it real fast. For instance consider how many tech jobs right now basically devolve into trying to make people see ads that they don't want to watch. Not only are you not adding value to the world, you're actively making it worse.

Of course people can convince themselves with all sorts of rationalizations, like claiming you're introducing people to things that can make their lives better that they might not have otherwise known about. But that's just a fallacy. Good things, with or without advertising, gradually become known. Online ads are overwhelmingly about shoveling chaff down people's throats.

And poker players have the same sort of rationalizations. You might view oneself as an athlete, or an entertainer, a competitor, or maybe even just an analyst. Many of those descriptors, in my opinion, fall closer to reality than ad delivery rationalizations, but again it's all just rationalizations anyway you look at it.

The number of people working truly valuable jobs that genuinely improve society are few and far between, and they tend to pay terribly. Farmers being a textbook example. There are some good counter-examples like doctors, but even there there's an undesirable trend. Working at a poor public emergency institution is going to drive relatively low income and high stress. Go work as a plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills and you're driving an extremely high income and low stress work. All in all we have a pretty terrible system, but nonetheless it's almost certainly better than all the others.

Re: Quitting the full-time poker scene

#120

Post by somenameforme »

vintermann wrote: post #95
Tarsul wrote: post #21

I find interesting that no one (yet) in OP or in the comments has talked about my main complaint about playing Poker as a living: it's a zero sum game where you basically only take money from other people. It's not productive. For me, that in itself is as depressing as the grind. But it appears most players don't really care about this, maybe because life oftentimes is not fair and thus being productive is not seen a…

Yeah, and I think it's also an indictment of poker as a game. It's exciting? So would most games be, if played for high stakes! It can't be a very fun game in itself, if it needs stakes to be fun. There are so many games out there. If it's really about the satisfaction of getting better, the social aspect, and all those other things, why not pursue it in one of the other games?

It's fun even for imaginary stakes, so long as they're limited. The reason you need stakes is not for the adrenaline, but because the stakes work kind of like 'life' in a video game. If you had infinite life the game would be stupid, because you could just rambo through everything. Same thing in poker. You could just go all-in every hand, because why not?

This is why some people like things like sit-n-go's or tournaments, where you pay a fixed sum once and then get a good amount of play in but where people will still take it very seriously.

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