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Reflections on Luck and Skill from the Part Time Poker Grind

thehobbyist.substack.com

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Re: Reflections on Luck and Skill from the Part Time Poker Grind

#41

Post by yuliyp »

woah wrote: post #30

> Once you have identified an activity as being more luck than skill driven, a person’s process for the activity starts to become a much stronger signal for whether or not they are actually any good. This is the central point of the article, and I don't think it's true. If it were as easy as "following a good process", then anyone could get rich investing.

The article demonstrated that skill / correct process is not sufficient for success. However, for making estimates of future results, looking at the process to gain insights into the EV rather than looking at past results can be more fruitful. Just looking at past results often results in falling victim to reversion to the mean.

Re: Reflections on Luck and Skill from the Part Time Poker Grind

#42

Post by jmpman »

I regularly play in Vegas poker no limit hold’em tournaments, and am substantially positive. These are 12+ hour/day, multi day tournaments, and a bad player with luck just isn’t going to last the grind. 90% of the people in these tournaments have no reason being there. The top 10% are solid, and within that group, it does come down to luck.

Re: Reflections on Luck and Skill from the Part Time Poker Grind

#43

Post by annacappa »

MaxfordAndSons wrote: post #34
annacappa wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do and I play duplicate bridge, a game that has taken the luck out of a card game. I just like poker theory - I ran a bot for years - and I just don’t like variance that much and I guess I like the game for the strategy more than who has the most chips at the end, although obviously without the hazard it’s not anywhere as entertaining

Curious what do you mean by "I ran a bot"? Like, you programmed and/or operated a bot that played on real money sites?

I programmed and ran a bot that played on real money sites.

Re: Reflections on Luck and Skill from the Part Time Poker Grind

#44

Post by hiAndrewQuinn »

ryandrake wrote: post #6

His section on volume rings pretty true. I used to play a lot recreationally. And by "a lot" I mean probably on the medium-to-high side of recreational, but not even close to pro. Like attending every major regional event and attending WSOP every year for 10 years. Both cash and tournaments. I've stopped because of how much of a tiring grind poker is, and how much time you have to dedicate in order to make it financi…

Volume is incredibly important for any truly serious endeavor. Bryan Caplan's excellent post Do Ten Times As Much makes the point succinctly. [1]

I've come to believe the real reason people shouldn't pursue these kinds of sports or games professionally unless they're born with a deep thirst for winning them is twofold. First, if you love it from day one, the chances that you're actually better than average are higher than they would be for a randomly selected person in the population (e.g. Nike CEO Phil Knight really was able to run a 4-minute mile in college).

But second, deeply enjoying the game makes the requisite 10 (20, 50, 100) thousand hours you need to become a true pro go much faster than for someone who's just putting in the reps, and it even gives you drive to do related things in the likely case that that doesn't pan out (e.g., Nike CEO Phil Knight did not become an Olympian after college, he instead sold Japanese shoes out of his car for half a decade or so as a side hustle to track and field meets across the country while working a day job).

[1]: https://www.betonit.ai/p/do-ten-times-as-much

Re: Reflections on Luck and Skill from the Part Time Poker Grind

#45

Post by WalterBright »

brigadier132 wrote: post #11
_gmax0 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to elaborate on how the real economy is positive sum and poker is negative sum?

Poker has a rake and the amount of wealth in the system is the money people put on the table (not even factoring in that gambling winnings are taxed). Meaning the total wealth decreases for every hand played in a raked game. Economic transactions and increasing efficiency are positive sum. You can combine pieces of metal into new alloys and machinery which are more valuable than the sum of their parts. This is positi…

A simpler way to put it is poker is a win/lose game, while markets are win/win.

Re: Reflections on Luck and Skill from the Part Time Poker Grind

#46

Post by WalterBright »

eschneider wrote: post #29
interroboink wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I follow... You feel that his skills as an illusionist somehow helped him win on that scratch lottery ticket?

I used to be the absolute BEST at scratch lottery tickets. OTOH, "every ticket a winner" used to be a thing, and I had free access to an MRI machine at the time. Sometimes, you make your own luck...

I thought the people that administer the lottery keep track of the winners, and investigate any statistically anomalous winners.

Re: Reflections on Luck and Skill from the Part Time Poker Grind

#47

Post by nhggfu »

decent post.

i used to play tournaments 12-14 hours a day back in the glory days. most important things for me as a MTT (multi table tournament) grinder were discipline, game selection, bankroll management, good note taking, study, volume.

these days i chuckle at how some people are selling 70% of their MTT action at 1.3 markup - thus freerolling. a nice variance killer if you can get away with it / justify it.

grinding life > grinding poker, imo.

Re: Reflections on Luck and Skill from the Part Time Poker Grind

#48

Post by nhggfu »

bsder wrote: post #24
pbj1968 wrote: post #19

[flagged]

This article is quite nice in pointing out that even if you are good, you still have a 33% chance of losing money long term. I don't think any other article has really mentioned that.

not what the article points out.

Re: Reflections on Luck and Skill from the Part Time Poker Grind

#49

Post by WalterBright »

interroboink wrote: post #21

This is an important topic to me, and I'm glad to see one of the "winners" state plainly how much luck is involved in poker, and by analogy, many other areas of life. I'd love to see articles like this written by someone who did not win, too. It's too bad that people pay less attention to those stories, as he mentioned in the article (c.f. clickbaity title). At least this is a winner admitting the importance of luck,…

> admitting the importance of luck

Poker is a mathematical game with mathematically fixed odds. Real life is different in that there is a considerable amount of room to tilt the odds in one's favor.

For an obvious way to tilt odds in your favor, stay in school and learn what you're being taught.

Re: Reflections on Luck and Skill from the Part Time Poker Grind

#50

Post by MaxfordAndSons »

annacappa wrote: post #43
MaxfordAndSons wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious what do you mean by "I ran a bot"? Like, you programmed and/or operated a bot that played on real money sites?

I programmed and ran a bot that played on real money sites.

Oh, so you cheated people out of their money. That's not cool.
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