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Quitting the full-time poker scene

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Re: Quitting the full-time poker scene

#61

Post by paulddraper »

busyant wrote: post #35
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…

> looking for soft players that I had datamined I knew someone on the other end of this. Back in the early 2000s, the wife of a guy I worked with fancied herself a decent poker player. She lost some non-trivial amount of money in an online game and was worried about telling her husband. So, she tried to win it back and lost even more. I think you know where this is going (if not, see Gambler's ruin). She lost all of…

Tragic.

Re: Quitting the full-time poker scene

#62

Post by paulddraper »

jjxw wrote: post #26
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…

Is this not also true for many sporting or competitive pursuits that are also effectively zero sum? For sports I suppose one could argue there are benefits to exercise and for other competitive games with professionals like chess there are mental benefits from getting good at them. However, neither seem particularly "productive" outside of all the money that is funneled into events for marketing purposes. There is, o…

> Is this not also true for many sporting or competitive pursuits that are also effectively zero sum?

No, absolutely not.

LeBron and Stephen Curry show up to a game, and both walk away hundreds of thousands richer.

---

In the top 1% of basketball games and the top 1% of poker games, they are sponsored and no one loses money.

And in the other 99% of basketball games, no money is involved. (People normally don't play pickup games for money.)

The other 99% of poker games involve players losing money.

Re: Quitting the full-time poker scene

#63

Post by dghughes »

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'm not a poker player but I worked at a small casino. We had training sessions;new dealers, surveillance staff training, security staff training, supervisor training, cage training and I as a slot tech sat in as a filler customer. It was obvious after many hands the only winner is the non-loser as silly as that sounds. The one who sucks the least wins. Even with two players who always did really well if they were the last two it was basically whichever made a mistake is who lost. A bit like chess checkmate you never really stomp on the queen it's obvious to both it's over.

Re: Quitting the full-time poker scene

#64

Post by dessimus »

paulddraper wrote: post #62
jjxw wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this not also true for many sporting or competitive pursuits that are also effectively zero sum? For sports I suppose one could argue there are benefits to exercise and for other competitive games with professionals like chess there are mental benefits from getting good at them. However, neither seem particularly "productive" outside of all the money that is funneled into events for marketing purposes. There is, o…

> Is this not also true for many sporting or competitive pursuits that are also effectively zero sum? No, absolutely not. LeBron and Stephen Curry show up to a game, and both walk away hundreds of thousands richer. --- In the top 1% of basketball games and the top 1% of poker games, they are sponsored and no one loses money. And in the other 99% of basketball games, no money is involved. (People normally don't play p…

>In the top 1% of basketball games and the top 1% of poker games, they are sponsored and no one loses money.

I don't know, I hear lots of sports fans complain about the money earned by athletes that one might think that the owners are only moments from bankruptcy because of those greedy players' salaries!

Re: Quitting the full-time poker scene

#65

Post by jjxw »

paulddraper wrote: post #62
jjxw wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this not also true for many sporting or competitive pursuits that are also effectively zero sum? For sports I suppose one could argue there are benefits to exercise and for other competitive games with professionals like chess there are mental benefits from getting good at them. However, neither seem particularly "productive" outside of all the money that is funneled into events for marketing purposes. There is, o…

> Is this not also true for many sporting or competitive pursuits that are also effectively zero sum? No, absolutely not. LeBron and Stephen Curry show up to a game, and both walk away hundreds of thousands richer. --- In the top 1% of basketball games and the top 1% of poker games, they are sponsored and no one loses money. And in the other 99% of basketball games, no money is involved. (People normally don't play p…

I meant zero sum in the closed loop of the game itself. Only one team can win, the reason why they are paid so much is because they have built an audience and the sponsors/teams are effectively built around advertising revenue and/or sales of merch.

Agreed on the distribution of who wins and who loses, most people don't lose money playing basketball. However, the point I am trying to make is writing off poker as "not productive" simply because it is monetarily zero sum (or negative sum in the case of raked games) is a disservice to the game itself.

Re: Quitting the full-time poker scene

#66

Post by paulddraper »

jjxw wrote: post #65
paulddraper wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is this not also true for many sporting or competitive pursuits that are also effectively zero sum? No, absolutely not. LeBron and Stephen Curry show up to a game, and both walk away hundreds of thousands richer. --- In the top 1% of basketball games and the top 1% of poker games, they are sponsored and no one loses money. And in the other 99% of basketball games, no money is involved. (People normally don't play p…

I meant zero sum in the closed loop of the game itself. Only one team can win, the reason why they are paid so much is because they have built an audience and the sponsors/teams are effectively built around advertising revenue and/or sales of merch. Agreed on the distribution of who wins and who loses, most people don't lose money playing basketball. However, the point I am trying to make is writing off poker as "not…

Do the math however you'd like, but for one reason or other, poker games are the reason for foreclosure more of then than basketball games.

Re: Quitting the full-time poker scene

#67

Post by jjxw »

paulddraper wrote: post #66
jjxw wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I meant zero sum in the closed loop of the game itself. Only one team can win, the reason why they are paid so much is because they have built an audience and the sponsors/teams are effectively built around advertising revenue and/or sales of merch. Agreed on the distribution of who wins and who loses, most people don't lose money playing basketball. However, the point I am trying to make is writing off poker as "not…

Do the math however you'd like, but for one reason or other, poker games are the reason for foreclosure more of then than basketball games.

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.

Re: Quitting the full-time poker scene

#68

Post by upupupandaway »

Yesterday I read a post here on HN about gambling and online casinos and went "pffft, people can't control their actions, isn't there accountability anymore?". Then I remembered that in 2006, while employed at the world's top company in 2006 I got into the poker craze and more than once a week worked from home so that I could multi-screen work e-mails with poker.

It was great that I noticed this before degenerating into a full-time addict. I used to grind at $15 9-player STTs and the variance was downright depressing. I cannot imagine what people playing at higher stakes go through. Just out of curiosity, I looked up many of the hotshot professionals of the day, almost none are still playing today. The games became tough and eventually everyone gets surpassed by the new guy using real-time assistance.

People starting this grind today simply shouldn't do it. Odds are that the game will become zero-sum at planetary scale given everyone and their mother is using GTO solvers now.

Re: Quitting the full-time poker scene

#69

Post by boring_twenties »

jjxw wrote: post #57
ccooffee wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In non-tournament settings, every dollar you win at poker comes out of the pockets of another player at the table. It's truly a zero-sum game, as adding up the gains and losses of players at the table will result in zero. In contrast, tournament games (chess, golf, tennis, WSOP, esports, etc) may have significant entry fees, but at a professional level the total winnings are significantly more than the sum of all ent…

For poker it's actually negative sum at most venues outside of private games due to the fees taken by the organizer (i.e. the rake). But yes, point taken that at least within the closed system of the game poker is zero/negative sum. My comment was more directed at the OP's assertion that poker is not 'productive' because it is zero-sum. I personally don't see how injecting corporate sponsors into otherwise zero sum g…

In order to make money at sports you have to entertain others, i.e. produce entertainment for lots of people. Theoretically, you could win at poker without producing anything, but practically, the most profitable players will be the ones who at least produce entertainment for the people they play with...

Re: Quitting the full-time poker scene

#70

Post by chrisco255 »

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…

Yeah really, all the other games in the casino are far worse than "zero sum".
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