What Winning $250k at Poker Taught Me About Money • Hacker News Board

Re: What Winning $250k at Poker Taught Me About Money

#71

Post by drjesusphd » Wed, Mar 27, 2019, 10:37 PM UTC

jandrese wrote: post #50

hoorayimhelping wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "You can do everything right and still lose". Super insightful and eye opening when I finally wrapped my head around it. The insightful and valuable corollary / takeaway I get from this is: "But if you make the right move enough, you will win eventually." Determination matters, in poker, in business, in whatever hobby you do. I've noticed this laddering Counterstrike and Overwatch. Individual losses are frustrating…

> "But if you make the right move enough, you will win eventually." Or run out of money trying.

If you have enough knowledge, confidence in said knowledge, and the discipline to consistently apply it, you will know how much money is required to make it a near certainty that won't happen.

Re: What Winning $250k at Poker Taught Me About Money

#72

Post by kaycebasques » Wed, Mar 27, 2019, 10:39 PM UTC

gagagababa wrote: post #22

kaycebasques wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s the opposite of results-oriented in this case? I.e. what should you orient toward, if not results?

To maximize expected value (EV). You can go all in with AA pre-flop and get a bad beat from someone with 27o. While the result is bad (you lost this time), you made a +EV decision because you were ~80% favorite to win so over the long run this move will actually be profitable.

I'm seeing a lot of responses related to EV. Is this an evolutionarily stable strategy? Is there any way for a minority to exploit every one's focus on EV? I understand that, mathematically, this sounds ridiculous. But I'm wondering if, psychologically, there's a way to exploit everyone's EV mindset.

Re: What Winning $250k at Poker Taught Me About Money

#73

Post by freyir » Wed, Mar 27, 2019, 10:40 PM UTC

dawhizkid wrote: post #32

Is there any game that offers so many "life lessons" than Poker?

Is one of those life lessons "stop playing poker"?

Because in my many hours frittered away in card rooms, I never once thought "these people have it all figured out."

Re: What Winning $250k at Poker Taught Me About Money

#74

Post by drjesusphd » Wed, Mar 27, 2019, 10:43 PM UTC

kaycebasques wrote: post #20

Tangokat wrote: post #19

I used to play a lot of poker online back in the day, two lessons stuck with me: Speaking to the variance of the game: "Eventually you will run worse than you ever thought possible" Poker teaches, contrary to most business literature, to not be results oriented. It is the decision not the result that matters. "You can do everything right and still lose".

What’s the opposite of results-oriented in this case? I.e. what should you orient toward, if not results?

Results are often governed by factors you have no control over or knowledge of. If you get unlucky, it may not be because you made a bad decision.

Re: What Winning $250k at Poker Taught Me About Money

#75

Post by drjesusphd » Wed, Mar 27, 2019, 10:47 PM UTC

RyanRies wrote: post #15

cjlars wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Professional gamblers are supposed to pay self employment tax, which is 15.3% (half is deductible), and then all ordinary income taxes. So that's a top federal rate of 37%, plus -- she's presumably a New York City resident -- another 8.82% at the top rate for NY and 3.82% for NYC. That's about 65% gross, then once you factor in the deduction... about a 60% net marginal tax rate. So she's not wrong, but she'd only be…

Dear god... that means that the government will win more from your poker playing than you _ever_ will!

So?

Government policy should incentivize constructive industries.

Re: What Winning $250k at Poker Taught Me About Money

#76

Post by Waterluvian » Wed, Mar 27, 2019, 10:51 PM UTC

kadabra9 wrote: post #11

Tournament poker is just brutal. It's entirely common to go 15, 20 tournaments without cashing. You can play great poker, sometimes over the span of a few days, and suddenly get hit with a cold deck or get unlucky and poof you are eliminated with nothing, along with your chance at a 5 or 6 figure top prize. Then you have to suck it back up and move on to the next one. The variance is just insane, which is why a lot o…

Is a "cold deck" anything but another way of saying unlucky?

Re: What Winning $250k at Poker Taught Me About Money

#77

Post by maxxxxx » Wed, Mar 27, 2019, 10:52 PM UTC

woliveirajr wrote: post #21

Tangokat wrote: post #19

I used to play a lot of poker online back in the day, two lessons stuck with me: Speaking to the variance of the game: "Eventually you will run worse than you ever thought possible" Poker teaches, contrary to most business literature, to not be results oriented. It is the decision not the result that matters. "You can do everything right and still lose".

> You can do everything right and still lose This one. I'm not sure how many readers I would have if I tried to explain it in a book, but I'm tired (to the point that I don't read the books, just the covers) about how everything will be ok if you just wish. When you just learn that sometimes people fail even having taking the best possible decision at any point, you get another perspective for your life.

That's one of the big problems with self-help material or other advice. Instead of telling you that you will have the best chances for success they give a guarantee and if you fail they will tell you that you did it wrong.

Re: What Winning $250k at Poker Taught Me About Money

#78

Post by MFLoon » Wed, Mar 27, 2019, 10:59 PM UTC

Waterluvian wrote: post #76

kadabra9 wrote: post #11

Tournament poker is just brutal. It's entirely common to go 15, 20 tournaments without cashing. You can play great poker, sometimes over the span of a few days, and suddenly get hit with a cold deck or get unlucky and poof you are eliminated with nothing, along with your chance at a 5 or 6 figure top prize. Then you have to suck it back up and move on to the next one. The variance is just insane, which is why a lot o…

Is a "cold deck" anything but another way of saying unlucky?

GP was just distinguishing behind two kinds of bad luck - getting "cold decked" is being set up, where you're going to lose a massive pot no matter what because you get a huge hand when someone else has a better one. More garden variety bad luck would be, say, losing your 50/50 coinflip situations repeatedly.

Re: What Winning $250k at Poker Taught Me About Money

#79

Post by solotronics » Wed, Mar 27, 2019, 11:00 PM UTC

I wonder if anyone has tried to play poker online with something like AlphaGo.

Re: What Winning $250k at Poker Taught Me About Money

#80

Post by Harimwakairi » Wed, Mar 27, 2019, 11:04 PM UTC

Waterluvian wrote: post #76

kadabra9 wrote: post #11

Tournament poker is just brutal. It's entirely common to go 15, 20 tournaments without cashing. You can play great poker, sometimes over the span of a few days, and suddenly get hit with a cold deck or get unlucky and poof you are eliminated with nothing, along with your chance at a 5 or 6 figure top prize. Then you have to suck it back up and move on to the next one. The variance is just insane, which is why a lot o…

Is a "cold deck" anything but another way of saying unlucky?

It's technically a type of cheating, but it's used here to mean profoundly bad luck.

A cold deck is one that has been rigged to the advantage of one player, and then swapped in after the cut and shuffle (hence its "coldness"). Typically the deck would be stacked to give the victim a fantastically good hand, but the cheater one that's slightly better. The victim would bet a great deal thinking their hand was good only to lose at the end.

Players now use the term to describe the rare occasions when someone loses with a particularly strong hand in a fair game.