1. Study Awk (2)
2. Go for a walk (1)
3. Finish reading, summarising; publish first week of March 2020 #o logs (2.5)
4. Walk up 90 floors of stairs, pushups (0.5)
5. Read, reply to current YH articles; be in #o to talk @ 7pm UTC (2)
6. Publish review of day’s work; agenda for 2020.5.01 (1)
1. Study Awk (2)
2. Go for a walk (1)
3. Read, summarise, publish first week of March 2020 #o logs (3)
4. Review induction notes (1.5)
5.Walk up 90 floors of stairs, pushups (0.5)
6. Publish review of day’s work; agenda for 2020.4.30 (1)
Mr Popescu was so kind as to comment on my poker article – leaving a link to an article of his own (albeit in Romanian). Turns out, he’d actually translated the piece into English; I’d already read it at some point, and had meant to get around to annotating it – so, here we go!
There’s an older Romanian article published here under the title Cum devii un jucator de poker bun, which Pete Dushenski has recently translated on his blog. I am so flattered by his effort that I shall take the time to give my own translation below, for his – and anyone else’s – benefit.
As to authority, which is the thing that should open any article of this kind : I am not the best Romanian poker player, I know tens better than me, and there probably are hundreds. It’s unlikely there are thousands, but I won’t say it’s impossible. I am not a professional player (which is to say I don’t make my living at it), I have played with tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars on the table, I have won tens and hundreds of thousands, I have lost tens and hundreds of thousands. I never played, never lost nor ever won millions, nor do I intend to – I believe a limit’s welcome in all fields.
If there are good Romanian poker players, I haven’t seem ‘em. Those that play in London are known more for their miserable table presence than anything to do with the cards. Universally risk-averse, paint-by-numbers nits. “Bad for the game”; hated by everyone, including (one gets the impression) themselves. MP plays an order of magnitude larger than I; and a ~decade ago at that, so high-stakes for sure.
Of all these better Romanian poker players than me I have no knowledge of any one that keeps a blog (another example of a field which could use it). There do exist various things made deliberately to prepare chumps for the chumpatron, as there exist various blogs on which various cocklets speak about things they do not understand nor will ever understand (thus preparing chumps for the chumpatron unintentionally), As such, my authority to speak on the topic flows from the usual syllogism : if you are willing to accept my authority as sufficient then you can read a Romanian article on the topic at hand, and if you’re not willing to accept my authority as sufficient then you can not read a single article on this topic in Romanian, as there isn’t one.
Unfortunately, the linked articles are in Romanian, and I’ll be damned if I’ll plug a Trilema piece into Google Translate – I guess no rabbit holes this time! Suffice to say, I’ve no problems accepting the author’s authority – even without consideration of the stakes he’s playing.
The situation is not similar in the English language space, for instance, as there exist numerous blogs kept by guys who are better than me. How honest and serious they are it is up to you to decide, I won’t go into the discussion as I’m not interested in foreign language spaces.
As with most things, there’s a TON of shite out there on poker; the vast majority of players that know what they’re talking about, don’t talk about it publicly: you either need to be friends with ‘em, or pay for good info. And anyone who doesn’t play doesn’t know what he’s talking about – without exception.
Defining the terminology, or that thing with which this kind of article should continue.
By poker we mean any of the numerous variants, even if generally people prefer playing either some kind of stud or else Texas Hold’em. It’s in the end irrelevant what exact variant is contemplated, the game’s about the same at the abstraction level we find ourselves.
Public games in the UK/US (and I’m told, Europe) are 99% NLHE, with most of the remainder PLO. Exotic stuff (Razz, Draw, Shortdeck etc.) is played at the very highest stakes, but these games are almost never public. And yea – while they have different structures/rules, they’re fundamentally very similar; it’s all poker.
By player we mean someone who wins or loses within the rules of the game. Poker (like any game of chance) can very well be adapted to working as bait for one fraud or another, but we’re not discussing conmen employing poker in their conmanship, we’re discussing players.
There’s a ton of filth in poker. Players borrow money and don’t pay back, angleshooting is reasonably common, rules’ll be bent further than one’d think possible; but out-an-out cheating (or at least, getting caught) is pretty rare. From what I’ve seen, a lot of people care way more about scooping a pot than sullying their reputation (perversely, the smaller the pot, the less they seem to care).
By good we mean someone who is capable of regularly winning more than they lose, the difference exceeding the average income in his demographic group. So, a junior high kid that makes a hundred lei a month on average playing poker is a good player by our definition, because allowances aren’t really a hundred leis a month just yet, as far as I know. A Sudanese living in Sudan making about a hundred dollars a month on average is a good poker player, by virtue of the fact that Sudanese salaries are something short of a hundred dollars.
It’s hard to get data on this, since everyone bullshits their winrate; but based solely on the rate of ruin, there are LOADS of players – “pros” included – who breakeven or lose – nevermind making more than the median salary! It’s not just the guys at the table you’ve gotta beat: the house rake typically starts at 5% – and I’ve seen it exceed 20%(!)
By this reasoning, to be a good poker player in Romania you have to make about 25`000 lei a year playing poker, and to be the same “internationally” you’d need about a hundred thousand. But each year after year, that’s the big thing, stability. We average all years the year you die and it has to come out above that threshold. The fact that you managed to exceed it a year or two in a row after which you’ve lost your life playing cards does not qualify you as a good player.
By this definition, there are very, very few good poker players. As noted, variance muddies the water: players almost always think they’re a lot better than they are; -EV players routinely go on hot streaks for a month/quarter/year, only to go broke when the law of large numbers kicks in.
There exists the theory (which I do not credit) that playing cards is an addiction, like smoking tobacco. You might imagine how much credence such notions carry with someone who has been smoking a few cigarettes a week for almost two decades now. As far as I’m concerned, heroin and barbiturates are the only addictive substances, unlike alcohol, nicotine, superspecial cunt, hash, Internet, playing cards of any kind and so on and so forth. The test is simple : take a putative addict and separate him utterly and suddenly from his putative adiction. If he dies (like opiate addicts die, no discussion possible) it’s an addictive substance. If he doesn’t die then there’s no addiction involved, the guy in question is simply being a dumb cunt.i
And now, seven hundred introductory words later, looky that we’re ready to go into the subject.
Yes! The vast majority of poker players struggle with playing too little; not too much! If you’ve been winning a lot, the temptation is to take it easy; if the opposite… I don’t feel like playing this week! I’d always laugh to myself when people warned me about getting addicted: they oughtta be encouraging me put more hours in at the office!
I. To become a good poker player you need about a decade of your life. That means two college degrees and a half, or a Medicine and a Law degree. It is, in other words, very much work.
This hasn’t been my experience: my friends and I became good players (in the ealier defined sense of making more than the national average salary for one’s demographic) within a few years, at most.
Of course, at the age of all imaginary possibilities also known as “adolescence” it may well seem that on the contrary, playing cards is a simple and effective means of avoiding work. These cocklets will never become good poker players, no matter what happens. Most of them won’t die in their own beds, either, but that’s a different discussion that fails to interest us. In actual reality living off poker is about on par with living off blogging : they who can accomplish such wonders are few and far between, the ability required of them roughly equivalent with what’s required to finish two or three degrees – and as a valedictorian, not barely making the cut in some third rate diploma mill.
No doubt – most who try to make it as a pro, fail. For amateurs, it’s considerably worse: virtually all recreational players lose money.
On the other hand it’s an interesting life, that keeps you young (in spirit, because otherwise it undermines you physically something fierce), you always meet new people, you constantly bask in the feeling of living your life to the fullest, it doesn’t compare with a paper shipwreck in an office somewhere. It’s not like counting your life in years, or decades. The poker player counts his life minute by minute most often, and rarely knows Tuesday from Thursday exactly because he’s focused on narrower intervals.
It’s pretty taxing on the spirit, too! You can tell just by looking at a guy that he’s had a bad day/week/month/year(!) – variance drives many a player crazy. Professional poker is – in a word – GRIND. Day-in, day-out; up, down, up, down… Hopefully the graph looks good at the end of the month. Having said that, one does frequently find oneself reflecting at the table: “this is mad: I get to gamble… for a living!!” I don’t know of anything else like it – the sense of freedom, accomplishment and sheer degenerate fun! And yea – who cares what day it is – I just doubled up!
I feel the need to underscore this : he who has the talents and abilities required to become a good poker player will become a good anything else : engineer, lawyer, medic, banker, what you will. Almost all alternatives are better paid, per unit of effort and per unit of personal worth. If you’re after money, this profession (for it is a profession, even if not necessarily found in the bureaucratic classifications) is not the best choice.
In short : it’s not for everyone, it’s not a way to avoid work (on the contrary, it’s a way to work more), it’s not a way to make more money (on the contrary, it’s a way to make relatively less money).
It’s remarkable how little regard the average joe (read: idiot) has for a poker player. At best you’re seen as merely lucky; most think you’re a degenerate-bordering-on-criminal (though, somehow it’s perfectly respectable to be a coppa/beurocrat/public “servant”). I’m not sure with regard to the salary comparison: I know many poker players who earn more than they would as medics/engineers/lawyers – at least in the UK.
Nevertheless, the hardest way to make an easy living, as they say.
II. To become a good poker player you need a partner. Ideally it’s a beautiful woman that loves the cock, who also loves you loyally and passionately, encourages and supports you, has independent income sufficient to support both of you (so secretaries, sales clerks and other unqualified workers are right out), does not want children, does not want to learn to play cards, is not bothered by not seeing you for days at a stretch and makes killer cocktails. In case you’re holding your head and going “Oh God!” : I can assure you that such women exist. I know three. I would guess the whole world contains maybe a thousand, which means that about a thousand dudes (as a degree of magnitude) have the opportunity to become good poker players from the ideal position, on the button with pocket rockets in the hole.
I’d never really thought about it, but it’s true: loads of successful poker players have doting girlfriends who don’t seem to care that they’re routinely away for days/weeks at a time! And come to think of it, most of ‘em do pull in decent money, too – nurses, corporate jobs, “marketing” – that sorta stuff. That said, there are plenty of guys who kill it solo, too.
Unideally, anything that can keep you going for ten years without fail. For more and more people this means their mother forced into a sort of surrogate, such as for instance this cocklet. This solution doesn’t actually work, for reasons we’ll get into below, but meanwhile the fact that these days it’s socially acceptable and even common for thirty year old kids to still be suckling on the financial tit of their parents leads to more and more people than ever in history trying to become good poker players. This does not mean more people end up good players than before, it simply means it’s easier than ever to live off it, if you’re a good player yourself.
Haha, there are quite a few players that live with mum/grandparents; though it’s more common to live with a bunch of fellow gamblers.
III. In becoming a good poker player intelligence is entirely a secondary matter. I know it seems hard to believe, the cinematographically convenient representations as seen through movies and sitcoms have created this aura of hyperintelligence. It’s a false image, that hyperintelligence is a marotte. After all, if you were to credit the cinematographically convenient representation, email’d be a pretty fucking weird thing, wouldn’t you say ?
It’s true; while there are good players who’re intelligent, many of ‘em are pretty normal. They’re all smart, though – in the sense that a good pimp or gangster is smart: they know the parameters of the game they’re playing – how to extract value, handle risk and maximally exploit every opportunity.
Discipline is by far the most important quality of the good poker player, intelligence being a distant second and at great contest with intuition (which intuition is a mystical something that I have no way to explain but nevertheless saw with mine own eyes, in myself as well as others so I’m not about to contest its existence). This is the reason why a partnership with one’s parents is toxic : the man dependent on his mother does not have the resources of adulthood at his disposal, and thus no way to achieve actual discipline. All they can build are fakes (and uncoincidentally, the link I gave you illustrates the problem perfectly : the hyperintelligent cocklet – for he is hyperintelligent – sucks it exactly for lack of discipline incumbent upon an unhealthy relationship with his mom). Accuracy forces me to introduce here a bizarre exception : the incestuous relationship between the daughter and the step father can work perfectly for the needs of the girl in this direction, I’ve seen this with mine own eyes and as such can’t deny it, no matter how wildly… inappropriate, let’s say, it might seem.
This can’t be stressed enough: discipline is – by far – the greatest determiner of winrate. Not tilting when drawn-out on; making the agonising but correct fold; going home when frazzled but you still wanna play… I remember checking my records early on, and seeing that my winrate had been halved just from continuting to play when knackered. Being card-dead and having to fold the only hand you’ve played in 4 hours when you know you’re beat – it’s a killer!
I too have seen this mystical intuition (mostly in others) – some players just KNOW they’re good in certain spots – it’s like they can read the fish’s mind; supernatural or not, it’s a massively profitable ability.
IV. To become a good poker player you’re stuck spending about four years (ie, the smaller degree) learning by heart the number tables of the job. What’s my odds of full house if there’s five players and someone else has a straight ? But what if it’s a straight to the king and I want queens fulla kings ? What if the straight’s to the queen ? But what’s the odds for a straight flush to the queen of diamonds if I hold aces fulla tens ?ii All numbers, in all situations, by heart. By. Fucking. Heart. All. Absolutely all.
This hasn’t been my experience, or that of anyone I know. There are fairly simple heuristics that get one close-enough to the odds, and can be learnt in an afternoon and ingrained in a week – at least for NLHE.
A relatively smarter method of satisfying this boot camp is playing bridge. It has the advantage of being much cheaper than poker, and comes with an opportunity to socialize with intelligent men and women more or less on their own feet (for I’ve not seen that many waitresses playing bridge). It also has the disadvantage that you learn, aside from the many things useful in poker, a lot of useless crap. It is still the avenue best fitted for the patient, given that perhaps your passion for the table isn’t quite as deep as you judged it to be, and this much more… comfortable game, more tolerant and more loving of mankindiii might actually satisfy you for the rest of your life. It is unadvisable for the agitated and assorted cholerics, given that playing poker rather than bridge gives beginners a valuable opportunity to be scared of their own stupidity, an experience which (coupled if at all possible with some serious beatings with sticks) will serve them immensely for the rest of their life, whether they quit poker or not.
People tend to play microstakes (1c/2c) online if they wanna get volume in but don’t have any money. Granted this doesn’t have any social aspect to it, but I don’t know of any exception to the need for playing poker to get better at it. And yea, poker will quickly highlight the cost of being stupid (not that this seems to have any effect on the stupids)!
V. After you’ve got the small degree (but only after, let’s be quite clear on this point, only after you know the numbers like a prayer) you can move on to the large degree, the real thing. Forget everything and focus on the other players. What’s he telling you about what he thinks his numbers are ? A good poker player can play and win consistently against amateurs without as much as looking at his cards. It’s not a line, it’s a truth : his own cards he can evaluate statistically, the others’ cards he can read straight out of their faces, after which he compares a known something (their cards) with a likely something (his cards) and overall derives a profit. This in the end is the best way to test both your ability and your relationship : take your partner and strip her without looking outside of her eyes. I mean, of course, strip poker, but honestly there’s not necessarily much need for the entire cards distraction.
Because in the end this life can be lived even without being a good poker player.
It’s true, and it’s spectacular: some players are simply incredible at the soft-skills: reading their opponents, knowing how they think – BETTER than the opponent knows himself! – and interestingly, it tends to be the players that aren’t so good at the maths-y/GTO side of things. Having great equilibrium play is certainly impressive, but I’ve always been in awe at this side of the game (maybe coz I’m more of a maths-y player myself).
PS. Out of intellectually bankrupt puritanism, the majority of “developed” states implement fiscal policies based implicitly and sometimes explictly on the theory that professional playing is a social ill that must be destroyed. Apparently men marrying men are fine, but god help you if you play cards. As such they tax winnings (often astronomically) but do not allow deduction of losses – should I win ten thousand today and lose nine thousand tomorrow I’m not ahead by a thousand like logic seems to imply, but behind by four because the state’s trying to steal half of the ten.
This nonsense should be taken apart, but practically it seems improbable, especially given that the same states (completely outside any sort of control) have come to where they charge to their own income account nine tenths of the retail price of cigarettes, for instance. The practical solution is tax avoidance, of course, and it’s applied with gusto and for good cause by absolutely everyone.
Bafflingly, the UK is one of the only countries that doesn’t tax gambling winnings; I remember being shocked at learning the USG nicks half or therabouts of tournament payouts(!!) And yes, the wracket is a wratchet: they ain’t covering half the buy-in! That said, go ask a poker player how he tracks his cash-game tax returns ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
And finally, FUCK the normies – those bloodless, worthless, lifeless lukewarm cucks who want nothing bad to happen – they that despise gamblers – one of the few remaining no-bullshit professions; where one puts his money where his mouth is, grabs his balls DAILY and announces, “FUCK IT: I’M ALLIN”.
Time estimates in parentheses
1. Study TAOCP; review Induction exercises (4)
2. Go for a walk (1)
3. Read, annotate, publish review of http://trilema.com/2015/how-to-be-good-at-poker (3)
4. Publish review of day’s work; agenda for 2020.4.29 (1)
I hear you’re meant to read the fine print before signing, so let’s have a look at what the Young Hands Club is about – in the words of the Professor and current students.
diana_coman: it’s about learning, working efficiently and effectively with others and generally building up what you do so it grows day by day, sustainably, rather than going nowhere in a year or less.
Sounds good! I’m coming to terms with the sustainable part (I’m already well aquainted with going nowhere in a year or less, though that’s a story for another day), having bitten off way more than I could chew. It’s also a somewhat odd realisation that I can’t recall having worked with others – effectively/efficiently or not – in quite a while (not since medschool?). Aside from the Professor, interacting with the other students is super valuable.
My personal project, the Young Hands Club, remains fully focused on providing -indeed on carving even, if need be- the sort of learning space that I can’t see anywhere else around, aimed at figuring things out, not at “being right/comfortable” and focused on changing oneself for the better not on protecting oneself from change.
I suppose it’s only normal to feel uncomfortable when awakening from hibernation – and though coming out of the torpor is haggard, it’s better than staying asleep. I’m currently still in the process of shaking off the cobwebs and warming up.
dorion:I see it more as you’re interested in creating relationships and helping people become more effective in achieving their goals. Pretty much all you’ve demanded so far is they commit to consistently improving themselves
I’d had YH members’ weekly schedules pop up in my RSS feed for a good 6 months before I decided I should finally get off my arse and get involved. Their growth/productivity was a major reason I wanted in, and I’m continuing to see how much more productive others are being.
If you want to figure out what things are, how they work and why the difference between those two aspects even matters, if you want to work with others and to build up on existing infrastructure that can support you to get further than if you keep reinventing the wheel every time or if you are looking for meaningful feedback, clarity, effectiveness and confidence based on actual competence and experience, come in and ask for voice, it’s as simple as that.
Just mind your step, realise that it’s all likely quite different from anything else you’ve met and known so far and take your time -even better: ask your questions- to understand how it all works, as it all goes deeper than you probably realise at a first glance. It’s that depth that can help you too, if you only choose to build on it as the solid foundation that it is and to work together with others instead of isolating yourself on your own and aiming to solve problems that have been solved already. The trouble of course is to know about those solutions – so come to #ossasepia and ask!
I’ve been manalone-ing way too long: people exist, and they’ve done things (it’s true: I’ve seen their blogs!) – one just has to connect.
It’s actually pretty simple: YH is a place where people grow under the authority of a Master. I think that last word was the hang-up: it sounded vaguely LARP-y/BDSM-y; but I think this says more about me – and the culture that incubated me – than anything to do with YH. Why should I have felt so uneasy about the idea of a formally defined relationship between a superior and an inferior? Come to think of it, I don’t know – even know of – anyone who’s been formally mentored!
Now, it’s pretty absurd that a 31 year old man can’t stick to a weekly schedule; be that as it may, I’ll switch to a daily agenda: starting tonight, I’ll have the next day’s itinerary posted before bed, and there’ll be a daily review of work done – this ought to leave less wiggle room for procrastination (or at least force me to have to address it quicker).
It seems obvious I’m currently well-placed in the “Hopefuls” category – the last thing I want to do is waste Diana’s – or anyone else’s – time by committing in word-only. Let’s see how the above change of scheduling goes – one day at a time, as they say.
Commitments:
1. Continue health insurance search: 3h.
2. Keep in touch with past students + remote friends and family: 1h.
3. Continue conversation with prospective JWRD client in Vermont: 2h.
4. Discuss to clarify direction, focus, scope, priorities for JWRD: 2h.
5. JWRD tasks as needed (eg. if documents show up to review): 2h.
6. Blog: priorities suspiciously little changed from last week at trb build system patch, gbw, gscm, router setup, differential backups. But could be anything if it gets the ink flowing. 10h.
7. Continue work on human-sized differential backup tool. 5h.
8. Unexpected tasks: 6h.
9. Chat in #ossasepia, or otherwise engage blogs: 5h.
10. Weekly review: 2h at 16:30 UTC Friday (12:30 local).
11. Next week’s plan: 1h.
Time permitting:
12. Continue TRB/bdb/boost study. It seems I didn’t quite convince myself to put this down and did a bunch more reading already. If I’m doing it anyway, I can make it more active by reporting on questions, interesting finds, or ideas that come up.
> 1. Continue health insurance search: 3h.
2h so far, wherein I learned a bit more about the types of plans that might be available for my situation, and gathered some phone numbers: one for a specific local broker, one for a brokerage firm that seems oriented toward unconventional cases like mine (international or temporary), and one directly for an insurance company believed to offer such plans. I seem to be dragging my feet on actually making contact.
One (unsurprising) development that makes things at least a little clearer is that Panama extended its suspension of flights by another month. Thus I don’t expect to return to residing there any time soon, if at all.
> 2. Continue conversation with prospective JWRD client in Vermont: 3h.
1.35h for prep, call and debrief. This is an investment advisory firm with around 20 members, one of whom is the Vermont connection. We’ve now spoken with the CTO, who seems positive about working with us long term but has a larger board to consult with, and we’ll need to figure out a good smaller starting project.
> 3. Follow up with Robinson to work out his priorities and what more is needed from me, and do that (eg. sales article review, proposal for client): 4h.
I’m seeing 2.2h overall on JWRD chat. We established that the current prospect and Robinson’s sales article are priorities for this week. Currently we’re waiting to hear back from the investment advisory and I don’t know where the article stands. We haven’t moved much on a larger priorities discussion.
> 4. Investigate TRB sync logic, towards the goal of figuring out why it frequently stops getting connectable blocks. (Leaving aside for now how/when it connects to peers, which I was also curious about upon observing very slow recovery after network outage, but that looks like a separate matter.) 4h.
I spent 5.2h getting into a serious reading of the code, in which I repeatedly got worked up about what a damned mess it remains, all these years in. At the same time, my own node has been much steadier getting blocks lately, so it might be time to set this down until there’s a clearer business need and outreach strategy.
> 5. Refine new time tracking tool as needed. 2h.
There’s just been a bit of display format tweaking so far; otherwise it’s been more refining how I categorize things.
> 6. Blog: main priorities are my existing unsung stuff namely trb patches, gbw, gscm. Also there’s the router setup and where I’m heading with the differential backups work. I’ll go for three articles, since that’s the pace that seems manageable lately. 10h.
This is running behind with one article and 4.9h.
> 7. Unexpected tasks: 4h.
1.2h testing / exploring Zoom with dad. (He’ll be training some lower-tech colleagues on it, and I’m seeing it as a good option for JWRD for remote training, with some hardware investment.)
5.7h on JWRD related reading, topics including video conferencing, the new prospect, and strange heathen beliefs about “e-signatures” and related rituals.
0.75h on mod6 comments (the main one caught in spam queue again).
> 8. Chat in #ossasepia, or otherwise engage blogs: 5h.
I’m seeing 5.7h on chat plus YH comments. My output doesn’t seem to reflect efficient use of this time. I think there was some amount of “don’t feel like doing anything else, so I’ll just stand by and see if anything happens.” Maybe I just need more/better breaks otherwise.
> 9. Weekly review: 2h at 17:00 UTC Friday (13:00 local).
2.3h; I got started late again.
> 10. Next week’s plan: 1h.
> 11. Keep in touch with past students + remote friends and family: 1h. (Didn’t end up doing this Sunday so perhaps I’d better make it a part of the work week.)
Planning both of these for Saturday.
> 12. Continue work toward a human-sized differential backup tool.
5.1h on Monday. This has reached the point of a serviceable, even improved replacement for “diff -qr”: catalog two trees and produce a create/modify/change-metadata/delete listing, either by full content hash or metadata only for fast runs on large sets. Or check integrity by comparing to a previously saved catalog. Next up is a piece to apply the discovered changes between local directories at which point it’ll serve for backups.
Total is 36.4h. Takeaways:
T1. Plan more unexpected time.
T2. Maintain momentum on the filesystem sync project. It’s a much smaller problem with more tangible short-term value than fixing bitcoin.
T3. Take more responsibility for moving JWRD forward.
T4. Focus on 6, 10 and 11 for the remainder of the week.
T5. Tackle the insurance problem one bite at a time: do at least something to move it forward every day.
I got into poker at medschool, back in 2011. I can’t recall who got me into it, but I was soon playing small stakes tournaments with flatmates, classmates and other students. I tend to get obsessed with things – when I’m into something, I’m really into it. I’d watch episodes of High Stakes Poker (still a classic show from the Golden Age of Poker – when everyone was terrible, the games were insane, and there was easy money everywhere) on Youtube, read strategy books, and look out for games running on campus.
I first visited a casino in late 2012 – the since-closed Golden Nugget behind Leicester Square. They spread the lowest-stakes game in London, and had the lowest-quality punters to match. Mostly homeless/retired/benefit-stooges; with the odd crazed Russian tax evader. I remember one old guy who’d order food and stash it away outside in the bushes prior to buying in, so that he could still eat if he went broke at the table.
To say that one sees some mad shit at the poker table is an understatement: fights, chips thrown at dealers, joy, despondence – the totality of the human condition! And that human condition – for the most part – is petty, irrational, unhappy. I was shocked at how many scumbags/scammers there are – I naively lent a fellow semi-pro a few hundred quid; didn’t get repaid for over a year – and that was running above expectation!
And yet, the game itself, I loved. I’d never really gambled before; still don’t see the attraction of -EV gaming (though I’ve heard different theories) – and yes, for the VAST majority of players – be they pros or recreational, poker is -EV. I was always amazed at how much money the casual players threw away – week in, week out – while never improving their skill. It felt like pure madness to me; surely they must know they’re losing players? A fellow pro told me that these guys just wanted to gamble – if not poker, they’d lose it on roulette, blackjack, whatever. Even the majority of pro players lost money – I’d estimate the average time-to-busto for a professional poker player at ~6months.
Interestingly, the biggest hits to one’s winrate didn’t tend to come from fuckups at the game itself, but rather, not being able to control the metagame stuff: emotions, tilt, patience, the bullshit of a fish drawing out on you. I remember I used to have mild problems with this stuff right at the start of my career (“how DARE this idiot get lucky against me!”), but I quickly got over it. LOADS of pros (let alone casuals) never do, and spazz-off chunks as a result.My main issue was that I’d do monster sessions – 12,24,48(!)hrs at a time – you’ve gotta be on your A-game at all times, and that’s pretty tricky after playing 2 days straight. I implemented a strict schedule (anathema to a poker player), and my winrate shotup.
Poker is pretty uniquly meritocratic: the better you are, the more money you make (excepting variance); and yet, almost all professional poker players (myself included) are happy getting to a certain level of skill, and staying there. While it’s true that there are diminishing returns to improving, and as long as you’re better than the people you’re playing against, you’ll win – most everyone is happy literally leaving money on the table by not putting in the arduous study work away from the table. I was happy getting to a skill level where I played aroud the £10/£20 level; a couple of my contemporaries got up to stakes ten times that; the vast majority stayed down at £1/£2.
It’s hard to play poker professionally part-time; it tends to envelop everything on and off the table – life gets viewed game-theoretically: what’s the value/expectation/risk/variance of the proposition? Burn out is massive – even if one doesn’t go broke, most pros need frequent breaks. It doesn’t matter how much one plays; how professional one is, the brain just isnt built to withstand variance, and one ends up going a tad loopy after one-too-many nights in a row of 5-figure swings.
There’s also a constant battle to avoid various psychological defence mechanisms – cognitive dissonance, results-oriented thinking and risk-aversion are massive killers of winrate. I particularly struggled against the situations where one has the option to take a slightly lower EV action – along with much less variance, or make slightly more money, and have wildly larger swings. As a properly bankrolled pro, there’s no decision; yet I’d still routinely chicken out!
As cliché as it sounds, poker really is a battle primarily against oneself: the average player is so bad at the game, it doesn’t take much to be develop a winning strategy; and yet, the vast majority can’t manage it.
While I’ve not been tested, I had all the symptoms: dry cough, sternal tightness, anosmia and no sore throat/runny nose; topped off by a dull ache in the noggin.
I’d gone to the supermarkets every day in the weeks leading up to infection to stockpile non-perishable food. Lots of stuff was sold out: no meat, bread, fruits, veg (who panic buys vegetables?!), pasta; toilet paper or tissues. So, I ended up getting this kinda stuff: horrid tinned sardines and tomato-pureed-mackerel, peanut butter and prunes.
Why? I’d seen Taleb tweeting caution, along with various derps on podcasts I listen(ed) to. This, despite having heard the voice of reason. It seems ridiculous in hindsight, to not have weighted the opinions: who cares how many randos derp “A”, if someone you trust says “¬A”?
Again and again, I’m faced with the reality that there’s no meaning outside of a structure of authority; “says who?” is the fundamental question; apart from the WoT, there’s only noise.
In compounding derpery, the day before I got sick, I’d been fasting (for health, lol) all day; then ran up 140 flights of stairs for exercise before bed (the gyms are corona’ed; the following morning, so was I). Now, this was particularly stupid, since I hadn’t slept well all week (likely culprit: a new whey protein supplement upsetting the guts), was feeling rough, and I’ve made myself ill before by overdoing it while fasting. So, I listened to a bunch of randos, but apparently not my own body. To top it all off, it’s very possible I caught the bug while stocking up on all that horrid crap: the supermarkets were rammed with panic shoppers.
On the bright side, it’s really nice how quiet it is outside on account of the lockdown – Croydon is normally rammed with people humans, but is currently pretty much deserted. Extra bonus points in that most of the horrific hambeasts are wearing dental masks (it’s ok to be morbidly obese, so long as one doesn’t catch the flu), so their ugly mugs are at least concealed. The sun’s out; my sense of smell is returning – just as the noise begins to fade away.
Work on what matters, so you matter too.