

Everything I Know About Business I Learned From Poker - lionheart
http://blogs.zappos.com/blogs/ceo-and-coo-blog/2008/12/27/everything-i-know-about-business-i-learned-from-poker

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jmtame
Actually, I'm amazed at how certain games correlate with startups and
business.

Has anyone ever played Natural Selection? You basically work with a team of 12
marines vs. 12 aliens. One marine is commander, and he must make sure resource
towers are built and defended from aliens. On top of that, marines must defend
their base and actively be out preventing the aliens from building new hives
(as well as destroying existing hives).

The purpose of the game is to hold the most resource towers. But you also want
to be with a really good team of marines, which means you don't have to
micromanage "Player X, go build the resource tower in Location Y. NOW!" They
naturally go to the locations and ask for you to drop a resource tower.

Aliens get special abilities based on how many kills they make. You find that
highly specialized aliens are very destructive (so hire that dude who is
REALLY good at Objective-C for doing iPhone development).

> Building and keeping resource towers == making sure you have enough funding
> at all times, cash flow is the name of the game

> Getting with the best team of aliens/marines == hire the best people that
> you can, it means zero micro-managing

> Your team could be terrible, your commander could be the best, but you'll
> still lose the game == even if Steve Jobs were in charge of a company with
> 100% bad employees, the company would fail

> Specializing when you can == you're a very difficult fire to put out, and
> when it comes to competing, you're unstoppable

> Keeping team morale high gets player cooperation == don't be a prick, your
> team doesn't like working for that type of person and won't follow orders
> when the time comes

> Allowing the enemy time to build up is dangerous, always be on the offense
> == always be pushing faster and sooner than your competitors

> One marine camper with a phase gate can take down your entire alien team ==
> corporate espionage is a bitch, Steve Jobs isn't paranoid after all

> If you can't get your team to all jump through a phase gate and rush an
> alien hive at once, you're done for == team cooperation with focus is really
> good

I sometimes feel like I'm playing a game of natural selection while I'm
working in a startup or on a project. It's weird, I know. Ok everyone downvote
me now.

~~~
rms
I remember that game! Wish they would port to the Source engine a little
faster...

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dcurtis
Tony Hsieh is awesome. I can't wait to read this book. Zappos is a company to
be looked up to.

If all companies were this fanatical about customer service, the world would
be a much better place.

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mattmaroon
"The guy who never loses a hand is not the guy who makes the most money in the
long run."

If you never lost a hand then you would be the guy who makes the most money in
the long run. Everyone else would lose.

~~~
hangten
Except almost all games is played with blinds or antes. If you're too tight
even though you win all the hands you play you'd still be a loser overall.

~~~
mattmaroon
You "play" every time you're dealt a hand. Even if you fold before the flop,
in Texas Hold'em for instance, you lost.

And to win every hand you play past the first street, if you want to ignore
the semantics, would still make even the tightest player I know a humongous
winner. The reason playing overly tight players lose (which is generally not
by much) is that even the average hand that they play is an underdog to win.
Make 100% of even the biggest nit's flop hands hold up and yeah, he's the best
poker player in the world.

~~~
mattchew
Suppose when playing live poker, your hand always holds up, but you can _only_
play pocket aces. Suppose even that no one else at the table ever figures this
out. Would you take that deal? I bet not.

~~~
mattmaroon
Well, if your hand always holds up, and you never voluntarily play worse than
aces, you would still win every tournament you entered (though it would take
forever). If you can't lose an all-in, you can't lose a tournamnet. So yeah,
I'd take that bet.

~~~
mattchew
> If you can't lose an all-in, you can't lose a tournamnet.

Only a tournament where you pay no blinds.

Checked your website, you are that semipro poker player. I'm quite sure only
playing and always winning AA would be a (relatively) losing proposition for
you. Not sure why you're arguing the other side here.

~~~
mattmaroon
I'm not, I'm saying your argument is wrong. You play every hand your dealt. If
you fold pre-flop, you played your hand by folding it. So I assumed you meant
more "voluntarily play after the flop".

However, if you still win every hand you take to the flop, even if you
voluntarily only play aces, you would in a tournament probably be forced all-
in many times, in which case you'd involuntarily see the flop. But we still
say you win every hand you play, so you'd never go broke.

But in reality none of this has anything to do with the OP's stupid quote. A
guy who won every hand he played, any reasonable way you want to define that,
would be by far the most profitable poker player ever.

~~~
mattchew
> You play every hand your dealt. If you fold pre-flop, you played your hand
> by folding it.

Mmmkay. This is the confusion.

It's pretty common to talk about "playing" as opposed to folding your cards
pre flop. I've seen this phrasing many times.

> A guy who won every hand he played, any reasonable way you want to define
> that, would be by far the most profitable poker player ever.

The point I was trying to make, and probably the OP, is that it is more
profitable to win $100 and lose $80 than it is to win $10 and lose $0.

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zasz
In poker, it's great to have a lot of shitty competitors. What game has this
guy been playing?

~~~
hangten
The only way I can reason with it is, that he's talking about large
tournaments where you will likely never see the long term (10K buyins for
example). Even for good/great players there is a lot of volatility there and
you're probably not going to see 100k+ of these in your lifetime (Which would
arguably not even be close to the long term.) With that said, I'd much rather
play any WSOP with 6000 and me of the biggest fish then 4000 fish and 2000
pros.

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MaskedFinancier
Well that's done it!

I think that poker is definitely a good training for many things, but
personally feel it is most relevant for investing. The possible universe of
outcomes becomes massive when you get into the area of running a business
compared with the set of poker outcomes.

I wrote an "ebook" two years ago about how to learn investing through the
medium of online Texas Holdem poker. I didn't release it at the time because
of all the controversy about online gambling and US laws. But now I think it's
time has come. I might have saved some people some money if I had have
released it back then before the boom started busting. The method is called
Texas Holdem Investing. And seeing that this guy will release a book of a
similar type I might as well join the party.

Wish me luck!

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known
I think <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futures_trading> is same as gambling.

~~~
eru
So is any insurance when you look at it from a certain angle.

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agentbleu
best advice i have seen for a while

