
What Poker Can Teach Us - riffer
http://chronicle.com/article/What-Poker-Can-Teach-Us/48641/
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jpwagner
While i despise the whole _how-i-learned-life-from-poker_ flood of blog
entries the last couple of years, it's refreshing to see someone stick to the
social aspect here.

There's nothing worse than reading an article by someone who's played poker
less than 1000 hours in their life saying: "you gotta know when to hold them
and know when to fold them. I learned this the hard way when I started company
XYZ and...blah blah blah..."

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riffer
Yeah, that's pretty much what I was thinking, too. I posted it because it's a
very good piece in a genre that is crowded with mediocre essays.

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hristov
First of all given the popularity in poker in the US and how it is viewed as a
sign of masculinity it is not at all surprising that a lot of successful men
used to play poker. A lot of men play poker, period. So I am not sure being a
good poker player should be viewed as a precursor to success. Even if it is,
it is definitely not a positive one. If it is a precursor of success it
probably means that good poker players are probably good at manipulating other
people and lying, that's all.

Here is what poker taught me: \- people can be bastards, and are generally not
to be trusted. And I am not referring to the sanctioned lying that is accepted
in poker (i.e., bluffing). There is a lot of shit behaviour in poker games
outside of that narrow accepted form of lying. \- never never drink alcohol
and do anything important. In poker you quickly discover that even one beer
can cloud your judgement even if you feel completely fine.

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stanleydrew
Poker taught me how to kill my risk-aversion. Or I suppose it taught me that
I'm naturally not very risk-averse. You start to see your decisions in life as
choosing a probability distribution over a set of outcomes. And then if you
can reasonably assess the value of those outcomes (using whatever metric you
choose, e.g. money in poker, or perhaps some more general "utility" in life)
you can try to maximize your expected value.

Now don't get me wrong, you can be risk-averse and still analyze decisions
this way. But poker helps you start to understand how you feel about things
like investments and probable payoffs, and it helps you deal with loss. It
helps you set up a framework for decision-making. After that you will
relatively quickly discover how risk-averse you are.

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mattmaroon
One thing poker taught me: don't ever sit next to the author of this article.
Also, don't ever get caught in an elevator with James Woods. Both were for the
same reason.

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BRadmin
Do you have a link to the James Wood anecdote from 2 + 2?

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budman
I like to think of HN as being as far away from that atrocity of 2+2 as I can.
Can't believe a simple poker article brings mention of that cesspool.

Anyway, Loved your blog back in the day Matt.

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MarkPNeyer
Here are some lessons I've learned from poker:

<http://www.markpneyer.com/wp/?p=527>

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driekken
I think the author makes an extremely far-fetched parallel between prominent
people throughout history being excellent poker players. Could it be the other
way round: being an extraordinary personality would make one good at
activities that require careful reasoning/observation etc. ?

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stanleydrew
I'm not sure he meant to imply that all these prominent people were excellent
players. Just that the game provided a kind of training ground for decision-
making and its analysis and an excuse for extended conversations with
interesting people.

~~~
budman
Interesting? You obviously haven't played much poker in a casino environment.
Now it doesn't apply to everyone obviously, but by and large the most shady,
degenerate low lives I have ever met in my life collectively have come from my
hours at poker. And most of the conversations involve shallow discussion of
hands by ego maniacs or complaints of beats.

What this author (promoter) seems to either forget or ignore is that gambling,
and poker in particular, is synonymous with hustlers, criminals and two-bit
cheats.

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jennypitts
I myself do not know much about Internet marketing, PPC and advertising, that
is why I hired a marketing firm to help me with it.

<http://www.primerealadstate.com/>

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electromagnetic
What poker taught me, was that video poker _sucks_. That's basically the be
all and end all of what poker can teach, beside perhaps the classic 'everyone
is a liar'.

