Occupation vs good poker

Are there certain occupations that tend to make better or worse poker players? I am a professional engineer. I feel engineering has given me the appreciation and discipline to get information from books and am not imitated by the math of gaming theory. At the same time I know many talented engineers that would make terrible poker players. Is there any correlation between poker and occupation? Comments are welcome.

I have a MSEET but have not been a practicing engineer since 1983. Most of the engineers I worked with looked at things as too black and white to play poker very well. I do play poker with several Doctors who are successful at poker as well in their practice but I find one group of people really stand out. That would be entreprenuers, they are willing to take risks, have strong self discipline and are creative. Three traits required to play poker well IMO.


Jimbo


PS: My favorite opponents are attorneys! /images/smile.gif

Maybe me, yeah, I'm everybody's favorite opponent, but how much do you want to play SKP, Fossilman, the guy who made the final table this year Rosenblum, or the late Brian Saltus? I'm leaving some out, there are a lot of lawyers who play. I think lawyers stack up OK. After all, we're used to being deceptive to get the cash. ;-)

In general, carsales people are the biggest gamblers and the most fun to play against. No bet to large and no odds to big.

I thought that might elicit a response from you HDPM. Anyone is welcome to join in any game I am in, whatever the current limit. I just know so many attorney jokes I have a better time against them. Besides don't you always welcome another attorney in your games. lol /images/smile.gif


Occupations are like any other stereotype, usually a bad policy to treat them all alike.


Jimbo

I'm a geological engineer so I'm the best at identifying "rocks" !


/images/smile.gif /images/smile.gif /images/smile.gif


Nicolas

It would depend on which particular kind of poker setting you're talking about. Whether it's high-stakes, middle-stakes, or low-stakes. Whether it's a ring game or shorthanded. Whether it's a tournament or a live game. Whether it's a tournament where the blinds/antes get moved up quickly or one in which the blinds/antes get moved up slowly. Whether its no-limit, pot-limit, or limit. Whether it's straight high, hi-lo split, or low ball.


Each of the parameters I've listed above will reward different skills differently, and will also penalize different skills differently. Thus, the skill that is relatively important in one setting may lose some of it's relative importance in another.


If I were to generalize, I would say "people persons" like trial lawyers, comedians, and salesman would do better in "big bet" games, while the analytical types like mathematicians, economists, chemists, and accountants would do better in limit ring games. But these are just EXTREME GENERALIZATIONS on my part. Exemptions are more the rule.


More important than the profession is the specific individual. Anyone who values learning, who has good right brain(intuition)/left brain(logic) balance, who has good control over his emotions, who is realistic, who has fairly high self-esteem, and who has a bankroll can become a successfull poker player.

I don't usually mind seeing dealers sitting in my game...

I did a post on this when this forum first started. It's called "can ones career enhance their game". There were some responses that I think you'll find interesting. It's down at the beginning of this board.

I'm a techie, but I worked for several years for a siding company. We had some great games with the salesmen and the telemarketers. Most of those guys had balls the size of Volkswagons, and just instinctively knew when there was blood in the water. They always seemed to be on the con, so you could never really put them on a hand either. Of course, those nights always seemed to end up in a drunken blaze of In Between or Guts with pay checks invariably on the table.


Geez I miss those guys... lol


Fitz

Im a high school teacher, so Im used to people bluffing me out.

While I don't have enough data on this one, the subset of lawyers I think would be the overall softest poker competition would be judges. Now, I haven't played with judges in their home games, if any they may have, and have only played public poker with 2. But I bet if you could scrounge around and have teams of lawyers face off on the felt, judges would fare the worst. Mills Lane plays decent I think (I've never played against him), but he was a boxer and prosecutor for too long not to pick up some bad habits.

Dwayne:


I always felt that when it came to poker, I just happened to have the perfect career and education to understand it a little better than most others. Not only had I worked as a professional statistician, but I worked at the United States Census Bureau where I had to be concerned with self weighting sample designs for our surveys. Then I went to work for the Northrop Corporation where I worked as the statistician for a relibility engineering group. Not only did I have to be fairly sharp in general probability theory, but we also did a fair amount of mathematical modeling where I had to become knowledgeable in things like maximum likelihood estimators.


Now I recognize that this isn't exactly poker, but it was the perfet background for much of the stuff that I transitioned into, and which grew into what we call Two Plus Two. It was also the perfect background to complement much of what David Sklansky thought about. Specifically, he has always been a little more concerned with expectation than I have, and I have always been a little more concerned with variance than he has. Of course to understand gambling, you need both.


As for poker, the ability to apply statistical logic is key to expert play.


By the way, I think this is a great question.


Best wishes,

Mason

This is a good post that may revive the "math skills" vs. "people skills" debate. I've known players who were uneducated and were great players, but they were also "numbers smart" and had an analytical approach to the game.

or may be a Cheater.

hal fowler...now there was a true champion..lol...???..gl

Mason,


"By the way, I think this is a great question."


Me too.


"I always felt that when it came to poker, I just happened to have the perfect career and education to understand it a little better than most others.

"


Me too!


I was raised into geekhood with two older brothers, one is now bigtime electrical engineering design, and the other, like David S. was, is an actuary! But somehow I strayed and becamse a fulltime musician for ten years, playing in bars, and the other side of my brain got worked out or whatever, so now I feel like I think like a mathematician all the time, but without the precision, with a more improvised feeling while at the table, much like it felt playing music, when even the most repetition things could seem fresh, and serve and a foundation to improvise from.


Tommy

Very articulate Tommy, and well stated as well! /images/smile.gif

Do you ever break out in song at the table? A player in our home game does particularly if he is winning. When stuck for the evening he tends to get larengitis!!


Jimbo

When you were working at Northrop, did you find much interest among the engineers for playing poker? It would seem to me that aircraft engineers in general wouldn't be risk takers (i.e., gamblers) because one of their most important concerns that is a mainstay of their work ethic, is the design and methods of manufacture of highly reliable and safe aircraft for military pilots.

And since I'm a marine biologist...

Mason,


I wanted to respond to the end of your last post regarding the relationship betweens one's job and their poker playing ability. Let me start out by saying that I have a tremendous amount of respect for you as a poker player and writer. My question is, do you really feel that a top poker player has to have expert knowledge of statistics and its relationship to poker? I for one do not have this knowledge, and I also do not consider myself to be a top player. However I do know what kind of favorite or underdog I am at a particualr point in time, and have no trouble relating this informatiotn to the size of the pot and determining whether or not I should raise, fold or call. So what more statistical knowledge other than this is necessary? Last week the man who runs hold em game 4 times a week told me I was the best player he had come across since he opened his game. I laughed because he has no idea how much better the players are when you get into casino games at the higher limits. I play with Al Krux on a regular basis, and I cannot even begin to compare my ability with his, and I know there are even better players out there than him. (You can find him in Coultier's book under the worst bad beat of all time story.) Anyway I know he is not a math guy at all, but simply understands the normal swings that a player must expect over time, and has knowledge of when it is mathamatically correct to raise fold or call. So why do you feel this is so necessary? I want to stress how much I value your opinion so please dont take my post the wrong way.

I guess the attorneys count. I am an historian and archivist but don't see too much connection between that and poker success. I suppose I am good and recognizing patterns which helps me with situational memory as I am playing. I think intelligence overall helps, regardless of how one applies them in the workforce.


I could be wrong though, considering most everyone here seems to be math and science types.


KJS

I would think those who work with experiemental results would be helped by having gone through the humbling experience of having their theories tested against real world results. For the same reason, professional securities traders would also have an advantage. In these professions analytical skill is needed to propose a theory, but you can't rely on office politics to get acknowledgment that you are right.


At least this aspect would be an advantage in making the transition from a losing player to a $10/hr winning player. Getting to an earn rate of a "real pro", of course, requires a lot more.

a poet who tried at poker..awesome...jmho..gl

does your background facilitate hand reading...the holy grail of poker?

I don't know if Tommy ever does, but I know I do.


The song(s) vary from week to week, but as a rule I'm usually intoning the mellow A.M. music from the 70's-- Gordon Lightfoot is a favorite with me, although lately I've been down with Jim Croce's 'Have to Say I Love You in a Song' and 'Car Wash Blues'.


I've also done time with some of Simon and Garfunkel's work, as well as some of Tom Petty's quieter stuff.


And no, I can't carry a tune in a bucket.

No. To be a top poker player you do not have to have an expert knowledge of statistics.


What you do need is what I refer to as statistical logic. For instance, we often talk about giving up edges on an early round, for example only calling with AQo after several players have limped in, so that if the flop comes as you like you can gain it all back plus some. If this makes sense to you, then you are thinking in a statistical sense. If you can't see how not raising is right, then your statistical logic needs improvement.


When I was talking about myself, you must keep in mind that I was interested in doing more than just playing poker. And, it just turned out that my background was just perfect for the type of analysis that I was interested in doing.

Absolutely. One of the keys to hand reading is the ability to think Bayesian. That is the ability to take into account other information that may be available without overreacting to it.

.,.,.,.,.

Mason,


Was there ever a moment when you were a little leery about going into the poker business exclusively, and giving up the so-called security of the regular work you had been doing up to that point?


-Dan

Reading all this, you'd forget how much confidence and such is important to your game. That and the ability to deal with some really screwed up people at the table.

Well, I got a very good break. I had talked to my boss at Northrop about leaving a year before I did, and ended up making a deal where I only had to work three days a week. (I think I had the best job ever.) In fact, I officially left Northrop in July of 1987, but I moved to Las Vegas in April of 1987. The last three months of my job I actually commuted from Las Vegas.


It's very hard to leave a solid job for the uncertainties of full time poker. I had a way of easing out of it, and I actually published my first books when I was still employed by Northrop. So I thought that I would always have some income even if poker didn't work out as well for me as I hoped.


By the way, nothing turned out as I anticipated. Over the next 12 years, because of our publishing business, I spent far more money on producing books than I ever anticipated, and had to borrow money on several occasions to keep everything going.


Fortunately, our company is now more successful than I ever thought was possible. So Two Plus Two was the biggest gamble that I ever took, and it appears to have been the right choice for me.

knowing when to take more than their fair share, being willing to step outside the flow and pass, looking ahead quite a few moves to see the bigger picture, following the actions of several independently-willed participants in the same game and knowing how to approach the situation where all the others are interacting. knowing when not to speed because the cops are thick as hell! knowing when to just pull out of the left lane to let somebody pass you. pulling off at a rest stop when you are tired or otherwise not at the top of your driving abilities. able to go for hours and hours with patience, toward a specific goal... these are a few of the common traits between good poker players and good, aggressive drivers.