Re: Did Sklansky say he Could have won a Nobel?
 

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I don't think it's not David's confidence that rubs people the wrong way, it's what people see as his arrogance and his ego. The most egregious example I can remember is when somebody posted (perhaps a couple of years ago) that they had gone up to say hello and compliment him and thank him for his writings and he said "Oh?" and when the guy posted about how he felt David was rude, David made many posts about how, basically, he didn't care. All he needed to do was say sorry, perhaps I was preoccupied, thank you for supporting 2+2, or something like that. Instead, he carried on for days about how he doesn't care if he's liked, he provides great poker information.

I have never met David, but I have had many people who have told me the same thing about him. David doesn't owe anyone anything, it just make the word go around a little smoother when you're nice and humble. We all have times where we're not either, it just seems David has more of those times than most other people.

Having said that, I still think those who are doubting David could have won a Nobel Prize might be wrong, or at the least, not knowledgable enough about David to make an informed judgment.

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Very good post. I completely agree.

Re: Did Sklansky say he Could have won a Nobel?
 

My local cable company offers some short video segments on poker playing via Video on Demand. DS was one of the guest experts in one collection of segments.

My first reaction on seeing him actually interact with others was "aspberger's syndrome."

Well, maybe so, maybe not, but it did remind me that perhaps what the rest of us perceive as arrogance or rudeness could in fact be a deficit in social skills.

Re: Did Sklansky say he Could have won a Nobel?
 

"If there were a Nobel Prize for poker writings (Who is going to present that idea to the committee in Oslo?).."

Well, I dont think David Sklansky is eligible for a peace prize (which is what they give out in Oslo).

All jokes aside, the way the system works when it comes to the Nobel Prize is quite intricate. Many times you will see these very old men and women get a prize in their respective field for something they have come up with years and years ago.

A good example in economics (which btw is not a "real" Nobel Prize, it was added later by the Bank of Sweden) would be John Nash who received his prize quite awhile after the work with the equilibrium of non-cooperative games,(if my memory serves me right). So thus, you might have Mr Sklansky receiving his award for "All in Hold em" in the games category around 2020.

M

Re: Did Sklansky say he Could have won a Nobel?
 

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Who among the Nobel winners will be read a 100 years from now? Who among the Nobel winners from even 50 years ago is read now? They don't always get it wrong, but I'll bet the list contains a lot of clunkers.

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Yes. Who would ever want to read authors like Grass, Garcia Marguez, Singer, Bellow, Böll, Neruda, Solzhenitsyn, Beckett, Sachs, Sartre, Steinbeck, Pasternak, Camus, Hemingway, Russell, Faulkner, Eliot, Hesse, O'Neill, Mann, Shaw, Yeats, Lagerlöf and Kipling. It should definately have been given to real authors.

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That's 24 out of approximately 100. I didn't say they never got it right, I said the list is full of clunkers. Even some on your list will probably not stand the test of time. And I dare say the modern list will have more cluckers than the historical one.

Re: Did Sklansky say he Could have won a Nobel?
 

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Who among the Nobel winners will be read a 100 years from now? Who among the Nobel winners from even 50 years ago is read now? They don't always get it wrong, but I'll bet the list contains a lot of clunkers.

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Yes. Who would ever want to read authors like Grass, Garcia Marguez, Singer, Bellow, Böll, Neruda, Solzhenitsyn, Beckett, Sachs, Sartre, Steinbeck, Pasternak, Camus, Hemingway, Russell, Faulkner, Eliot, Hesse, O'Neill, Mann, Shaw, Yeats, Lagerlöf and Kipling. It should definately have been given to real authors.

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That's 24 out of approximately 100. I didn't say they never got it right, I said the list is full of clunkers. Even some on your list will probably not stand the test of time. And I dare say the modern list will have more cluckers than the historical one.

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Clunkers I'll bet you haven't read a single sentence from.

Some of the modern ones are excellent authors (I enjoy both Morrison and Gordimer, for example). Some I will never read (I am not all that interested in poetry for example). And I am sure some of them I wouldn't like if I read them. That's what personal taste is all about. But I can guarantee that all of them are very skilled at what they do, even if what they do doesn't suit me.

There are some authors that probably would have deserved to get it (Graham Greene for example) in retrospect. But the Nobel prize is far far from "a badge of mediocracy". Anyone claiming that is a clown. Would be interesting to see him produce a quote from any great author confirming this oh so common view among authors.

Re: Did Sklansky say he Could have won a Nobel?
 

I was thinking about this the other night, and I find it funny that Sklansky thinks he could have won a Nobel Prize, which from the little I've read of this thread is about 1 in 50 for even the top researchers, writers, etc in their field, yet he's never even come CLOSE to winning the WSOP, a field where he IS considered by many a top player. I think he took some years off in there, but still, kind of an odd corollary.

Re: Did Sklansky say he Could have won a Nobel?
 

Read an interesting article while researching this subject. Basically the only reason Greene didn't win was there is one guy on the committee who said as long as he outlived Greene, he would make sure he didn't win. Pretty sad the process runs that way. One guy can also make sure someone wins, which explains some of the rather odd choices.

Let's put it this way, winning a Literature Nobel is not a sign of mediocrity (you are correct, whoever said that was an idiot), but it's no seal of assurance on quality either. And since I generally don't read fiction, but rather non-fiction, I find the politics behind the selections more interesting than the works themselves.

Share, please
 

I do not dispute any of your claims and this is not meant to be ironic at all, honestly.

But, not being one, I've always wondered what very clever prodigies fantasize about when masturbating.

Could you shed some light on this issue ? When you were 13 or so and started pumping, what were your fantasies about, as an extremely intelligent person?

Thanks in advance for any forthcoming output.