Did Sklansky say he Could have won a Nobel?
 

I think that I just heard David say that he believes that he could have won a Nobel Prize? No he wouldn't have said that on National TV. Or would he?

Vince

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

he said it. that was hilarious.

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

Sklansky is a really smart guy, but his retarded overconfidence involving his own intelligence is enough to make him stupid.

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

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I think that I just heard David say that he believes that he could have won a Nobel Prize? No he wouldn't have said that on National TV. Or would he?

Vince

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Where did he say this?

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

Apparently no company has taken him up on his offer to work for them in 22+ years. Read The Biggest Game in Town to see what I'm talking about.

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

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I think that I just heard David say that he believes that he could have won a Nobel Prize? No he wouldn't have said that on National TV. Or would he?

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Which one?

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

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Apparently no company has taken him up on his offer to work for them in 22+ years. Read The Biggest Game in Town to see what I'm talking about.

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I read the biggest game in town i forgot what this was....

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

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I think that I just heard David say that he believes that he could have won a Nobel Prize? No he wouldn't have said that on National TV. Or would he?

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Which one?

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Whichever one he wanted, obviously.

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

page 146.

Obviously Sklansky makes more money playing poker, but I thought it was funny reading that and knowing when it was written.

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

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Sklansky is a really smart guy, but his retarded overconfidence involving his own intelligence is enough to make him stupid.

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Yeah, he SEEMS like the tempermental genius who cannot be troubled with the tiny things in life like humility or diplomacy.

Think of that Beautiful Mind guy, without the Nobel Prize.

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

Physics.

I'm surprised it took this long before someone made a comment about it.

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

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Where did he say this?

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A recent Poker Superstars Invitational II.

What he said wasn't that off-the-wall, seeing as how he is obviously very gifted, it is completely plausible that if he pushed himself and continued to push himself in a specific direction that he could have been a Nobel Prize winner.

He didn't say it was an inevitability or anything, he simply said that he could've been one, meaning he had the potential to be a Nobel Prize winner.

Given the revolutionary work he's contributed to poker, is it not therefore likely to think he could've done likewise in another field?

Barron Vangor Toth
www.BarronVangorToth.com

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

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Given the revolutionary work he's contributed to poker, is it not therefore likely to think he could've done likewise in another field?

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Possibly. But if he were more secure in himself perhaps he would just assume this was self-evident and wouldn't have to tell everyone about it.

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

I'm not smart enough to know if David's smart enough to have won one. Let's say he is.

Isn't there something sad about him saying it, though, on a par with Terry Malloy's, "I coulda been a contender"? Unless the comment was made for publicity.

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

Sklansky also said on TV he was a 'math prodigy.' Well, the "Theory of Poker" is no "Principia," and David is no Isaac Newton.

Lets have some sense of perspective.

Frank

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

If you go by your logic, then anyone could have won the Nobel Prize. Anyone has a possibility.
I am shocked that Sklansky said that, the Noble Prize is the most prestigious award in science. Thinking that if you had gone to science you would get one, is vanity. It is definately not easy.
It's like the good sports guy in your neighborhood. He will always he will be an NBA player (or some sport), although it is very hard. And claiming Nobel Prize it's even worse, because you are not only assuming you would be in the upper tier of science (analogy with upper tier of a sport), you are assuming you would be the best (analogy would be MVP).
So, Sklansky's remark is incredibly vain.
(which I guess most people knew).

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

That's what I feared.

Even assuming that Sklansky would have been one of the top 200 physicists of his generation by dint of his overpowering megamind - something that I'm somewhat dubious about to begin with - I believe it takes a fair amount of luck above and beyond that to win a Nobel. There are many superb physicists who never get a Nobel, and many of these are smarter (in any sense you care to name) than many of the Nobel winners. The Nobel isn't an intelligence test.

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

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Given the revolutionary work he's contributed to poker, is it not therefore likely to think he could've done likewise in another field?

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No, it's not. (By the way, what did Sklansky do that's so revolutionary? Or is his big role as a popularizer?) In poker, you're taking something that had been subjected to only the most minimal of mathematical analysis. In physics, you're looking at a field that has been thoroughly studied since the 17th century and where probably hundreds of thousands of workers dedicate their lives to working on it. Making a truly groundbreaking contribution here is going to be substantially harder.

Basically, in a young field, it's a lot easier to find the low-lying fruit and pick them.

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

Very intelligently put. You could've won a Nobel.

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

I was a bit shocked when DS talked about being a math prodigy, learning calculus at age 13 or something. I don't understand his motivation for talking about what he did when he was 13. Does it really matter to him at all that he learned calculus at age 13? He's learned and done so much more since then. I didn't see the Nobel Prize comment, but talking about that would have shocked me too.

However, I lose no respect for the guy just because I don't know why he said something. Just because I don't know why he says something doesn't mean there isn't a good reason for him to say it.

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

He said it.

I had to wipe down my TV afterward so I am pretty sure I wasn't hallucinating.

Hillarious!

He is a classic...

No offense to all the worshipers but it was pretty funny. I have all the books and give him enormous credit of course but that was a "little" over the top.

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

It would be a lot easier to win the Nobel Prize in economics.

At age 13 I believe I was better in math, science, puzzles, coming up with clever shortcuts, and logic, than perhaps half of those who went on to get physics prizes (and most of those who got the economics prize) when they were 13 years old. (At that age I stopped studying.) That fact alone is enough to make the statement that I could have maybe won it if I pursued physics or economics. I believe I did say "maybe" on the show. The statement was meant to contrast with the completely different road I took.

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

We had a discussion about this on the psychology forum some time ago. I did an amateur psychological analysis on David which he said was pretty close to the mark (or closer to the mark than I might suppose, or something like that). Perhaps somebody not as lazy as David or I can find the thread.

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

"At age 13 I believe I was better in math, science, puzzles, coming up with clever shortcuts, and logic, than perhaps half of those who went on to get physics prizes (and most of those who got the economics prize) when they were 13 years old."

How would one know this?

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

When you spend your days in a casino, it's easy to be fooled into thinking you're pretty smart. It's all relative.

I think David has little appreciation for how intellectually trivial the game of poker is compared to any field of physics that can garner a Nobel. Theory of Poker is fully digestible in two days' time. Try that with, say, one of Landau and Lifschitz's volumes. The information density ratio is about 1,000:1.

eastbay

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

But wouldn't most of the Nobel physics or economics winners be pretty intelligent people? Intelligence alone probably isn't enough (I would think you need luck, publicity, a good sponsor, acquaintance with past winners, etc.), but without it, those other things probably wouldn't count for much.

I questioned David about how he knew it, but if indeed it is true that, at age 13, he was smarter than many eventual Nobel winners were at that age, wouldn't it be sensible to argue that David too could have won one had his life taken that direction?

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

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It would be a lot easier to win the Nobel Prize in economics.

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I suspect this is true, but I'm underinformed. My personal feeling is that Literature would be the easiest to get, but it might just be my own personal prejudices.

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At age 13 I believe I was better in math, science, puzzles, coming up with clever shortcuts, and logic, than perhaps half of those who went on to get physics prizes (and most of those who got the economics prize) when they were 13 years old.

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I think this assertion is both extremely hard to verify and also mostly irrelevant. This could be true, but even if it is, it doesn't address my objection before, at least with regards to physics - it's not just about being sufficiently smart, because there are tons of smart physicists out there. With economics, again, I'm insufficiently informed to make a judgment.


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That fact alone is enough to make the statement that I could have maybe won it if I pursued physics or economics. I believe I did say "maybe" on the show. The statement was meant to contrast with the completely different road I took.

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Fair enough, but I think that this is in a similar vein to me saying that if I decided to devote my life to poker tomorrow that I might eventually win the main event in the World Series of Poker. Regardless of how good a poker player I might become, that's far from the only issue.

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

"Sklansky's remark is incredibly vain."

Maybe. And, as I alluded to in another post in this thrad, maybe incredibly sad too.

But maybe incredibly accurate too.

How does anyone here who is doubting that he could have won one know that he's not smart enough to have done it?

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

I see similarities with a previous Nobel winner.

Einstein: E=mc2
Sklansky: 2+2=4

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

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At age 13 I believe I was better in math, science, puzzles, coming up with clever shortcuts, and logic, than perhaps half of those who went on to get physics prizes (and most of those who got the economics prize) when they were 13 years old.

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At the age of 13 I was also considered "gifted" and was accepted to a prestigous math and science school in NYC. Shortly thereafter I discovered I also had a talent for music. I immersed myself and had a successful career as a musician until the dot com era came along and I discovered web app development and the large rewards that came with it. Have enjoyed that decision since and now live in Hawaii and play poker as a hobby while dabbling in real estate.

I often look back at the different crossroads in my life and wonder what "could have been" if I had made different decisions and had applied myself to pure science.

I am sure I would have had success in science, Nobel not so sure.

Lotta smart folks and potential Nobel Prize winners in the world these days, particularly with information being shared so much more quickly.

Thank you internet and Two Plus Two.

Congrats on your recent success in tourneys, great to see you getting deep.

Anyway David, So Long & Thanks For All The Fish...

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

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I see similarities with a previous Nobel winner.

Einstein: E=mc2
Sklansky: 2+2=4

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HAHA!

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

The Nobel Prize for Literature may be the easiest to get, because it is almost never given to the greatest writers. In fact, many in the literary world consider it almost a badge of mediocrity (even though some politic for it anyway).

Frank

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

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How would one know this?

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Obviously you aren't smart enough to win a nobel prize.

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

LMAO!!!

Perfect post [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Frank

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

A mathy friend I trust told me that an Economics Nobel was given for a result that was essentially a simple fixed-point theorem (Banach, I think.) Enough to make Sklansky's comment seem a perfectly reasonable thing to say, if not over-humble.

--Nate

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

The thing is, it's either an incredibly silly remark or a reasonably apt one, depending on what exactly he said.

I have known multiple Nobel laureates (in physics and chemistry). All were very bright. But I have also known other people who really were a lot smarter. Most (but not all) of these were physics or astrophysics faculty at good schools. Getting a Nobel depends on so many things -- dedication, chosen field, creativity, luck -- that I suggest that no one, no matter how bright, can say on the basis of intellectual firepower alone, "I would have had a greater than 50% chance to win a Nobel prize in physics."

cheers,

mn

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

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I often look back at the different crossroads in my life and wonder what "could have been" if I had made different decisions and had applied myself to pure science.


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Everyone has at least a few crossroads that loom on the backside of life's path and the ‘what ifs’ of the different possibilities can make for interesting discussions, however futile and speculative they become.

If I had gone on to do the PhD my advisor asked me to do, I could today be better known, at least in the Science community, and certainly have more published articles etc. But is not all of this just empty wishing and rhetorical posturing?

The present is where life is to be had, not in the past, nor in wishful dreams or the hazy unknowable 'might have beens'.

-Zeno

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

i could have been the most successful supermodel in the history of the world. I chose the intellectual path.

don't hate me cos im so beautiful.

fim

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

You've gotta be joking right?

So did you like know these guys when they were 13 or I guess their bios were so complete that you knew their mental state at 13. This makes you sound a bit foolish in my opinion.

I still think you're joking though.

And by the way, I not calling you a loser because clearly your very very successful in your field but, I generally hear this type of excuse, " (At that age I stopped studying.)" from losers and dropouts.

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

<3