If you are playing 800-1000 hands per day, you're messing up your life

[Pokeraddict]

Unbalanced? Hmmmmmmmm........ Is having a bunch of cash ratholed, all the bills paid, going out to nice dinners with my young beautiful wife and son almost every night, driving 2 nice cars and living in the nice suburbs of over priced Atlanta unbalanced? This is thr most money I have ever made thanks to this unbalanced life choice. It beats the crap out of getting up early sitting in an office all day or delivery pizzas and running a pizza place, two crap jobs I have had.

Then yes my life is so unbalanced and unhealthy, I think I'm going to go kill myself now

[1800GAMBLER]

You people fuss over a lot of pointless comments. There was no context put into it at all.

If someone is playing 1000h live per day their life is messed up. If someone is playing 1000h on one table online it's unbalanced. If someone is playing 1000h online over 4 tables it could be normal, it could be unbalanced.

[B Dids]

Nevermind- I'm tired and can't read.

[MicroBob]

that's a good idea....talk in terms of long-term results.
$25/hr over the past 4 months (or whatever) sounds pretty decent. $1000/wk over the past 4 months sound even better but is probably a bit bragadocious (sp??).

i just say that for the past X-months i've been making more doing this then i did at my previous job...and i get to choose my own hours and watch the ball-game on tv while i'm working.


most of my friends have very little understanding about what i'm doing. they mostly ask about how one plays for real-money and i explain that you use your credit-card....and there's this thing called neteller...and i'll explain in general the concept of reloads and bonus-whoring.


but when they ask me HOW i'm doing...i'll say 'well, i've lost a bit the past couple of days but that happens and isn't too much to worry about....i'm still up pretty big over the past month.'


when pressed for an explanation of how one can possibly do this when it's obviously SOOOO risky....

i explain that it's something i take very seriously including a lot of studying and looking into the proper math (i know it's not all math...but hang with me here...i'm trying to simplify it for others)...

explain that i have a special poker-database that has stats on all 60k hands i have played. with it i can find leaks in my game such as determining that i might not be playing KQo ideally.

i am frequently reading the forums of this site called 2+2 where a bunch of math-gurus and novices like me are analyzing and searching for the best and 'most precise' (good phrase) way to play a certain type of hand.
mention the credentials of guys like mason (just say MIT and that carries a lot of weight), david and others....and i know there are a few posters here who are in grad-school in some sort of mathematical field (geez...just reading almost any of BruceZ's posts makes my head spin).

then mention that some of the top poker-players in the world are also chess-masters, bridge-experts and top-notch backgammon players.

steering the conversation in this direction really can chance someone's perception of poker reasonably quickly imo and makes it sound more like an intellectual endeavor (like chess) and less like shoving quarters into a slot-machine.

if asked about other games, i proudly proclaim that, even though i worked in a casino, i have only played a slot-machine once (about 8 years ago...for about 5 spins)....don't even know how to place a bet on a craps table....and think that roulette is the stupidest game ever invented.


just some ideas to help convey the whole poker-thing to your friends while steering them away from thinking of you as 'that degenerate gambler down the hall'.

[Alobar]

good post. I wish I could go back to before I had an understanding of poker to remember what "normal" people think of the game. heh, my last trip to vegas I went with some friends. When I was sitting there watching them play craps they asked me why I wasn't playing, I told them "Why would I want to throw my money away? I work too hard to gamble". Heh, needless to say they thought that was the funniest thing in the world, since all I am is a "Gambler". I guess "normal" people will just never understand.

[ChristinaB]

[ QUOTE ]
it was rather sad to see coming from one of the 2+2 authors.

I believe mistakes of this magnitude shouldn't be made from a resident author on these forums without a very good and rapid apology as these are the people who people are paying to learn from, and they should be absolutely certain what they are talking about before taking a guess.

Lori

[/ QUOTE ]
I think you are wrong here. These authors are not gods, and should not be expected to be omniscient. Like a restraint on free speech, if we hold these guys to this standard, they will make fewer replies, and we will all lose. Let them goof up; we will be sure to correct them when needed.

[sublime]

[ QUOTE ]

Sorry to be so blunt, but your life is grossly unbalanced, and unbalanced lives are unhealthy.


[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks Doc [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[bluebeard]

I then mention that some of the top poker-players in the world are also chess-masters

I agree with what you and most others have said thus far but, as a former professional chess player in the process of switching to poker, I am interested to know which of these world class poker players are such good chess players? If you mean HL, for example, we have a case of 'master' in the US Chess Fed terms being the equivalent of average club player in the rest of the world (perhaps even weaker). I've read in several places he was a former pro chess player, but this can't be true (if it is, I'll come out of retirement). I understand that this gives people an air of intellectuality, something that pro chess players tend to avoid, in fact. Are there any others?
As for the perception of chess and poker, even my gambling chess playing (amateur) friends view poker as a game of chance compared with chess. While it is true there is no luck in chess, the obvious element of luck in poker by no means precludes skill (of which there is a great deal), but the ever-present 'correctness' and logic of chess and the apparent short-term luck of poker seems to scare people away from the long-term skill factor.
Personally, I've made a living from chess since school, and, nearly twenty years later, enjoy poker much more...
Good luck

[TimM]

[ QUOTE ]
I agree with what you and most others have said thus far but, as a former professional chess player in the process of switching to poker, I am interested to know which of these world class poker players are such good chess players? If you mean HL, for example,

[/ QUOTE ]

I never heard that Howard Lederer (is that who you mean by HL?) was a chess player. I don't see a USCF rating for him. During the last WSOP broadcast they mentioned Dan Harrington as a chess player.

http://www.64.com/uscf/ratings/10018820

But this is probably not a high enough rating to make a living at chess outside of coaching kids (there are many players here with much lower ratings making a good living coaching kids). I know a few poker players with higher ratings than this, but they have not had their 15 minutes of poker fame yet.

[ QUOTE ]
we have a case of 'master' in the US Chess Fed terms being the equivalent of average club player in the rest of the world (perhaps even weaker).

[/ QUOTE ]

Now this is a ridiculous statement. I have a rating just over master in the USCF (~2200). On the FIDE (international) rating list I rank about #7000, and #200 for U.S. players on that list. I have beaten a player who was around #100 in the world, and have many draws vs. grandmasters, maybe 1/3 of my total games against them. Now this does not make me a great chess player by any means, but are you saying this is an average club player in the rest of the world? Do normal distributions only apply in the U.S.?

[Lori]

I am interested to know which of these world class poker players are such good chess players

Can't answer that one, but many top online players are world class magic players.

Take Paluka, T soprano, Exlcusive, Johnny Magic and K ROSE for some examples (With apologies to Zee Justin)

Lori