Theory From One of Sklansky's Books

[mosta]

[ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
Without love or human emotion the "logical" answer is simple. Save your own butt! Luckily, that's not how this world works.


[/ QUOTE ]

Thats exactly how this world works. Notice that whether or not the father chooses to save his son, he is always acting in his own best interest.

[/ QUOTE ]

one's own "best interest" or individual "desire" could be another's well being at the cost of one's own, or it caould be spite--one's own suffering for the purpose of causing another's suffering. it could be anything (NB: quite literally). by definition, whatever one happens to pursue in fact, must be their own "best interest". revealed preference theory.

I still find it surprizing that people derive any satisfaction from tautological arguments, and expound them so zealously. and how in the world do universities pay money for this stupid drivel?

[David Sklansky]

It's comments or posts like these that show me how disconnected some people can be to human emotion. By not factoring in human emotion you'll often come to the WRONG conclusion as David did here. Here is an example where taking this chance would be ENTIRELY logical:

A father see's that his son needs a transplant or he will die. He has no medical insurance and no way of paying for the procedure for his son which costs $25,000.

"Some goofy scientist tells him that if he can retrieve a rare poisonous bird from the wild he'll give him $25,000. Let's say the odds of him dying in the process are 1000 to 1.

Would it be "illogical" for this father to try and save his son?

Love isn't logical David."



Here is what I wrote in Poker Gaming and Life:

".....If you are not willing to take $100,000 to be fired, you shouldn't take a one in 100 chance of being fired to gain $1000.........It should be obvious why this same type of analysis FALLS APART when you are risking your life,...."

Later on this:

"There are times however when it is logically correct to risk your life. I will mention three:

1. When you are trying to prevent something even worse than death, such as torture OR YOUR CHILD DYING.

2. When you are trying to prevent something almost as bad as death, such as slavery, and the risks of dying are small.

3. When not taking the risk results in an even greater risk of dying for you or (if you want to be altruistic) FOR OTHERS."

[Daniel Negreanu]

You make one major assumption or should I say assertion that the reason the father would want to save the son is because he couldn't live with himself if he didn't try.

What if the father is trying to save the son because he loves that child more than anything in this world and would do anything to protect it. That's human nature. At least amongst humans with compassion.

I know for a fact that my brother would die for me if he had to. Not because he is being selfish, but because he is a guardian by nature and his heart would lead him to do that.

My brother taking a bullet for me would be in MY best interest, not his.

[Daniel Negreanu]

Hey good one David! Obviously all I read was the OP and that's clearly not accurate according to what you wrote. My apologies for assuming that he gave us all the correct information.

It doesn't however change my overall opinion that you'll often underestimate human emotion when related to poker. That's just in your nature being such an analytical person.

Your strengths lie in numbers rather than understanding human emotion and WHY people do what they do. In a nutshell, you being a math major versus a physchology major has a significant impact not only on how you play poker, but also how you approach thinking about it.

That's not really a knock on you at all. Not everyone excels at the same things. For example, I spend much less time worrying about the mathematical side of the game and much more time thinking about things like, "With John Doe being recently divorced, how is that going to change the way he plays the river?"

IMO, to be a great poker player it takes a steady diet of BOTH types of thinking. I think you'd agree with that broad generalization.

[JoshuaD]

Hey Daniel, hope to see you posting on 2+2 more.

[ QUOTE ]
I know for a fact that my brother would die for me if he had to. Not because he is being selfish, but because he is a guardian by nature and his heart would lead him to do that.

My brother taking a bullet for me would be in MY best interest, not his.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think this is the miscommunication between you and DS. From your post it can be inferred that your brother values your life more than he values his own. Accordingly, he would dive in front of a bullet for you.

It would be incredibly unselfish of him to sacrafice his life for yours, but at the same time according to his value scheme, it is the most +EV move. The same reasoning applies to your father/son scenario.

[Jazza]

DS, I apologize if I didn't give an accurate summary of what you said in the article, but I don't think you did either, can I just type out some paragraphs from it?

[Zygote]

You are right that i am making an assumption, but this is not a major one. Whatever choice the father makes, he does so in his own best interest, no matter what reason you give.

Regarding my assumption, try think about a father who knows he would feel no remorse having given up an oppurtinity to save his son and holds little personal value to his son. According to your definition, none of these things should even factor in because his heart will lead him to save his son, no matter what. However, I highly contend that a father who doesn't value his son's life, and knows he will feel no remorse or consequences, would happily avoid the risk. Conversely, a father who personally values his son and/or fears the personal consequences of passing the chance to save his son, would probably take the risk. In both situations, the father does what is best for him. It is impossible for him to do otherwise.


[ QUOTE ]

I know for a fact that my brother would die for me if he had to. Not because he is being selfish, but because he is a guardian by nature and his heart would lead him to do that.

[/ QUOTE ]

Now you are making the huge assumption that your brother would save you regardless of the circumstances. I believe the circumstances make a difference (see above).

Also, being selfish isn't a bad thing. Everybody is selfish in every decision they make. I don't hold a negative connotation to that word. If you know for fact that your brother would save you, that probably means you know for a fact that your brother values your life and/or wouldn't be able to deal with consequences of not taking his life for you. Guardians only guard things they want to protect. HE WANTS to protect you, therefore, you end up being saved. Given the circumstances, if he chooses to save your life, he is acting in his best interest which, luckily, is coincidingly your best interest. If he chose not to, only his best interest is satisfied and you'd recieve no indirect benefits.

[Bjorn]

[ QUOTE ]
DS --
"No one ever proved that bumblebees can't fly. Their ability to fly violates no law of physics."

Of course no one ever proved it. If they did the proof was obviously flawed. It's an old saying that ridicules those in Ivory Towers who conjure theories that have no basis in reality.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is just an old urban myth. A more realistic description is that for a long time (it has been "solved" today) physics/engineering could not explain how bumblebees could fly and in fact gave very incorrect results also when modeling other insects.

From what I've read it was a clasical example of making incorrect initial assumptions and then coming to a completly wrong result. (Garbage in - Garbage out.)

One assumption was for instance that insect wings were essentially rigid when in flight which today is obviously false to anyone who looks at a slowmotion film taken with a high speed camera of a bumblebee or other flying insect in fligt.

/Bjorn

[Zygote]

What one thinks is their best interest often isn't actually what would have benefited them most. For example, bad poker players make decisions they think will benefit them most, however, in reality, other choices would have been more beneficial. Again, every decision one makes is what one BELIEVES will benefit one the most.

Further, I think the people who know they only do things that they think are best for them will then be able to make decisions that are more correlated to what will benefit them the most in reality. Therefore, this knowledge is far from useless.

[Cyrus]

Greetings - and congratulations on your continuing professional successes.

[ QUOTE ]
Negreanu to Sklansky : "Your strengths lie in numbers rather than understanding human emotion and WHY people do what they do."

[/ QUOTE ]

From the books penned by David or the caped duo, I have understood that their efforts reside in trying to quantify such factors as human emotion. They are not ignoring the "human factor"; they are trying to analyse it. Hence, their use of terms such as "usually", "almost always", etc (and not of specific figures) when analysing the table behavior of certain types of players.

This is admittedly not too math'matical, but it sure beats the hell outta every other piece of advice!

I mean, you are surely correct to think, as you wrote, "With John Doe being recently divorced, how is that going to change the way he plays the river?" But you need to translate that to quantifiable and robust strategy, if you want to give advice on strategy -- and not just tell a story.

Take care.