Life Lessons From the Felt - Anything is Possible!
So fun fact about me, back in college I spent about a year and half with poker as my only source of income. It helped that I was living with my parents still so I didn't have to make that much for it to work, but I never asked them for money during that time and was able to do things like take a trip out to Vegas for one of the $1500 events in the WSOP. I wish I still had more time to play but it's a pain in the ass to drive two hours to a casino and none of the large poker sites are open to US customers still. Still though, the time I spent studying and playing poker had a profound effect on how I make decisions and view the world.
A lot of us view the world as deterministic, thing that doing A will cause B to happen. However, this is not how things are. The world is actually probabilistic. Doing A will likely cause B, but there is a chance that C, D, or E could happen too. Even something that seems simple, like pushing on a door to open it, could have different outcomes. Maybe I try to open it and there is a gust of wind that stops me. Or a box behind it I can't see. Or I hit a person there. Or suddenly the Higgs Field stops and all of existence disintegrates (just had to open that door huh?). Some of these are so unlikely that it's silly to include them in your calculation on whether to open that door, but you should know they are there.
In poker you constantly have to make choices that depend on a probability of outcomes. I know that if my opponent is drawing to a flush on the flop that he's got about 2:1 odds of getting there by the river. I know that if my opponent has a lower pocket pair than me pre-flop that there's about a 12% chance he wins anyway. You don't win in poker by being lucky or being good at bluffing or by avoiding bad beats, you win by consistently making the choice that is best suited to your situation and the current odds. The measure of whether or not your choice is a profitable one is called your expected value.
)Expected value is the sum of every possible outcome multiplied by the results of that outcome. For a simplified example, lets go back to that flush draw. Lets say I have KhQh and my opponent has AsAd. There's $20 in the pot, the flop is 5h4h8c. I act first and bet $15, my opponent goes all in for $65 total. The pot is now $100 (20+15+65) and I have to call $50 more. What do I do? Well with two cards to come my odds of hitting the flush and winning are roughly 36%. So my choices are to fold and lose nothing further (the money already in the pot is sunk cost), or call. 64% of the time I call and lose, so that portion of it is (-50x64%) = or -32. 36% of the time though I win what's currently in the pot, so that is (100x36%) or 36. 36-32=4, so on average I would expect to make $4 by calling. Since 4 > 0, I should call, even though technically it's less likely that I'll win. Sorry you now have a headache from the mini math lesson.
Looking that the choice deterministically a person could potentially come away with a lot of misconceptions about the choice. I played a hand is supposed to lose, therefor I made a bad play. If I win I just got lucky. Or maybe you think because I made that choice and won you should always do that, even though if the pot was 90 instead of 100 it would have been a bad call. See looking at the world from a deterministic point of view often can lead to results oriented thinking. In deciding whether a choice was good or bad, the actual results of that choice are irrelevant. Unless you miscalculated your odds, given the same set of circumstances you should always repeat the choice that has the highest EV, regardless of past results. I bet there are a lot of people in the cryptosphere who made a lot of money and think they are geniuses because of it. Really though the odds were never that great for bitcoin to take off the way that it did and just because it worked out once does not mean it will work out again. A lot of people ended up broke during the dotcom boom too.
Of course not everything is valued in dollars either. However, that doesn't mean you can't use this outside of fiscal decisions. Everything you want in life, money, peace, happiness, security, has a value that you place on it. Every choice you make has a probability of outcomes that will either given you some value in some, or take away in others. You may have to decide if you want to spend money to take a vacation. Is the loss of money going to be offset by the gain in happiness? Maybe you have an amazing time and it is, or you have food poisoning the whole time and it's not. But that choice should always be made on what you think the EV of that choice is.
The problem with this thinking, it's way easier said than done! You have to somehow figure out the probability of your outcomes, and then the value of those outcomes. If you make a mistake then what seems like a good choice may very quickly end up a bad one. On top of this we tend to have a bias towards towards causal relationships as well. Animals learn via causal relationships. Your dog does tricks because he thinks if he does A, he will get B reward. If I'm a rodent I don't have time to sit there and think what the odds are of the cat eating me, I just need to bounce ASAP. It's faster and simpler. It's also easier to apply as knowledge. A therefor B is concrete. A therefor B, but maybe also other things means more time processing, and I've already talked about how much your brain tries to conserve processing.
Probabilistic thinking however is needed to actually solve a lot of the complex problems we face, both personally and as a society. Let's take the hottest issue right now, gun control. People on both sides use deterministic thinking to make their arguments and discount the other one. Gun control will end in oppression and tyranny! People will find ways to kill without guns! Criminals will still find ways to have guns! Good guys with guns never stop anything! Mental Health is the real problem! Guns are only used to kill people! You're less safe with a gun than without one! All of these are factors that are sometimes true, and sometimes not. People stick to one thing and say this will happen, and that's why we should make a choice.
None of that is right though, you have to take a look at ALL of the possible outcomes and how likely they are and then make the decision based on that. It actually doesn't matter if later on there are undesirable outcomes, what matters is the choice that was made gives you the best chance to be successful. Unfortunately it's not very easy to sell people on a solution when your answer is "it depends." Probability however doesn't really care in a specific instance what you want or what's best or how hard you try. However, if you can accept the variance and choose whatever gives you the best EV, you will always come out ahead in the end (except, you know, the .0000001% of the time where you don't).
@cygon - that is a very well thought out post. Can u really calculate the odds while u are playing, because the game is moving too fast.
I'm guessing that another factor is reading the opposing players which also gets factored into the EV? It is all quite complex. Congratulations on your ability to do it and win.
That's the easy part actually. Some situations you just sort of memorize the odds for. For others there are short cuts to get to a good approximation (the percentage of hitting on the next street are the # of cards that make your hand x2).
The harder part is determining the range of your opponent's hands and factoring that into the EV. And then factoring in what your opponent is likely to do. So yes, it does get pretty complicated quickly. With practice though a lot of it becomes intuition.
I have played poker and admire you for making enough $$ from playing to keep you going through College. I would have said you have good intuition and a bit of heather on your shoulder but it seems your system of knowing when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em has served you well.
Thanks! It was a lot of fun, but also kind of a stressful way to live when you're on a downswing! It's nice when I just get to play for fun.
Really cool @cygon with this Post and how you apply Poker and probabilities towards real life circumstances.
Kudos for this post
Thanks. Life is just one big poker game in my book ;).
I have played poker and done OK but never played it seriously [retyt impressive you could live off the game in college
Thanks. There is a deep rabbit hole to go down when you start taking the game seriously...
I am sure it must be, its not a path I will take but for those who have the knack and skills its an option for sure
Sounds like poetry with numbers. I am guessing there is a good deal of intuition that goes into the vast calculations of simply valuing one thing over another. Pattern recognition must be instinctive for you. Is it always numbers or do you sometimes act cause something feels right? Cool post brother! Peace.
If you go by Myers-Briggs I'm INTJ, so it's funny you point that out since patterning and intuition are my specialties. Poker is interesting because it has a mix of information with certainty (the odds cards will come) and uncertainty (guessing the cards your opponent has). Poker is a good life analogue because it involves a great deal of decision making under uncertainty. You're never going to have perfect information, you eventually have to make a judgement that you're close enough to make a choice.
Cool! I am closest to an ENFP. Peace friend.
If life is a card game, today I WILL hit 21 every time, equations be dammed. Not to argue to be a dick but there have been a couple of good guys who stopped some shit with their guns. Anyways, thank you for making my brain kick up the processor to take in your thought provoking post. I think I smell an electric fire, I thunk so hard. RESPECT
I was highlighting stuff from both sides there, although if you want to see where I was getting at with the picture I posted, gun control won't stop every gun crime, but it will reduce them and overall we will be better off.
Sorry to fry your brain a bit, but it's probably good for you ;).
Got ya, I shall recover. Nothing wrong with a little brain frying .
I have never played poker before... i suck even st the simplest card game. 😢😅
Yeah it's not for everyone. It's simple to learn and very expensive to master!
I can't claim that I understood all of that, but I was following most of it. I get the concept of deterministic vs probabilistic. How often would you say you make life decisions in a probabilistic way?
Yeah, I think the short intro to poker math might throw a lot of people here, but hard to discuss the topic without it.
On some level, always. It changes your default way of thinking, you see the actions you take more to increase the likelihood of the desired outcome, not as a direct action. It also helps when you see things happen and adapt when they don't go entirely as expected. It's REALLY helpful when it comes to personal finance as well.
Great post bud
I have tried poker a few times and done no better at it than luck would imply. The more I looked into how it all works, the more i saw the nature of the game - it's reliance on probability and a player's need to understand maths. And these are not bad things to know and utilise, but i think it needs to be a way of life. You did well to get there, and even make a living from it for a time.
There are people who sort of just pick up an intuitive sense of the odds and do very well just winging it, but yes, in order to be successful you need to radically change the way you view chance and risk.