> Look at what the University of Alberta is doing with math and try to say it isnt important.
University of Alberta have done awesome research into poker, and I believe that every poker game is theoretically solvable. Math is a great tool to win poker with, but for most humans that depth of math is unreachable therefore as a player it's sort of useless (especially so in a live game).
When I was a winning player at various levels (plo100 was as far as I got) I really don't feel I was consciously doing much math except in the less frequent harder spots. (My demise was tilt and bankroll management).
> This is an incredibly jaded reply.
Fair comment, you have to understand though that it's a game that really hurt me at one point and that some of my friends are unknowingly suffering from it. I would not wish my experience of poker onto anyone else, and I would feel very uncomfortable exploiting someone who was in a similar position (which is obviously near impossible to ascertain online). I am quite vocal about this because I do feel a lot of the downsides are glossed over by the winning players - especially the less direct downsides like people deviating too far away from other paths in their lives that they would be happier in (such as a 'real' job/career).
When I went to casinos, local games, even pub games I would only say about 10% of the people in each place were happily enjoying themselves. My experience of poker is that the vast majority of people who play it a lot really aren't actually enjoying the pursuit, many to the point it impacts their outside lives, and that the game does tend to attract less savoury characters. Of the 90% that were not enjoying it, many of them are deluded by their own ability and potential. Perhaps I was just at the bottom of the pit and it changes at higher levels, but new players starting it would be difficult to break away from that majority group.
This definitely makes me hesitant to recommend the game to anyone, regardless of the huge enjoyment and lessons I did get out of it.
> Look at what the University of Alberta is doing with math and try to say it isnt important.
University of Alberta have done awesome research into poker, and I believe that every poker game is theoretically solvable. Math is a great tool to win poker with, but for most humans that depth of math is unreachable therefore as a player it's sort of useless (especially so in a live game).
When I was a winning player at various levels (plo100 was as far as I got) I really don't feel I was consciously doing much math except in the less frequent harder spots. (My demise was tilt and bankroll management).
> This is an incredibly jaded reply.
Fair comment, you have to understand though that it's a game that really hurt me at one point and that some of my friends are unknowingly suffering from it. I would not wish my experience of poker onto anyone else, and I would feel very uncomfortable exploiting someone who was in a similar position (which is obviously near impossible to ascertain online). I am quite vocal about this because I do feel a lot of the downsides are glossed over by the winning players - especially the less direct downsides like people deviating too far away from other paths in their lives that they would be happier in (such as a 'real' job/career).
When I went to casinos, local games, even pub games I would only say about 10% of the people in each place were happily enjoying themselves. My experience of poker is that the vast majority of people who play it a lot really aren't actually enjoying the pursuit, many to the point it impacts their outside lives, and that the game does tend to attract less savoury characters. Of the 90% that were not enjoying it, many of them are deluded by their own ability and potential. Perhaps I was just at the bottom of the pit and it changes at higher levels, but new players starting it would be difficult to break away from that majority group.
This definitely makes me hesitant to recommend the game to anyone, regardless of the huge enjoyment and lessons I did get out of it.