#54

Online poker is definitely more suited to those who are able to juggle statistics and odds in their heads - especially a few years ago when the overnight tables would be full of drunk americans and it was apparently pretty easy to clean up. In person it’s slightly different though, where the ability to ‘read’ a player and intimidate others comes in to the game more.

I think the idea of romanticising savants and people on the autism spectrum is a very dangerous one though. High functioning and/or aspergers ‘sufferers’ who are able to do this are very rare, and it runs the risk of downplaying the effort that children and parents have to make.

#55

Who’s this then?

Poker is definitely a lot about the maths/probabilities at the top level these days. I don’t know how people become professional gamblers generally though. I have a friend who works at a bookies, and he says if people get successful they just cut them off. They only want the bad gamblers.

#56

What happened to sharp_yet_blunt?

He was a professional gambler, wasn’t he?

#57

You’ve got to know when to hold 'em
Know when to fold 'em
Know when to walk away
And know when to run

3 Likes
#59

I only bother getting a ticket when the jackpot is > £25m. Anything less wouldn’t get you very far in London, might be able to scrape a duplex in Battersea but what if you wanted dogs or babies.

2 Likes
#60

Regarding your second point, I completely understand and respect that (from personal experience). I debated posting my post for exactly the concerns you raise, but my point was just wondering if there were people with potentially undiagnosed savant abilities who have found a way to capitalise on them by gambling/betting.

The epidemiology of savant abilities is hotly debated but many don’t think it’s ‘very rare’ - my brother is a manager for an autism service and says that he interacts with savants (to varying degrees) on a daily basis. His house is full of incredible art that savant service users have given to him as birthday/christmas gifts.

#61

A good distinction to make, which I’d overlooked, never having played poker in real life myself. In fact I’ve always marvelled at how people even manage to keep tabs on the pot in “live” games.

You’re quite right about the golden era though. Pretty nostalgic for the days when I used to sit down with $400 at three different sites at the same time and be $1K up on each within a couple of hours. Just a shame I then used to get pissed and lose it all again.

#62

well I think it’s a mixture of “gut feeling” and calculations. Like from a bayesian perspective, it’s adjusting your calculations on the basis of prior knowledge and beliefs.

Savants discuss about being able to ‘see the answer’ to a mathematical calculation - so maybe it’s not like going through a process of sums or calculations that you or I might do, but instead being able to instantly see or feel the correct approach which is on the basis of being able to instantly calculate the odds and probabilities on the tables and adjust based on good memory/experience etc.

I guess what it comes to is that there’s probably a grey area between savants and players who are very good at doing mental arithmetic on the fly. The second set of people can probably train and learn those abilities to a certain level.

#63

sounds like

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#64

You could travel in time, and buy my grandparent’s victorian terrace in Battersea for £500 in the 1960s instead (and make sure the council don’t knock it down a few years later to build flats).

#65

Yeah, my girlfriend did quite a big uni thing on savants and obviously it’s really hard to guage because ‘savant’ is quite a hard thing to define objectively, but most estimates are that around 10% of people with autism have some form of savant ability

#66

There’s nothing for the savants to “sav” that the mathematicians can’t pre-prepare for. The game comes down to a series of odds judgements, and with practice anyone can do it fast enough. I’ll grant you that being very very good at mental arithmetic will be a help though.

#67

Actually a better response would be to say that ALL successful poker players have to be able to do the above. They don’t have to do it instantly though.

#68

Nigel Gloomintroll?

#69

I find it really weird that gambling advertising is allowed to be everywhere, and that it isn’t under the same kind of heavy restrictions as smoking and alcohol. Or at least, it doesn’t feel like it’s regulated as much.

Stuff like this Ladbrokes one I find pretty gross: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgCzKQJyWdk

2 Likes
#70

That Ladbrokes one was the absolute worst. Just gross.

#71

yeah sure that’s a good point - a savant with mathematical abilities is going to be at a headstart when learning/developing.

#72

Play the lottery sometimes when incredibly depressed about half my family living in Australia and the troubles of seeing them.

1 Like
#73

Turn around, Steward!

(but yeah, as I said above when we as a society eventually see sense on gambling addiction and block the saturation advertising during sports we’ll end up looking back on shit like this as completely awful, predatory and irresponsible)

#74

the impression i get with poker is that there’s so much maths in it that you basically need to play shit loads till knowing what to do becomes intuitive - so maths ability will help you get there much quicker but it’s not everything

friend of mine is a poker player, left his office job in 2015 for it. this year he was overall doing quite badly but then he bagged about 200k accross two tournaments since september. as others have said - he knew that he just had to keep going and it would end up in his favour

i made 80 quid on brexit by putting 40 quid on it at about 2am after that sunderland result, other than that definitely never put more than a tenner on anything