Told a relative a few years back I was gonna go play poker all night. He tells me his story (and strategies) about how he won $15 playing "Let it Ride". I was about to play $10/20 NL at the Commerce and this douchebag tells me this abortion of a story and how there was actual skill involved.

Fyp

Lol

Worst mistake of my life telling peolpe i play poker they just don't believe you make any money at it. You be like i won x hundred dollars last month they be like but how much did you lose. I have a vow of silence> not talking poker to my family or new girls i meet.

GLGL

When I first started watching poker on TV I didn't know what blinds were. But from listening to the analysis and descriptions of what the players were doing, it was immediately obviously that it was a game of skill.

I'll make it even more basic. It's a no-brainer that some people are better at card games than others. Tournament bridge is very competitive.

But for some reason, no matter how you explain it, a lot of people just don't seem willing or able to process that information.

Then they go buy ten lottery tickets on their way home.

hahaha

i am guilty of telling a coworker if i could give him like a 100 bucks to multiply them for me at the casino. Back in 2007 when i didn't know poker existed.

''everyone that sells liquor or cigarettes is a waste too? '' > OFC yes

GLGL

Yeah people cant get their mind around it or just dont want to believe it.

it can close doors.

why even bother with it when you can just say your a consultant or investor or something

My FB job title is "Head of Poker", which means that shows up in Tinder. Had someone say "Head of Poker?! No seriously, but what's your real job?"

exactly do not even bother. Now i tell people i am a short term investor. Can not get into details because i signed a confidentiality contract.

GLGL

I got talking to some woman when I was applying for a visa, I didn't feel like having the awkward poker player convo so I told her I was a web designer, turns out she seemed to know a lot about that and starting asking me questions that I had no idea how to answer, I made some excuse and left pretty quckly.

Because then people might realise I don't contribute anything to society and that I'm just a leech attached to the arse of gambling addicts around the world.

Simply because i learned from the very beginning the good ole: Do not tap on the aquarium We can not go around telling people poker is about skill, math, etc. We gotta let them keep thinking is pure gambooool so they deposit. At the expense of everyone thinking we r degens. And even if u explain poker is about math and skills they will give u the condescending look like u r a degen-gambler in denial who is sick and ruining his life because the house always wins. LOL!

GLGL

They're probably right at least 9/10 times

Meh, I dunno. Among the people that don't currently play, I think there's a big "likes to think they're smart" crowd that would eat that up, thinking they're just gonna memorize a chart like they would with blackjack, or read one ****ty book, and start cleaning up. Meanwhile they turn out to be huge fish that it never quite clicks for, but they keep playing because they know it's beatable but will never admit they're not smart/dedicated enough to beat it.

For people that already give away their money at the tables, though...yeah, just let 'em continue to think it's a crapshoot.

LOL this thread again. I remembered two great posts. This one is a quote from DMoogle's Mom, Nostradamus:
And this one:
Can I interest you in a Staking deal with Makeup? Anyone?

my friend offered to stake me half in tournaments, take half the profit or losses (meh ok, good deal buddy) and...here's the catch take 1% of everything I ever make in poker.

😭😭 Abortion of a story had me in stitches!

This is a relatively GTO route one can take. Most plebs won't understand variance when you explain it in reference to playing cards.
Use it in the context of stock market and wall street and all of a sudden you're a financial savant!

Bored and found this thread.

Wanted to share, I met this woman online, we move to texting, at some point I explain that in my free time/hobbies I play poker and wrote a book on the math and psychology of poker to help myself learn and improve (I'm a math/psych nerd, cant lie)

I tell her my goal is to win enough every 6 months to pay my property taxes with other people's money. I have successfully done this for the last 8 years in a row. I play every other weekend and on some days off from work.

She insists that my "gambling" is a "waste of money"

Me be confused. If I've had 7 winning years in a row (and I've played for 8 years) how is it a "waste of money"?
If you always come out ahead, is it really "gambling"?

I'm coming out ahead every single year since I took the game seriously.

She just couldnt figure it out, she held firm to "you're wasting your money"

I moved on after that texting night, she was kinda hot, but not hot enough to merit being with someone so dumb

I wanted to say, "soooooo, you go to your work each week and come back with more money than you started, right? Is that a waste of your money? Is that "gambling"?
I just didnt care enough to argue it out and explain it to her. Winning players do exist, and for those people, it's not "gambling" unless you expand your definition of the word to mean "anyone who makes money from any given activity"

Don't get me wrong, I'm not some full time pro crusher, but paying off obscene Chicagoland area property taxes with other people's money feels pretty good.
This was also the last time I ever mentioned I play poker to new women I date.

I took an Uber to Gold Coast from my air bnb to get some food before going to the Rio for a postlim event. My driver asks me if I'm going to gamble or w/e, I tell him I'm gonna eat then go to Rio. "Oh you play poker?" "Yeah." He then proceeds to show off more knowledge about poker than pretty much any Uber driver I've had before so I indulge him for a little while. He talks about Negreanu's vlog, uses the term VPIP, starts talking about how crazy it would be to have a live hud if that was ever technologically possible.

I think to myself, "ooo I bet this will impress him and he'll be excited and have a lot of questions." So I say, "I actually busted the Main Event a couple days ago. Was knocked out on day 6 and finished in the top 100."

He pauses a couple seconds, then continues, "yeah and 5c/10c on WSOP like you can't have a hud on there but you can take notes and get some good reads on people."

I stayed quiet the rest of the ride and let him ramble.

loled. Bless him. You got jebaited

I like to tell people I have played poker for my living the last 18 years and when they talk ****.
Then I get to use my favorite line I don't go to your work and slap the dicks out of your mouth do I?

A-ha-ha, good answer.

So here's what probably happened. There are a lot of delusional people who gamble (like, non-poker gambling) that think they have some sort of system, and lie (to themselves and others) about being a winning player. Most people have no idea that poker is completely different than a casino game type of gambling like blackjack or craps, they think it's all the same thing. So when you told her you played poker and you were good at it and you won, she was looking at you like you'd look at someone who said they had a roulette system - ie a delusional gambler who is either lying about making money or maybe they just ran lucky in the short term but their degen tendencies will overtake it.

You get better results if you explain how poker differs from "gambling" first - that it's not a fixed-odd game that you play against the house, but rather a game you play against other players where the casino makes money by taking a cut for running the game, not by betting against you. So, unlike all the other types of gambling where you can only make losing bets, you can win at poker by being better than the other players. You can emphasize that it's closer to chess with a random element than something like blackjack.