If it's "mostly yes", meaning you agree with my claim, what exactly do you want me to justify?

(I used the word "systematic" in the correct manner, but I am not going to go into arguing semantics with you).

I will continue this tomorrow.

Huh? "Mostly yes" refers to the following: You made two claims that are distinct from the claim you were asked to justify. They were

And then you asked me to

They are correct up to the point where I disagree with you on the actual meaning of the word "systematic." But if I substitute what I think systematic means with the description you gave, I agree that the two claims you presented are correct.

I want you to justify the claim you made:

* What "model" is the "big chunk of Christians" using?
* In what way is this model "incompatible" with poker strategies "as it is taught by the best coaches"?

Edit: I guess there's some RGT content, nvm.

Some time ago, I had to arrange a chess match with the user named Cadaz here on 2+2. Like you, he's 7 hours ahead of me. That's actually a rather awkward amount of time to be off from each other as it makes it difficult for us to be online at the same time for any appreciable amount of time. I just hope I'm not awake at my 3:20am.

I'd still like to see the bible quote saying it is not ok to gamble. may i also interject a quesiton about lending money, is it correct that Christians must not lend money and make a profit on it? Like charging interest etc.?

thanks

The model most Christians use is the two points that I wrote. Now, why is it incompatible...

My old attempts to explain to you why this is so have all failed because of your semantic games. Meaning, tens of pages were wasted for nothing. I am not going to do the same mistake, so I'll apply a different strategy this time. I want to ask the following two questions. According to the model we both agreed on:

1. When Jerry Yang prays for a good outcome of an all-in situation, does that actually make him more likely to win than if he didn't pray?

2. Is it moral for him to do this?

My answer to 2 is that perhaps its not immoral but selfish. Also I think anyone who prays for an outcome no matter what, is asking god to change his plan and by such you are actually saying that you think/want his perfect plan to change ie selfish.

As for 1 i dont know.

lol. yeah, definitely not good to not be sleeping at this hour. i am working on a couple of publications for a big conference whose deadline is 20 days from now though, that's why I can't afford to sleep too much atm.

Alright, let me try to summarize my point in a few sentences, because I feel like we've been going in circles forever. Let's take the definition we're going to work with:

Now let's define "wager":

Now, let's consider how poker relates to the definitions above. A player is wagering money on the outcome of an action. It's not necessarily on the cards, since the opponents may fold (as happens quite often) before the showdown. The action can be any of the possible actions in poker: checking, betting, raising, calling, and folding. The possible outcomes of each action have an associated probability and value. Let's take simple example:

The pot is $100 000 and a player is facing a bet of $25 000 on the river. Based on the range of hands he has assigned to his opponent, he knows that his hand is going to win 50% of the time when he makes the call. The expected outcome of making the call in the long run is 50%*125k - 50%*25k which equals $75 000. The outcome of folding is $0, so the player clearly must choose calling over folding.

Is what I described above consistent with the definition of gambling I quoted? I think it is. We wagered $25k on the event of calling the river bet which had an uncertain outcome with the intent of winning more money.

Now, let's consider another example. A businessman decides to make a new investment of $25 000. Based on his analysis of the market (taking into account all relevant factors), he figures out that there is a 50% chance of the plan failing, in which case the new business he started will go bankrupt and he will not make any money, while losing his initial investment. If the plan doesn't fail, on the other hand, he calculates that his net gain is going to be $125 000. When deciding whether to start the business or not, he understands that starting the business is definitely going to be more profitable (has an expected value of $75k) than not starting it (an expected value of $0).

Is what I described above consistent with the definition of gambling? I think so. The businessman wagered $25k on the event of running the business which had an uncertain outcome with the intent of winning more money.

I can put almost any business, regular job, or even non-monetary life experiences in those terms. Namely, in terms of risk-to-reward ratio. Every action costs something and every action has possible uncertain outcomes which have some sort of value associated with them. Now, you might say "Yes, you can, but the definition of gambling is actually more specific. It's not just about risking something of material value on the outcome of an uncertain event. It specifically refers to things that have been traditionally called "betting" in our society".

Fine, let's say you're right. Let's say that technically speaking, poker is "gambling", whereas new business investments are not. Does the distinction that I said on your behalf have any importance whatsoever? What substantial differences are there between poker and something that is "traditionally" not considered gambling? For example, if we are discussing whether it is moral for Christians to play poker versus to make new business investments, do you think that such technicalities matter? Would God treat the two differently?

That's pretty much what an earlier poster (murli) was saying, and I agree with it. But it's a topic of a discussion on praying in general. For the purposes of this conversation, I am assuming that praying is actually a legitimate thing in Christian theology.

Can you elaborate?

You have to stop here for a moment to clarify the model. In order for what I will call the "moral judgment" model to be applied, the Christian must have a sufficient amount of information (input data to the model) to obtain an output. Most of that data is missing, such as the other person's "moral standing" with God, and very often one own's "moral standing" with God is unclear as all Christians suffer from sinfulness, and in some areas we are more or less sinful than others, and it's basically impossible to know which one is dominant at any particular time.

So to say that they "use" this model is true, but not in the sense you're meaning it to have. That is, these Christians generally do not go around saying "I'm going to be luckier because I've been good."

Even before you get there, what does it mean for models to be "incompatible"? Since I don't agree with your understanding of "systematic" I don't have reason to think your understanding of "incompatible models."

We do not know. It might and it might not. It might make is less likely for him to win the pot. This is again your issue with understanding the modeling problem. In reality, the probabilities might change. But the way that they might change cannot be reasonably incorporated into a model, so there's no value in changing the model to account for these possibilities.

I again go back to the example of the colluding dealer. If one out of 100000 dealers is colluding with a player, and you know you're not colluding with a dealer, your concepts here would say that you should model the outcome of cards slightly negatively to account for it, thus making that model "incompatible" with "poker strategies "as it is taught by the best coaches."

If prayer is understood to be communication with God, then prayers are amoral. It is up to God to decide whether to act upon or not act upon the prayers. For example, Job prayed for the destruction of Nineveh out of his anger. That prayer itself was not immoral even though what he had prayed for was.

So the follow-up to that is whether a good outcome is moral or immoral, and I would argue that it's also amoral. There are plenty of actions and events which have no moral bearing, and the outcome of the cards seems like it's one of those.

The difference that I see is what the money is doing. With a new business, you are using the money to buy things to support your business. In a chess tournament, your money is being used to pay for your spot in the tournament. With a poker bet, the money is nothing but a wager. I think that if you apply this criteria, you'll find that you will end up classifying things as gambling or not gambling the same way those things are generally thought of.

I actually find this side discussion irrelevant to the main topic of the OP. I only started down this path because gunth said he plays poker but wouldn't if he thought it gambling, and I thought he was mischaracterizing the game. It really is off topic until someone says that the bible says gambling is wrong, and even then we would look to the bible for its definition (like when I discuss the politics/legality of gambling, I look to the legal definition, which is different than the common definition).

So, according to this, given the information Jerry Yang has, there isn't any value in praying in poker. Him praying might make it more likely to win the pot or less likely to win the pot, compared to him not praying. Given that both are equally likely (from his perspective), why does he even pray? Would you agree that it is pointless?

This brings me to the next question. Why would any Christian ever pray to God asking him to change anything in the physical Universe? From what you're saying, it seems like this whole thing is a big waste of time. And notice that I am not asking why Christians should pray in general. I am aware that some experience prayer as some sort of a closer connection to God or a form of meditation. My question specifically concerns prayer asking God to interfere with the physical Universe.

Okay, but again, if you follow your own thought process, you must admit that by your criteria at least poker tournaments are not gambling.

Having said that, I completely disagree with you that the bolded part is at all relevant regarding something being gambling. I don't see it anywhere in the definition of gambling and I don't think you can find it either. So, it seems like you are using your own definition of "gambling" based on some intuitive understandings. Do you at least see that this is what you're doing?

Okay, but this is not a legal forum, so I don't understand why we have to be talking about legal definitions in the first place. We are talking more about the philosophical aspects of things. And philosophically, poker is no more gambling than starting a new business.

Why do people ask for one-times?

I don't know about *HIS* perspective, but from mine I would agree that praying for cards is pointless.

Your jump from specific to general is blatantly erroneous.

Sure. Explain then why is it reasonable to pray sometimes and not other times?

It depends on that which you're praying for. Is this really that opaque of a subject to you?

Well, obviously. But my question concerns the model underlying this theology that you've been talking about so much. What kinds of things' probability can you reliably increase/decrease by praying and why isn't poker one of them?

Then I don't really understand why you think your move from specific to general isn't obviously erroneous. Do you think that praying for someone's health would somehow fall in the same category as praying for an ace on the river?

You've use the word "reliably" in the same manner that you've used the word "systematically" before. Unlike in poker, where events have discrete and well-defined beginnings and ends, many of the things that people pray for have very open-ended time frames under consideration.

The model of prayer that you're trying to use seems to require these discrete time frames in order for your argument to proceed.

I think I'm fine with this.

I actually got this idea from the wiki article we got our original definition from.

"Investments are also usually not considered gambling, although some investments can involve significant risk. Examples of investments include stocks, bonds and real estate. Starting a business can also be considered a form of investment. Investments are generally not considered gambling when they meet the following criteria:

Economic utility
Positive expected returns (at least in the long term)
Underlying value independent of the risk being undertaken"

I also think this is reasonable. If the money is payment for goods or services, then it's exactly that, not a wager. It is how we can differentiate between making a bet and everything else that we do (since otherwise, everything would fall under the definition of gambling).

(An aside to the above wiki definition, I don't know what the +EV has to do with it. I don't think that changing a scenario to + or -EV changes our opinions on whether or not it's gambling.)

Actually, probably a stronger argument, I disagree with your definition of wager. According to wiktionary (which is better than wikipedia for definitions, imo): "To put something up as collateral." When you pay for things, you aren't putting the money up for collateral. When you pay a tourney fee, you aren't putting it up for collateral. When you make a bet in poker, you are putting the chips up for collateral in the pot.

We aren't talking about the legal definition. I mentioned that as an example to show that gambling has different definitions in different contexts. That's because if someone has an objection to gambling from a religious standpoint, we'd have to look at how that religion is defining gambling to know if poker qualifies or not.

Not if they tell us poker is a sin. Which some do.

I meant to say that it's obviously some differences in the things you are praying for, if prayer isn't going to be working for everything. Otherwise, it's not obvious why this itself should be so, but I will address that later.

The whole point of all this was to determine why it is pointless (according to your theology) to pray for a river card but not for somebody's health to get better. If you say that it is meaningful to pray for something, you are already saying that the probability the thing you are praying for happening is reliably higher than if you don't pray. This is very straightforward really, I hope I won't need to break it down to you.

So, why is it pointless to pray for the river card but not for your wife's health?

Okay, this is really strange. What you're saying is that cash game pros are gamblers, whereas tournament pros are not? Really? They play the exact same game dude, it's just that the structure of how you're risking the money and how you're being rewarded is different. All of them have win rates: in cash games the measure is bb/100, whereas in tournaments it's ROI. Based on those win rates and on how many hands or tournaments they play per hour on average, each of those pros can determine their hourly win rates. And based on how many hours a day they play, they can determine what money they will be getting monthly. Just like a regular salary.

In fact, tournament pros most of the time experience much higher variances than cash game pros, so they can be far less certain about the amount of money they would get in the end of the month. So, you really want to double down on claiming that playing cash games in poker is gambling? How do you think you'd be received if you went to the high stakes poker forums and said that tournament pros are not gamblers, but cash pros are?

Poker has both. So, again, by the definitions you are using, it is not gambling.

I thought the point of all of this was for you to justify your claim. You haven't done that yet. And you're once again talking about *MY* theology, which is irrelevant to the conversation.

You still need to tell me what "incompatible" models are, and you need to explain how it is that this definition applies as you've described.

But I'm not saying that. You're the one who has been talking about "reliability" and "systematically." I've noted multiple times that those words don't seem to properly apply to the situation.

It really is straight-forward. But you're the one twisting around in the exact same ways as before in order to make a theological point that nobody really holds.

I want to go back to the question you posed earlier and my response, which you did not respond to:

Are they playing in a manner that is "incompatible" with how poker coaches teach? Do they honestly think they're changing the probabilities? Why do they do it?

If you can understand the one-timers, then you should be able to understand Jerry Yang.

I am going to do this, but there are steps that need to be taken before that. The most important of which is to establish what the theology of most Christian is. I promise that the incompatibility is going to become clear to you in the end (even though overtly you will still be acting like a little girl, as usual).

Okay, so the specific quote you're responding to is this:

Apparently, you don't think praying is meaningful. To which I say: Lol. Do you even know what you're talking about?

Let me help your thought process a little bit. You said that there is a difference between praying for specific cards in poker and praying for someone's health. Previously you said that one cannot rely on the probability for a certain card increasing as a result of prayer. All these statements combined imply that one can rely on the probability of somebody's health being better as a result of prayer increasing.

I will ask again. Why is prayer meaningful in one case but not meaningful in another? What kinds of things are in the first category and what kinds of things are in the second category? What is the underlying principle of this categorization?

Many people say "one time" as a joke. Some people say it in a moment of pressure when they are giving themselves a pep talk without actually believing they are increasing their chances of winning the hand. Those who believe they are are just stupid.

This is different from Jerry Yang's praying, since he believes he is actually more likely to win the hand as a result of prayer. Your implicit claim apparently is that he is an exception, most Christians don't hold such theology?

I do. It seems that you don't.

The whole language of probability is ill-suited for this aspect of the conversation. "Probability" is at the center of the modeling problem.

You are using the word "probability" in multiple senses:
* The subjective model used to anticipate the chances of a future event
* The reality of the chances an event happens in the future (which may not even be probabilistic in nature)

I've already noted an earlier case where you have made a similar type of error.

Edit:

I'll give an explicit example (this should sound familiar). Take a 52 card deck and shuffle it. Then put it on a table. At this moment in time, there is only one card that is the "top card" (the reality) and yet it's also sensible to say that the "top card" is equally likely to be any of the 52 cards (the model). So in one sense, the probability of whatever the top card is being the top card is 100%, and in another sense it's a little less than 2%.

You're conflating this central issue of "probability" in your conception of prayer. You can go back and look at previous discussions about your ideas of determinism in the previous thread and you'll see the exact same issue arose.

I don't see how this is actually different.