Hey 2+2, it has been a while.

I last came here sometime around 2014. Back then I was still in university and I had done some superficial (formulaic) study of the game that allowed me to be a marginal winner at microstakes and pay some goodies like Pokertracker or some Grinderschool lessons off my winnings.

While I stopped playing to focus on my engineering career a little after my last visit here, over the years (even now) I have found myself extracting A LOT of value out of reflecting over my poker experiences. I improved at reasoning around incomplete information, stochastic events, understood the effects of letting emotions hinder one's thinking, and learnt kept my ego in check through poker. These are things that I am sure have influenced the degree at which I am able to navigate successfully through life so far in a positive way.

Today I want to share with you the idea of a second-order value in your study of the game, one that will make other facets of your life better (and without which I am not sure you can succeed long term in of poker anyways) if you do your due diligence. Focusing on results is the path of least resistance and I know many of you have result-oriented aspirations from poker, but there is a power to keeping consciousness of the place the game has in our lives.

My hope is that this message inspires you to transform both your poker happiness and grief into life +EV. Stay hungry.

Im in a similar spot. Used to play a lot. Then switched to computer science studies at a university.

My lessons

One thing i can think of is the variance in life. If im feeling like ****/sad/whatever i just think its like variance in poker. Its will eventually get better, just keep grinding in life (or poker). The swings are just a natural part of the life.

Another thing is that you dont have do to anything perfect. Way to many people are perfectionist irl and want only the best of everything. In poker - if you you dont play perfect and play good enough, the results in the end will be nice. Same in life just do good enough and the results will come.

Luv that grinding/"Keep your nose to the grindstone" lesson from the game.

There is a great saying in psych circles about gambling: "They go to the casino to leave the self behind." This of course is about escaping realities, mostly personal realities. So a great lesson one can learn from their experience with the game is that this escape plan is not wise. There are many avenues for it, drugs being a huge one. But for those who opted for the awesome escape velocity offered by poker and the casino in general, coming to understand that in a roundabout waying of seeing how you were doing it wrong, is as seminal to being human as Socrates' "Know thyself" maxim.