We might be talking about 2 different things.

Do you mean health insurance in foreign countries?

Or the insurance that refunds the cost of your trip if you get sick or whatever and cant make it (and charges like 10 percent of the trip cost lmao )?

I'm guessing the markets will be fairly different in the US vs UK, but I'm talking about the first - travelling in somewhere like Thailand, getting into a traffic accident, and needing specialist healthcare. Obviously I'm not talking about the things that get upsold like protection on flights being cancelled or whatever that will be covered by standard credit card terms.

Ah yes we were talking about different things with travel insurance.

Yea that would be an example of risk outweighing the -EV where insurance is warranted. I was talking about protection on flight cancellation or travel in safe countries like within the EU.

Lately, I've been seeing airline insolvency insurance. It pays like 25-1 if the airline goes bankrupt and you miss your flight as a result.

Sounds like a bet Phil Helmuth would make

I feel ya. I am going through this exact same thing right now. We go on a week or two vacation every summer with my 3 kids and my parents always go as they are the only family left on either side and big help to us over the years with the kids. I try to do somethign different each year (East Coast Beach, West Coast, Heavenly Skip Trip, Bahamas last year for 1st time out of the country, etc.) so my kids to get experience different things while still young because I NEVER traveled or went on vacation when I was young as my parents didn't have the money back then and aren't very social people. I have put together a great trip this year on the new Icon of Seas cruise ship coming out next year as my kids have never been on a cruise and I want them to experience that once with all the freedoms of being kids and no stresses to worry about.

The fight with my parents and wife about the damn travel insurance has us close to canceling a fantastic vacation. The flight may be delayed and we miss our boat, someone may get sick and we can't go (this is in the middle of the summer btw, so maybe a summer cold), someone dies, etc. The insurance is like f****** $4500 combined for all of us for a 22K trip. That's 20% of the entire trip cost! We can fly into Miami the night before, get a room, and bring a freaking personal doctor with us for less than the damn trip insurance.

I am so against insurance in general and they are so the opposite, it drives me crazy. About a year ago I even added up the cost of our car, home, health insurance and any useless BS insurance she has gotten on any electronics over the last 20 years and added up all of the cost we have incurred, money we have saved on the few times we did rely on insurance (water damage once in our old house, etc.) and showed her that we would be up over $250,000+ over the last 20 years if we were never forced or chose to take any insurance and just covered anything on our own out of pocket and I STILL get the, but what if.... BS. I don't mean this as a sexist thing, but women in general are more insurance oriented and risk-adverse then men.


BTW - I am sure I will get in some freak accident now the day before the trip and be single and living out of hotel next summer as a result lol. Cheers!

I think maybe some of you could do with understanding the job we as professional poker players or at least +ev gamblers are in. While some of our income comes from lag fish getting their money in bad against us, sometimes we play play the role of insurance ourselves. When we use our big stack to push around nitty fish on the bubble of a big tournament, we are doing the same thing as people selling insurance. Why do people fold big hands to us when they know we're pushing ATC on their BB? Because they value low variance. They misvalue it, and may even be aware that they're making -$ev decisions for the sakes of peace of mind. It's the same mindset when people buy insurance. We have largely mastered that part of our brain, but if they didn't have insurance on a big trip, they may feel plagued by constant worry and anxiety. We know that if saving $ is our goal, we don't buy it, but they haven't done the maths and logic to reason that out. Even when you explain the maths and logic to them, they still value the absence of that niggling emotion. That niggling emotion is not worth nothing to them. They are getting something out of the deal. It doesn't make them idiots.

Reading this put me on tilt lol


I can see getting a hotel room the night before in the city the cruise leaves from but 20 percent of the cost for insurance **** that

There are lots of premium credit cards that include travel insurance. Purchasing flights with points are often cancellable the day before. Premium CC's like AMEX Platinum and Chase Sapphire Reserve include lots of travel insurance. Same with a lot of hotel points. Just load up on all kinds of points, stick to SW, etc... and you can escape a lot of stuff. Or purchase last minute.

When you guys say most people couldn't beat 2-5 the person you describe sounds very risk adverse. What about the bad lag? The guy who 3bs j8o from the CO versus a utg open. Sure as is he's probably bleeding money but i think you could clean that guys game up and make him a winner at least at the lowest stakes

Would you rather have a huge positive expectation with $1,000,000 on the line...

or a tiny positive expectation grinding $2 an hour from Caesars playing 1/3 live 100+ hours a month.

Berkey definitely downplaying the whole hard work thing though.

He would never go public and pat himself on the back for all the hardwork he puts in... regarding organizing games where he has a huge advantage for big sums of money. He has likely gotten so good at this skill, it likely seems easy to him.

Maybe he's not the dumbest guy in the room. Maybe I need to finesse the billion dollar PowerBall winner into playing me for $5M and hire Berkey and Polk to coach me. LOL or something like that?

real-life example of ev aren't that simple, because of diminishing utility of money - basically, small sums of money tend to have no impact on your life, but both gaining and losing big sums of money has disproportionally high impact. Additionally, hoping for a big score in lottery or not having to worry about losing money due to unforseen circumstances tends to make people feel better.

Because of that, things like lottery or insurance, while obviously having negative ev, actually have positive utility in most cases.

This is why games with random chance are so different. In life, you can make a lot of -ev decisions and still do decently well overall by maximizing utility. In poker, the discrepancy between utility and ev is even bigger (plays that feel good are typically very, very bad), but the ultimate goal is maximizing ev, not utility.

Some professional gamblers have "Endless trunks of money," to quote Bill Perkins. haha

It takes a lot of time, effort, energy and hard work to develop relationships where you can get the amount of resources needed to play in big games where you can afford to lose huge, even when you are constantly making +EV decisions.

Average joe can't afford to take a $100,000 shot with his/her personal line of credit in a huge EV spot. Even if Kelly criteria screams you should.

I am guilty of this very thing. I have had multiple opportunities to take a wager at +EV and neglected to max bet. We all have our reasons.

Just yesterday, I had some data that suggested a -110 proposition was in the "Lead pipe lock of the century" territory. I bet $100, not the max allowed of $5,000. I won... but I could have lost. Then you get into the topic of bankroll management, shot taking, etc etc

I think the bad lag has a higher upside with training than the guy who is too scared but he also has a much higher downside.

At the extreme guys who have worked their way up to nosebleeds have something in them where they're willing to go broke,in some cases multiple times that most of us myself included just don't have. Berkey is a good example of this. And for everyone who makes it to nosebleeds dozens do in fact go broke never to be heard from again in the process.

Well, insurance sales discussions are mind-numbingly dull. Your post is clearly the exception... nice you made providing free insurance part of your "job" as a pro poker player.

zzzzzzzzzzz.

i think there are people in this thread that are trying paint Berkey in a bad light but the more I research him, the more he seems to have the right idea.

I'm still not subbing to his content but I can't blame Berkey for trying to make the most money possible in the shortest amount of time.

Not sure how this turned into an insurance thread but I’ll throw in my fish question :

As a poker pro I pay $450/month for basically the cheapest possible family insurance (wife and 2 kids) from the marketplace. I have copay’s on everything and a large deductible. it’s basically just paying 450/month to avoid the catastrophic injury situation or if my wife is pregnant and needs to stay in hospital extended time. Should I just not have insurance?

That’s a subsidized price because of a low income. Are you a 1/2 grinder or a tax cheat?

neither. doesnt seem cheap to me.

Where can you get those prices? Has to be subsidized through ACA. Just imagine if you had to pay the full price, which includes subsidies for lower income earners. You should thank your lucky stars

Obama care

Nothing about the health insurance racket in this country is lucky for any of us.

It's definitely subsidized though. The income cutoff for one income getting health insurance for 4 people is a lot higher than you would think.

Lmao at him thanking his lucky stars for that

Where do they grow you guys? All 2+2ers. In a dark closet like mushrooms?