compared to respectability, poker is relatively honest.

No one is arguing that poker can't be a healthy source of entertainment that likely improves you critical thinking skills in the same way that, say, chess does. The argument is that someone making $100k a year playing poker contributes a negligible amount of utility/wealth through his poker playing, and yet he now is able to consume $100k worth of resources (minus taxes), meaning everyone else is worse off. Compare this with a normal job, where you are paid $100k, but produce in excess of $100k worth of utility/wealth.

I see no reason to assume that poker has tangential benefits such as improving your critical thinking skills (which benefits everyone around you) which are greater than the benefits produced by any other job, let alone greater enough to get over the $100k hurdle created by your work producing nothing of value.

Why is the money someone earns playing poker more useful for funding research than the money someone earns being an engineer or a professor or an accountant?

Let's assume that your business proposition is profitable at all (a huge assumption, given that adverse selection basically cripples your entire business plan). Your business is still just a large collection of people who are generating nothing of real value.

Life is mostly a waste of time - Why not waste it playing poker. And drinking Warm Beer.

how many jobs require as much deductive reasoning as poker? math, logic, psychology- youre constantly improving critical thinking skills while playing poker. is the waitress? is the salesman? sure, there are jobs out there that can do the same, but they are few and far between.

critical thinking is not the only intangible poker helps to develop. self control is HUGE in poker and it carries over into everyday life.

i have to agree with masque; if more people thought like poker players, we'd all be better off.

Grunching

Depends what morals you have.

The answer to me is 'of course not'. Poker is a game where resources are fought over, much akin to ancient Empires war conquests, 'I want more resource lets go and take it from these peasants over there'-- yes in poker the opponents are willing participants and that makes it somewhat a chivalrous warfare but I would say any two people fighting for money (time) is war and is wrong. There are holes but generally it is bad and it is a reason I quit professionally and went into a more positive karma career, when I noticed that people were wishing cancer on me, seeing their tilt- I use to say that it was a lesson for them but then I realized that 95%+ of the poker playing population has no aptitude in self awareness and do not learn from the pain.

If you only took what you needed, much like a starving person stealing some bread from people who have too much bread to notice or care about, then that is fine- so context is important aswell. Generally though no, wrong.

PJA and all others that think consistent poker money winning is unethical at large, what if i told you that i view current capitalist system as thoroughly immoral (and a waste of opportunity really with celebrities and wealth concentration and power concentration and political corruption and ignorance of the poor masses the prime examples) (and communism etc even more so ) and that the majority of people with money that play poker have acquired it not from very creative ethical jobs (which of course there are plenty as well) but from jobs that are a net detriment to society (or operate at inferior to their potential systems even if net positive) the way they are structured and therefore you or me playing poker for real and being good players using absolutely pure intellect/math ie a massively scientific approach (the same bloody approach that society is missing to function as it deserves) can take that money from the unethical on average aggregate or the inept wealth (but not 100% of course, far from lots of wealth is used properly too by good imaginative rich people -but the net of society right now operates sub-par to its potential) and then we can use that money for good ideas like the ones i suggested, essentially funding our objectives without having to bend over to anyone with power or conform to status quo.

What then???

Poker profit is what you make of it. Same with stock market trading (both in a vacuum total worthless activities - i agree - but not as i define them for some of us as part of a broader society). If you waste it on hedonistic, manipulative, unethical activities (like most wealthy people) its part of the problem. But what if you use it to provide yourself with rapid geometrical wealth (when it works well ie tournaments) through creative management and then use that money to allow yourself to not work in what you view as unethical mercenary ideas and instead focus on the good of society. I for example view my posts on 2+2 (and those of many others) and my exchanges with other people in life in general as a net profit for society most of the time(how many times have you seen me mocking trolling , attacking people etc) and i promise to use anything i find in Physics to improve the world as my primary objective not in order to get rich personally.

Yes poker as wealth creation is completely unspectacular as all zero sum games are. But if you extend the system to what some of the winners can do with the money maybe suddenly its no longer a zero sum game but something interesting.

Reminded of this peep show segment... nsfw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRNpU5J0ySA


Masque that is another common delusion of guilty poker players, 'It is not immoral because I will use my wealth charitably', if sincere and there is some kind of bum hunting but instead of bums- it is immoral people- then it can work. It even goes so far that it tilts people into expecting to win because of god or whatever. Should just stick with the war analogy imo - it is perfect- it is ok to go to war with evil neighbors and free their slaves ect - poker is not too selective and highly anonymous and most poker players (fish/shark alike) are driven to play because of this immoral element of capitalism anyway- they are (mostly) victims of corrupt influence even if there notion seems just to them (getting their (lower economic segment tier of society) (getting their money back).

We'd enjoy it more if the damn grinder would get out of the game.

Far from providing entertainment, the grinders make the game less enjoyable.

I still don't understand why you think that the money you earn playing poker is going to go toward more valuable research than the money you could have earned doing something more inherently useful. Your EV working a regular job is almost certainly higher than your EV playing poker.

Your argument also requires a lot of assumptions about what types of people lose money at poker and how much more efficiently you'll be able to spend the money than them in order to benefit society. Even if I grant that the winning poker player is smarter and therefore better able to allocate the money, you still have to get over the hurdle produced by not having spend your time and effort doing something useful.

I think you're completely underestimating the ability of society to function adequately, though. First of all, the stock market almost certainly has been massively +EV for society. Also, if the thinking skills of poker players are so superb, and their ability to allocate wealth to benefit others is so great, wouldn't starting a business or investing in good business be more better for society?

Look, I'm not saying playing poker isn't entertaining, or that it can't help you become a better critical thinker. All I'm saying is that all else being equal, I'd rather a smart, well-meaning person go into some other field rather than playing poker, as I think it'd be better for everyone. And (to bring in morality), if someone thought that it would be more +EV for them to play poker, but they decided to do something else, I think that would also benefit everyone (excluding maybe friends/family) other than them more than them playing poker, so I think that would be the more moral decision.

I also obviously agree that in a proper functioning world doing other things than poker proves more creative. And people should in general try to find those things instead of engaging zero sum games of skill.

Also i didnt say the stock market is bad necessarily for society (this is a separate issue though), i said trading for a living the market fluctuations is as poker playing for profit equally uninspiring and essentially worthless in a vacuum.

I also never claimed that playing poker for living is in all the cases a good ethical choice better than many alternatives. No, i simply said for some people it may be indeed a very creative and ideal choice.


Let me explain to you why i am right even if only in a minority of cases but those are enough to establish why the thread deserves a per person specific answer and not a generalization often seeked.

Lets say that a person as a theoretical physicist (in particle physics or cosmology etc) has a chance for a career if they cooperate well with people in university theory groups that work in established trendy/fashionable fields of study that in our times tend to involve string theory, supersymmetry, inflationary cosmology or loop quantum gravity or whatever modern fancy topic you hear about etc. With such career (after many different post docs and university positions in small schools and if very lucky eventually in larger universities etc) comes the ability to be paid and have a somewhat safe (but not really true, as permanent publishing papers stress will still exist) life that enables that person to occasionally think outside of the box and produce a true revolution eventually with some probability p1 (very small nonzero for most intelligent driven physicists say). Lets say they make 50k per year and work 12h per day that way and in their free time they are not exactly free to do the physics they like, they are forced in order to survive to do the trendy things under the groups of colleagues they cooperate with (stress to publish papers frequently -regardless of whether they actually serve science in the real ultimate sense- to secure their position) leaving them only a tiny fraction of time to do the work that in their minds is more creative revolutionary physics. They also are forced to play daily games of politics with other people and modify their behavior to secure their survival in that environment. ( i can assure you many of those choices will be far from nice and ethically uplifting by the way)

Alternatively that person can skip that path and work in the industry or the financial sector and in their spare time study physics from any angle they like and secure a living outside academia and has also a chance to eventually do the real good work that leads to a revolution with probability p2. Lets say they make 150k per year but work 16h per day as they take work also at home etc. They are also forced to engage in things they do not necessarily approve some of which can actually be corrupt and unethical (hedge funds, trading houses, banks etc they do all kinds of nasty things and they use quants to play their dirty games efficiently ). How ethically happy is that person now to do creative physics in their tiny free time? And will they even ever have enough money to stop this vicious cycle and focus on physics?

Finally lets say that same person has 2 other paths possible both highly speculative for a random observer. That person say has studied both poker and the markets and using math will try to play both. They can say trade the market using only 6-8 hours per day (with many breaks in between too) and the rest they are free to study physics any way they like without any career pressure and need for conformity to the status quo.

And now comes poker similar to the market trading of derivatives with proper portfolio management. That guy has ROI 150% in tournaments he plays online. So he starts from small online events and builds a roll of 5k and then moves to local live tournaments and has say 170% ROI there (some $50-100 events say locally in casinos). After a couple of years of active playing say 8-12h per day he has created a bankroll of 50-100k and he is now playing 0.5k,1k,2k,5k entry events and satellites of them all over the country say once every week and some times overseas too. He has a ROI in these of 130-150% say after constantly improving the math of their game.

This guy after 5 years doing this has made several tournament wins/caches (you see many that have done that consistently) and has accumulated $5 mil. He then retires, puts the money is the market in simple easy going investment ideas and trades involving derivatives that are well hedged and have a reasonable return of 10-15-20% per year without taking serious risks anymore. They require only 2-3 hours per day monitoring. He makes from that 5mil 500-700k per year doing very little.

Now 10 years later that guy is finally rich enough to no longer need to ever work again in his life and do all the physics he likes unconstrained for as long as he likes. He has some probability p3 for the revolution imagined above etc.

Now take a pick which is better p1,p2,p3. I wont tell you which because the answer can be all over the place depending on luck and the individual, but i will let you imagine the possibilities of each of the 3 paths described.

And are you now going to tell me that in the rare situation that all this is actually doable and backed by real life numbers (and not a pipe dream), the choice n3 of that guy to play poker or the market was an unethical one, or was it maybe the most ethical of them all and the closest to the Einstein model of not using physics as a money hunting job but as something far more precious and ethical???

No masque, I wouldn't say that you have lived an unethical life.

Congrats on retiring early, I guess.

The short answer is:

No.

I may explicate the long answer. It depends.

I'll try : p3=0. There is zero chance that someone with enough intellectual curiosity to be a math/physics researcher (let alone the next Einstein) be willing to spend 5 years playing live poker full-time

Checktheriver maybe the combined final free time you have in path 3 is more than the one you have in path 1 or 2. Lots of free time to do studying and completely stress free unconstrained research without having to prove to anyone how good you are for their purposes is what is needed. In the end it will take education 10 times deeper than Einstein's, something not possible in mid 20s today however abnormally smart one is (and Einstein was not as abnormally smart as say some math genius of today like Tao etc), something that happens with persistent education that no university can ever provide to you well after any post doc continued reading and thinking. Einstein was a near nobody when he gave you Relativity. He had that free time but it was really since age 16 that he was thinking about it (10 years). Not only he knew very well the physics of his time (something that is nowhere near possible by mid 20s today) but he was also under very limited responsibilities when he got started in 1901-1905 towards the path of greatness. Ask yourself how much free time a modern day insider has between classes he has to teach and papers he has to author in topics that are trendy until finally he has the proper clarity to deliver the blow to the system from a different angle.

I never argued by the way that the breakthrough will happen from outside with higher probability than from inside. All i did is argue that for the kind of free time and security that such break will require, path 3, when it works, provides maximal freedom and far more ultimate free time without the torture of playing their game for decades (in both cases you need to play a long game but one of them is more psychologically exhausting than the other and i question whether that is poker). The very fact 3 is harder to work than 1 (if you took a random smart guy say) and the reality that tons more people try 1 is exactly why the probability for it to happen through 1 is larger. But not on a per person basis that could do both 1 and 3 well. Maybe even path 1 is emotionally and ethically exhausting far more than the ridiculous prospect of playing thousands of hours poker. You really have to be on the inside far long to know what i am talking about. And there is a world of difference between modern math and modern physics in that regard. A modern day outsider in math is almost unthinkable. Not so much with physics. In both cases of course whatever outsider in question still needs to have had substantial formal education and insider training/exposure/interactions with other thinkers for decades. In the end both ways to do it require to be an insider up to a point. But in physics the necessity is far more relaxed than in math.

Take that to mean modern math creative research is far more technical and astronomically higher IQ demanding than physics. The breakthrough in physics wont be such a demanding technical path as modern day math but still will require profound education not available to a true outsider. However the deviation from current game is necessary in my opinion and here is where being partial outsider is important advantage because a particularly potent retracing of steps is necessary if you have to attack the problem from say an approach other than string theory. Physics in my estimation will require an Einstein/Feynman/Dirac/Heisenberg/Bell/'t hooft/Susskind (to offer some examples of style) type longer duration attention span, deeper, intuitive,well educated, persistent searcher of clarity thinker, not an abnormally fast thinking monster that laughs at complexity like Von Neumann or Ramanujan type brain who instantly make most very smart people feel dramatically inadequate.

Could someone comment on my previous post in this thread? No. 25 I think.

Basically, I think at the end of the day (or month, as I and many of my poker friends count time), professional poker is just another job, albeit an unconventional one. Prob comparable to a one-man small business in many aspects. There's nothing innately good or socially noteworthy about it. At the same time, it's not definitively evil or immoral either. Just one component of various kinds of jobs that contribute to the casino industry.

Poker is a miserable no sum game. If you are making it online then most of winnings are off the backs of degens and compulsive gambling addicts.

I think poker for a living is just as moral as being a stock-trader, mortgage broker, financial analyst, investor, etc... The "immorality", if there is any, is due to lack of concrete goods and services; systems involving money for money's sake.

Or maybe poker for a living is just as moral as being an actor, musician, professional athlete, or anybody else in the entertainment business. Most people that play poker, the fish, play for entertainment. A professional poker player profits from their desire for entertainment.

It's not the abstraction of poker playing which makes it socially inefficient. Many financial services help people hedge against risks and smooth out their consumption, which make them better off without necessarily making anyone else worse off.

I do think the comparison to traders and their ilk is apt though, because I think the marginal trader probably adds almost no value and is mostly competing for a relatively fixed pie.

But professional poker players, for the most part, aren't actually providing any of this entertainment for fish on the margin. Particularly in popular games like NLHE, fish would have no problem getting action even if half the pros quit. I actually think this applies somewhat to the entertainment industry too - "making it big" is somewhat zero-sum - but at least the consumer gets slightly more entertainment even if there's "too many" actors. The typical fish would enjoy himself more with fewer pros to take his money so quickly.

Its highly unlikely the games would exist at all if it wasn't for the pros. Its a bit much to ask them to leave the games they helped create because its popular at the moment.

and the idea that most jobs are somehow moral is ludicrous. Instead of poker we could have invaded Iraq or been a politician or a quality moron or worked for an insurance company selling credit card insurance or peddled religion or been a bank regulator or a prohibition enforcer etc etc

If you want to do something good then just go do it.

In aggregate, we do. Which is nice.

I mean, if you cherry-pick jobs that are of questionable utility or at least are politically charged, then sure, you could argue that most jobs are a valueless as poker.

Realistically, though, most jobs do provide more value to society than poker. The mere fact that society is able to produce so much stuff should be enough evidence without me having to list all the jobs that are useful.

"Pros" are not a single homogeneous entity. Your typical online MSNL grinder who started playing in 2005 did very little to "help create" the games. That label could really only be properly applied to a few old school road gamblers.

See PJA's comment about cherrypicking. The vast majority of jobs you're selling your labour to someone who values it to help produce someone consumers want. In poker, your main "customers" would probably prefer that you stopped playing.

Sorry if this may come out the wrong way, but do you do drugs? You're putting to much thought into it which makes me question if you even make money playing poker. For example, I enjoy playing poker, win or loose, I believe I'm better than everyone I sit with at the tables, and the way I give back sometimes is by gambling or bluffing and getting caught by the less fortunate. But at the end of the day, the reality of things are that in order for you to be successful at something, depending how successful you want to be, the math is you multiply that by the number of people that have to fail at it. Everyone cant be like Mike.

many jobs are far more wolrse than valueless.

I didn't work hard to cherry-pick, it was a more a list defined by omissions.

I doubt that's the case. What's impressive is how much useful stuff we produce despite so many jobs being worse than valueless.

We could rid of so many jobs and life would only be better with the one exception that the person wouldn't have a job.

Its very difficult to have any idea. I doubt the onlite poker sites could have got to the 'no pros require' state (if it even has) without many pros and aspiring pros.

There was no cherrypicking, how long would you like me to make the list before you would stop saying that? The list of jobs with non -ve value might well be far more of a cherrypick

It would be an interesting exercise to consider what jobs we would keep if we only had once that didn't destroy value.