I think poker is a great introduction to many really interesting and useful ideas. From basic maths to probability and statistics, simulation/programming, game theory, decision theory, portfolio management, all the way to cutting edge reinforcement learning or AI methods.
Lots of deep ideas to explore once you've been introduced to them.
For anything specific to do with statistics, risk management, finance, or programming, you are always better off studying it directly, the normal way, instead of going through poker. The same is true for basically any hobby. It's a crutch that people use, and an excuse for them to slack off.
As someone that had both studied and researched statistics (publications) and played poker, I disagree. Studying these topics will leave you with an academic knowledge, not a practical and deeply learned knowledge.
There is a reason trading firms and hedge funds prefer to recruit good poker players. It's because it (i) teaches these concepts at a visceral, muscle-memory level, (ii) it teaches you to apply the concepts while under emotional strain (you may be surprised at the % of statistics professors will crumble totally when they have skin in the game), (iii) it teaches you to merge the concepts together (game theory, stats, etc) in a single cohesive decision-making framework. These are not skills that academic coursework can give you.
Consider an analogy: Is it better to learn programming through merely coursework/textbooks, or by picking up a project where code is required to complete that project?
It's also fun. It's the only reason many people get exposed to these important concepts without ever wanting to study statistics etc formally.
No one (prop/hedge funds) really does that anymore. Hiring poker players directly that is. Outside of really niche small firms with really specific cultures. It kinda almost happened with SIG and Jeans89 but Jeans already had a relevant degree on top of being a top 0.00001% player.
The direct analogies between poker and market making are already way thinner than many people make it out to be though they still exist. But I’d argue poker experience is basically completely useless for quant investing.
Nobody hires directly for it but it is considered favourably. SIG also has Bill Chen heading stat arb. Most firms I know of have a reasonably vibrant poker culture internally.
Is the head of stat arb now? I thought he was messing around with sports betting in Dublin or something.
Anyhow having played/discussed cards with quite a few trading and research people from SIG I can safely say the poker thing there is more marketing fluff than anything else. Pretty effective marketing though it seems. Which is fine of course, because trading is a completely different game.
For a very large set of people, motivation to study is absolutely key. If your motivation comes directly from learning the concept itself, you may be right that studying it directly is more effective. But for many, trying to do that because it's "better" will lead to worse outcomes when they end up not completing the study.
Calling it "an excuse to slack off" ignores that different people's motivations are different. If being interested in poker makes someone want to learn the underlying math, then that probably is the most effective way _for them_ to study it.
What I specifically found useful about poker is helps you internalize the process of applying theoretical knowledge through repeated practice playing and analyzing thousands of hands. The incomplete information and multiple factors involved also are a good training ground for the real world.
As a former professional player whose last two employers use poker as a marketing tool for hiring, I strongly agree. If you want to be good at a game, learn that game specifically.
What you say has the benefit of sounding like it might be possibly true, but years of scientific thought paying dividends in other areas in unexpected ways demonstrates the exact opposite.
Strangely I think it also helped me become a better doctor. I think it helps you develop a natural insight into probabilities and people's reactions to them, which in a roundabout way helps in diagnosis.
Exactly! The inspiration of game theory was poker. John Von Neumann was interested in poker because he saw it as a path toward developing a mathematics for the real life.
Poker is a high variance game. Aside from trying to get your money in while you think you've got an edge, you need to manage your bankroll through long periods of bad luck - make sure you're able to keep playing tomorrow, even if things go really bad today.
The difference is that poker is a game but finance is real life: physical resources, actual human lives. To operate at the game level of abstraction is sociopathic.
When real lives are involved, even more so do we owe it to our stakeholders to model the situations as carefully as possible, and figure out what the mathematically optimal strategies are.
Whether you apply the mathematical insights straight up is another question. But there's no excuse for being sloppy:
'Physical resources, actual human lives' deserve optimal play.
A sentimentality that treats a single photogenic orphan as more important than the plight of many does not cut it.
Just try to keep a handle on reality. People who play games tend to have a pretty loose grasp on the real world. Especially people who play games with other people's money.
Yes, that's important. And it's also important to always keep in mind the limitations of your models. (That's constantly on people's mind in finance already, by the way.)
> People who play games tend to have a pretty loose grasp on the real world. Especially people who play games with other people's money.
People who play money games literally have no idea what they're doing or what the real consequences of their actions are. They trade in weapons, they fund the destruction of human habitats, they undermine governments to put the desires of a small minority over the needs of the many. Yes they've lost their damn minds.
And when anyone points these things out, they complain and deny responsibility. "If I don't someone else will. Why is the government always on my ass trying to interfere?"
Are you talking about any one person in particular?
This seems like a whole hodgepodge of complaints about some boogeyman?
Eg for what it's worth, I've worked in finance on and off, and I can assure you that most people 'who play money games' do not 'trade in weapons'.
Trading weapons is a fairly specialized niche, and your average stock trader has no clue about that niche, even if they wanted to get into that specific market.
There might be other things wrong with people working in finance. But not all people you don't like engage in all the vices you don't like at the same time.
Btw, I suspect most weapons trading is done to prop up governments, not to undermine them. (Even thought neither you nor me might find the governments in question very sympathetic.)
Actually, I'm not sure you have noticed, but people in the real world tend to "play" "games" all the time. Whether it is trying to close a sale, convince someone the benefit of a going into a relationship, training an animal or teaching a child life skills. What you learn in playing games in a fairly safe environment, has wide application in the negotiation and assessments that we all use in everyday living
> People who play games tend to have a pretty loose grasp on the real world.
Don't lose track of the two senses of "game" being used.
The original post only mentioned game theory, and you complained "To operate at the game level of abstraction is sociopathic."
When we speak of the game abstraction in game theory, we are not talking about amusements. The term for the concept comes from the study of amusements, but in the context of game theory, a game is merely a situation where at least two participants make strategic decisions that effect each others' outcomes, potentially in the face of incomplete knowledge.
In this sense, "People who play games" are people who make mutual decisions which affect themselves and others.
There are plenty of poker players who play professionally and the bank roll management aspect of the game is an essential part of their job. Which is why at the highest level you'll find quite a complex ecosystem of players selling stakes in themselves to each other to lower the variance.
So the meta-game of poker is betting in your own competition as in buying shares on their possible (winning) stake.
That sounds a cool story either for a Doccumentary or maybe a webapp to easily manage that on the lower ranks where informality and everyone knowing each other might not be true?
No, this is a misunderstanding. It's about balancing how much you invest in today's game with how much you invest in tomorrows game. Preventing an unlucky streak from wiping you out and all that.
Game theory is about making decisions in the face of uncertainty, especially as it applies to real life with high stakes. The core principles of game theory were developed and used for making specific military decisions in WW2 with actual lives at stake.
Since game theory is a tool that allows you to make better decisions than the intuitive biases would nudge you otherwise, to operate at a game level of abstraction is not sociopathic but a necessity - if physical resources and actual human lives are at stake, abandoning such formal reasoning would be reckless and grossly negligent.
Not folding when everyone else has may give you a market advantage, similarly being the first to fold may ensure you come out of the round in the best position.
is good. There's a lot of modern strategy involved, specifically around playing probability ranges v. trying to place people on particular hands. For someone getting back into poker after a decade or so I thought it was pretty good.
I’ve been really enjoying masterclass in general. I was half thinking it was just a terrible Facebook scam to start with, but they’ve got really good people. Ron Howard’s directing class is so interesting.
He is an entertainer and knows how to maximize value against amateurs, of which there are a lot in tournaments, hence where most of his winnings are from.
In online short-handed (6 or less) cash poker against the online pros he is the "fish".
Is this group active? I'm aware of Cepheus (essentially a solution for perfect Limits Heads Up) and I see they did some further work in No Limit, but there isn't anything since a February 2018 publication. So either this work is dormant (seems plausible) or they are really under wraps on something, 'cos if you don't publish for over two years in academia you'd better have something amazing to show for it.
I read earlier today that “When you shuffle a single deck of cards, it is almost certain that that arrangement of cards has never before appeared and likely will never again.”
While in a poker game you don't hand out all cards and the order in which a player gets their cards before a betting round (first two with texas hold'em) also doesn't matter. Takes unite a few arrangements out :)
Poker has always fascinated me, and I would like to learn it more. I think I would be into it much more if online poker, for actual money, were legal in my state. I find that people, including me, play vastly differently if its all fake and you just get more free chips tomorrow. Its probably better for me that I can't, would be yet another thing to spend way to much time on.
Stakes are definitely needed to make things interesting. You could try setting up your own game with friends. I've avoided regular online play because it really is a rabbit hole!
Solo computer games are probably the lowest stake activity you could think of. But some games have 'perma death' and 'iron man' modes. The former means that you or your pawns etc can't come back after being killed off. The latter means that there's only ever a single save file for one playthrough, ie you can save-and-quit to take a break, but you can't load an early save game when something inevitably goes wrong.
This kind of playstyle is common in rogue-like games. But can also be employed for strategy games like X-Com.
Sure, but if you're among the last ones to play your can use that information to decide whether to hit or stand.
If you have the weakest hand, the house will play to beat _you_, so it should be better to risk and hit. But if another player has worse hand, the house will play to beat _them_. The house won't risk to go bust if they already beat half of the players, so you don't have to risk a hit if you're in the better half.
Lots of deep ideas to explore once you've been introduced to them.