How one guy turned his C&C skills into millions with online poker

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/27/magazine/mag-27Poker-t.html

by jgilliam • 15 years ago

105 53 15 years ago

anagnorisis4• 15 years ago

The prob with..every..mainstream story on (e)poker is the unflinching marketing élan of the writers, and necessity to give a (stil truly) sub-terranean slice of life immediate resonance to the audience.

Not too encroach upon anyone's character or existence, let alone the actual people in the article...

Poker is an inexorable gambit; both in lifestyle (subjectively define by 'sanity', and career (objectively define buy debt and financial bottoming out.

Poker is a fairly pure, distilled hologram of the caprice/randomness, and skill/will that resides over living and life itself, and a stripped bare interplay of emotional and psychological alchemy that everyone has, and lives with.

The greatest poker success carries little to not weight, in terms of posterity. IMO, greatest difference between poker and "other jobs".

Even aject fail in other occupational pursuits almost always carries over some tangible good productive benefit for you and your career. Whether it's contacts, savings, reputation, experience itself.

Contra poker; even after enormous success, the above benefits are a double edged sword at best, where your experience and connections (ability to get back in) are as likely to be the underpinnings of cyclical, fixed failure.

At best, it's a totoal unknown; emoyrically, it's pretty obvious.

And either way, poker is devoid of true metrics...in the same way -- IMHO -- other businesses get/should be hinged upon.

Ironic, since poker is all about a scoreboard and 'statistics'. But the living and breathing reality of metrics is a seperate (undomesticated) species from standard business metrics.

One more thing, hopefully more concrete (I'm reticent to be too specific since I know/knew a lot of the actual ppl involved),

The luck of poker, applied to people otherwise talented and able, is most profound in the beginnings of their poker experience, most often at adolescent ages where an underlying emotional caprice and aversion (or tolerance..) to risk is extremely strong.

Majority of the "long"term winners, had remarkably pain-free beginnings, when their emotional and psychological poker fortress got created. Still, many dropped out of school after losing/borrowings appreciable sums, to persevere.

Pointedly, of the latter...most were in financial umbrella's of school and family, and insulated from the psycholigical tumult n emotional traumas that define any poker career.

This got too long n fumbling, but personal experience/a vacuum of time on the treadmill/and a general interest necessitated.

knowtheory• 15 years ago

Let's sum this up more clearly and succinctly.

People who win at high stakes poker count in wins/losses, not in value of money earned. Poker has become a lifestyle game. It's about the prestige, not the money.

anagnorisis4• 15 years ago

Yes. But no,

It's always about the money; the lifestyle is the way poker players show it off to the world, that is otherwise disconnected from their success...or occupation.

It's still not even about the money then. But ceaseless acquisition. Of what? The question and answer is virtually irrelevant, despite it being obviously money/chips, and the money/chips being important.

The "lifestyle game" perception is a facade. It's easy to digest, and it's what most articles that get written support as the reality.

Money is the prestige. And if there is a top, it's apocryphal.

Wolf_Larsen3• 15 years ago

The most important point that you made is that poker brings nothing to the table for a player except money. You learn little that can be monetized away from the table, and spend your time building a bankroll instead of building a business that has value other than the money it brings in.

Poker doesn't scale. The goal is to increase your hourly rate. Spend your time coding.

endlessvoid942• 15 years ago

No. way.

Playing poker with PEOPLE, at least (not online) has enormous benefits. Learning how to read people in-depth is incredibly valuable. Also learning how to stand your ground and unflinchingly bluff (or deliberatly avoid telegraphing your hand) is also a great skill to have.

There's so much more to poker than the money. Unless you're talking only about online poker.

thesis• 15 years ago

Maybe your goal is to increase your "hourly rate", but I find it crazy that you think increasing your "hourly rate" is the only valuation for self worth.

patrickk• 15 years ago

Actually, being a good poker player can help you get into YC. From Andrew Warner (of Mixergy.com) interview with Paul Graham (pg is the interviewee below):

"Andrew: What kind of things does an entrepreneur do to fool you into thinking that they’re really determined?

Interviewee: Well, being seeming really tough and calm during the interview. I mean, why am I telling people about this guy?

Andrew: Because you guys are going to get better, and as long as this information is out there, you might as well get it all the way out there in even playing field.

Interviewee: There’s the danger of life. Matt Maroon of Blue Frog gaming. He was a professional poker player, talk about pokerfaced. So, he came in for his interview and he just seemed like absolutely unflappable. We thought, ‘Boy, this guy is tough. This guy is not a wimp.’ Actually, we were right, he was really tough. But, to this day, he is genuinely unflappable. I probably would want to fund more people who are really good poker players. I’ve noticed, empirically, there seems to be a high correlation between playing poker and being a successful startup founder. That’s how he seemed tough."

http://mixergy.com/y-combinator-paul-graham/

svrocks• 15 years ago

Agree completely, coding >>> poker although it is possible to merge the two by making a bot.

Anyone curious enough should check out http://code.google.com/p/openholdembot/

that eliminates all the nuts and bolts of botting (screen scraping, action-taking, etc.) and leaves you time to figure out strategy. About a year ago I made a bot that 12-tabled at low stakes and made about $10 an hour...and then I realized I could be doing more interesting stuff with my life instead of staring at a screen, making minimum wage to make sure my bot didnt crash and lose my whole roll

anagnorisis4• 15 years ago

ps...check out the mathematic models/programs that play out and distill "variance", the "long term", and 'luck' in poker..It's remarkable stuff.

mellowgold2• 15 years ago

My first Django project was to create a simple variance simulator for poker (http://www.evplusplus.com/poker_tools/variance_simulator/). The amount of luck involved in poker is truly tough to comprehend.

Becoming a successful poker player not only requires you to be quite skilled, but you also need to run well at the beginning of your career.

erikb2• 15 years ago

Actually not. You didn't understand how luck works. Beeing successful in Poker is more about how you handle the bad streaks when they hit. Because they can hit often and hard. Everybody is running well from time to time.

danenania7• 15 years ago

If he a.) plays at stakes where he can lose over a million in a couple days and b.) bases his decision to play someone (especially another pro) on emotion and recent short term variance, it's pretty much guaranteed he will end up broke eventually unless he actually has many many millions (like possibly in the hundreds if we're talking about enough to cover the swings of heads up PLO games at those stakes with Gus Hansen).

It's hard to fathom how much variance really exists in poker. Lucky and unlucky streaks can and do last months to years for people who play thousands of hands per day. Statistics dictates that there will always be a number of outliers who, due to a combination of moving up aggressively and running hot at the right times, become millionaires in a short time and draw a lot of attention, but unless they're the real deal and sufficiently bankrolled to cover the swings, it will all go back, often as quickly as it came. Most of the famous players on TV actually fit this mold, go broke constantly, and only make consistent money due to endorsements. Among real high stakes pros (mostly math-oriented, highly self-disciplined nerds you've never heard of), a large portion of the TV stars are considered fish. I've always found it interesting how distorted the general perceptions are versus reality.

anagnorisis4• 15 years ago

Exactly,

And like i said, likely pretty poorly:

It's about the metrics, or lack there of. And what a critical distinction that makes in pro poker vs most any other business endeavor.

The irony, tho, is even within the "reality" you mention...of those we deem or see as "quiet and disciplined nerds" who look down on the "famous tv pros"...

An equally false sense of success and financial gains define them.

Empirically....and logically it makes the most sense too...the truest of winners in poker are those who come closest to treating it like a normal/more traditional business, with real metrics...and act and think as legitimate entrepreneurs running a business.

nikcub2• 15 years ago

I haven't read the article yet, but I do hang in poker circles and play. jungleman is an absolute legend in the online poker world - mostly because he is not the reckless Hansen type.

He built most of his roll grinding stakes lower than he was capable of playing because he understood variance, skill etc. It was only more recently that he stepped up to play durrrr et al (early last year, IIRC). Before that, he was famous for declining games with the stars

Sounds like the article didn't do him any justice

look_lookatme• 15 years ago

On the second page the article goes into the exact details you mention.

TY• 15 years ago

Can't agree more.

I worked for an online gambling company for several years in the analytics area. I saw young players rise meteorically, win millions (not exaggerating) and eventually go broke.

Almost everyone is human. Once losses start to mount, it's hard to play with according to the program and stay emotionally detached while your world is crumbling with every lost pot.

Never underestimate the cheaters. Most online poker players don't understand how rampant collusion is. Dumb colluders are easy to spot. Smart ones will stay undetected until someone gets greedy. Almost everyone is human. It's hard to maintain discipline.

I myself thought about playing online professionally. After I realistically evaluated my chances and my stats, it became clear that I would make more money on a guaranteed basis by being a consultant than a professional poker player. When you have a family that depends on you, stable income becomes very important.

Online gamblers live a very unfullfilling life: you are staring at several computer screens many hours each day, you don't really create anything and you have wild swings in your income. With exception of few lucky, hard working, disciplined and possibly intelligently colluding players you will not make good money in the long run.

In the short run, impossible is nothing. Play that tourney, enjoy a night in a casino. It's good fun if it's not your job.

danenania7• 15 years ago

Yeah, I was a pro for about 5 years before I got good enough at programming to do that instead. For the first couple years I was awed by the easy money (it was waaaay easy back then). Before really learning, I stupidly blew about $1200 doing all the stupid gambler things (was in college so that was like... all my money).

Then I got serious about learning , put in another $200, and didn't deposit ever again. Worked that up to around $20kish, kept that as a bankroll, and played in the 5/10-30/60 range, whatever games were good. I mainly focused on limit hold 'em, shorthanded and later heads-up.

I was consistently making in the 150-200 an hour range, but I'm not very money driven and so didn't play that much. Maybe 20-30hrs per week around 6-8 months of the year. So it was easy money and gave me lots of free time, which was great, and the mechanics of the game are truly fascinating and I got very absorbed early on, but you're completely right about how boring and unrewarding it is ultimately.

After a few years I felt like a hamster on a wheel. It became a drag to play so I avoided it and tried to reduce playing to the minimum necessary--which ended up putting strain on the bankroll during bad patches. You're right: the swings are very hard to stomach day in and day out. I didn't save or manage my money at all--spent it mostly on food and travel, which I don't regret. Still, I determined that I absolutely had to do something creative and contributory rather than repetitive and predatory, went the clueless 20 year old failed start up attempt route, learned how to program along the way, and now I'm much happier with life, and though I still make a lot less per hour than those days, it seems conceivable that in a few years I could eclipse it doing something I dig.

elai• 15 years ago

reminds me of day trading.

Eliezer4• 15 years ago

Lucky and unlucky streaks can and do last months to years for people who play thousands of hands per day.

This cannot possibly, possibly be true. The expected deviation goes as the square root of the sample size, which means that the percentage deviation goes as the inverse square root of the sample size, which means that if you play thousands of hands a day for a year, your deviation ought to be less than 1%.

Anything that persists over 100,000 samples is not luck.

erikb2• 15 years ago

You mean it is quite unlikely that somebody has luck for as long as 100k hands or more. But the funny thing about "unlikely" is, that it occurs if you let a big group of people do the same stuff (like playing poker online). It is actually very, very likely that there are some (few) people who are hitting the luck box for much longer then just 100k hands.

1% seems to be a small number in your mind, I guess. Take one million people and if the chance to hit the jackpot is 0.1% you still get around one thousand people, who are lucky enough.

Maybe everthing changed, but in the early days of online poker, 6 or 7 years ago, we said that you need around 600k hands to have some(!) trust in your win rates (your Big Blinds per hundred hands, to be precise).

danenania7• 15 years ago

The statistical math involved in determining standard deviation in poker is a lot more complex than you're giving it credit for. A hand itself is a very large set of potential outcomes, not just a win/lose scenario.

100,000 hands is nothing. Ask any long time pro who understands the game. I've personally known several who play a very consistent, disciplined style against a consistent level of opponents whose results would vary greatly across 100k hand sets, from being a huge winner to barely breaking even to losing even though they all were at least steady winners overall.

When you get in the 500k+ realm, it starts to get more reliable, but even streaks of this size are possible at the statistical fringes.

rms• 15 years ago

I recently started blogging at http://www.rationalpoker.com, there's an intro post at http://lesswrong.com/lw/4yk/verifying_rationality_via_ration..., if you're curious.

DevX101• 15 years ago

I have several self-recognized cognitive biases that make me a terrible poker player.

I hate to give up on something once I start. If I start reading a terrible book, it burns me because I feel obligated to finish. This also means its pretty tough for me to fold a hand after I've been had.

Given this bias, I've predicted that my highest EV move in poker is not to play.

(By the way, take out the extra periods from your links)

gcv• 15 years ago

You mean you would have a hard time forcing yourself to throw away a worthless hand (in Texas hold'em) after you already committed some money to the pot? Even if, e.g., you called in late position pre-flop with a bad hand just because the pot odds required it?

vessenes• 15 years ago

I would badly like to sit this guy down with 'young poker hotshot' expected lifetime net worth graph, median lifetime net worth graph and 'likelihood you will go broke' worksheet, and convince him to dump $3mm into T-bills.

Oh well. I wouldn't have listened either when I was his age.

zecho3• 15 years ago

I played quite a bit of poker and blackjack to help pay for college; Some of my "not-really-friends" friends dropped out to play professionally.

Playing 6+ simultaneous tables isn't as romantic (it's a boring way to play) or hard (there's software to help you keep track) as this article makes it out to be, when you're essentially asking the same question every hand, doing the same calculation. It gets to be mind numbing. There are few situations in poker that are truly interesting when you've played tens of thousands of hands.

I'd liken the experience less to Command and Conquer and more to mining for gold in World of Warcraft.

And that was the difference between me and the others in my circle that still play full time: Mental stamina.

Seeing the chips as points and not money is really a defense mechanism to keep you playing rationally. Where many good, but not great, online players lose it is in the grind of constantly calculating pot odds.

daimyoyo• 15 years ago

I'm going to make a prediction and say that this kid is flat broke in the next 2-5 years.(if it takes that long) The article seems to gloss over the sickening amounts of variance that poker can have. Just like you can run up from nothing to millions in year, you can go from living in the penthouse to sweeping the lobby over a few bad sessions. Especially at the stakes he's playing at. Ask Mike Matusow about being a pro who's borrowing money to pay bills.

zecho3• 15 years ago

It comes down to bankroll protection.

With midrange professional players, I don't think you really see those kinds of crazy swings. Once you reach a certain level, you start doing dumb things, like playing head-to-head games at ridiculous stakes against players you're equally matched with.

Which is why poker doesn't scale well. Eventually you're not going to hit a level where you don't have as clear an advantage over your opponents. Your profits will eventually end up capping out. You either need to find a new angle or start gambling like a degenerate to further advance.

Players like Matusow aren't going to scale down their stakes when their bankroll starts to shrink dramatically.

ianl2• 15 years ago

Its very common for high level rts players to also play poker. During the time of starcraft broodwar before starcraft 2 launched there was not much north american/european interest in the gaming scene. Professional players use to play poker by day to make money and starcraft by night to practice for their next tournament.

andfarm• 15 years ago

You know, that's a really interesting observation. Having lived across the hall from day[9] in college and seen him play both Starcraft and poker, the intense concentration, and frenetic clicking, and split-second analysis involved in both activities are really not all that different. :)

sjm• 15 years ago

In fact, one of the first foreign (non-Korean) StarCraft players to move to Korea went on to become a pro poker player (Bertrand 'ElkY' Grospellier: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertrand_Grospellier)

From what I understand, many of the Korean pros get into online poker as well.

ianl2• 15 years ago

One of the most prestigious non-korean tournaments is sponsored by Pokerstrategy.

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=205...

brianbreslin• 15 years ago

Semi related question: how do these guys keep their millions, from a banking and tax standpoint. Is it no longer illegal to gamble online in the us?

If I was him I'd be socking away a % monthly for saving and rainy day funds

rboyd• 15 years ago

Good question. I think it's pretty hysterical by the way, how it seems like half of the online gambling articles published in the mainstream media are about the shady underbelly of an illegal industry and the other half sort of glamorize the top winners.

To answer your question though, online poker is in a kind of legal limbo. The Unlawful Internet Gambling and Enforcement Act (UIGEA) was tacked onto the SAFE Port Act of 2006 in a midnight rush job, making it illegal for banks to facilitate transactions related to online gambling. It didn't specifically make the act of playing illegal beyond what has been on the books since the Interstate Wire Act of 1961. In theory, poker's ace up the sleeve is that it's a skill game and can't fall under the same restrictions that regulate other games of chance.

At a state level, there are states that have specifically made online poker illegal, Washington (where it's a felony) and Kentucky are two, if memory serves but I think there might be one or two more by now. Then you see other states NJ/CA/NV moving to legalize and regulate intrastate network gaming.

Probably most of the players winning smaller amounts just don't bother to declare, and the bigger players are filing Form W2-G the same as they would for offline winnings.

eapen• 15 years ago

C&C = Command and Conquer (game) for other curious folk

nmaio• 15 years ago

I used to bet on sports. I've made 13k in 13 days. I've wagered 10k on a single game (numerous times). I've lost 14k in three hours. I've wagered my entire bankroll on a single day of NFL games.

And guess what? It was never about the money. Sure, I always wanted to see the number go up, but I had no intentions of withdrawing any of it. It was about being right. It was about pushing the envelope. And most importantly, it was about trying to figure something out.

I don't care if you make millions or go bust... or go back and forth between the two. As long as you leave your emotions at the door, you'll be fine. And to be honest, I was good at that (and still am). But it's probably not a life you want...

I mean, yeah, it's fun trying to solve something and seeing if you're right or wrong. But you're only doing it for yourself. You and no one else. And if that tickles your fancy, go for it - I have nothing against it. But what if you chose to share your passion for wanting to be right, for wanting to push the envelope, for wanting to figure something out...

In my eyes, it wouldn't necessarily make you a better person, it'd just be hard to call that bet a loss.

How one guy turned his C&C skills into millions with online poker

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