On Online Poker
(2 minute read)
Poker is the only gambling game that can be played professionally (without getting kicked out of a casino). Professional poker is thinking about each decision like chess to create profitable strategies in the long run.
When I was 16, online poker became my outlet for analytical and strategic thinking. Just as I had with other videogames, I looked up how to improve. I found training videos and software to track statistical data about the poker games I played. I read books on how to use those numbers to calculate hand equities and determine the correct play.
Most importantly, I found beauty in the depth of the game.
High-level poker also requires meta-awareness of your emotional state. Poker variance is brutal, even professionals can make the right decisions in close spots for months and still be on a bad losing streak.
If you aim to make money hand-to-hand over making the best decisions month-to-month, you’ll be miserable and likely lose.
Poker is not the only game you that requires a logical strategy with limited information and much uncertainty, (entrepreneurship comes to mind), but it is where I learned to mindfully control my emotions.
The more I learned about the game, the more information I could use to make my decisions. Every single one of the numbers above relates to an opponent’s strategy if you know what to look for. I only play poker with (legal) tracking software, meaning I’ll always have more information than you if you sit at my table.
Anyone can gather the numbers, the best players know how to use them.
The hardest work off the tables led to a feeling of comfort on the tables.
This screenshot shows what I track on my phone in live poker games at the casino. I played 79 hands with my opponents over 2 hours, and pressed the buttons each time they raised or called.
As an example, the player in seat 7 only raised 5% of the time, allowing us to infer he only raises with premium hands. We read their hand based on their statistics. It’s remarkable how accurate you can read a player when you have the data.
A 5% range means our opponent has these hands below when open raising.
This is a brief intro to the world of poker from my eyes, I’ve played over a million hands in 4 years.
I still love to play but the money / fulfillment ceiling is higher in creating tech products than in professional poker.