Our hypothesis isn’t that simple rationalism will lead to big wins. It’s that rationalists have an above average chance of becoming a winning player compared to the average fraternity brother that makes it through Calculus II with a B, which I think is about the level of math competency needed to really succeed at poker. It’s also that we can help professional poker players be slightly better players by getting them to read the LW sequences. We want to create new players from rationalists, and turn existing poker players into rationalists.
We are hoping that getting rationalists to try poker will make them more aware of their own emotional irrationality if they turn out to be losing players, and if they turn out to be winning players, so much the better. If we somehow convinced 50% of LW users to devote 10 hours a week to playing poker (yes median LW reader, I know this is unrealistic), I would be surprised if a year later we didn’t have at least one person making in the mid six figures via semi-full time poker playing.
There’s way more to being good at poker than reading the sequences, but it certainly makes for a good base level of understanding.
I don’t think you need any calculus at all to be good at poker. People who are good at poker tend to know calculus, but that’s because the US has made the highly dubious decision to prioritize calculus over statistics for smart high school students.
It’s not going to be emotional irrationality that’s going to derail your target audience. I played poker in my college years—not enough to get great, but enough to get competent. Playing low-level poker is different than higher-level poker. Experience, intelligence, and presence are all helpful.
Mid-six figures? Seriously? Since I’m not playing online, I don’t know except from reports from others… but if you’re talking $300 an hour in profit (which it appears you are) I think you’ve misestimated. I’ve had nice conversations with a couple of poker pros, and I know some electrically smart people, and I don’t personally know anyone who is making $300 an hour. [Edit: I know that such people exist. They are typically devoted to their craft, and have been doing it since a young age.] If you have someone from a standing start (little or no experience outside home games) and give them 10 hours a week for the next year.… well, I’m willing to play any of ’em heads-up for cash.
I personally know many people who have made those figures in the past, although high-stakes online poker has gotten much tougher in the past few years and it takes extremely high skill to make that much now.
I have personally made about $240/hr at online poker ($200 NLH SNGs on Party Poker back before the UIGEA). But I couldn’t make anywhere near that nowadays.
Our hypothesis isn’t that simple rationalism will lead to big wins. It’s that rationalists have an above average chance of becoming a winning player compared to the average fraternity brother that makes it through Calculus II with a B, which I think is about the level of math competency needed to really succeed at poker. It’s also that we can help professional poker players be slightly better players by getting them to read the LW sequences. We want to create new players from rationalists, and turn existing poker players into rationalists.
We are hoping that getting rationalists to try poker will make them more aware of their own emotional irrationality if they turn out to be losing players, and if they turn out to be winning players, so much the better. If we somehow convinced 50% of LW users to devote 10 hours a week to playing poker (yes median LW reader, I know this is unrealistic), I would be surprised if a year later we didn’t have at least one person making in the mid six figures via semi-full time poker playing.
There’s way more to being good at poker than reading the sequences, but it certainly makes for a good base level of understanding.
I don’t think you need any calculus at all to be good at poker. People who are good at poker tend to know calculus, but that’s because the US has made the highly dubious decision to prioritize calculus over statistics for smart high school students.
It’s not going to be emotional irrationality that’s going to derail your target audience. I played poker in my college years—not enough to get great, but enough to get competent. Playing low-level poker is different than higher-level poker. Experience, intelligence, and presence are all helpful.
Mid-six figures? Seriously? Since I’m not playing online, I don’t know except from reports from others… but if you’re talking $300 an hour in profit (which it appears you are) I think you’ve misestimated. I’ve had nice conversations with a couple of poker pros, and I know some electrically smart people, and I don’t personally know anyone who is making $300 an hour. [Edit: I know that such people exist. They are typically devoted to their craft, and have been doing it since a young age.] If you have someone from a standing start (little or no experience outside home games) and give them 10 hours a week for the next year.… well, I’m willing to play any of ’em heads-up for cash.
I personally know many people who have made those figures in the past, although high-stakes online poker has gotten much tougher in the past few years and it takes extremely high skill to make that much now.
I have personally made about $240/hr at online poker ($200 NLH SNGs on Party Poker back before the UIGEA). But I couldn’t make anywhere near that nowadays.
Might that suggest that we’re beginning to see the system getting saturated with skilled players?