Poker
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I wonder what this means, that I've now come across two posts about poker related to: your career[^] and Software Development Lessons Learned from Poker[^] (actually a really bad article, IMO). It strikes me as an odd thing that a gambling activity is related to programming and careers. I guess the truth of it is, it is all luck. Marc
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Marc Clifton wrote:
I guess the truth of it is, it is all luck.
I think the failed attempt meant to teach a concept that you can turn around any luck to your benefit, or at least to minimize losses and maximize gains. This is the purpose of betting well, though bluffing with poker, I hope does not come into play in programming. Anyhow I can agree in concept, that luck and skill comes into play, not sure I would ever attempt to describe it in poker terms.... But this may have been one of the students from my Calc I class in college, where a coach described Calculus problems in Basketball terms and I could only sit there shocked and dismayed.
_________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb) John Andrew Holmes "It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others."
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Learning Poker in the same way as Software Development? Hmmm I guess it makes sense, but it depends how you prefer to learn. When it comes to software development I prefer trying and testing, then reading afterwards and learning that kind of direction. Same with poker, played a lot and became pretty good (UK Student Championship finalist last year :-\ ) then had a look into the books and the deeper theory, I highly recommend Dan Harrington's books.
He who makes a beast out of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man
Dan Harrington has written some fantastic books on poker - I'd second that recommendation. Poker has very little to do with luck - how else would you explain that the same players end up in the final at the WSOP each year?
It definitely isn't definatley
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Dan Harrington has written some fantastic books on poker - I'd second that recommendation. Poker has very little to do with luck - how else would you explain that the same players end up in the final at the WSOP each year?
It definitely isn't definatley
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moon_stick wrote:
how else would you explain that the same players end up in the final at the WSOP each year?
Gotta enjoy Rounders (the film, not the cack bat and ball game ;P )
He who makes a beast out of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man
Phannon wrote:
how else would you explain that the same players end up in the final at the WSOP each year? Gotta enjoy Rounders (the film, not the cack bat and ball game)
Haha - I was wondering if anyone would spot the quote!! It's true though - Phil Ivey, Chris Ferguson, Daniel Negranu, Phil Helmuth and others - always occupy the top spots. If it was pure luck you wouldn't get professionals - you don't see professional roulette players.
It definitely isn't definatley
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I wonder what this means, that I've now come across two posts about poker related to: your career[^] and Software Development Lessons Learned from Poker[^] (actually a really bad article, IMO). It strikes me as an odd thing that a gambling activity is related to programming and careers. I guess the truth of it is, it is all luck. Marc
Strangely enough I seem to agree with most of the points: 1. Reading books, blogs, and magazines to be essential for programming 100% agree, reading books make a huge difference at least for me 2. Expert developers have a different skill set than average developers. No dispute there. I have seen expert developers and average developers and I am simply amazed at the difference. An expert developer can write code in VB6 which may be far better than an average developers C++/C# code. (From my own experience). 3. Almost no one is as good as they think they are. From my own experience, yes. I always over estimated my abilities. 4.Working with Incomplete Information I have always worked with incomplete information and sometimes I have no idea what a user wants. You think in a certain way and the problem happens to be something else. I have tons of cases where I had incomplete and useless information especially when troubleshooting a problem. It is a big skill IMHO to understand what is important. Sometimes things I have ignored turned out to be the things which were important to solve an issue. 5. Almost no solution is simply a good thing, instead it's a good thing given the right situation. No arguments there. What exactly, did you not like in the article?
You have, what I would term, a very formal turn of phrase not seen in these isles since the old King passed from this world to the next. martin_hughes on VDK
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Strangely enough I seem to agree with most of the points: 1. Reading books, blogs, and magazines to be essential for programming 100% agree, reading books make a huge difference at least for me 2. Expert developers have a different skill set than average developers. No dispute there. I have seen expert developers and average developers and I am simply amazed at the difference. An expert developer can write code in VB6 which may be far better than an average developers C++/C# code. (From my own experience). 3. Almost no one is as good as they think they are. From my own experience, yes. I always over estimated my abilities. 4.Working with Incomplete Information I have always worked with incomplete information and sometimes I have no idea what a user wants. You think in a certain way and the problem happens to be something else. I have tons of cases where I had incomplete and useless information especially when troubleshooting a problem. It is a big skill IMHO to understand what is important. Sometimes things I have ignored turned out to be the things which were important to solve an issue. 5. Almost no solution is simply a good thing, instead it's a good thing given the right situation. No arguments there. What exactly, did you not like in the article?
You have, what I would term, a very formal turn of phrase not seen in these isles since the old King passed from this world to the next. martin_hughes on VDK
Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
1. Reading books, blogs, and magazines to be essential for programming
Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
2. Expert developers have a different skill set than average developers.
Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
3. Almost no one is as good as they think they are.
Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
4.Working with Incomplete Information
Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
5. Almost no solution is simply a good thing, instead it's a good thing given the right situation.
This is a typical case of "cold reading". The points are generally true and can be applied to almost any other profession. Try it with doctor, chemist, psychologist, or whatever other profession that comes to mind, that involves a certain degree of thought in the process. So the actual "software developer" profession in the article is redundant. He might as well have chosen something else, and I think the point should have been made how poker might teach you something useful when applying the knowledge, not that it will make you a better software developer which I think it's a crap statement.
Cheers, Mircea "Pay people peanuts and you get monkeys" - David Ogilvy
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Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
1. Reading books, blogs, and magazines to be essential for programming
Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
2. Expert developers have a different skill set than average developers.
Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
3. Almost no one is as good as they think they are.
Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
4.Working with Incomplete Information
Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
5. Almost no solution is simply a good thing, instead it's a good thing given the right situation.
This is a typical case of "cold reading". The points are generally true and can be applied to almost any other profession. Try it with doctor, chemist, psychologist, or whatever other profession that comes to mind, that involves a certain degree of thought in the process. So the actual "software developer" profession in the article is redundant. He might as well have chosen something else, and I think the point should have been made how poker might teach you something useful when applying the knowledge, not that it will make you a better software developer which I think it's a crap statement.
Cheers, Mircea "Pay people peanuts and you get monkeys" - David Ogilvy
Mircea Grelus wrote:
Try it with doctor, chemist, psychologist, or whatever other profession that comes to mind, that involves a certain degree of thought in the process.
Sure it may very well apply to those professions. The writer is a software developer and I am a software developer so it makes sense from my perspective. I really don't have any knowledge about a chemist, an handyman or psychologist. The thing is that the points author makes about Software development are generally true from my experience (They may apply to other fields, fine but currently I don't care about the other fields in the context of the article). [EDIT]. The author mentions in the first section: I believe it taught me quite a few lessons that apply widely to other topics.[/EDIT]
Mircea Grelus wrote:
not that it will make you a better software developer
I might have missed that as I scanned through the article quickly. I did not see the author making a statement that Poker can make you a better software developer. I have never seen a software developer good at Poker yet, so I would have disagreed outright:)
You have, what I would term, a very formal turn of phrase not seen in these isles since the old King passed from this world to the next. martin_hughes on VDK
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Strangely enough I seem to agree with most of the points: 1. Reading books, blogs, and magazines to be essential for programming 100% agree, reading books make a huge difference at least for me 2. Expert developers have a different skill set than average developers. No dispute there. I have seen expert developers and average developers and I am simply amazed at the difference. An expert developer can write code in VB6 which may be far better than an average developers C++/C# code. (From my own experience). 3. Almost no one is as good as they think they are. From my own experience, yes. I always over estimated my abilities. 4.Working with Incomplete Information I have always worked with incomplete information and sometimes I have no idea what a user wants. You think in a certain way and the problem happens to be something else. I have tons of cases where I had incomplete and useless information especially when troubleshooting a problem. It is a big skill IMHO to understand what is important. Sometimes things I have ignored turned out to be the things which were important to solve an issue. 5. Almost no solution is simply a good thing, instead it's a good thing given the right situation. No arguments there. What exactly, did you not like in the article?
You have, what I would term, a very formal turn of phrase not seen in these isles since the old King passed from this world to the next. martin_hughes on VDK
Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
What exactly, did you not like in the article?
The points were basically obvious, and I didn't feel the author correlated them well with poker. Marc
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Mircea Grelus wrote:
Try it with doctor, chemist, psychologist, or whatever other profession that comes to mind, that involves a certain degree of thought in the process.
Sure it may very well apply to those professions. The writer is a software developer and I am a software developer so it makes sense from my perspective. I really don't have any knowledge about a chemist, an handyman or psychologist. The thing is that the points author makes about Software development are generally true from my experience (They may apply to other fields, fine but currently I don't care about the other fields in the context of the article). [EDIT]. The author mentions in the first section: I believe it taught me quite a few lessons that apply widely to other topics.[/EDIT]
Mircea Grelus wrote:
not that it will make you a better software developer
I might have missed that as I scanned through the article quickly. I did not see the author making a statement that Poker can make you a better software developer. I have never seen a software developer good at Poker yet, so I would have disagreed outright:)
You have, what I would term, a very formal turn of phrase not seen in these isles since the old King passed from this world to the next. martin_hughes on VDK
Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
I might have missed that as I scanned through the article quickly. I did not see the author making a statement that Poker can make you a better software developer. I have never seen a software developer good at Poker yet, so I would have disagreed outright:)
I didn't finish reading the article. It just annoyed me. But then again I'm trying to quit smoking and I'm very easily annoyed during this period, so who knows. Alright, out for some running time. I have those bad thoughts you know...
Cheers, Mircea "Pay people peanuts and you get monkeys" - David Ogilvy
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Learning Poker in the same way as Software Development? Hmmm I guess it makes sense, but it depends how you prefer to learn. When it comes to software development I prefer trying and testing, then reading afterwards and learning that kind of direction. Same with poker, played a lot and became pretty good (UK Student Championship finalist last year :-\ ) then had a look into the books and the deeper theory, I highly recommend Dan Harrington's books.
He who makes a beast out of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man
Phannon wrote:
I highly recommend Dan Harrington's books.
My weakness right now appears to be the end game. I usually have no trouble getting to the point where there's 3 or 4 of us left, but my end game sucks. Poker is like chess. There are definite opening moves, a very clear middle game, and a definite end game. In each of these there are different strategies--it's fascinating how one has to be nimble and switch game play through these phases of the game. So anyways, I just ordered his book on hold'em end game strategy. :) Marc
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Rama Krishna Vavilala wrote:
What exactly, did you not like in the article?
The points were basically obvious, and I didn't feel the author correlated them well with poker. Marc
Funny! The way I read it, I ignored the Poker part and just looked at the software development part. I don't have knowledge of poker (never played yet:( ).
You have, what I would term, a very formal turn of phrase not seen in these isles since the old King passed from this world to the next. martin_hughes on VDK
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Phannon wrote:
I highly recommend Dan Harrington's books.
My weakness right now appears to be the end game. I usually have no trouble getting to the point where there's 3 or 4 of us left, but my end game sucks. Poker is like chess. There are definite opening moves, a very clear middle game, and a definite end game. In each of these there are different strategies--it's fascinating how one has to be nimble and switch game play through these phases of the game. So anyways, I just ordered his book on hold'em end game strategy. :) Marc
Depends on what size of tournament, ~8 people I can a lot of the time finish at least 2nd, but when it comes to ~100 players in a live tournament I consistently finish 8+, I'm not sure whether its them keying on my tells by the end or me just being mentally exhausted (~13 hours of poker with a few 30 minute breaks is tough, although I've never done more than two consecutive days for one tourny), so I've still got pleanty of room to improve :) I like to mix my pace, but again that depends on who you're playing with, I'm typically passive-aggressive against experienced/aggressive tables and strong-aggressive against weaker/less experienced tables.
He who makes a beast out of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man
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Marc Clifton wrote:
I guess the truth of it is, it is all luck.
I think the failed attempt meant to teach a concept that you can turn around any luck to your benefit, or at least to minimize losses and maximize gains. This is the purpose of betting well, though bluffing with poker, I hope does not come into play in programming. Anyhow I can agree in concept, that luck and skill comes into play, not sure I would ever attempt to describe it in poker terms.... But this may have been one of the students from my Calc I class in college, where a coach described Calculus problems in Basketball terms and I could only sit there shocked and dismayed.
_________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb) John Andrew Holmes "It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others."
To do that, always bet with the house; rather than against it. Oh, wait, you can't do that in poker... only play craps and baccarat, where you can. Better yet, buy stock in a casino. :cool: