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Poker or investments?

JesseO

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Would you rather play a poker tourney with $10,000 down and a .015% chance to win $2,000,000 or a real estate deal with $50,000 down and a 90% chance to win $300,000? ... and why?

I just got done watching to 2007 WSOP and none of the pro's made it to the final table...but some did make a little money with a lot of effort. I love poker, but I find it to be too fickle. Anyone see otherwise? I'd love to win money consistently but I think it's 60% luck and 30% skill or worse......real estate is more like 10% luck and 80% skill with a gray area in between. Thoughts?
 
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LightHouse

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I think your comparing apples to oranges. One is gambling, the other is a low risk investment....
 

Bilgefisher

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Snowbank is probably the best to answer this type of thread, but I'll try.

Is it risky?? Depends on who you ask. If I were to ask SteveO if apartments were risky for him, I would guess he would say no. He controls the risk. Ask Daniel Negreanu if apartments were risky. He might very well say yes. Now switch the question and ask each if poker was risky. The slight difference is Poker is job and Apartments are an investment. Uncontrolled both can cost you lots of money, control the risk and both can make you money.

In the poker community, the game is very much a game of skill. The house has no stake on whom wins or loses. The cards are luck short term, but odds and player tendencies result in consistent winners over the long run. This is why you see so many of the same faces at final tables.

If you have not taken the time to truly understand the fundamentals and in in depth concepts of anything you put money towards were you expect money out, you are merely playing the lotto. Poker takes due diligence just like a chess or apartment investing.
 
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snowbank

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Would you rather play a poker tourney with $10,000 down and a .015% chance to win $2,000,000 or a real estate deal with $50,000 down and a 90% chance to win $300,000? ... and why?

I just got done watching to 2007 WSOP and none of the pro's made it to the final table...but some did make a little money with a lot of effort. I love poker, but I find it to be too fickle. Anyone see otherwise? I'd love to win money consistently but I think it's 60% luck and 30% skill or worse......real estate is more like 10% luck and 80% skill with a gray area in between. Thoughts?

Jesse,

.015% chance would mean your equity would only be $3,000. I assume you meant 15%?

Playing in a big field tournament is pretty much like playing the lottery. That is pretty much pure gambling. Yes, the skilled players have a little bit of an edge, and long term they will see that edge if they play enough, and have good bankroll management. Many of the people you see on tv who are "poker superstars" are broke, because they do not have much of an edge, and/or do not have bankroll management. The pros who make the most money in poker are the cash game players. Yes, some people hit a big score here or there in tournaments, but cash games are where the majority of pro players make the most money. A tournament player can have $5,000,000 in winnings from hitting a few big scores over a 20 year period, but most people who watch tv don't realize that they are buying in at $5k, $10k, $25k a pop and have spent $4,500,000 to win that $5,000,000. The joke, when someone says I won X amount of money is, "ya, and how much did you lose?" Don't get me wrong though, there are many successful tournament players. Just kind of rambling.

As far as 2007 there not being pros at the final table, there were pros there, just not ones you've heard of. The guys that are "superstars" are usually not the best players. They are recognizable, and/or good tv. Thus, they get air time and sponsorship deals. If you picked 5 poker superstars, and I picked 5 guys no one has ever heard of, and even to make it fair, all my guys would be under the age of 25, my guys would absolutely destroy your team. That's the public opinion of poker most people don't see/understand. They see guys on tv playing for a million dollars at the final table and assume the way you see poker played on tv is the way you play. It's not always like that.

As far as poker being 30% skill, that's crazzzzzy far off. There's so much more to poker than most people realize. If you sat at a table with someone who really knew what they were doing they would carve you up and you would have no idea what was going on. Even a lot of pros couldn't cut it once legislation went through and dried up a lot of the fish. People who played poker for a living and all the sudden left poker in 2006-2007 to do something else, wasn't because their "luck ran out", it was because the good players were coming out on top of the semi-good players, over and over. Over time, results show very, very clearly. It is a game of much skill, with plenty of short term luck and variance. If I'm getting all-in as a 65:35 favorite, I might lose 10 in a row, and short term be on a downswing, but long run I will win all of the money if I have the edge.
 

snowbank

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Poker is not an investment. For some it's entertainment; for some it's a job.

agreed. i'm playing poker to be able to have a lot of money to invest. there are plenty of investments in poker, you can invest in yourself by hiring coaches, etc... but other than that, it's pretty much a business where you have to show up and work.

although there are other ways to invest in poker: some players with large bankrolls enough to handle the swings invest in other players. they buy them into tournaments/cash games, calculate their estimated equity in the game, and make a deal with them giving them room to make profit from the deal. example: player wants to get in a tournament. he approaches backer(aka investor.) backer thinks he has 150% ROI in tournament. Tournament costs $10,000 to get in. He agrees to back player on a 70/30 deal. Backer's expected return on the investment long term would be about $3,500 per tourney. The player gets a free ride into the tournament.

Two of the very successful backers who have done very well at this that come to mind off the top of my head are millionaires from doing this. Funny part of that... they both happen to be 17 years old.
 

JesseO

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I love the discussion that's come from this thread. I wasn't posting to say that playing poker is a solid investment (although others may disagree with that thought) but I wanted to see the thoughts from those who play a lot and those who don't.

Snowbank, I meant .15% not 15% I was watching the WSOP the other night. They had a 10k buy-in and an awful lot of people playing. I figured it was about a tenth of one percent to win the 2 million.

I agree that poker takes skill, but you have to admit that you can't control the cards that come after a bet is made. Playing like a computer, based on percentages and risk values, you can do well. Have a good read on people, and you can do even better. I love poker, but wouldn't play it for a real investment. There are too many risks for my taste. I love the competition and small talk that happens at a table, but it's just fun for me.

There were lots of good points made here, and I enjoyed everyone's comments. Feel free to post more in terms of strategy, tournament v. cash, etc...
 
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Rawr

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Wasn't there a stat before that the same players essentially make it to the last 10-20 people in the tournament year in year out?

We had a tournament with 30 people a month ago for charity. One of the guys is my friend who plays this for a living. He won all the events, then won big online and moved to sunny San Diego.
 

piranha526

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I think your comparing apples to oranges. One is gambling, the other is a low risk investment....

That is a very ignorant statement when said alone!

Both can be gambling and both can be low risk investments.
It depends who and how you play the game!

They can and are very similar if you approach them with a professional mindset and game plan (system). Both can provide the professional with positive expectancies and consistent profits over specific time periods.
 

biophase

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One thing that Snowbank has taught me is that poker is definitely not gambling. It is pretty clear that a better player will win as more and more hands are played.

I may getting lucky and beat Michael Jordan in a free throw shooting contest once or twice out of five tries. But make it one hundred contests and you know who the winner will be.

I recently tried to move up and although I don't think I'm a good player at all, I was shocked by my competition sitting at the table. I pulled my stats and all my opponent's stats from a website that aggregates them for just tournament and sit-n-go play.

What I found out what that according to this site, only me and another player at our table were in the positive. The other 7 players were all massively negative. After watching the negative players play I could tell why.

The first chart below is mine. My sideways chart right now is due to me moving up to $20 sit-n-go's.

But look at the chart below mine! This person would do much better just playing blackjack with a chart in front of him.
 
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JesseO

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I see that someone here also uses sharkscope. It looks like you've done well, biophase. You should see my chart :p
 

JesseO

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What do you guys think is the best site to find serious poker players in the low dollar range? I'm sick of losing with QQ to 8/9 offsuit in money games.....
 

biophase

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What do you guys think is the best site to find serious poker players in the low dollar range? I'm sick of losing with QQ to 8/9 offsuit in money games.....

Why? you want to play against those players!
 
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JesseO

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Yeah, I did my best when I was playing high-stakes sit n go's. Playing against people in the lower ranges it like shooting fish in a barrel, except that they shoot back :boxing_smiley: In other words I hate having things like this happen when I go all-in preflop:


View attachment 253
 

Peter2

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Play higher limits.
 

JesseO

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Peter, I was looking forward to you seeing this thread after seeing how you did in the tourneys a little bit ago. In response to your post....tell my wife that :eusa_naughty:
 
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biophase

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Yeah, I did my best when I was playing high-stakes sit n go's. Playing against people in the lower ranges it like shooting fish in a barrel, except that they shoot back :boxing_smiley: In other words I hate having things like this happen when I go all-in preflop:

View attachment 253


Jesse, you are a 3:2 favorite in that hand. I would take those odds all day. I'd much rather play against those fish than against tougher opponents who will only call your AK with AA-22, or AK. Then you're always behind when you get called.
 

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