Another poker and investing post
May 25th, 2007 by KenricBelow is a sample post from the forum:
Button ($21.55)
Hero ($52.55)
BB ($19.50)
UTG ($204.09)
Preflop: Hero is SB with K
, K
.
UTG raises to $1.5, 1 fold, Hero raises to $3, 1 fold, UTG calls $1.50.
Flop: ($6.50) 5, 9
, 2 (2 players)
Hero bets $4.5, UTG raises to $19, Hero raises to $49.55 (All-In), UTG calls $30.55.
Turn: ($105.60) 3 (2 players, 1 all-in)
River: ($105.60) 2
(2 players, 1 all-in)
Final Pot: $105.60
Notice there are no results in the post. There is a very good reason no results are posted on these forums. That is because RESULTS DON’T MATTER. All your decisions are made prior to seeing the results, therefore the actual results don’t matter.
We are so results oriented that we don’t realize that results don’t matter when analyzing failed or winning investments. Just because your investment went bad and failed doesn’t mean you made a bad investment. You have to look back and analyze your decisions based on the information that you had at that time. If you review your decisions and conclude that they were sound and correct, thats all you can hope for.
UTG shows 23 and wins: $105.60
Does it matter? Would you have played it any differently?
Posted in Finances, Gambling | 
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Quick comment about the hand: I would like to see a bigger preflop reraise from the Hero. A $1.5 raise is the minimum in that spot, a reraise to $6 or $8 would be better. Also the raise to $19 would scare me, a lot of times a guy making that move has flopped a set of 5s or 9s.
As for the main point of the post, I completely agree. Most people ignore the fact that random chance plays a large role in most of the opportunities they have in life. For example, when an underdog team wins an important game, they always come up with ridiculous reasons for the win such as “We wanted it more” or “God was with us”. Most of the time they should be saying “We got lucky”, but they never do.
By CT on May 25, 2007
CT, you’re right about the hand itself. PF raise is horrible and you’re probably beat once you get raised on the flop unless he’s on a flush draw. My example probably should have showed him catching a flush on the river instead of runner runner. It would have proved my point better.
By Kenric on May 25, 2007
There are two ways to look at poker. One is to think that the objective is to have the best cards. The other way is to think that it’s your job to get all the other players to give you all of their money, which may also involve having the best cards. Hero didn’t play his hand strategically. He played according to a formula (pair of kings are GOOD). The reality was that UTG had more options with his hand, especially after the flop. UTG also had more money which can be a huge factor in whether or not someone with a 2, 3 hand will call against an “all in.”
By ub50 on May 25, 2007
3bet pf to $4.50-6.00, cbet 2/3 flop on the flop…. depending on read either fold or shove over his raise. but playing short handed at those stakes i would have a very very hard time not 3bet shoving over his flop raise to 19. Although the pf mistake was pretty awful. and ub50 has nooooo clue what he is talking about.
Playing hundreds of thousands of hands has def changed my outlook on life. Most people dont understand how insignificant results are of pretty much everything. I totaled my car a few weeks ago and got a ticket a few weeks before that after a clean slate of driving since i got my liscense 2.5 years ago. Am i driving worse or more reckless now??… probably not. small sample size. :)
By Brett on May 26, 2007
Ken, I think you make a fine point. Regardless, I personally would have to disagree with that sort of connection between poker and real life investments. True, sometimes we make the right decision and end up with a losing hand, but investments should be as small of a gamble as possible. I also agree with the aristotelian thought that the public mind has become more aware of the product than its parts. I suppose another way of thinking about it is people are more worried about where they are going other than how to get there.
$0.02
By Allan on May 26, 2007
I do agree your post about results. Losing trades and losing poker hands are guaranteed so the individual losses are part of the system. They will play a role in a successful system’s expectancy. However, they certainly matter collectively over an extended period of time. Too many bad trades or poorly played poker hands will lead to a losing system. You do imply that the decisions were made correctly but the result was a loss so this is fine. As you may already know, the majority of the best traders in the world only make money on 40-60% of their trades. The best poker players in the world may only make one large score for every hour of play (low odds but profitable if the probabilities are played properly).
By Chris on May 28, 2007
“RESULTS DON’T MATTER”
“All your decisions are made prior to seeing the results, therefore the actual results don’t matter.”
If you make the proper decisions prior to the actual results, then the actual results should come out right. If they come out incorrectly, then you made the wrong decisions.
Poker is gambling and is a game of chance. Investments should be more like math where most calculations have a solution. In poker, the result is often a surprise. Investments shouldn’t be that way.
“Results don’t matter” makes me think of New Age teaching - all students are good and they all deserve A’s if they try hard enough. Unfortunately, real life isn’t like that.
To the person who said I didn’t know how to play poker, you made me laugh when you mentioned the 2.5 years you’ve had your driver’s license. I’m very familiar with a deck of cards and while I don’t know all the poker percentages for various hands, I know what the chances are of randomly getting certain cards. I sometimes sandbag on poker, sitting back with winning cards because I want to entice everyone to put all their money in the pot. The ultimate goal IS to get everyone’s money, not to have the best cards. The best poker players are hard to read.
In the hand above, if Hero had gone all in Preflop, UTG probably wouldn’t have called him — unless he was feeling lucky. There was only $6.50 in the pot. UTG had 4X the chips of Hero so even if UTG had lost, he would have only lost 1/4 of his chips and he still would have had the most chips on the table. If this was a tournament, knocking Hero out would have meant one less player. Since we didn’t see prior play (Did Hero get caught on a bluff?), we can only guess what to call. UTG’s chip lead would have covered up a variety of mistakes.
By ubu50 on May 28, 2007
UBU50, nothing in this world is guaranteed. You make decisions based on the available information. Sometimes the results don’t go your way. If that happens and you go back and revisit your decision process and would have made the same decision then you did.
You make a ton of these little decisions everyday, people love to second guess failures. All you can do is analyze what you did and see if you would have done anything differently.
Just look at the NBA playoffs, Lebron passes to a wide open teammate who misses a game winning shot. Did he make a mistake? No. Although his teammate missed the shot it was a better shot than Lebron had. I think he’d do the same were he in that same situation today.
About the poker hand, with KK you don’t want to just raise all in. Nobody is ever gonna call you except with AA or AK. The purpose is to raise enough to fold junk hands and small enough to keep in 99-QQ,AQ,AJ,KQ,KJ. It took me a while to learn to “bet enough so you fold hands better than yours but not too much so worse hands will call”
By Kenric on May 29, 2007