Observations From Poverty

[AmScray 355]

spelling error

[InternetExplorer 2,609]

is there some reason you haven't started a pawn shop? someone who can spot undervalued stuff through the lens of the seller's camera online should logically have a field day in real life.

[Ron_Mexico 4,219]

Probably because you have to be very liquid to be a pawn owner.

[David_Sklansky 1,903]

You know you can still play on like Merge and Bovada, right? If you were beating the games back then, I don't think they are really any worse now. Different, but in some ways softer I think. Games that you could support yourself on in low volume run 24/7 on Bovada, basically.

[BigDMcGee 3,352]

I think you need to add some portion of poverty on mental illness. Maybe you're just throwing that under the label of dumb, but it's not quite the same thing. And I don't mean the kind of mental illness that like, leads to alcoholism or w/e. Like Scitzophrenia, or PTS or just like the type of broken that being in a hard core military infantry group can cause.

[brvheart 1,752]

I enjoyed these thoughts emmensely. Thanks, Scram.

[NickCave 194]

So a few minutes ago I dropped a spoon on the floor in my home. I bent down in front of my cat, picked it up, set it on the table, and cleared my hands (show the camera: palms together; palms down; palms up).

 

I didn't really know where else to share this cheerful bit, but I'll tie it in to the current topic. My brother was like you in that he was very intelligent, very good at poker, and kind of crappy at being a success by any other metric. He's quite a bit older than me, and by the time I was in high school, he was gambling and hustling. He hired me to work for him most summers when he ran poker rooms, and taught me to play poker on the side. By the time I graduated college, I had two backup careers. When I, for a number of reasons, quit working at my Career Job, it was super easy to make money grinding poker and working in poker rooms. Anyway, that's why I clear me hands all the time.

 

Having a backup career is important.

 

 

EDIT: I want to be very clear that I am and have been for quite a while poor as fuck.

[SuperJon 175]

Definitely agree with #1. The problem I see is that most people will spend their entire lives and never find that one job that

 

1. Will give them financial security.

2. They love and are passionate about.

3. They are really good at.

 

 

Or did you just mean to find a job that pays well, and work your ass off until you're great? Because I don't see much of that either. The fact is that a lot of people are poor because they're lazy. I believe, for the most part, we all have caps on our potential. The sky is not the limit. The problem is that the lazy ones are not willing to push themselves to their own personal limits.

[BigDMcGee 3,352]

so you're wang's brother. That makes sense.

[brvheart 1,752]

I mean, he seems very similar to Wang, but at times... not. He lives in Michigan. He works in poker rooms. He talks similiarly. It's all very weird.

[AmScray 355]

gh

[AmScray 355]

You know you can still play on like Merge and Bovada, right? If you were beating the games back then, I don't think they are really any worse now. Different, but in some ways softer I think. Games that you could support yourself on in low volume run 24/7 on Bovada, basically.

 

Yes, but I don't know how much effort I want to put into it.

I could link to posts I made on 2+2 after UIGEA passed where people viciously mocked me for pointing out that it was going to eventually devastate online poker; that the Federal government moved slow and it was only a matter of time before one Federal jurisdiction or another went yard with pulling out the rug. Sweet ****ing Jesus the bad internet lawyering was biblical in scope... They had a narrative and they were sticking to it, everything else in life be damned. Also endured withering criticism from stupid ****ing mid and high stakes Pollyannas when I told them it was not safe to keep five, six, seven figures in their completely unregulated, unaudited online rolls.

 

BUT HOWARD LEDERER WOULD NEVER LET ANYTHING LIKE THAT HAPPEN BECAUSE I SEEN HIM ON TV AND...

 

One thing I learned about the 'new breed' of poker players; I respect their genius, I respect their abilities, I usually try to stay out of their way since they seem to be better than I am at decoupling 'chips' from their inherent value as money and playing accordingly, but as far as getting on in life? There were some spectacularly, unbelievably naive cul-de-sac kids who had NO ****ing idea how nasty the world could be and how shit worked when billions of unregulated dollars were in play. Thanks, Chicago upbringing, for yet again keeping me out of a dark and dangerous alley all the other dumbasses blissfully wandered into. Theories, notions, concepts and ideas are fun, but human nature is always the final arbiter in the world we live in.

 

I've mentioned it here a few times before, I'll say it again. If there was one thing I did right during the boom years, it was being very, very aggressive with taking money out of the poker ecosystem as hard and fast as I could. I probably could've played higher but I never let my roll get to a point where moving up made economic sense, before making a big withdrawal. Aside from occasional bumhunting, I played below my peak expected skill level, which I'm pretty sure was the right strategy.

[AmScray 355]

2. They love and are passionate about.

 

**** that new-age horseshit.

I once knew a man who made millions importing electrician supplies from Asia. Switches, switch boxes, wire, caps, outlets... Large-scale wholesaled to major central supply houses, small-scale wholesaled to individual stores and even retailed from two shops of his own.

He didn't 'love' electrical supplies, he wasn't 'passionate' about them. He was a ****ing opportunist who loved and was passionate about making money and being able to spend six figures on a collector car and not even care. Most prosperous people are this way.

 

Disregard the outliers who make a living playing videogames or working as an ice-cream taste tester or evening newscasters and babble about how critical it is to 'love your job'. This world is about opportunity, recognizing it, seizing it then compounding it over and over again until you finally have enough tanks to make your move against Poland.

[SuperJon 175]

**** that new-age horseshit.

I once knew a man who made millions importing electrician supplies from Asia. Switches, switch boxes, wire, caps, outlets... Large-scale wholesaled to major central supply houses, small-scale wholesaled to individual stores and even retailed from two shops of his own.

He didn't 'love' electrical supplies, he wasn't 'passionate' about them. He was a ****ing opportunist who loved and was passionate about making money and being able to spend six figures on a collector car and not even care. Most prosperous people are this way.

 

Disregard the outliers who make a living playing videogames or working as an ice-cream taste tester or evening newscasters and babble about how critical it is to 'love your job'. This world is about opportunity, recognizing it, seizing it then compounding it over and over again until you finally have enough tanks to make your move against Poland.

 

I was talking about the type of job that would allow someone to not live in poverty.

[David_Sklansky 1,903]

It's a huge factor for me, I disregard those who are so mentally ill to the point of total debilitation since they've transcended 'poverty' into something else.

 

I know a lot of failing online poker players who are poor because they are mentally ill. There is like a social disorder that makes their dark little hole seem like the only option, and employment seem terrifying and impossible.

 

Or go on Reddit sometime and look at all the miserable Gen-Yers who live with their parents, and are undiagnosed but clearly have mild Autism. It's like...most of them. It's a problem.

 

Yes, but I don't know how much effort I want to put into it.

I could link to posts I made on 2+2 after UIGEA passed where people viciously mocked me for pointing out that it was going to eventually devastate online poker; that the Federal government moved slow and it was only a matter of time before one Federal jurisdiction or another went yard with pulling out the rug. Sweet ****ing Jesus the bad internet lawyering was biblical in scope... They had a narrative and they were sticking to it, everything else in life be damned. Also endured withering criticism from stupid ****ing mid and high stakes Pollyannas when I told them it was not safe to keep five, six, seven figures in their completely unregulated, unaudited online rolls.

 

BUT HOWARD LEDERER WOULD NEVER LET ANYTHING LIKE THAT HAPPEN BECAUSE I SEEN HIM ON TV AND...

 

One thing I learned about the 'new breed' of poker players; I respect their genius, I respect their abilities, I usually try to stay out of their way since they seem to be better than I am at decoupling 'chips' from their inherent value as money and playing accordingly, but as far as getting on in life? There were some spectacularly, unbelievably naive cul-de-sac kids who had NO ****ing idea how nasty the world could be and how shit worked when billions of unregulated dollars were in play. Thanks, Chicago upbringing, for yet again keeping me out of a dark and dangerous alley all the other dumbasses blissfully wandered into. Theories, notions, concepts and ideas are fun, but human nature is always the final arbiter in the world we live in.

 

I've mentioned it here a few times before, I'll say it again. If there was one thing I did right during the boom years, it was being very, very aggressive with taking money out of the poker ecosystem as hard and fast as I could. I probably could've played higher but I never let my roll get to a point where moving up made economic sense, before making a big withdrawal. Aside from occasional bumhunting, I played below my peak expected skill level, which I'm pretty sure was the right strategy.

 

Hey, you'll find no one with less trust in these sites than I have, and I certainly don't expect that I will be buying Pateks with my Bovada money five years from now, but right now, today, there is money sitting there, waiting to be taken by people who play well, and anyone who was an online pro in 2010 is good enough. It's not about having a bankable future, it's about not dying of scurvy today.

[AmScray 355]

Hey, you'll find no one with less trust in these sites than I have, and I certainly don't expect that I will be buying Pateks with my Bovada money five years from now, but right now, today, there is money sitting there, waiting to be taken by people who play well, and anyone who was an online pro in 2010 is good enough. It's not about having a bankable future, it's about not dying of scurvy today.

 

I'll give them a look. I play mostly cash, not so much donkaments; I worry that the people who take the time to move over there are going to be the ones serious enough about their game to be harder to beat but if it's just 'poker orthodoxy', that I can beat with my eyes closed.

 

I do miss the early days, 04, 05, when hordes of John Q Paychecks played cash games employing "final table with sky high blinds" strategies they saw on TV tournament poker. ACE? ALL IN!

 

Closest thing to a legit money tree I'll ever see again in my life.

 

Or go on Reddit sometime and look at all the miserable Gen-Yers who live with their parents, and are undiagnosed but clearly have mild Autism. It's like...most of them. It's a problem.

 

Totally standard, totally predictable consequence of the 'feelings generation' finally arriving at the point in their lives where they're expected to be productive but they're too emotionally crippled to do anything. The cultural changes that took place in the 60's and 70's are only now starting to bear their rotten fruit, an entire generation raised under the guise of superficial idealism and good intentions.

 

Yes, plenty are able to rise above it but there never was any doubt that there was going to be an awful lot of worthless mother****ers in this batch. The ennui of privlilege is what it is. In this case, it took an entire generation. Hopefully, our no longer having any economic metabolism for cling-on jobs and the consequences of elegant decay will result in a cultural sea-change back towards raising kids with an emphasis on being useful and productive, rather than emotionally sensitive.

[David_Sklansky 1,903]

I do miss the early days, 04, 05, when hordes of John Q Paychecks played cash games employing "final table with sky high blinds" strategies they saw on TV tournament poker. ACE? ALL IN!

 

Closest thing to a legit money tree I'll ever see again in my life.

 

I don't know if you were posting here back in the Smash days, but Smasharoo was at one point the best poster on the site and probably an extremely good player. He had a low stakes NL system that he sort of jokingly made up where you limp any pair and any suited A, and shove AA and KK or something, it was literally a winning strategy.

 

For me though, the real glory days where right after Ed Miller released Winning Small Stakes Holdem, and anyone who read it could make like $4K/hour playing 5/10LHE on Party Poker.

[InternetExplorer 2,609]

check out the #1: http://www.cracked.com/top-50.html

 

I was one of those bitter, angry people who wanted to cruise through school and get handed good money in exchange for having no discernible skills. I was mostly here for the 2010-2012 period, posting angrily about the economy, blaming everyone else for my worthlessness. almost everyone in my generation got that ass-kicking in some form or another, and I think that article is #1 because that guy is saying what we all experienced and agree with, whether we want to or not.

 

I'm not going to say it's best that I didn't get the job right out of school, but the attitude adjustment was invaluable. I just wish I had got to that conclusion a lot ****ing sooner, but alas, I'm slightly retarded

[mrfritz 885]

check out the #1: http://www.cracked.com/top-50.html

This is great

[David_Sklansky 1,903]

If I had to adjust my attitude or work hard and provide value to others in order to live my desired lifestyle, I would honestly kill myself.

 

Luckily, I am a Winner and everything I do works out and helps me effortlessly achieve my wildest dreams.

[InternetExplorer 2,609]

somebody has to **** the supermodels. may as well be me, I guess.

[AmScray 355]

Life is weird. You can go from 0 to 60 back to 0 back to 60 again in a short period of time.