[FRIAM] lurking
Steve Smith
sasmyth at swcp.com
Mon Nov 8 13:07:52 EST 2021
> So... yeah... if Steve was in a conversation with me, and tried to act
> proud of beating his drunk buddies in poker... that's exactly what I
> was agreeing would be cringe...
Just to be clear, I have never felt proud of winning at poker because
the other players at the table were less capable (in the moment because
drunk, or in the large, because they did not have or bother to acquire
an understanding of the probabilities of a given hand in a given
deal)... This is what steered me away from the game in this context.
I *might* have chosen to "clean up" in those games, though I might not
have had the interpersonal fortitude to do that even if I might have had
the technical skills. Mine were very rudimentary at that point, but I
did find that *careful play* on my part, understanding the probabilities
and accepting the good/bad "luck" as it fell without emotion generally
seemed to allow me to walk away with more than I came with. The fact
that the bulk of the other players *were* overly proud of their ability
to bluff and bully one another into playing less well was part of the
turnoff for me.
> but nothing that he said has any connection with the type of strategy
> that goes into professional poker playing.
I don't know professional poker playing beyond occasionally watching one
of the TV shows that expose them or a few hands at a table in a
casino. I am sure that *all* of the players in the TV games are
technically *very* capable, but I disagree that the game at that point
might not be dominated by "gaming one another's confidence and cool
strategy"? The Casino tables I've observed were *fraught* with
attitude... but I am far from being competent to judge the actual play
underneath the posturing I see.
> Why not point out that the main technical skill in chess or go is "to
> play less poorly than the other player"? Obviously that's what you are
> trying to do, but what does that mean, and how do you pull it off
> against opponents who have dedicated several thousand hours to
> studying the game?
You dedicate thousands of hours studying the game. I think watching
street hustlers play chess in Central Park makes this evident... it is
akin to pool hustlers. The key isn't to be the *best* player on the
street technically, but rather to trick opponents with lesser technical
skill than you into being overconfident and then cleaning up when the
stakes get to your liking. I don't mean to suggest that street hustle
chess (I presume there is a GO equivalent) is the same as professional
chess. I have given a few hours of my time to watching a young
Russian? woman (Boaz?) play on YouTube... some Street games, some
one-on-one challenges in privacy (no audience but the camera) and she
seems to know her limitations and is clearly building skills as she
plays against a wide variety of players. She is building her technical
understanding of the game while learning what I can only call thousands
of personal styles of play. I don't know what niche she fits in...
she doesn't seem to hustle novices on the street, but at most hustle
other hustlers? Or more to the point *humble* them while also giving
them proper deference/credit when she cannot.
> Like, here is an hour-long seminar, with simulations, that JUST covers
> some aspects of how you should play the turn card in Texas Holdem when
> you are in a middle position versus the big blind. Matt starts out
> summarizing how you get to that point, then the solver comes about 7
> minutes in: Improve your Turn Strategy with Matt Affleck - YouTube
> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gl4MpNxS_3M> ..--- If I ran into
> Matt, I suspect he'd be pretty humble... but if he was proud of how
> good he was at poker, I wouldn't think that was cringy at all... I've
> probably watched 20-40 hours of his videos, and the way he's
> manipulating the simulations, the concepts he's extracting from them,
> AND his ability to sit down and implement those strategies is impressive.
We have clearly stepped on the toes of one of your sacred cows...
(semi?) professional poker play, and I'm happy to back up a step and
acknowledge that it can be as technical and as invested as someone
chooses to make it, and there are clearly venues for engaging in any
level of technical as well as "street hustle" play as one could want.
My "flip" observation was entirely *my* experience with playing with
people who were very emotionally invested in playing but not
particularly technically inclined...
> This book is 480 pages about the modern conception of game theory
> optimal play, and I doubt any academic book about game theory is going
> to have better explanations of what game theory is trying to
> accomplish: Modern Poker Theory: Building an unbeatable strategy based
> on GTO principles: Acevedo, Michael: 9781909457898: Amazon.com: Books
> <https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Poker-Theory-unbeatable-principles/dp/1909457892#customerReviews> -
> I've chatted with Michael online, and he's way more humble than he
> should be. He has videos where he chats with Bert Stevens, who is off
> and on the #1 player in the world, and they are awesomely educational.
I suppose my only point is that out of the billions of hands of poker
played every second/hour/week in the world, I suspect predominately more
of them are played at the bully/bluff level than with significant
technical acumen. Like the Chess world, I'm sure there are rankings of
players which are obtained by a mix of significant investment, natural
ability, good mentorship, and perhaps an element of luck for a very few
who either rise to the top or wash out over winning/losing streaks at an
acutely convenient time in the tournament or whatever.
I did not write the original "as cringy as... dork... poker prowess"
line but endorse the feeling that there are a LOT of dorks in the world
whose "prowess" at any given thing is often simply being enough better
than those they have encountered (possibly by choice, referencing
"hustle" contexts) that they can pump their egos, but in fact would have
their clocks cleaned by those who are *truly* masters of the game if
they ever were exposed to same. The cringe is knowing enough about
"the game" (whatever it is) to recognize a poser who doesn't recognize
their own posing.
I believe you also have an investment in fencing and I am sure my own
experience (also in college) would appall you in that most of the
class/club members I was stuck fencing with were budding SCA aspirants
(SCA was fairly new then) who seemed to be interested more in developing
showy theatrical flair than in learning the basics and actually being a
*good swordsman*. While I am sure there have evolved myriad highly
capable SCA swordsmen who *also* take it the RennFairs and demonstrate
their skills whilst dressed in period costume, the ones I knew were
rather "cringey" at the time, like the self-appointed poker sharps I
played with for a few months the year before.
I haven't picked up a foil or saber in 40 years, but still feel the same
visceral something in my bones/muscles/tendons when I watch competent
fencers or even reminisce about those days... I *don't* feel that when
I watch card play (because I never got good enough?) and very little
when I watch Chess (same reason). I also don't feel it when I watch a
sword scene like the classic one between Wesley and Inigio Martinez...
at the top of the cliffs, perhaps I would if I were a gymnast or movie
stunt person instead.
There is nothing cringey about being proud of something you are really
good at (or are on the way to becoming so), I think the cringey has to
being the kind of dork that is not good at it or is not on the way to
being so whilst imagining that one is. Or imagining that showy pretense
which can perhaps defeat (bully) a novice is an actual substitute for
real prowess.
I suppose I feel the same duality in good Analysis/Synthesis vs
*effective* Rhetoric...
>
>
>
> On Sun, Nov 7, 2021 at 9:23 PM Steve Smith <sasmyth at swcp.com> wrote:
>
>
> On 11/7/21 12:02 PM, David Eric Smith wrote:
>> There must be some kind of “Back to the future” movie that can be
>> made out of this. Doyne Farmer in Vegas all over again, but with
>> current-era AI in place of toe-operated computers.
>
> Yah! Surely Casinos can't begin to restrict
> computers(phones)/earbuds, etc. on the gaming floor.
>
> Strange coincidence that my sister went to Kindergarten with Vance
> Packard (Norm's brother) in Silver City long before they all
> became eagle scouts and then the Chaos Cabal. We moved away the
> next year and I doubt I ever met any of them back then. I came
> to LANL just before (I think) Doyne came... I seem to remember
> that Norm was there for a summer... and soon came the (in)famous
> CA conference... As I remember it the game of interest (aside
> from Life, what with Conway in attendance) was GO with a lot of
> speculation about the implications of local vs global
> "intelligence"... I was intrigued by HashLife and it's
> implications for finding structure at many scales... I still hope
> for someone with more follow-through than I have to implement a
> more redundant but "thorough" space-time decomposition (an N-1xN-1
> kernel over the 4 positions at each "zoom" level).
>
> Regarding poker.. I played some low-stakes in college and saw
> there were two things to take in: the main technical skill was
> to simply play less poorly than the other players at the table and
> that was entirely overshadowed by the social-engineering games of
> bluffing, etc. The very simple game-theoretic aspect of not
> depleting your own stake before you catch a "lucky streak" going
> your way was also a good understanding. I played with my "boss"
> and a number of peers at the time and realized that it was more
> about jockeying for position at work and drinking beer than it was
> about winning/losing. I think the most I ever lost/won was on the
> order of $20-$40 which in those days was roughly 1-2 shifts
> wages... a LOT if I joined them weekly... too rich for my blood!
> I still feel that *technically* playing well really means just
> playing less badly. Blackjack being even more obviously so?
>
>>
>> Yikes.
>>
>>
>>
>>> On Nov 7, 2021, at 1:56 PM, Marcus Daniels
>>> <marcus at snoutfarm.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> My inclination would be to invest in standoff biometrics (e.g.
>>> Eulerian Video Amplification) and then find the best poker
>>> playing code. It ought to be possible to automate and perhaps
>>> get rich in the process.
>>> *From:*Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com>*On Behalf Of*Eric Charles
>>> *Sent:*Sunday, November 7, 2021 7:42 AM
>>> *To:*The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
>>> <friam at redfish.com>
>>> *Subject:*Re: [FRIAM] lurking
>>> I DID read all the thread so far... but I'm curious how we got
>>> to one of the starting points: "as cringy as it may be for some
>>> dork to be proud of their Poker prowess"
>>> I am somewhat satisfied with my Poker mediocrity, certainly not
>>> proud of it... but if I met someone who was ACTUALLY
>>> startlingly better than I am, and they were proud of that, I
>>> wouldn't find it cringy. (Ditto in my other hobbies, like Aikido.)
>>> I guess if I met someone who had a slight edge in their
>>> drunk-buddy home games, and they were super proud of THAT, then
>>> i would find it cringy. (Ditto someone who's the best Aikido
>>> student in their small dojo, but who's obviously not more than
>>> that.)
>>> When I see academic work on game theory, it's usually of lower
>>> quality than what the good poker players are doing these days.
>>> Mastering the game is crazy hard, and being able to sit down and
>>> implement a coherent and winning strategy for 40-80 hours a week
>>> is not easy. So... why would that be cringe?
>>> On Wed, Nov 3, 2021 at 1:42 PM Marcus Daniels
>>> <marcus at snoutfarm.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Ok, part of the story is knowing what is really needed for
>>> reproducibility as a function of context.
>>> With that, then there's the matter of how much control is
>>> afforded. Is it programmable in predictable ways?
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of u?l? ?>$
>>> Sent: Wednesday, November 3, 2021 8:20 AM
>>> To:friam at redfish.com
>>> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] lurking
>>>
>>> Yeah, I agree. But context is Queen. When the virus is
>>> created in the lab, it's done with real stuff distilled from
>>> the soupy world. Given enough of a difference in context,
>>> the robot may not be able to re-constitute the life because
>>> the soupy world surrounding the robot doesn't have the real
>>> stuff required. Such drastic context changes could be a
>>> result of translation through space or time. E.g. trying to
>>> construct, on Mars, an organism read/serialized on earth. Or
>>> e.g. trying to construct an organism read millennia ago,
>>> millennia in the future. It's naive to talk about "science"
>>> as if any given read-out formula thereby expressed is
>>> *complete*. Science is abstraction to a large extent ...
>>> maybe not as abstracting as math, of course. And science
>>> must remain "open" precisely because any formula it
>>> expresses is suspect, perhaps incomplete.
>>>
>>> My favorite example is the magic brewing
>>> stick:https://medievalmeadandbeer.wordpress.com/2019/05/04/scandinavian-yeast-logs-yeast-rings/It
>>> *was* scientific to lay out the magic stick as a critical
>>> element of the brewing process, only to discover later that
>>> the stick isn't the important part.
>>>
>>> On 11/2/21 2:39 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>>> > Even if that were so, viruses have been pulled from
>>> history or tweaked and created in the lab. So we have a
>>> design specification, and the means to make it. One could
>>> imagine a robot fabricating the close-to-the-metal machine
>>> too. There is a story one can write down how it is done.
>>> If there is no story, it is not science we are talking
>>> about, it is something else.
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> "Better to be slapped with the truth than kissed with a lie."
>>> ☤>$ uǝlƃ
>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
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