[FRIAM] lurking

Eric Charles eric.phillip.charles at gmail.com
Mon Nov 8 14:04:07 EST 2021 

"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 think that is my position as well. I didn't think you were bragging, I
just wanted to point out that if someone in your position WAS bragging,
that would be an example I would agree was cringe.

The way Glen made the original comment, it was as if either poker wasn't
the type of thing one could be good at, or as if being good at it was
somehow inherently cringe.

   - As for things one can't really be good at, that would be like someone
   super proud that they made $1,000 at a craps table during a single trip to
   Vegas. In the long run, no one is good at craps, it is a game with the odds
   against you, and that's why there are zero professional craps players in
   the world.
   - As for things inherently cringy, that would be like someone super
   proud they are rising up the ranks in their local KKK.

Poker doesn't fit into either of those buckets, but it can still be cringy
if you think you have (or are moving towards) game-mastery, but are really
just a ball of showy pretense.
<echarles at american.edu>


On Mon, Nov 8, 2021 at 1:07 PM Steve Smith <sasmyth at swcp.com> wrote:

>
> 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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