poker skills in real life

[Ti54 0]

This started out as a random thought and turned into a friggin' thesis. Read it if you wish.______________I occasionally play $10 and $20 freezeouts with my youger brother and his friends for fun. They are 16 and 17 and very fishy of course, and I probably have a 90% win rate in these things. Anyway, the other night after I called out exactly what two players' cards were before they flipped them over, one of them said to me "Jesus, you should work for the FBI and be like a human lie detector or something." And that got me to thinking, do these skills translate to other parts of my life?I do feel like my reading ability gives me a greater intuition than most people, or rather the other way around, and that I can almost always tell if a person is lieing to me or not or what somebody is thinking or how they are feeling. Then I started to think more about it, and I realized that many "top pros" do not exhibit any of these abilities away from the table.Daniel Negreanu comes to mind as a person who DOES strongly exhibit these abilities and it comes through in his blog. But then people like Hellmuth, Mike Matusow and Phil Gordon and all of the "tiltboys," a.k.a. glorified nerds, appear that they definitely do not have any sense of how others might be feeling or why they are acting as they are. Essentially all of them are completely awkward away from the table and have no concept of social skills.Everybody knows people like this, especially if you work in the world of computers. A lot of so-called "nerds" act they way they do because while growing up they couldn't pick up on social cues from the other children and thus became outcasts and had to find their own niche. Scientists now are wondering if many of these cases are actually caused by Asperger's Syndrome, which is a very mild form of autism that almost always goes undiagnosed because the sufferers are just thought to be natural geeks and not that they have an actual mental illness.For a description of Asperger's, go here: http://www.udel.edu/bkirby/asperger/These are the people with whom you might have a conversation such as this:1: "Oh, hey John [sigh]."2: "Hey, I overheard you talking to Karen about a party later on. When and where is it?"1: "Hmm? Oh yeah there's a party going on tonight but really its just a small get together. Nothing formal. I'm not that excited about it."2: "Well what time does it start?"1: "I'm not really sure, its not even that kind of thing. It will probably be boring anyways."2: "That's ok, it might be fun."1: "Seriously, I don't even know where it is yet or anything."2: "Well call me when you find out ok? Should I bring any beer?"1: [shoots self in head]I would think that these people would be the absolute worst poker players in the world, because they could not read you whatsoever. Not only would they not be able to read your facial expressions and body language and speech patterns, but they wouldn't even understand those concepts on any more than a theoretical level.I remember during the final table of the WSOP this year, Dn and Phil Hellmuth were doing a live broadcast for cardplayer. I listened to the beginning of it and my realization of just how much of an ass phil hellmuth really is increased 10-fold. I remember there was one hand right at the beginning and Hellmuth was telling some stupid story and Dn kept saying stuff like "Phil, we got a hand going on here. Its a big one. Mike's all-in. Phil finish the story later, we got a huge hand here. Phil. Phil. Phil," and Hellmuth just could not shut up.Mike Matusow is a classic example of what I'm talking about, although he is obvisouly less successful. Phil Gordon is supposed to be this "smooth operator" type but I bet even with his money and fame he struggles to close the deal with women.So I wonder, how do these people and others like them become successful at live poker? Are they just AMAZING at every other aspect of the game and make up for their shortcomings? Or do the two similar abilities not correlate? Discuss.

[Royal_Tour 0]

i didnt read this, only the title.but when i go to the bar, i'm usually all-in , and i bust out around 4am

[zimmer4141 0]

and then Ron Busts in around 4:15.

[Royal_Tour 0]

and then Ron Busts in around 4:15.

not exactly.. more like 4:00:45am. but, i dont hold that against him

[garamond10pt 0]

I actually read the OP. I'm clearly the loser.

[Ball_Sack 0]

I read until he thinks beating kids at poker gives him ESP or something like that.NFL Prime Time is on anyway.

[Ti54 0]

I read until he thinks beating kids at poker gives him ESP or something like that.NFL Prime Time is on anyway.

You are the subject of the post, thank you. A weak attempt at a joke such as this is a hallmark of these people.I suspected there would be many of you on this forum, as there would be on any internet forum, but you wouldn't and didn't realize I was talking about you.Incidentally, it is no secret that the internet is a haven for nerds. My theory is that this is because it levels the playing field. Nobodoy knows anything about you and you can become anything you want. The best part is that the need for social skills is cut down to a minimum, and many become flamers or "e-thugs."

[Ball_Sack 0]

I read until he thinks beating kids at poker gives him ESP or something like that.NFL Prime Time is on anyway.

You are the subject of the post, thank you. A weak attempt at a joke such as this is a hallmark of these people.

Nice try at getting me to read that fricken lon-ass post.

[Ti54 0]

Nice try at getting me to read that fricken lon-ass post.

careface

[Bigredlorry 0]

I have a brother with asbergers he's 16 now only discovered it a few months ago, you make a good point in regards to social skills and bluffing/reading ooponents we play poker on a regular basis and he hasnt got that aspect to his game at all, however he compensates by having some crazy memory and math skills, he's a bit of a demon at Knock Gin and i usually let him win back his pocket money that way!!. He approaches a mathmatical calculation in really unique ways almost genius mathmatical ability yet to talk to him you would find this hard to believe, he doesnt get sarcasm for example irony is another concept lost on him. My friend and i play Rock Paper Sciccors first to 50 and he wins about 75% of the time, however he would never lose to my brother ever period. I thoroughly recommend RPS to anyone trying to improe their reading ability and to ensure you both are trying a small wager will help things along we play for like 5 and ten quid and i love it nearly as much as poker!

[stealfromblind 0]

How on earth did y0u know what both players had? Are there books that teach this or are certain people just born with this talent?

[Ti54 0]

How on earth did y0u know what both players had? Are there books that teach this or are certain people just born with this talent?

sarcasm? not quite sure. But if I were with you in person I would be able to tell but these people couldn't. That's the point. How could they be good at live poker?

[Iwu4u 0]

How on earth did y0u know what both players had? Are there books that teach this or are certain people just born with this talent?

sarcasm? not quite sure. But if I were with you in person I would be able to tell but these people couldn't. That's the point. How could they be good at live poker?

No one else except for top poker players are ever able to detect sarcasm. Common known fact! Surprised you didn't know that. (Were you able to detect it there?)

[Iwu4u 0]

Stealfromtheblind i just have to say those olsen twins are smokin'. Too bad thats probably a fake but still they're so hot :!:

[SuM827 0]

This started out as a random thought and turned into a friggin' thesis. Read it if you wish.______________I occasionally play $10 and $20 freezeouts with my youger brother and his friends for fun. They are 16 and 17 and very fishy of course, and I probably have a 90% win rate in these things.

This is where I stopped reading, I couldn't sit at the dogs playing poker game (the painting), and have a 90% win rate.

[Ti54 0]

Stealfromtheblind i just have to say those olsen twins are smokin'. Too bad thats probably a fake but still they're so hot :!:

That picture is not a fake its all over the internet.

[Ti54 0]

This started out as a random thought and turned into a friggin' thesis. Read it if you wish.______________I occasionally play $10 and $20 freezeouts with my youger brother and his friends for fun. They are 16 and 17 and very fishy of course, and I probably have a 90% win rate in these things.

This is where I stopped reading, I couldn't sit at the dogs playing poker game (the painting), and have a 90% win rate.

You could at this game. Unless you suck at poker, which you might.Actually I just checked my records, from November '04 to August '05 I played 73 freezeouts against them and won 61 so 83.5%.

[Ti54 0]

How on earth did y0u know what both players had? Are there books that teach this or are certain people just born with this talent?

sarcasm? not quite sure. But if I were with you in person I would be able to tell but these people couldn't. That's the point. How could they be good at live poker?

No one else except for top poker players are ever able to detect sarcasm. Common known fact! Surprised you didn't know that. (Were you able to detect it there?)

You are an idiot. My point is not that I am so special in being able to detect sarcasm, but that if I couldn't then I probably couldn't be good at poker.

[fourfour44 0]

[SuM827 0]

This started out as a random thought and turned into a friggin' thesis. Read it if you wish.______________I occasionally play $10 and $20 freezeouts with my youger brother and his friends for fun. They are 16 and 17 and very fishy of course, and I probably have a 90% win rate in these things.

This is where I stopped reading, I couldn't sit at the dogs playing poker game (the painting), and have a 90% win rate.

You could at this game. Unless you suck at poker, which you might.Actually I just checked my records, from November '04 to August '05 I played 73 freezeouts against them and won 61 so 83.5%.

Do they only get one card?

[Ti54 0]

I guess I'll sum it up for those who didn't read: the OP claims we all have autism. I can't really read into how he feels about me, so I guess he's right. I am now autistic.

Either my post isn't written in simple enough terms or you're not very bright.

[tskillz187 0]

I guess I'll sum it up for those who didn't read: the OP claims we all have autism. I can't really read into how he feels about me, so I guess he's right. I am now autistic.

Either my post isn't written in simple enough terms or you're not very bright.

I think that means the same thing.Regarding your post - I'll comment because no one else seems to want to - I dont really think that your ability to detect ones sarcasm or pick up on regular social skills makes much a difference in the poker world. You can, as can many poker players guess hands of people because of patterns. Most often the patterns that I pick up are on betting, not physical tells that someone repeats over and over. I think people with autism that are quite good with numbers would be excellent on picking up on these from novice players, much better than someone not capable of that extreme focus. All in all I don't really think that poker skills correlate to special skills outside of the poker room. I know poker has no changed anything in my social life or the way I function with people. Now, leading back to social outcasts being good at poker maybe it is because of the extreme focus they can put in. Maybe thats why there aren't more negreanu's out there, but I dont really even agree with that.Good post though, it was some food for thought.

[TheCinciKid 0]

Stealfromtheblind i just have to say those olsen twins are smokin'. Too bad thats probably a fake but still they're so hot :!:

That picture is not a fake its all over the internet. (SW)

FYP

[Poker4Me2005 0]

I think I have that thingy, probably a fairly mild case. I'll have to look into it. Seriously.Is it contagious?! (Not seriously.)

[lboarts 0]

This was a well thought out, articulate, pointless post. Thanks, OP. :wall: