Poker relevant life solutions

Interesting video around poker playing logic and how they apply to many other things in life.

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Come hear Harvard Law School professor Charles Nesson and Harvard Law student Andrew Woods talk about the ways that poker can be used as a powerful tool for teaching core negotiation and business skills. Professor Nesson is the founder of the Global Poker Strategic Thinking Society (GPSTS), an organization focused on developing an academic curriculum using poker as a teaching tool. Professor Nesson and Mr. Woods believe that poker can be used to teach important life skills such as game theory, strategic thinking, risk assessment, and money management in an engaging and interactive way.
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link: http://youtu.be/icGaDA0hLMk

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Speaker: Prof. Charles Nesson
Charles Nesson was born in 1939. He is a Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and the founder of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society (a research center which focuses on the legal study of cyberspace) and of the Global Poker Strategic Thinking Society. He is author of Evidence, with Murray and Green, and has participated in several cases before the Supreme Court, including Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals. In 1971, Nesson defended Daniel Ellsberg in the Pentagon Papers case. He was co-counsel for the plaintiffs in the case against W.R. Grace that was made into the film A Civil Action.


Nesson attended Harvard College as an undergraduate, and then Harvard Law School where he joined the list of only a handful of people in history to have graduated summa cum laude. Nesson was a law clerk to Justice John Marshall Harlan II on the US Supreme Court, 1965 term. He then worked as a special assistant in the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division. His first case, White v. Crook, made race and gender-based jury selection in Alabama unconstitutional. Nesson joined the Harvard Law School faculty in 1966, and was tenured in 1969.
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Key to winning poker

It's about finding the worst players possible. There I "solved" it. So much poker literature on the same probabilities, do-this-if-that stuff yet forgetting to mention the required difference in skill levels.

Since I play Fixed-Limit poker, playing against math-incapable players usually gets me a huge edge where I can play less-than-optimal strategies and still retain a positive expectancy. Therefore when I do play a numerically optimal game, so far the most profitable sessions have occurred with the lowest skilled players.

837% return in 33 days (Poker)

Smasharoo, a pro poker player, documented a return of 837% within 33 days, with very little volatility (adequate bet size management), at fullcontactpoker.com. That’s pretty amazing. I have learned a few things from his much appreciated shared experience.

Minimum volatility

Position size/bankroll management and playing strategy largely optimize return volatility. Basically, understand the statistics behind your strategy and make betting size decisions with respect to it for optimization. The Kelly Formula is a pretty good reference.

High frequency of compounding

This explains why successful day traders practically always outperform those holding longer positions. I have discussed that even with a small statistical edge; higher frequency of compounding makes a HUGE difference (see Slight Edge Butterfly Effect).

Poker and financial instruments

I see a lot of similarities. They both hold inefficiencies due to varying skill levels, i.e. more informed players will consistently profit over time. So the key then lies in becoming more informed, the part that requires diligence, critical thinking, and probably guts too amidst discouragement from fixed, traditional thinkers. Kinda cool huh!