Lao Tzu
Welcome to my site! If you’re new here then this is the part where I tell you what to expect if you decide to stick around. Since you’ve found me you’re likely curious to know what a poker player has to share that could help you improve your life.
You’re probably expecting some math (check), some observations on ‘reading’ people (check) and some parables on the highs and lows of professional gambling (also check). But we’re a bit short on pictures of bright lights, stacks of cash, glamorous girls and even poker chips. So if you’re shrewd you’ve already picked up that this blog is not just about poker. But if it’s not just about poker, what’s this blog really about?
The Path Less Traveled
This is a blog about discovering new paths written for the people who wish to travel them.
This blog is useful for anybody who has a high degree of autonomy in one or more areas of their life and is overwhelmed by the sheer volume of choice this autonomy offers us. That includes executives, entrepreneurs, freelancers, hackers, researchers and, of course, poker professionals.
Poker is a game of incomplete information with an unusually clear goal for a complex game- to maximize long-term profit. It also provides fast, consistent feedback on how effective your strategy is in the game, as you win/lose money in real time. I have invested considerable time discovering successful paths (strategies) through poker games and I call this process of path-discovery ‘Meta-strategy‘.
Meta-strategy is my attempt to address the central question of active living…
“How do we build a successful approach towards our goals in a world shrouded in uncertainty, when we don’t even know the path?”
I take a number of different areas of human endeavor and analyze them as games of incomplete information, similar to poker. You will find here articles on three related themes:
1) Poker Games
The first theme chronologically, and my largest body of published work to date, is on theoretical approaches to poker, specifically the game of Pot-Limit Omaha. I started out writing under the pseudonym ‘Quad’ at my first site, quadrophobia.com. From that site I built a base of consulting clients in the poker world: professional poker players who compete at some of the highest stakes available online.
2) Biological Games: Optimized Self
I also write about my personal strategy for self-optimization. This is an internal game, where we compete not with other human players, but with our biological environment and our own psychology.
Biological games have two important factors which distinguish them from poker games. The first is that there are limited legitimate opportunities for co-operation at the poker table (Within the game ‘ecosystem’ there are many unexplored and underutilized opportunities for co-operation.), yet we benefit greatly from co-operating with other humans in our quest for self-knowledge.
The second is that the biological game is one where we don’t know all of the rules and no single piece of data is as useful as ‘$ won’ is in poker. Nevertheless, poker players do have a special interest in improving their own cognitive performance, since better working memory, focus and clarity under pressure has a direct effect on their income. My writing on ‘Optimized Self’ investigates how we can do intelligent, data-driven personal development, through hacking our biology and our habits.
Many of the tools developed by the poker community could help advance human progress in this area. I personally founded a Quantified Self Meetup whilst living in Malta, and I strongly recommend that anyone with an interest in self-improvement joins the QS community.
3) The Games of Human Society
My most ambitious writing studies the structures of the games we play every day, ranging from attempted regulation of ‘criminal’ behavior to human mating strategies. I seek to demonstrate the value of strategic awareness on a personal and societal level, and to understand the interaction between the strategies of individuals and the systems they come into contact with.
The poker world is an unlikely pioneer for all manner of novel 21st century paradigms. Thousands of poker players (myself included) have been earning money as digital nomads all over the globe.
In addition, one of the most promising areas for the emergence of cryptocurrencies is in online gambling. This is due in no small part due to the relative transparency of the intent of gambling regulations. Coercive confiscation of wealth by the government is easier to disguise when the government appears to be providing something of value.
If poker players around the world can harness our ability to adapt, we might become the 21st century trailblazers of individual freedom.
The strategic approaches detailed in this blog will help you find your way in fields where no-one has a map. If that sounds like fun to you then please remember to subscribe for updates here!
Below are links to a couple of my core articles to get you started. If you are just here for the poker I recommend you begin with ‘The Poker Decision’. If you are not a poker player or you are more interested in decision making processes then read ‘3 Life Lessons from a Poker Pro’.
