About a month ago I had an interesting dinner conversation with some close friends that are also poker players about poker communities (one of the very rare times we talk about poker). One side of the argument was that making any sort of contribution to a community of serious poker players is a really bad idea. You're decreasing your own future EV by making other players better at taking money out of the poker economy, and you aren't really doing net overall good in the world when it's specifically a zero (or negative with rake) sum game like poker, where one man's gain is another man's loss. It was the opinion of the guy who held this side of the argument (don't wanna out anyone as they might get berated lol) that while leeching advice when he was new and coming up in poker was really useful for him, he always thought even then that the people giving the free advice back then were being stupid and should've kept quiet to preserve their bottom lines, and all current pro poker players should also be keeping quiet.
The main pro-community participation argument was, if you gained so much from the community by reading forums and leeching advice when you were new and coming up in poker then you owe it to the community to give back/pay it forward. Even though you're not giving back to the same people whos forum advice helped you years ago when you were learning poker, it's not about specific members but the idea of community as a whole. The idea that if you give and help freely in an environment with people who are also giving and helping freely, and encouraged to do so then the net outcome is better for all participants than if everyone keeps to themselves - the very idea of a community.
I'd be interested to hear what you guys think.
Personally I didn't have any strong stance either way and hadn't thought about it before this conversation came up. Years in the past I may have thought similarly to the guy in the first paragraph (and that is a part of the reason I haven't done almost anyblogging or hand posting here since 2008), but during this conversation I became increasingly convinced by the pro-community side. Even though it might hurt your bottom line and this might outweigh the intangible benefits of being a contributing community member (debatable), I think it's a better way to live life. On this vein I plan to participate a bit more on 2+2 and especially here starting now. Don't expect replies to every single strategy thread or anything like that (infact I never open any strategy threads just cause I find it kinda boring to engage my mind in poker strategy in any way that isn't directly playing, not cause I don't wanna share knowledge or something) but I def have an updated attitude towards community.
Hi guys. Happy 2012! Let's achieve our goals this year!
So earlier today I booked a last minute trip for 3 weeks from next week because why not. I'm headed towards South America and am gonna meet up with a small group of close mates that already out there, including my housemate Tom who prob needs no introduction on here. Pretty excited for the trip, here's my rough itinerary:
- Tues 17 Jan fly from London in the morning to Madrid. It's a connecting flight to Buenos Aires but I did it in such a way that I should have a day to quickly check out Madrid. Are there any LPers in Madrid who wanna meet up for dinner/a beer/show me around a bit next Tuesday? That would be awesome if so! Pls msg me asap!
- A week in Buenos Aires, Argentina from Jan 18th-24th
- ????????????? from Jan 24th to Jan 28th. Haven't decided yet. My friends are going to Rurrenabaque to mess about in a jungle. As I hate bugs I think I would enjoy that about as much as Karl Pilkington did on An Idiot Abroad. I may just suck it up and join them for the experience and to say I did it. Open to any suggestions, anything unmissable? Next stop is in Peru so was considering Lima on the shortlist for this slot of time, any LPers in Lima who wanna show me around? locoo is that where u are?
- Get to Cusco, Peru on 29th. Check out the sights there for a couple of days, acclimatise to the altitude a bit. Then a 4 day jungle route (ffs no bugs plz) to Machu Picchu including downhill biking, rafting, 2 days trekking and last day hike up to MP itself. Looking really forward to this except for bugs. One rest day in Cusco after this before...
- 5th Feb fly to La Paz, Bolivia to ride a bicycle down something called Death Road.
- 7th Feb be happy to be still alive (one time) and hightail it back to London.
Would love as much feedback as I can get about any part of any of this. For example, what can you do in half a day in Madrid? What shouldn't we miss in Buenos Aires? What are some things I should consider doing to fill in "??????????"?
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