Poker gems, #116

Phil Gordon, in this Q&A session on the Freakonomics blog. For the pointer, thanks to Ted at Red Bull and Poker, who in turn got it from uber-blogger Iggy. There are several nuggets here that would ordinarily mean separate posts, but rather than repeat all of this intro stuff, I'm going to break my usual pattern and compile them all into one.


I have a simple theory: change 10 river cards in any poker player’s tournament career and I would bet that they would be a losing tournament player for their career.

I think my game selection skills are just about as good as anyone in the game.
If there aren’t a few guys that are just giving their money away, I don’t play.

[W]hat we do at the poker table isn’t very different than what investment professionals do — we just get our results every two minutes instead of every few months or years.

I’ve never worn sunglasses at the table and I think it looks completely stupid and is unnecessary.

If I had to guess, I would say about 50 percent of the “name pros” you see on television on a regular basis have a negative net worth.