Comments on: Card Shark

By: kleninggan

kleninggan — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 01:43:43 +0000

It is good to find there is a poker player even at this places, here! Your story on your poker experience is very inspirational and shed quite some light on how it must’ve been like playing poker for a living.

By: koolmoe

koolmoe — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 10:26:51 +0000

@Leon

A successful poker player gets paid for exploiting his opponents’ weaknesses, much the same as a successful entreprenuer gets paid for exploiting his competitors’ weaknesses.

Also, it is fairly common for a successful player to stake an up-and-coming player in order to generate some residual income. The relationship between staker and stakee are strikingly similar to that of a VC and a startup.

Finally, a well played bluff isn’t that uncommon in the startup arena.}

By: leon

leon — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 13:54:41 +0000

I’ve spent a fair amount of time at a poker table, too – I’m sure it pales in comparison to the author’s experience, but it was long enough to notice how it can affect your thinking. Two things to look out for in your thinking 1) life outside the poker table isn’t usually a zero-sum game, and treating negotiations, weather with VCs or partners, as if they were could lead to some novel results 2) getting paid at poker is, in essence, getting paid for lying. A constant search for angles, setups, or worse can, again, lead to some less than optimal results.}

By: carleen

carleen — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 00:29:14 +0000

Funny, and good to know J.R., only I had to look it up: *card·sharp* Pronunciation: -”shärp
Variant(s): or card·sharp·er Noun: *”a person who habitually _cheats_ at cards”*

Naturally, and using the vernacular known so well to those of us who don’t own a deck, I took “card shark” to mean “expert.” Anyway, ’tis my choice in headline, not Matt’s, so any error is mine, too. But heh, thanks for playing!}

By: bobdobbs

bobdobbs — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 19:38:20 +0000

I listen to card sharps, not sharks.}