Drugs and Thought

[vhawk01]

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I would now like to discuss my poll, and note that a majority of the posters voting got all of the questions wrong, and everyone at this point except for myself, got the last question wrong (currently 25-1).

1) Do you do drugs?

The right answer is to never use drugs. This doesn't mean "haven't ever in your life", but "never now". Drugs harm your physical health and impair your mental abilities, and when on them you have diminished judgement and are much more likely to harm yourself or others.

I grant this is easy for me to say, as besides not using drugs I also rarely dring alcohol, but that is intentional on my part, *especially because I am an online poker player*. If you are a serious player, then using drugs should be out of the question.


2) True or False: Do you believe someone who has smoked an entire joint can drive better than someone who has drank a six-pack?

The correct answer is False, because NEITHER can drive good. The false condition is indicated when both drive badly. You might try to split hairs about the degree of badly or say it was a trick question or my answer is, but you should still have chosen false.


3) Would you rather stake in a high stakes deep stack nlhe game David Sklansky playing while high, or a sober 1 ptbb winning player from the micro-nl forum?


Note first off it is implicitly assumed/stipulated that we know the micro guy's true win rate. The correct answer is that you should prefer to back the micro guy and here is why. In a standard cash game staking arrangement, you as the staker eat all of the losses and take a percentage of the winnings, perhaps 50-60%. Since you have to eat all losses, you should prefer to back someone who has a high probability of not losing much, even though that means he will likely only produce a small to moderate win. What you want to avoid is a higher probability of a large loss. The only exception might be if that higher probability of a large loss was offset by an also higher probability of a MUCH bigger win. So since you want to limit your likelihood of a large loss, let's see how those two potential stakees match up.

The most likely reasons that the micro guy is such a small, albeit long term, winner at the stakes he plays, is that he makes too many folding errors and errors of failing to bet/be aggressive enough, in small to medium pots in situations with marginal hands likely to be best or where a semi-bluff could take down a small pot. Plus since he is so tight, he fails to get enough action and plays too passively even headsup when a scare cards comes, which lead to his failing to extract as much as he should. But one thing he doesn't do is make big errors in big pots. If he plays a big pot he has a big hand, and he excercises pot control so that he doesn't push one pair/overpair/drawing hands too far and build big pots with same where aggressive opponents can take him off his hand on later streets. This guy has to get oudrawn on/be unlucky, in order to sustain a large loss. But his tightness makes him a favorite to have a small to moderate win.

Now let's look at David, who is playing high. He is one of the top experts in poker, has more experience than most, superior judgement and reads players/hands well. But that is when he is sober. Now playing high, that intellect and judgement is impaired to some degree and he is thus much more likely to make errors of any kind, INCLUDING in big pots. So he simply has a much higher probability of producing a big loss for a backer than does the micro guy. Although he might get extra action from opponents who notice his impaired condition and can't put him on a correct range, that really requires luck for that to happen, where both David has a bigger hand and the opponent thinks he is betting or raising light because of his condition. So that can't be counted on and he still is much more likely to generate a big loss.

Because of that analysis, you should prefer to back a non-impaired small stakes winning player, even one who is playing over his head. Indeed playing over his head is another reason he is unlikely to produce a big loss as he will be playing even tighter than normal, or is even proper. In fact the biggest factor in his producing a loss, albeit a small one, is the blind costs.



Now the reasons all you guys got these questions wrong are twofold. First because your understanding of poker theory is lacking, and secondly . . . because you do drugs and can't think as well all the time as you should.

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You are not smart. Your explanation of Poll Question #2 is all the support I need.

[hmkpoker]

I find that marijuana lowers my mental anxiety, which in some ways helps me to slow down and take a look at life from a more relaxed point of view, but I don't think I'd go as far to say that it's mind-expanding. Marijuana makes serious left-brained activities impossible for me. I've tried to discuss economics and politics while high, and I find myself too dumb to even keep up with the conversation. It also makes me very lazy and makes it difficult to move life forward (which is why I've stopped lately).

What marijuana does is it makes sensory input more pleasurable, and makes you more inclined to have sensory experiences and express your feelings. It also makes your time preference much higher, making you inclined to procrastinate and screw off; good for immediate satisfaction, but bad if you're trying to make something of yourself.

As far as all of these things go, acid is much better. THe lucid state is much clearer and the lingering "enlightened" effects stay with you MUCH longer.

[chezlaw]

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This is true, if we maintain proper empirical discipline. If, on the other hand, we're jumping to conclusions, then direct experience is very relevant. Scientifically it's very clear that almost every substance can be beneficial under certain circumstances. Even those behind the war on drugs wouldn't go so far as to suggest that something (even cocaine, heroin, meth) is bad for everyone or is always bad for a person.

Anyone with even the most casual knowledge of medicine knows that different drugs affect different people in different ways, that none of their reactions exist in a vacuum but must be considered within an entire physiological system, and that almost none of the relevant mechanics don't have natural counterparts. Furthermore, studies have consistently indicate benefits of substance use. The typical argument is that drug abuse is such a problem the costs of toying with drugs outweight the benefits. That's a valid argument for a "drug virgin," (and I have a valid response).

But Bluff is making absolute statements in a sweeping manner, many of which are factually incorrect or clearly ignorant. With neither experiential nor experimental bases for his position, he's not justified in making empirical statements.

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his atatements are nonsense but not because he hasn't used the drugs. conversely just because we have used the drugs doesn't mean we know anything more about the perils and although we have experience of the effects that Bluffthis! may be lacking I don't see that this harms BluffThis!'s position at all - he can concede all claimed good experiences and still make his case.

Unless he actually contradicts someones experiences then the experiences aren't pertinant.

chez

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The fact that I (and others on this thread, from the sound of it [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]) have direct experience with different drugs, is absolutely pertinent to the validity of my opinion about them. Aside from stating dry statistics, which BT has not even managed to do, someone with no drug experience really has nothing to offer in a discussion about drugs. Especially since, as Madnak was saying, drug experiences vary so wildly from person to person.

For instance, most peoples' ability to play poker would probably be damaged by smoking pot, but some people actually seem to benefit from it in terms of gaining an enhanced ability to creatively examine levels of thought. This is something that me, you, Madnak, VHawk, etc. probably have insights about, but BT! doesn't.


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Yes but the dispute is not about the experience. As i said before, Bluffthis! can concede that we are all 100% accurate about our experiences and it doesn't change anything about the argument.

The main arguments are normally that drugs are detrimental to the long term well-being of the user or that there's some danger each time they are used. The only way of proving or disproving these is scientific studies and bluffthis! is not less able to understand these than a user.

The other argument is some sort of moral garbage but none of the garbage is caused by drug use or non-use, although the converse may be true.

chez

[snappo]

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If you are a serious player, then using drugs while playing should be done.

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