Such BS

[!Luck]

This is such fucking BS.

20 Questions | Gamblers Anonymous

I hit 9 questions.

Thoughts?

[rpm]

i got 8. it's all a load of horseshit and there are only a few factors in that list which i would consider constitutive of a "problem".

[Micro2Macro]

>10

[!Luck]

Where is slevin when you need him....?

[JL]

0/20 because I don't consider poker gambling

But if I did consider it to be gambling then this:

>10

[celtic123]

Great quiz.
im not in denial.
this hobby has paid my rent occasionaly

[celtic123]

Occasionally

[kiwiMark]

I think I get like two or something without counting poker as gambling, because the way most people on here play poker isn't gambling.

Even using gambling and poker together I got 7, although I'm unsure on a bit. I've certainly been unhappy because of poker, but "made my home life unhappy" makes that sound so extended and so detrimental to those around me.



Also lol'd pretty hard at "15. Have you ever gambled to escape worry, trouble, boredom or loneliness?"

DO YOU DO SOMETHING BECAUSE YOU'RE BORED? AHA, CAUGHT YOU, YOU HAVE A PROBLEM.

[rpm]

i personally liked "have you ever gambled longer than you intended to?" because, you know, if you've ever done any activity for longer than you originally intended to do it in a given sitting then you are addicted to it.

[jyms]

>10

Not a fan of calling poker gambling.

[!Luck]

Showering problem?
1. Did you ever lose time from work or school due to showering?
2. Has showering ever made your home life unhappy?
3. Did showering affect your reputation?
4. Did showering cause a decrease in your ambition or efficiency?
5. After a shower did you have a strong urge to return and shower more?
6. Did you ever shower longer than you had planned?
7. Have you ever shower to escape worry, trouble, boredom or loneliness?
8. Did showering cause you to have difficulty in sleeping?
9. Do arguments, disappointments or frustrations create within you an urge to shower?
10. Did you ever have an urge to celebrate any good fortune by a few hours of shower(lol)?

[rong]

Showering problem?
1. Did you ever lose time from work or school due to showering?
2. Has showering ever made your home life unhappy?
3. Did showering affect your reputation?
4. Did showering cause a decrease in your ambition or efficiency?
5. After a shower did you have a strong urge to return and shower more?
6. Did you ever shower longer than you had planned?
7. Have you ever shower to escape worry, trouble, boredom or loneliness?
8. Did showering cause you to have difficulty in sleeping?
9. Do arguments, disappointments or frustrations create within you an urge to shower?
10. Did you ever have an urge to celebrate any good fortune by a few hours of shower(lol)?

Wanking problem?

[!Luck]

It's the middle of the day and im showering alone.......

There is no hope for me!

[oskar]

I got three and I'm on the fence with one of those.

I don't think those questions are all that bad, but I think they miss out on the most important benchmark. Gambling addicts develop withrawal symptoms very similar to those of substance abuse. If you respond physically to abstance of gambling, then there's your problem.

imo if you're ever putting money on a -EV proposition you're either a problem gambler or an idiot, so everyone who has ever bought a scratch ticket falls into that category in my book.
I am still quite surprised how we have pratically no complete degenerates here. tbh I can only think of one noteable exception, and we all know who that is

[rong]

Just took the test. 18 baby! Fuck yeah!
The only two I said no to were selling shit to fund gambling and self destruction/suicide.

Admitedly I was trying to answer yes, but still, I'm prioud of that score.

[supa]

10!

[eugmac]

10!

+1

[ensign_lee]

5 woot

[BankItDrew]

14 but poker ain't reaaaaaaal gambollin'

[surviva316]

Thoughts?

I don't think the quiz is as bad as you're making it out for gauging whether someone has a problem or not. I think any format that gives a set of really complicated questions with a lot of grey areas that probably fall on a spectrum and then says, "If you got 7+ than you are definitively ______" is just utterly retarded (I'm including school tests in this, too, btw). But I think the questions themselves aren't bad (outside of do you ever gamble out of boredom LOL).

The ones like have you ever borrowed money, do you ever play to pay bills and are you ever reluctant to spend gambling money on normal expenditures don't apply to us because we're not really gambling, but they would be excellent gauges for problems among people who are just putting 100 bucks on 17 because how the hell else are they going to pay for the new brakes.

The questions that try to get a gauge on how emotionally invested you are in it (how much of a rush it is to put money at stake, etc) are all good; even poker players are able to admit that trying to catch up on losses and being unable to focus properly when you're on a winning streak and tilting are "problems." It doesn't mean you have an addiction, but they're things that are gamboooooler-esque and that should be weeded out of your game if all else equal. If normal people have that strong of an emotional tie to the game, it's probably not good, but again it depends on to what degree and what percentage of their gambling life operates like that and so forth...

... hence why the yes or no format is dumb. You can't psychoanalyze people by saying "have you ever had any problems with your parents ever?" and lump all the people who say "yes" to it in the same category. That's kind of what this is doing, but I think people who get 7+ yeses on this probably have a problem. We're an exception to the rule that this site hasn't even dreamed of considering.

[surviva316]

imo if you're ever putting money on a -EV proposition you're either a problem gambler or an idiot, so everyone who has ever bought a scratch ticket falls into that category in my book.

This is another way to word what I'm saying. Pretty much anyone who is -eV and who has gambling as a significant enough part of their life to concern a friend or family member enough to make them take this quiz either has a problem or is very dumb/delusional.

[!Luck]

I used to be one those idiots who thought that anyone who ever takes -ev is an idiot. But honestly, that's a very bad way to view the world. Everyone has different preference. hell I probably spend $10/yr on lotto tickets. berate away. Even more, when im semi forced to buy in to large pools with co workers when jackpots hit 200 mil or whatever.

I guess, i just hate how this is just pure and simple manipulation. It's like that southpark where one char takes an alcoholism test and finds out he is an alcoholic and then he becomes and alcoholic because he can't control. It's like saying u have a gambling problem allows you to have a real gambling problem. Does this shit make sense?

[philly and the phanatics]

suicide one ldo

[kiwiMark]

Get out of here benny la phanatics

[bikes]

doing -ev shit for the sake of fun with friends is absurdly standard. infact on a day to day basis i would argue everything i do besides playing poker, eating and sleeping is a -ev proposition and probably lots of the things i do in poker are -ev


stupid GA.

[Micro2Macro]

the problem with ev is it doesnt take into account utility

[surviva316]

I used to be one those idiots who thought that anyone who ever takes -ev is an idiot. But honestly, that's a very bad way to view the world. Everyone has different preference. hell I probably spend $10/yr on lotto tickets. berate away. Even more, when im semi forced to buy in to large pools with co workers when jackpots hit 200 mil or whatever.

I don't know whether or not this is a response to my post, but if it is, it's a gross misinterpretation of it. Spending 10 $/year or being involved in NCAA bracket pools does not fulfill the qualifier of "anyone who has gambling as a big enough part of their life for them to've arrived to this quiz/meeting/conversation/etc either because of a judge sending you there or because your wife is threatening to leave if you don't get help or because you're so deep in the bowels of depression and self-destruction that you're desperate enough to end up there."

I guess, i just hate how this is just pure and simple manipulation. It's like that southpark where one char takes an alcoholism test and finds out he is an alcoholic and then he becomes and alcoholic because he can't control. It's like saying u have a gambling problem allows you to have a real gambling problem. Does this shit make sense?

Does it make sense in that it's sensible to think that this could happen? Yeah, I guess so. Does it actually have any relation to how shit works in the real world when you're dealing with trying to help people who have become homeless, family-less, have their entire financial/sexual/emotional/spiritual world revolve around how to get their next fix, on a path that will necessarily--without intervention at least--end in either jail or death, etc? Well, no not really.

I mean, we can get into arguments about semantics and about Plato's musings on the pros and cons of lying to a society for the greater good and talk about how dogmatic, unrevisable, "best possible" type beliefs can be detrimental in certain ways is basically just ivory tower bickering in the context of helping Joe the Heroin Addict. As someone who has chosen to stop drinking because it has become a problem in my life, yet has purposefully chosen to NOT take the path of AA, I doubt there's anyone here better qualified to have personal testament against certain aspects of the program, but for Joe the Heroin Addict, there is no down, so basically ANY change-effecting impact that can be made on his life is almost necessarily an improvement: even if that means joining a cult (not calling xA a cult, I'm just using an extreme example).

So, yeah, xA is imperfect, but it's not near as problematic as you or South Park are making it out to be. It's like people who are like "omg, I hate seat belts. Did you know that it's actually possible for you to die BECAUSE of a seat belt in an otherwise non-fatal incident?" Um, yeah, it's possible, but by wearing a seat belt you're massively increasing your chances of living and massively decreasing the average injury you can be expected to sustain in an accident. Using the South Park episode seems to fall under the same line of thinking of I can imagine a hypothetical where it's detrimental, hence it's bad, whereas out in the real world it probably does a lot more good than it does bad (though it MIGHT be able to do even MORE good in less dubious ways if improved upon in some ways, but that's kind of a moot point to someone who isn't concerned with sitting around and musing on these things and instead just needs to make sure they don't die).

[d0zer]

how angry does that GA quiz make you luck?

[drmcboy]

poker = gambling, accept it and get better. You can try and explain how it's different than roulette to your others/parents/etc if you want, but if you are telling yourself it isn't gambling you are probably in denial about variance.


gamblingpresent participle of gam·ble (Verb)

Verb:

• Play games of chance for money; bet.

[d0zer]

the gray area with poker is that it involves both skill and luck, and to quantify exactly how much skill is involved is incredibly hard.

We do know that the greater the skill discrepancy between two players, the less luck plays a factor, so those of you who don't practice good table selection are much more degenerate gamblers than bumhunters are.

[Galapogos]

i personally liked "have you ever gambled longer than you intended to?" because, you know, if you've ever done any activity for longer than you originally intended to do it in a given sitting then you are addicted to it.

I am definitely not addicted to sex then.

[BennyLaRue]

You know what is gambling? Bringing home an Eastern European chick, amirite?

[!Luck]

I don't know whether or not this is a response to my post, but if it is, it's a gross misinterpretation of it. Spending 10 $/year or being involved in NCAA bracket pools does not fulfill the qualifier of "anyone who has gambling as a big enough part of their life for them to've arrived to this quiz/meeting/conversation/etc either because of a judge sending you there or because your wife is threatening to leave if you don't get help or because you're so deep in the bowels of depression and self-destruction that you're desperate enough to end up there."



Does it make sense in that it's sensible to think that this could happen? Yeah, I guess so. Does it actually have any relation to how shit works in the real world when you're dealing with trying to help people who have become homeless, family-less, have their entire financial/sexual/emotional/spiritual world revolve around how to get their next fix, on a path that will necessarily--without intervention at least--end in either jail or death, etc? Well, no not really.

I mean, we can get into arguments about semantics and about Plato's musings on the pros and cons of lying to a society for the greater good and talk about how dogmatic, unrevisable, "best possible" type beliefs can be detrimental in certain ways is basically just ivory tower bickering in the context of helping Joe the Heroin Addict. As someone who has chosen to stop drinking because it has become a problem in my life, yet has purposefully chosen to NOT take the path of AA, I doubt there's anyone here better qualified to have personal testament against certain aspects of the program, but for Joe the Heroin Addict, there is no down, so basically ANY change-effecting impact that can be made on his life is almost necessarily an improvement: even if that means joining a cult (not calling xA a cult, I'm just using an extreme example).

So, yeah, xA is imperfect, but it's not near as problematic as you or South Park are making it out to be. It's like people who are like "omg, I hate seat belts. Did you know that it's actually possible for you to die BECAUSE of a seat belt in an otherwise non-fatal incident?" Um, yeah, it's possible, but by wearing a seat belt you're massively increasing your chances of living and massively decreasing the average injury you can be expected to sustain in an accident. Using the South Park episode seems to fall under the same line of thinking of I can imagine a hypothetical where it's detrimental, hence it's bad, whereas out in the real world it probably does a lot more good than it does bad (though it MIGHT be able to do even MORE good in less dubious ways if improved upon in some ways, but that's kind of a moot point to someone who isn't concerned with sitting around and musing on these things and instead just needs to make sure they don't die).

First. My post was aimed at Oskar, not you. Also, I really liked your post especially about the Plato segment. I guess it more that the harm this does is probably small but widespread where the benefit is concentrated.

It's the hypochondriac in mean that hates this shit.

And yes, this does make me ANGRY!

[surviva316]

I just had things to say on it, and your post was the most appropriate to reply to, so you have a nice one, sir, etc.

[drmcboy]

the gray area with poker is that it involves both skill and luck, and to quantify exactly how much skill is involved is incredibly hard.

We do know that the greater the skill discrepancy between two players, the less luck plays a factor, so those of you who don't practice good table selection are much more degenerate gamblers than bumhunters are.

it isn't gray because the luck factor is never 0.

if you want to define gambling as '-EV bets' that's fine but it isn't any normal person's definition and it never will be.

One major cause of tilt is poker players get the idea they aren't gambling and so luck will 'even out' over time. It might!

[Lukie]

the problem with ev is it doesnt take into account utility

You make a great point and it's another reason why the lottery is so st00pid.

Aside from the fact that it's -EV to begin wtih especially when taxes and the lump sum payment are taken into account, it's also unfavorable from a utility standpoint because the 1st dollar is more useful than the 1,000,000th dollar, and all that that implies.

[d0zer]

it isn't gray because the luck factor is never 0.

if you want to define gambling as '-EV bets' that's fine but it isn't any normal person's definition and it never will be.

One major cause of tilt is poker players get the idea they aren't gambling and so luck will 'even out' over time. It might!

Well when I said gray, I meant that it's not pure gambling like flipping a coin, and it's not pure skill like chess. Yes technically any game where there's luck involved is gambling, but the term gambling is a dirty word to many (like GA), and to paint all gambling with the same dirty brush doesn't acknowledge the differences between a winning grinder and a slot addict.

[surviva316]

it isn't gray because the luck factor is never 0.

if you want to define gambling as '-EV bets' that's fine but it isn't any normal person's definition and it never will be.

One major cause of tilt is poker players get the idea they aren't gambling and so luck will 'even out' over time. It might!

Well that's semantics. In order for it to technically fulfill the definition of gambling, you are correct that it fulfills all the requirements; in order for it to fulfill all the connotations of sleeziness and sin and assured bankruptcy and so forth, though, it needs to be -eV or high enough variance for the risks to not be worth it or etc. In other words, it can be gambling, but for all intents and purposes that are relevant to the conversation of whether it's bad to "gamble" in order to pay off bills (for example), what we do as poker players doesn't fit the bill.

It could prolly say "taking bad bets" instead of "gambling" and have it be more accurate because even if you're in our business and you're making -eV, high variance plays in order to recoup losses, then it's a sign of a problem. But again, we make up such a minuscule portion of the gambling community that even just giving people with gambling problems the out by implying that there are such thing as good bets might not be worth whatever improvements we get from changing the wording.

[drmcboy]

I think playing poker to 'pay off the bills' is a terrible idea. You can of course pay bills out of your BR/rakeback etc.

Most (90%?) people lose money playing poker just like they would playing slots or lotto. In fact since they can be outplayed by players in addition to the house juice they may be better off ($EV) taking a small -EV wager that they can't screw up.

Regardless, they are -EV either way so there is 'assured bankruptcy' and if you don't think we have 'sin' or 'sleaziness' in poker my bank account would like to know where my FT money is.



I'm not really sure what point you guys are making but if it's about legalization issues, we need to admit/embrace these issues, not pretend they don't exist. We're selling people a chance to have fun and maybe win it big. One of the big problems with our product is that many people will misuse it to their detriment, just like sports betting, roulette and beer. The road to success is not going to be in splitting the hairs on the EV of lotto vs poker, but in answering whether people want to be free to make their own choices on this issue.

[surviva316]

I'm not really sure what point you guys are making but if it's about legalization issues, we need to admit/embrace these issues, not pretend they don't exist.

Well here's the problem. I'm talking about the test. Poker (regardless of how it's played) falls under the dictionary definition of gambling; poker (as it is played by people who beat the games) doesn't so much fall under how this test is using the term "gambling" with all of its societal connotations and so forth. I'm not saying anything about legalization or about how poker's farts smell like roses or any of that.

I'm saying that in the context of our lives, doing everything we can to make sure we don't withdraw from our bankroll when we're moving up the stakes (just to use #12 as an example) isn't a sign of a problem, but being reluctant to take less bad bets so that you can pay the bills IS a sign of a problem for anyone. Both are examples of not using "gambling money" on normal world stuff, but since in the first case we're talking about something that is gambling by the dictionary definition but doesn't necessarily take on all the meta-semantics applied to that term, it's not a bad sign, even though a test that DOES assume all the meta-semantics applied to the term would assumes that it is a bad sign.

[drmcboy]

ok, I don't care about the test, except to find it weird that you all care what GA thinks about you.

if it helps, you're pretty much all alcoholics and codependents according to those tests too.

[d0zer]

yeah I'm an alcoholic, drug abuser, gambling addict, sex/porn addict. It's pretty awesome tbh

[drmcboy]

when you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail