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Has anyone taken an astronomy course to exercise their mental side?
HoneyBakedPiglet
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January 16, 2014 - 1:28 pm
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Poker is a game of incomplete information. You have to make a lot of inferences about what is going on. A lot of modern astronomy, physics, economics, etc, also have models that take incomplete information and make pretty accurate predictions. For example, until very recently astronomers had never directly observed a planet in another solar system. They knew the planets existed because the wobble of the star on its axis should have been due to the gravity of the planet in orbit. They were taking incomplete information and infering a conclusion. Would it be worthwhile to exercise my mental muscles by branching out and taking some classes that make me think in terms of incomplete information?

jacobsharktank
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January 16, 2014 - 2:00 pm
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not that I think you asked for this reason, but just in case- i hope you're asking because you want to expound your mind and not just take it to improve your focus in poker. learning more can definitely help in this regard, but i'd stray away from seeking out something only for its benefit on poker.

 

moving forward, i studied economics and political science and now work as a computer programmer in florida.

extra classes i took that ended up helping me think more broadly and as a result had an application in how i approach poker-

calculus, statistics (this is by far the most useful class anyone anyone anyone anyone anyone can take), game design, intro to psychology

 

i took calculus in my 2nd to last semester of college because i love patterns, and math is at its core recognition and acknowledgement of patterns. when you get into the “rules” of how you can treat derivatives and integrals (these rules are just explanations of how these patterns work relative to wherever you're coming from), you need to think a few steps in or out. this is a skill/ability/whatever that is necessary for literally all postflop play, but more importantly for me anyway, it allows you to think of yourself and your decisions' impacts on the overall game.

 

i took statistics in high school, and have loved math since as far back as i can remember, so i was ecstatic that my major required me to take the class because i was probably going to do it on my own anyway. without understanding what variance is, you and everyone else are doomed to the woes of the swings in life…literally no matter what the subject is. i truly believe my sense of being and personhood is grounded firmly in my understanding of statistics and without it, i wouldnt be the same person. if you can't understand why something can take place where the math says it wouldn't, youre going to be angry and hate life eventually. a few years ago, while at a girlfriends familys house for thanksgiving, there was a story on the news about premature babies being linked to some sort of intellectual defect. i don't remember specifics, but that's what it was. math said that if youre not born with the right amount of time developing (x), you have this (y). obviously nothing takes place 100% of the time, and it doesn't really take a genius to know that this doesn't say that all prematurely born babies will turn out this way, but thats how my girlfriend took it. she was born a couple of weeks early and is a smart person, but she got really defensive about it. i couldn't understand it until i realize she just didn't understand what variance was. tldr- we're not playing chess, your decisions have small impacts over big bell-shaped curves.

 

game design- there's some math involved when you assign movements to keystrokes or mouse movements, and it helped me think about how small changes have impacts on your overall result.

 

intro to psych- honestly, most intro stuff is really really easy to learn/understand because it makes sense. we all have sort of a grasp on basic psych concepts just by living our day to day lives. i'm hesitant to put it on here, but i met my first real poker friend in this class. i caught him playing on fulltilt through a vpn or ghosted teamviewer account, which i saw as only having a few explanations- either degen, successful, knows someone who is successful. well he only opened up full tilt that one day in class and didn't have an account there at all. i just happened to see him playing at the exact right moment. he was a merge grinder and his brother's a full time pro. he taught me a ton and i wouldn't have nearly the motivation i have now if not for that class.

HoneyBakedPiglet
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January 16, 2014 - 2:16 pm
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I chose astronomy because I'm fascinated with Neil DeGrass Tyson's talks and wanted to learn more. I'm sure there's other disciplines that would have the same effect. I just wondered if it would also help me in poker by increasing my ability to think with incomplete information. Thank you for the reply!

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Killingbird
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January 16, 2014 - 2:52 pm
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I took two in college.  One of which was a lab where we basically looked up at the sky all night.  it was amazing.

jacobsharktank
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January 16, 2014 - 2:56 pm
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HoneyBakedPiglet said:

I chose astronomy because I'm fascinated with Neil DeGrass Tyson's talks and wanted to learn more. I'm sure there's other disciplines that would have the same effect. I just wondered if it would also help me in poker by increasing my ability to think with incomplete information. Thank you for the reply!

tyson is the absolute bomb!! he came to fsu a few months ago and my girlfriend at the time worked the event. totally cool. if youre generally an outward thinking person (i see branches like on a tree?), then any subject will probably help. astronomy was very very cool. my roommate took a philosophy of science class that i attended a few times. it was a film class with a lecture-driven discussion following, and it was great. man, talking about this makes me want to go back to school.

MovesLikeDarvin

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January 23, 2014 - 12:30 pm
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HoneyBakedPiglet said:

I chose astronomy because I'm fascinated with Neil DeGrass Tyson's talks and wanted to learn more. I'm sure there's other disciplines that would have the same effect. I just wondered if it would also help me in poker by increasing my ability to think with incomplete information. Thank you for the reply!

150%!! near the end of 2013 i took a couple classes on entrepreneurship and business on CourseEra (i think there are other sites like luminosity that do the same).  You should check out coursera if you aren't familiar, it has a lot of free classes with lectures online and some grading. you usually get certificates of achievement after, and if u sign up for a paid class (usually $25-$50) you can get some other certifications to put on your resume.

 

on a similar note, i recently took an internship with Work Market, a software as a service start up from NYC.  altho i live in canada, i can do the internship online from anywhere. the money isnt great, but thats not the point either. its been amazing for my poker game: it keeps me on a regular routine and its hours are when im never playing poker anyway. its intellectually stimulating and helps me focus my mind on things outside of poker (which i never used to do). as a result, ive never played better.  i highly, highly recommend trying something like that

jacobsharktank
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January 23, 2014 - 4:10 pm
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coursera is definitely where it's at. i late regged for a class on the implications of “randomness” in life. it's a physics class from what i gathered in the preview. definitely excited to get to the work

Kalculater
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January 23, 2014 - 6:45 pm
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Coursera is amazing! There really is an emerging revolution of free online education. One of the best things about it is that you can use the accreditation certificates for university credits (given it is inline with your studies). I have not yet completed a course where I have been able to use this towards current studies however if i was to continue in other areas it would be helpful. Its also a good introductory to many topics that you dont have to waste your money/time on at university to sample.

 

I am enrolled into the music production course started yesterday and the one coming up also. If anyone else is doing either of these and wants to collab on some tracks hit me up. Highly recommend coursera and similar sites to anyone.

bennymacca
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January 24, 2014 - 2:27 am
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i am almost finished a masters degree in signal and information processing, after getting degrees in elecrical engineering and physics (brag) and in signal processing there is a TON of statistics and estimation theory, which involved a lot of Bayesian inference etc. 

 

Definitely helped my poker in that regard, because i understand what Bayes theorem is now 

 

but yeah expanding your knowledge in any way you can is a great idea. 

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