Gambler to ap

[suh3232]

Discipline may be the most important talent that a successful AP has. There have been tons of people with incredible talent who had some level of deficiency in their discipline, and it ruined them. Ken Uston and Stu Ungar are examples to study.

read about stu ungar but cannot find anything about ken uston where it says he failed. every article and video shares his skills and succesfull stories.

[moo321]

Ken Uston had a huge drug problem. Most of the money he made went to cocaine. He died young, either from a drug overdose or a heart attack from the years of drug abuse.

[Secretariat]

Discipline may be the most important talent that a successful AP has. There have been tons of people with incredible talent who had some level of deficiency in their discipline, and it ruined them. Ken Uston and Stu Ungar are examples to study.

I am curious to know what were Uston and Unger "special talents" when it came to counting cards at blackjack as solo players. My question therefore excludes team play, the acting part as well as sheer gut.

What special talents did they have as counters, which is pretty much a straightforward process? Did they use sophisticated counts (Uston used his level 3 count APC for a while) or perhaps, shuffle tracking?

[moo321]

Stu Ungar was absolutely unbeatable at gin. After a few years, no one would even enter gin tournaments if he was in them. And he was probably the best tournament poker player to ever live. He won the WSOP 3 times. Brunson did it too, but the field was smaller when he won it. Ungar was also constantly broke because he wasted his bankroll on drugs and steaming, and he died young. Would have won a few more WSOPs if he had lived. Complete waste of talent.


There are lots of poker players who don't have half the talent that Ungar had who have made a good living from the game. Because they have discipline.

[Archvaldor]

Ken Uston had a huge drug problem. Most of the money he made went to cocaine. He died young, either from a drug overdose or a heart attack from the years of drug abuse.

The official cause of Uston's death was heart failure.

What other people may or may not have said happened is speculative and unverified.

[Norm]

Uston's publisher told me that Uston's sister said it was heart failure. Of course drug use can contribute. So who knows.

[Lester]

My best friend died snorkeling in Aruba but his friends assured me he was doing cocaine every night in the island cantinas. It was all too much for his heart, "too much activity."

[Norm]

The source may have put methamphetamine in it. Looks the same, same effect, only lasts vastly longer, substantially increasing heart rate. I wouldn't think good for snorkeling.

Robin Williams once said 'Cocaine is God's way of telling you you're making too much money.

[theblackjackplayer]

I have a feeling that its especially hard no matter which game, if your edge is minuscule. You have to find a special situation that gives you a super high expected value and specialize in that one, like a one trick pony. Then its doable.

[JohnGalt007]

Opinions on a hardcore degenerate gambler trying to do ap play specially bj. Will his brain support in long term.

At the risk of sounding gauche by using a witticism as a segue, I wouldn't bet on it. Advantage play is an activity much closer to investing than to gambling. The former requires discipline, nerves of steel, emotional detachment that borders on the psychopathic, an outcome-independent mindset, the courage to act decisively when necessary, a healthy respect for variance, constant soft focus and vigilance for opportunities as they arise, and hours of study and practice and dry runs before betting serious money at the table. All of the aforementioned traits are merely optional when it comes to the latter. Gamblers have precisely none of those things; if they have one or two, they lose less, but they'll still crash and burn by consistently playing negative-EV games. For that reason, I would not recommend that a "hardcore degenerate gambler" try to learn AP, as that would only feed his delusions and make it that much harder for him to break his addiction. I would instead offer sympathy for his condition and recommend that he seek professional help.