Who is our best?

"Ronaldo is the best! He is the best! Luis Ronaldo, there was no defence that could contain him! Ronaldo!" Said a friend of mine, as he thrashed his arms around much like a 10 year old in a candy store. "Messi can't hold a candle to him, and don't even talk to be about the Portuguese Ronaldo. God. That other Ronaldo guy change his name. Luis Ronaldo is the best!"

This outburst, of course, was my fault, because I love to poke a response like this out of him (it really is amusing to watch). But this got me thinking, who is the best? Or rather, why is it that it is rarely black and white, in anything in life, that we can agree on who the best is.

And the more I thought about it, the more I got the feeling that what we define to be 'the best' is simply that which inspires us the most (or sometimes, that which we aspire to be). And we all find inspiration in different places - Some are inspired by the fact that Ronaldo (9) was a one man army, some by the genius of Messi at such a young age (I'll stick to football, for consistency). And the last thing any person wants is to lose their spark of inspiration.

I think we will protect that spark, no matter what. I have another friend who believed Ryan Giggs was a god. He is, on the football field, but he seemed to handle matters pretty badly in his personal life. And when my friend found out, she was gutted. And she should be, losing that spark is pretty horrible.

Ronaldo captured our imagination when we were kids - when Brazil played, the world watched. He was confident on the ball, he genius was remarkable. And he made quite the impression on my friend at his impressionable age. I know understand the fervour with which he defends his hero, his 'best.'

And the wonderful thing about poker? You could be the best and never know it. It is a game where the obvious effects of variance are so easy to see- you could be the greatest player ever, run bad, and quit (or be lost in the Micros). But we still have players we consider to be the best. And what do we base this on? Them actually being the best? More likely, I think, on the type of player we aspire to be. I started out thinking Doyle was the nutz, then Ferguson, then Dwan, then Ivey and now, Hellmuth? (Naaah)

So the next time you're fighting over who the best is, ask yourself how they inspire you (and, if you're in the mood, how your friend's best inspires him), and you might take away more from the slugfest that is going to ensue.

And atleast there's one thing we know for sure..
Sachin is the best :)

U and You

Andres Carvajal. That's a name I cannot pronounce, but one I will not forget. He was my Mathematical Economics 1A lecturer last year, a module that focused on Decision Theory and Game Theory. Fascinating, right? I thought so too. The exam, however, wasn't as fascinating. But that's another story.

Why do I bring him up? Because one day in class he taught us the Mathematical concept of 'Independence' (I won't bore you with it), and then went on to criticise it and show how it wasn't a great assumption. Then, after teaching us Nash Equilibrium, he proceeded to tear it apart and tell us that he didn't much care for it. And all I thought was - Woah! You can criticise mathematical concepts? Woah. You can criticise anything.

And those lectures got me thinking about Utility - essentially, economics lingo for happiness; and Utility Functions - essentially, all the factors that influence your happiness; and us economists like to believe that rational people (hah!) do their best to maximise their utility subject to constraints they face (that's really everybody's motivation).

Fairly straightforward, right? You do what you can to make yourself happy. But do we really know what makes us happy? Economists will sit and assume certain things that they think will make you happy, but really, that's just approximations. In truth, I don't believe we ourselves know what makes us happy all the time (we know certain conscious things that make us happy, but then there are sub conscious things which we act on, but by definition, don't consciously know). Makes sense? We want to be happy. We act to make ourselves happy. But we aren't always conscious of the things that make us happy.

I believe the one thing Economists got right, though, is that life and its decisions is about maximising our happiness.

So really, our utility functions are very vague, abstract entities. Rarely are they quantifiable and are highly dynamic in nature, changing constantly. So here's my poker example of this thought:

If you assume that everybody who sits down to play poker is only looking to maximise the amount of money they are going to win, then you're wrong. Truth is, different people sit down for different reasons with different motivations. Let us take 2 people, A who plays poker /only/ for money, and B who just plays poker for a variety of reasons. Let us say they are both contemplating raising, their thought processes (conscious and sub conscious) would look like this:

A: raises for value/protection, to bluff and steal, for image

B: raises for value, to bluff, to impress the really cute dealer chick that just sat down, to get back at that guy who bluffed him, to be baller and say, 'all in.'

Now if we analyse the way these two play poker (when they raise), we might find many spots where B makes -EV plays (burns money) as compared to some of the plays A makes. But has B made a mistake? No. He's simply maximised what is important to him. He hasn't really played it wrong, he just cares for different things. He might not even consciously know that he's flexing his biceps when the dealer chick sits down, but flexing maximises his (emotional?) EV (actually, Expected Utility).

And what does that mean? That economists over simplify; that utility functions are nearly impossible to define; and that whenever you do something, you do it because you think it'll make you happiest (short or long run, depending on whats important to you).

So really, in a convoluted sort of way, I'm saying that we shouldn't second guess ourselves and the decisions we make. Try and understand why you made them (jump into your sub conscious, a la Freud), learn about you and don't regret anything - you maximised your utility (subject to what you knew then about the world and you).

So when you're broke, and lying in bed, and wondering why you shoved all in pre with 7-2 off, know that you did it because doing it made you happiest then. And maybe, just maybe, that cute dealer chick thought you were quite baller for it.

Stable State - Alone?

This rather geeky Economics professor of mine was spouting random thoughts one class. Talking to us about economic thought, he was analysing relationships, people and social interactions. So, in typical Economics fashion, he built a model: He assumed our stable state in life is being alone - we enter and exit relationships but essentially, we're always alone. He then began examining the nature of relationships, how long they last and the amplitude and frequency of oscillations (I warned you, geeky. Also, quite possibly one of his friends just suffered a break up of sorts.)

His economic thought didn't make me think as much as his assumption. Which, after I gave a bit of my own economic thought to, I decided to disagree with. Our stable state is certainly not us being alone. In fact, through most of a human life, we rarely are alone. We're born onto this planet connected to our mothers, we're taken care of by family (and society), and most of us learn to take care of ourselves, to take care of our own someday. The stability of our state, in many ways, is determined by the number and strength of the bonds we keep to those closest to us.

I only harp on this because off late, I've been wondering whether or not the most crucial aspect of life is being independent. And learning to being comfortable in solitude. And in some ways, it is. But only in a trivial sense, it shouldn't really be practiced a lot. It's important to be independent so that if a strong relationship fades away, you are strong enough to reinvest in another (knowing who you are). I don't think one can ever be truly satisfied or happy being alone.

Poker analogy (I apologise): It's like being properly rolled for the game you're playing in. If you lose your stack, you shouldn't bat an eyelid when you rebuy. And your bankroll shouldn't really inhibit you from stacking off in stacking off spots (game - relationship. bankroll - independence or knowing yourself. You get the point).

And the fear of being alone is pretty high up in the list of things people fear the most. It's right next to spiders, snakes and the unknown. And with fear, comes insecurity. And with insecurity, I've found, comes drama. And barring Gaga, nobody likes drama. (Did I just make a Gaga reference? A part of me just died)

And those who are genuinely comfortable being alone are such a small proportion of human kind that they're like Argon- they don't really count.

I think life would be easier if everyone just accepted this. Figured out who they are. Figured out who they want their relationships to be with. Don't really care if they don't fit in with everyone. Because they do fit.

And when things don't work out, blame it on variance, keep calm and rebuy.

Should we ban casinos?

He's a taxi driver. In many ways, he simple isn't happy with the life he leads. Last year, there was a report on a tabloid on how a 60 year old lady made millions on a jackpot she won. Imagine her life now, the article wrote. That was last year, and he hasn't made his million since.

We go to the casino to fill us with a sense of excitement that we lack in life. And sometimes, dangerously, to find a miracle cure to some of our monetary problems. There's nothing wrong with having fun, and I definitely believe we should have the autonomy to make our own decisions. But should we be protecting the most vulnerable? The ones most likely to lose and lose big at a casino?

First, the facts. No floor game in a casino is beatable. In the long run, everyone except the house is a loser. In the short run, you can ride the variance train up, or usually, down. The casino makes its own rules - if it finds you can beat a game, like Blackjack with counting cards, you're disallowed from playing ever again. So the premise is this - everytime you step into the casino, you have to play in -EV spots; you will always lose money.

So then, why do people play? For some, it's about the entertainment, the thrill. It'd be hard to call these people irrational because on some level, they don't excessively risk themselves and they do find value for their buck. But for those who come to make some money, I think we have to term them irrational for whatever reason.

There are 18 red spots, 18 black spots and 1 non colour spot. I tell you, we'll spin the wheel, if it comes on the colour you choose (red or black), I'll match your bet. Else, you lose. Over the course of many spins, you will always lose because of the 1 non colour spot. Yet people play this and play it for extended times. They take sub optimal gambles consistently over large sample spaces genuinely believing they have an edge. When they lose, they chase their loses. And their wins only reaffirm their misguided faith that the game is beatable.

For the truly irrational gambler, a casino will ruin his life.

So the question is, as I see it, to protect the most vulnerable in our society, does it make sense to curb the rights of the rest?

Well, let's look at the argument for keeping them around - casinos exist because people like to gamble. If you remove a casino, it doesn't remove their innate need to gamble and they will continue to, in backalleys and with crime syndicates - how will be protect our most vulnerable then?

Also, as mentioned earlier, we can't be told what we can or cannot do (or can't we? We ban drugs and underage drinking and a whole load of other things to protect us from ourselves).

I guess, I'm at odds. My mind says we need to keep them around. My heart, however, sees the taxi driver's mortgage on the next spin.

Well, gentlemen, place your bets.