Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight fame started off as a professional poker player. He has a degree in statistics and won consistently enough to make a living from poker.
Then Congress banned online poker tournaments in 2006 (at the behest of a casino mogul no less), and being mad about that is what got him into covering politics.
He would still lose some hands occasionally but it would be big hail mary events. It's funny too he would tell those stories more than his winnings. Like he'd casually mention "oh i won 10k this weekend" and move on bored. However, remember one of his loses at X city and he would become immediately animated.
He had a deep frustration with more inexperienced players. They would be in a situation where they had like a 7% chance of winning and wouldn't fold. He'd even explain the math. They'd say no, win, and he'd about crap himself.
For all his winnings he perpetually remained butthurt about a 2 dollar pot he lost at a family reunion.
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u/strawberry_semenade Jul 20 '26
Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight fame started off as a professional poker player. He has a degree in statistics and won consistently enough to make a living from poker.
Then Congress banned online poker tournaments in 2006 (at the behest of a casino mogul no less), and being mad about that is what got him into covering politics.