Ylon Schwartz!
If you're wondering what's with the title of this post, no, I have not gone crazy and anagrammed some other weird name for myself (or anyone, for the matter).
Here's the lowdown on Ylon Schwartz from Wikipedia:
Ylon Schwartz (born c. 1970) is a chess master and professional poker player from Brooklyn, New York, and a fourth place finisher in the $10,000 World Championship No Limit Hold'em Main Event of the 2008 World Series of Poker (WSOP), played on November 9, 2008. Prior to the Main Event, Schwartz had 11 career WSOP cashes and plays poker professionally online under the screen name "TenthPlanet"
As a teenager, Schwartz saw streetside chess games in Manhattan's Times Square, and won two dollars playing his first game. He was soon a regular, hustling $100 per day playing chess against passersby. Schwartz reached a peak rating of 2408 United States Chess Federation, and as of 2008 his rankings stood at 2304 from the USCF and 2259 from FIDE. He has attained the title of FIDE Master with a ranking above 2300.
Schwartz grew up as an only child in the New York City borough of Manhattan. A self-described uninspired student, he left the Borough of Manhattan Community College, having failed out of the school after a year. He took a number of jobs after flunking out of college. It was as a public school special education assistant that he started playing chess for a few dollars on the side. He soon devoted full-time to gambling on backgammon, chess, darts and horses.
An inveterate gambler, Schwartz made $340 from passersby on wagers that he would be able to throw a lemon across a street onto the top of a Burger King restaurant on the other side. Schwartz had practiced the throw the previous night and knew he could win the bets.
Schwartz was introduced to Texas hold 'em by Fat Nick, a fellow backgammon player. Schwartz entered a pair of poker tournaments at a club run by Fat Nick in 2000, winning both and walking away with $12,000 and a new passion.
Schwartz has drawn comparisons between his tournament experience as a ranked chess master, noting that many of the skills he needed to succeed in chess are useful in poker and that the memory skills needed in chess transfer to retaining details on betting patterns of opponents needed to win in poker. He also pointed out that chess strategy provides excellent preparation for knowing when to time bets to prevent other players from folding when he has a good hand. Schwartz observed that the two games share the geometric relationships between the pieces on the chessboard and those connecting the cards and chip stacks of fellow poker players, while recognizing that chess is a game of complete information, in contrast to poker.
Schwartz's mother was diagnosed with cancer, and he spent much of his time in his twenties caring for her and taking her to doctor appointments until her death in 2003. Ylon Schwartz's father, Neil, had left the family when Ylon was two years old. Neil made a number of attempts to contact Ylon over the years but it never worked out. The last time Ylon heard from his father was in the making the 2008 WSOP final table and Ylon refused to speak to him. His father remarried and now lives in New Mexico.
As of 2008, his total lifetime live poker tournament winnings exceed $4,000,000. Prior to Schwartz making it to the main table at the 2008 World Series of Poker, his biggest WSOP win was three years earlier at the 2005 World Poker Finals in the No-Limit Hold'em $500 buy-in event, in which his third place finish brought him a payout of $49,960.
On November 10, 2008, Schwartz was eliminated after going all in against Peter Eastgate and ending the tournament in fourth place, earning $3,774,974.
Why am I blogging about a gambler? Is it because of the IR? Is it because I encourage gambling? Is it because he has a weird first name?
No, it's because this guy illustrates my point of how flawed education can be, how a dropout and a seeming failure in life can actually be this really smart guy.
I mean, look at him. On top of being a chess master and world poker finalist, he somehow managed to correlate playing chess and gambling make it sound complex yet understandable at the same time.
And I assure you it takes more than any jack-on-the-street to do what he did.
Ylon isn't only just an ace on the poker table or on the chess board, he's also street-smart too. How else would he be able to make $340 by simply throwing a lemon onto the roof of a Burger King? It would take a bit more than normal sweet-talking to convince white-collared intellectual New-Yorkers to wager with him on simply throwing a lemon onto a BK roof. Pretty amazing, eh.
Plus, he's probably more human than all those people with high IQ slaving their lives away in university. I doubt any high-flyer will give up the prime of their lives taking care of a parent. But Ylon did, spending most of his 20s taking care of his mother.
Of course I don't mean that all hobos out there are really smart, and all the collegiate bookworms are heartless people.
It just proves that degree-holders may be the cleverest people out there, but there's always a college dropout who is smart enough to sucker the money off them.
Who's the sucker now?
Here's the lowdown on Ylon Schwartz from Wikipedia:
Ylon Schwartz (born c. 1970) is a chess master and professional poker player from Brooklyn, New York, and a fourth place finisher in the $10,000 World Championship No Limit Hold'em Main Event of the 2008 World Series of Poker (WSOP), played on November 9, 2008. Prior to the Main Event, Schwartz had 11 career WSOP cashes and plays poker professionally online under the screen name "TenthPlanet"
As a teenager, Schwartz saw streetside chess games in Manhattan's Times Square, and won two dollars playing his first game. He was soon a regular, hustling $100 per day playing chess against passersby. Schwartz reached a peak rating of 2408 United States Chess Federation, and as of 2008 his rankings stood at 2304 from the USCF and 2259 from FIDE. He has attained the title of FIDE Master with a ranking above 2300.
Schwartz grew up as an only child in the New York City borough of Manhattan. A self-described uninspired student, he left the Borough of Manhattan Community College, having failed out of the school after a year. He took a number of jobs after flunking out of college. It was as a public school special education assistant that he started playing chess for a few dollars on the side. He soon devoted full-time to gambling on backgammon, chess, darts and horses.
An inveterate gambler, Schwartz made $340 from passersby on wagers that he would be able to throw a lemon across a street onto the top of a Burger King restaurant on the other side. Schwartz had practiced the throw the previous night and knew he could win the bets.
Schwartz was introduced to Texas hold 'em by Fat Nick, a fellow backgammon player. Schwartz entered a pair of poker tournaments at a club run by Fat Nick in 2000, winning both and walking away with $12,000 and a new passion.
Schwartz has drawn comparisons between his tournament experience as a ranked chess master, noting that many of the skills he needed to succeed in chess are useful in poker and that the memory skills needed in chess transfer to retaining details on betting patterns of opponents needed to win in poker. He also pointed out that chess strategy provides excellent preparation for knowing when to time bets to prevent other players from folding when he has a good hand. Schwartz observed that the two games share the geometric relationships between the pieces on the chessboard and those connecting the cards and chip stacks of fellow poker players, while recognizing that chess is a game of complete information, in contrast to poker.
Schwartz's mother was diagnosed with cancer, and he spent much of his time in his twenties caring for her and taking her to doctor appointments until her death in 2003. Ylon Schwartz's father, Neil, had left the family when Ylon was two years old. Neil made a number of attempts to contact Ylon over the years but it never worked out. The last time Ylon heard from his father was in the making the 2008 WSOP final table and Ylon refused to speak to him. His father remarried and now lives in New Mexico.
As of 2008, his total lifetime live poker tournament winnings exceed $4,000,000. Prior to Schwartz making it to the main table at the 2008 World Series of Poker, his biggest WSOP win was three years earlier at the 2005 World Poker Finals in the No-Limit Hold'em $500 buy-in event, in which his third place finish brought him a payout of $49,960.
On November 10, 2008, Schwartz was eliminated after going all in against Peter Eastgate and ending the tournament in fourth place, earning $3,774,974.
Why am I blogging about a gambler? Is it because of the IR? Is it because I encourage gambling? Is it because he has a weird first name?
No, it's because this guy illustrates my point of how flawed education can be, how a dropout and a seeming failure in life can actually be this really smart guy.
I mean, look at him. On top of being a chess master and world poker finalist, he somehow managed to correlate playing chess and gambling make it sound complex yet understandable at the same time.
And I assure you it takes more than any jack-on-the-street to do what he did.
Ylon isn't only just an ace on the poker table or on the chess board, he's also street-smart too. How else would he be able to make $340 by simply throwing a lemon onto the roof of a Burger King? It would take a bit more than normal sweet-talking to convince white-collared intellectual New-Yorkers to wager with him on simply throwing a lemon onto a BK roof. Pretty amazing, eh.
Plus, he's probably more human than all those people with high IQ slaving their lives away in university. I doubt any high-flyer will give up the prime of their lives taking care of a parent. But Ylon did, spending most of his 20s taking care of his mother.
Of course I don't mean that all hobos out there are really smart, and all the collegiate bookworms are heartless people.
It just proves that degree-holders may be the cleverest people out there, but there's always a college dropout who is smart enough to sucker the money off them.
Who's the sucker now?
posted by The Wordsmith at
8:24 pm
3 Comments
