Non-practice

I don’t do betting on “real” things, money, objects, things like that. I try to avoid betting altogether.

But for some online occasions, where you bet just for fun, I like to do it, just for the sake of it, for trying new things, for testing my abilities.

You can see an example here. I’m somewhere in the middle, 24 out of 45.

For a person who didn’t watch 5 minutes of the World Cup, being “average” is not that bad.

What did I learn from the recent bets?

• Avoid going all in at all costs. Every bet should have a backup. For example, I was 100% sure that for a certain game, the result would be so-and-so. It wasn’t. A big surprise, all of that, but at the end of the day I bet everything on one game and lost. The fix? Bet something you don’t care that much about losing, or, as a bare minimum, bet in such a way that you will not be thrown out of the game. I managed to get more credits, but the lesson was painful.
• Trust yourself more. Even if a team is in the top 5 at the World Cup, even if in recent games they showed great results, this doesn’t mean surprises don’t appear. It’s very rare that even a great team keeps on winning. If you look at a team like “Oh, they’re in the top 5, they can’t lose”, that’s a mistake. They can lose. Put some faith in the little guy. And don’t blindly trust the big guy, the almost-champion. Every team can have a bad day. The error here is to trust so much in the “fame” of a big team, thus thinking they are invincible. All teams in Romania’s group in Euro 2024 had 4 points out of 9 possible, but Romania was first in the group. Romania was first with one victory and one draw due to other criteria, even if all the other 3 teams had the same result. Likely, this event would not repeat. But chance is possible; even the little guy can win.
• Strategy for betting on football games. If the teams are equal in value, bet for 0-0. One team is better than the other, but just a bit? 1-0 for that team. One team is much better than the other one? 2-0 for that team. There are exceptions to the rule, but generally these are good values to bet on.
• Test your skills in safe environments. I enjoy betting in environments where’s there’s no real involvement. I can test things. In real life? With real money? Almost never, and never-never for any significant amount of money.
• Finally, avoid bets. Most likely, the chances are against you. And, likely, you’ll not get the same satisfaction from winning a bet as you would get by working and earning money in more “traditional” ways. See my strategy on winning in casinos – A lost belief – Blog de Olivian Breda. Even that single strategy I had was not perfect. :))

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It’s considered very impolite, at least, to tell someone that they are stupid.

On the other hand, if someone does something unethical, it’s rather OK to call them out.

How should you handle this?

Hanlon’s razor is an adage, or rule of thumb, that states: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”^[1] It is a philosophical razor that suggests a way of eliminating unlikely explanations for human behavior. It is purportedly named after one Robert J. Hanlon,^[2] who submitted the statement to Murphy’s Law Book Two: More Reasons Why Things Go Wrong! (1980).^[1]

Hanlon’s razor – Wikipedia

Try to see people doing stupid things, not immoral things.

You will tend to forgive them more easily.

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Famous painters worked on their paintings for years.

I like to do the same with various personal projects.

I don’t want to have the perfect website at any given time.

I constantly tweak & improve a website, sometimes for years.

Same procedure, different paintings.

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In a recent conference, Danion Vasile said that at some point he used to pray God to give him cancer (prostate cancer, to be precise), as someone else before him had. (a Saint, if I remember correctly) Talking to the priest to whom he confesses, the priest told him that’s not a good idea.

I think a better way of suffering is doing the right thing. It can be at times soooo booooring. But doing the right thing is of much better value to me than simply suffering.

For example, reading books can be difficult. Volunteering is not easy. Listening without interrupting is not simple. And so on.

If you have cancer, yes you suffer a lot, but what’s your merit? You only suffer, that’s it.

Reading books might not be cool, but it’s the important thing to do.

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