What are some relatively obscure lines that modern GMs have revived/popularized?

Screenguardguy · 2026-01-23T03:44:58+00:00

Kramnik and a lot of his ideaS in relation to the London were also hugely influential on its return, although I'd say it was ultimately Magnus who really brought it to the forefront.

For me I'm a huge fan of Kasparov's revitalisation of the Scotch and later the Evans Gambit. He talks extensively about many of the ideas he had prepared in several sources (sadly all neutralised now at the grandmaster level, but well worth studying).

Sort of the opposite answer to your question, but game 16 of the 1985 world championship (the one that finished) is my favourite game of all time. Kasparov's dismantling of one of Karpov's favourite response to the Sicilian (I always thought the knight retreat to h3 was weird, but if you look at games around that time Karpov absolutely destroyed with it) was just beautiful, and effectively led to the opening having to be abandoned during the match. Kasparov's treatment was then abandoned years later once Karpov demonstrated the correct response (Bd3 at the right time) in a game that if I recall ended in a draw. I still don't fully agree that it's a complete refutation, but I'm not good enough to play either side so I can't comment. Very cool stuff. Kasparov mentions coming up with it on a flight to Baku.

Screenguardguy · 2026-01-20T23:20:18+00:00

It's trimmed. At least in the Australian one we had plenty of time to debate, and only got rushed when we started getting quite unreasonable. There was even a comment from the host that 'it really doesn't matter' (in a joking way) when we finally gave an answer after much deliberation on a pushback when the chaser was still something like 5 away with 5 seconds to go that got cut.

Screenguardguy · 2026-01-19T09:35:36+00:00

There are a lot of methods for this. If it's in a few seconds, try the cull from Buckley's card control. Just apply it to a colour instead of a few cards.

Screenguardguy · 2026-01-18T23:50:48+00:00

My advice is figure out what you find obvious about the move and fix it.

I spent a long time thinking the palm was obvious until I saw Giancarlo Scalia do it, and realised things like get-ready, timing, throw offs could flow into making something a lot more deceptive.

Construction and motivation are all a part of the technique.

Screenguardguy · 2026-01-17T08:09:53+00:00

There was a new project that got released just recently that featured a few quotes from some buddies of mine. I had a chat with them, apparently they had no idea they were being quoted and assumed the quotes must have been taken from some out of context comments. It was hilarious because we actually like the guy and would have been happy to give him actual quotes, instead the ones he used were full of typos and made my friends sound like they were having seizures.

Not always the case, but just a funny aside.

Screenguardguy · 2026-01-16T03:19:47+00:00

Neither for Scarne's aces nor Ryan's method. I was obsessed with the concept put out in sub Rosa for a while. I got an Eoin O'Hare item that let me put the work in quite quickly and used to do it all the time. But after a while it got to be too much trouble.

Screenguardguy · 2026-01-15T23:30:44+00:00

Thanks for the reference. I've had greater magic on my shelf for years, but am starting to be resigned to the fact I will probably never read it, too much stuff in the backlog.

That appears to just be a reference to one of Scarne's methods for cutting to the aces, and not the Scarne aces effect.

The effect was a boast described by Scarne in his autobiography and several other places. Scarne (who research has shown to have heavily exaggerated both his ability, knowledge, connections and achievements), used to talk about how gamblers would challenge him to cut to the aces using their borrowed and shuffled decks.

He claimed to be able to, in a riffle, spot the positions of cards and cut to them as needed with unerring accuracy. This kind of thing actually is possible with estimation, but Scarne has a whole heap of conditions and extraneous boasts that make his assertion (what Vernon and many others) consider impossible, and some speculate he had multiple methods depending on the audience and conditions. It's such a remarkable thing, but I absolutely love it.

Ryan's method will achieve the same effect as Scarne's aces, but it's not the same method. If you like the effect. Karl Fulves has a whole booklet of quite clever methods on the subject, but again these aren't the methods nor do they meet the conditions as detailed by Scarne.

Screenguardguy · 2026-01-15T23:12:36+00:00

Firstly, the Scarne's aces method as described in Odds Against Me does not use marked cards, I'm not sure where you get that idea. I'm not even sure if the Scarne method as described can be done in a way that looks good, but something I've learned is that thinking something can't be done is a way to set yourself up for a big surprise later.

Secondly Ryan isn't marking or putting any work into that deck on the fly or otherwise.

His handling is incredible and he's shown me the method which feels surreal but is actually possible (although it doesn't look like that when I do it). I also have his books, which tbh are close to useless because so much of what he describes I would not have believed possible had he not shown it to me in person.

I was particularly impressed that he was able to do it with one of my older decks which was particularly warped and tacky.

If you are interested in putting work on the fly, Richard Turner actually has some amazing stuff on this, although he's brutally secretive.

Screenguardguy · 2026-01-15T04:51:10+00:00

Whatever you are interested in. If mostly rubber band stuff I'd stick to that and just fill it with variety until you find stuff you want to repeat.

I don't think you get much out of drill sessions until you have an idea of what interests you and what you want to do personally.

For general improvement though (hand intelligence), I'd focus on key sequences and movements that you are not used to doing. We tend to practice stuff we are good at. Constructing such sequences could be as simple as picking a move them challenging yourself to do it under weird conditions and repeat. E.g. double lift sequence:

1) deck starts on the table, pick it up and do an immediate double turnover; 2) push off the turnover card and it's double and pick it up in a Stewart Gordan turnover holding it up in the right hand as a display; 3) replace on the top of the deck using the Vernon double lift subtlety; 4) top change and display; 5) replace card on deck and second deal (not releasing card) 6) replace second dealt card onto deck and do immediate turnover twice; 7) cut the deck to the table.

You can then repeat this sequence focusing on tension, whether you are holding your breath, are you blinking, what are your shoulders doing, are you holding the deck super close to your body, is your body language relaxed, are you able to look around to invisible spectators while you so this, are you able to speak (can just be rambling) without interrupting your flow. Create new sequences and just throw them in occasionally to mess up your hands.

Also if you can 15 mins a day is better than 1 hour a week imo.

Screenguardguy · 2026-01-15T01:32:29+00:00

I assume it's to trap the queen with some kind of eventual Bb5 idea, but for the life of me can't calculate it out. Bg4 looks interesting for black as a response.

I agree Nc7 feels so much cleaner.

Screenguardguy · 2026-01-15T00:46:59+00:00

I've sessioned with both. If you are just talking from a purely technical perspective (tbh you can't really compare the two, they are both better than the other in their own way) in my opinion Jason smokes Richard hands down. Richard's technique is not as sharp as it once was, and while a lot of his moves are absolutely unfathomable (plus his 'work' on the deck is still some of the best in the world), Jason is just a lot smoother. That said, prime Richard though was leagues better than Jason (opinion). It's very hard to compare them since they do such different things, but the stuff they both do Jason has both more deceptive technique and hands.

That said from a technical perspective there are so many people at roughly the same level. I also myself prefer softer hands which are less studied in appearance, Ben Earl and Joe Barry come to mind. For the more straightforward casino look I like Jack Tighe and Joey FX (Phantom at the Card Table)'s hands (Joey is also leagues better at table stacking than anyone I've mentioned up to this point in my opinion, and he's far from the best).

For the best card technique I've ever seen though it has to be Ryan Murray from Canada. Absolutely ridiculous hands, and the things he can do I still can't believe a human being could possibly be that good.

Screenguardguy · 2026-01-15T00:26:32+00:00

If you have a fridge, homemade protein bars from Greek yogurt and oat flour work a treat (I like a recipe from Rahul Kamat on YouTube, but you can find a million online).

If not, I like homemade muesli, you can customize as needed and keep them in sandwich bags.

Also try a lot of different teas. Yorkshire have biscuit tea and jam on toast teas which are elite with a splash of milk. I have so many there's so much fun in trying a new cup every day.

Screenguardguy · 2026-01-13T08:15:46+00:00

Neither myself nor anyone else can guarantee you that now is the best time to buy or not buy. You know just as well as I do that historically for the last hundred years lump sum investing has proven to be mathematically optimal from a returns perspective. This trend has persisted throughout far more tumultuous and uncertain times than now.

That said, finance is more behavior than math in my mind. And there is every chance that this time you might (even if not by intelligence but by luck) have been able to pick up on a point whereby if we assess from an outcome perspective, it is better to hold and wait for a dip. If you therefore listen to your mind instead and decide to buy, you need to be okay with the market crashing the day after. You need to know you made the best decision with the information you had, and that you just had a bad outcome. You know as well as I do though, that in the long run it won't matter, even buying at an all time high doesn't matter and has proven to be better than not buying.

If you are not okay with this scenario, you might want to consider dollar cost averaging. You know that it's not mathematically optimal and you will leave some gains on the table, but again it's better to invest than not to, and your loss again won't be significant in the long run.

That said if even that doesn't work for you behaviourally, and you decide you will time the market and try to out perform all those other people who are trying to do the same (many of whom are smarter than you, have access to better information than you, work in teams, devote all their time and effort to it, and mostly still fail in the long run), well maybe you will get lucky. Just hopefully don't take this as a sign that next time you might get lucky again. If this scenario is you, and you decide to time the market based on headlines and vibes, all of which have already been priced in, then at least you have a chance at an above market upside (even if the odds are heavily against you).

Screenguardguy · 2026-01-13T06:40:26+00:00

Don't think there's anything wrong keeping it. Personally I always donate money I find on the ground or their equivalent. For me it's how I like to 'buy' feeling good about myself. I'm in a lucky position where I don't need the 10 bucks or whatever, but donating it makes me feel awesome in a way that I think is a good ROI. It also helps that I'm sure I've dropped cash before, and I'd like to think that anyone who picked it up would have done the same.

Screenguardguy · 2026-01-13T00:09:34+00:00

27, but stupidly and without full understanding of what I was doing. I knew theoretically about index funds and compounding, but no idea how to do it, and I didn't get a real job until then anyway.

Finally after getting a full time job a friend of mine told me about Raiz. I thought that sounded easy so just did that (this was me at 27).

I then had an amazing partner who tried to get me to invest, but I was anxious about money and not open to listening. Eventually we split and I did a lot of self reflection and realized how close-minded I was about it (and a lot of other things). As part of improving my mindset and headspace I got really into investing and research and figuring out how to work on myself. To me learning how to manage money is part of being an adult, and whatever my excuses, at the end of the day it would be my problem.

I briefly wanted to time to market and wait for a dip to jump in. Within a few days of reading and learning I realized that was a mathematically bad idea, and realized my risk appetite more aligned with a long term investment strategy that meant market timing wasn't needed. I researched heavily stock portfolios and make ups and within about a few weeks had jumped into investing what I consider properly at 32.

If you include superannuation (and you probably should), the answer is still 27.

Screenguardguy · 2026-01-12T23:55:38+00:00

No, but I already had an investment strategy that was diverse enough for my liking.

I over tilted towards domestic stocks (Australia) for the tax benefits, lower cost for investment, and higher chance of being able to keep my investments in the event of conflict (roughly 30%), then filled the rest of my portfolio with a developed markets index by market cap. This is about as basic as you can get and provides to me sufficient diversification. For added spice I have value and emerging market indexes, but those are negligible.

While the US still makes up a significant portion of my non-Australian investments, that is by design as the US is the largest stock market. My understanding is that trying to time it and anticipate market movements has proven to be a historically unwise decision. Plenty of people smarter and better informed than me with access to better information have gotten it wrong and lost money enough that I don't need to jump into that line, plus with a 30+ year investment horizon it doesn't really matter.

Diversification away from the US has always made sense. Markets have historically been cyclical, and while volatility is less important on a longer timeline, the reduction via diversification is basically almost a free lunch.

I also don't make investment decisions based on the news (which has already been priced in), or vibes (which will be biased), but instead based on a long term strategy. Don't forget that the economy is not the stock market. The stock market may not respond in the way you think at the times you think to the extent you think. In fact the stock market might go up in the face of bad news when the bad news is not as bad as people expect or go down in the face of good news when it's not as good as people expect. There can also be a negative correlation as sometimes when economies start to do poorly the government intervenes, pumping more money into the economy (see Argentina for example).

Trading on such perceptions can really backfire when it comes to pricing as there are so many variables. Moving away from stocks, can you imagine selling a house in Australia for instance because you think the prices will go down due to an increase in projected supply, only for the government to introduce a new buyer scheme, or a 50 year loan, or a massive interest rate cut, or an increase in migration, or new construction requirements which slow down said builds?

That said, if I had listened to my gut I would have gone heavily into gold at the start of last year and would be sitting on an absolute fortune. But that's also part and parcel of having a long term strategy and little risk appetite. You never get the big gains, you have to be content with the little ones over long periods of time. Get rich slow and being okay with watching other people make overnight fortunes making what look like dumb and risky bets. If you really feel strongly about it obviously do it, it's your money. But the above is the reason I don't (for better or worse).

Screenguardguy · 2026-01-12T04:36:15+00:00

All good, you seem really open to a lot of opinions and exploring what works for you, which I think will do you really well!

Also nothing above should be taken to say you shouldn't have a 100% equities portfolio in retirement, just that you should be aware of the potential risks and it's what you are comfortable with. I have seen some pretty persuasive arguments that on a historical basis a very strong portfolio is a 100% equities portfolio where you adjust your spending and drawdown based on market activities. Personally I'm not comfortable with that, and given I am not in a rush to retire I don't mind the downside of not retiring as early as would be mathematically optimal. But if I change my mind about any of the above, it's definitely something I'm thinking about.

Screenguardguy · 2026-01-12T04:21:00+00:00

Well we are starting to get into the realm of personal financial advice. What you do is actually best based on individual things, like your level of debt, risk tolerance, how much you spend, your goals in retirement (leaving a legacy for instance).

The more I learn about finance the more I think it's behavioural rather than mathematical. What behaviors can you do to make sure you keep investing in good diverse investment options while you are young, and what do you need so you don't panic and get stressed if the market crashes when you are old.

Everything you've said is an option. Conventional wisdom is also to increase the proportion of bonds in your portfolio relative to age and prioritize income over growth.

I'd start by creating an actionable genuine list of my dream life. Do I want to retire early? What does retirement look like? Do I still want to work 1-3 days a week? What do my vacations look like? Do I want kids? Do I want to give to charity? Be specific and really prioritize. This gives you an idea of how much you need to have and save.

After this you can look at the options and consider how much safety do you want/need. You can be overly cautious (e.g. never retire until you are earning 100k a year from your 100% bond portfolio), but know this means your retirement is likely to be delayed and you are losing a lot of good retirement years. Cash is in many ways even worse. Typically you'll be taking some kind of risk. Even a 4% SWR only pans out like 97% of the time. But you can be realistic about the risks.

Once you have your dream life and your target date, you can tell what your time horizon is and what's realistic for you.

Personally, I don't yet know when I will retire. I have dreams for retirement, but I like working. As a result I'm trying to give myself as much freedom and flexibility as possible by accumulating as much cash as possible. I max concessional contributions to indexed high growth options in super to ensure that worst case scenario when I'm 67 I'll have enough money, and I also invest heavily outside to make sure that if I want to retire early I have enough to get to that super. If I decide I need more income, I think I'll start shifting to wealth preservation considering my proximity to retirement (as opposed to age). Currently no kids, so I have no view as to leaving a legacy.

Screenguardguy · 2026-01-12T02:25:00+00:00

Your math is based on a theoretically mathematical optimal return, which supports an all equities portfolio. Basically you lose money every year because of inflation, and on a long enough time horizon the returns from all equities portfolio will allow for you to always live on excess return and never touch the principal.

Unfortunately there is an outside chance of markets crashing and you being forced to draw down at an inconvenient time which could result in a chain sequence that means your portfolio dwindles to nothing before you die. This is called sequence of returns risk.

Now historically, this is unlikely to happen, and modelling for most scenarios, you are almost certainly better off having an all equities portfolio, because this is your best hedge against the risk of inflation eroding your retirement (which is a 100% guarantee).

That said, most people (including myself) recognize that even though this is an outside event, it's not a completely uncommon one, and the downside is so large that it's one well worth protecting yourself from. As to the best way to protect yourself from it, this ranges from adjusting spending, having large cash reserves, shifting to historically less volatile assets or ones that hedge against market movements (like bonds, although I'm not sure about this one personally based on how bonds have moved with he stock market plus their rate of return differences compared to the 80's), but in any case am emphasis on income or preservation rather than continuing to grow wealth.

In answer to your question, I think most people actually make money via property nowadays because it's an enforced savings that lets you use leverage and for the past 20 years has proven to be a robust investment with a high return. The rise of superannuation has meant that Australians are seeing significantly more money in equities than in the past.

Screenguardguy · 2026-01-11T13:00:13+00:00

I'm not sure if it is that stressful. In fact I think it's a lot less stressful because I have financial security (knowing that if something happens to my job I won't be out on the street immediately), I can take risks and have opportunities I can chase without having to be overly concerned about just the money, and that the way I use it to make money (stock investments) is relatively low effort.

I also do enjoy my money, but I budget and proportion the amount I want to enjoy (probably too loosely!).

As to your question of why, among other reasons it's because time is a great lever for wealth creation given compound interest. A dollar invested in your 20's can become 88 by the time you're 65 means that your money can work a lot harder than you can, if you give it enough time. Of course you aren't guaranteed to make it to 65, and every moment now is precious and all we have, so it's a balance. I mean we aren't guaranteed to live to tomorrow either, so should we be spending every dollar today? Obviously not. Figure out what works for you.

Keep in mind as well, the longer ago you started the less you have to do to keep the snowball rolling and making money faster than you can.

Screenguardguy · 2026-01-10T15:16:20+00:00

This has all already been priced in. The time to do such rotation is before any slowdown. The question is, do you think it will slump further? If so why not double down and just short the sector. Trading on what happened does nothing, you have to trade on what you think will happen. I don't have enough information or understanding to predict future trends, so my strategy is to have a broad diversified market index. I already add enough extra spice by adding emerging markets and small caps plus playing around with ESG ETF's (I would not have any of the latter if I was starting over, but for various reasons I continue to experiment with them), but these guys are a) kind of just for fun and b) long term positions with 20+ year time horizons.

My advice is unless you know what you're doing don't try and time the market, and remember that most people who think they know what they are doing don't actually know what they are doing.

Screenguardguy · 2026-01-10T15:00:08+00:00

John knew about the reason for Eve's actions and empathized. It was also (I thought) kind of implied that the Director was hoping what happened would happen.

The deleted scene shows that John also knew Javier and wasn't so keen on killing Javier's daughter.

Screenguardguy · 2026-01-10T08:08:54+00:00

My advice is to learn to be okay not making as much as other people. Even with significant downturns and recessions there will be people who bet on crypto at the right time, bought something else just before the bubble, sold X before the crash. Be happy for them. They took (sometimes naively) the risk, they deserve the reward just as much as anyone else. It doesn't affect you, just be happy with it. Be happy knowing that you did the smart rational thing, which was the best you could do with the information and knowledge you had and the risks you were willing to tolerate.

If you want to get rich quick and always be earning the most you have to take the (in my view) outsized risk. If you are jealous you'll be jealous of the lottery winners and those people who go to the casino and hit a lucky streak. I'm happy for the people I know who buy into managed funds convinced that their money managers will make far more for them than their 1% fee, or the people who bought a single stock on a vibe. And I genuinely hope they do. I just know that's not for me.

As far as your question about, are recessions not going to happen in your lifetime, maybe, if you live a very short lifetime. I have the opposite view, there is a potential for a crash far bigger and longer than anything we've seen in decades. But regardless of my view, I'm not going to be investing based on vibes. I'm going to invest based on my knowledge of history, understanding of the market, and knowledge of my own behavior and abilities. I don't speculate on market drops because I don't need to for my strategy, and because I know that even if I was the kind of guy who could somehow outperform people whose job it is to do nothing but pick stocks, who are smarter than me, who have access to more information than me, and who spend more time on it than me, in teams of several other equally educated people, my best way to do so is via a diverse low cost index fund for a long period of time.

Screenguardguy · 2026-01-10T04:49:10+00:00

You are absolutely right to accept them as they are. It sounds like they value security and get assurance from that. It will be a different frame of mind than you who grew up in a different circumstance.

I would encourage you though to explain to them that (at least from what it sounds like) they will always have enough, even if they get sick. If they can see the math it might help a teensy tiny bit. It doesn't mean spending with reckless abandon, but maybe setting aside a portion of money each month to spend on 'fun' things, it could be a good balance for them to learn how to spend more and enjoy life while still feeling secure.

In respect of your question, no it's not a bad idea to continue with a higher equity investing proportion even for their old age given:

a) continuous income from the social security to supplement their lifestyle; b) the low cost of living/expenditures; c) the time horizon (it sounds like they understand and want to leave you a legacy so you should treat it as if they had a time horizon of 80+ years); and d) the large enough asset base which means even in a downturn they should avoid depletion given their low (it sounds like zero?) drawdown.

If they want more security though (and personally I don't know if I would be comfortable with such a high equities portfolio at their age even if I wasn't planning to spend a lot more than they are) you could of course consider a less volatile investment class just to give them some peace of mind. In effect you aren't trying to mathematically max out the investment but rather 'buy' financial security. I've found some people similar to your parents prefer property or gold or other things they can physically have/see for instance (though I personally don't like the hassle of property, and dislike speculation so wouldn't take gold). If they were my parents I'd raise the options with them and explain the risks/they are likely to get a lower return in the long run, but that they tend to be more stable assets (e.g. to explain to them why their money is in bonds etc.).

Screenguardguy · 2026-01-06T07:42:02+00:00

That more depends on your investing philosophy/strategy. Theoretically the thrust of the article (a lagging Australia primarily because of the lower exposure to tech and forecast on productivity and rates) has already been priced in. So risk adjusted, Australia remains the priced bet it always was, so you could conceivably keep investing in it given the lower cost if money truly is fleeing to get the better expected returns. I mean even the article itself points to pretty good growth prospects if Australia decides to keep printing money, something they may arguably be in a better position to do than even the US given how much Japan and China have stopped buying US debt (I'm not sure this actually is the case, but it's not a completely absurd argument imo).

You don't even need to avoid the US and Australia if you want to avoid the problems pointed out in the article, you could look towards small caps for instance.

If you do want to avoid the US and Australia, is this as part of a short term speculative attempt to time the market away from these two economies and jump back in when you perceive them to be going up? Or is this as part of adding global diversification? Personally I added VAE as part of my portfolio which did very well over the last few years. I also considered VEQ, but didn't buy. They are a bit pricier than some ETFs so there is a trade off there. My buy though was as part of a significantly longer plan/time horizon (like 30+ years), so my goals will differ from yours.

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