Lessons from a life lived under uncertainty.
Welcome to the first page to explore my Substack.
About
I got banned from every bookmaker in Italy for winning too much. Before that, I walked away from a poker career because I confused fear with strategy. Two shots at financial freedom, both gone. One was my fault. The other was a system that punishes you the moment you start beating it.
I’m Julian.
Most of what I know about decision-making didn’t come from books. It came from environments where mistakes cost real money, feedback was immediate, and uncertainty was the only constant. The poker table and the betting markets taught me to think in probabilities, manage risk, accept variance, and separate process from outcome.
These are not metaphors. They are operating systems for making better decisions when the information is incomplete and the stakes are real.
For years, I buried that past. In Italy, gambling is something you hide. I spent my twenties trying to explain that I wasn’t pulling slot machine levers — I was applying math, game theory, and probability to find competitive edges. Almost nobody understood.
Then I stopped hiding. I started applying those frameworks to my career, my investments, my life. That decision changed everything.
I write for my kids. This is a record of how their father thinks, how he reasons about risk, and how he plays long-term games in a world that rewards short-term noise.
If you’re not my kid, you’re still welcome at the table.
My Story
Before you dive into individual articles, context matters.
I’ve written pieces that explain where I come from: the hands I played wrong, the bets I got right, the systems that tried to limit me, and the lessons I extracted from the wreckage. Start here.
Life is Poker, Not Chess: How I tried to go pro twice, failed twice, and realized those "failures" were the best education money could buy.
Thank you for being here. If these ideas resonate, share them with someone who thinks in bets.
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