On its face, “The Biggest Bluff” is a book that seeks to answer this question by focusing on the author’s own unusual quest to succeed in the world of high-stakes poker — specifically, No Limit Texas Hold‘em — a game Konnikova argues is the perfect distillation of our probabilistic universe, with all its combination of knowns and unknowns. Two “hole” cards are placed face down before each player, five cards are seen by everyone as the game progresses. What follows are four “streets,” or rounds of betting, with ever-shifting feints, fakes and dodges. Her plan is simple: With the help of the poker legend Erik Seidel, whom she enlists as a mentor (and whose mantra — “Less certainty, more inquiry” — should be the forearm tattoo for our times), she will train up and use herself as a test case. “How could you ever hope to separate the random from the intentional?” she asks.

We learn about Julian Rotter’s “locus of control” studies, thin-slice judgments, and positive and negative recency. Seidel pops up again and again with words of wisdom, eschewing systems and inflexible styles, telling her poker is like jazz (“It’s all about what are these guys doing, and how do I respond to it?” he says. “But to the best extent that you can, you have to be a freethinker.”)

Read original article


Tags: