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The Biggest Bluff: How I Learned to Pay Attention, Master Myself, and Win

Book by Maria Konnikova · 3 quotes · Luck, Pluck, Poker

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The Biggest Bluff: How I Learned to Pay Attention, Master Myself, and Win Quotes

“thepsychchic chips clips ii If you think of yourself instead as an almost-victor who thought correctly and did everything possible but was foiled by crap variance? No matter: you will have other opportunities, and if you keep thinking correctly, eventually it will even out. These are the seeds of resilience, of being able to overcome the bad beats that you can’t avoid and mentally position yourself to be prepared for the next time. People share things with you: if you’ve lost your job, your social network thinks of you when new jobs come up; if you’re recently divorced or separated or bereaved, and someone single who may be a good match pops up, you’re top of mind. This attitude is what I think of as a luck amplifier. … you will feel a whole lot happier … and your ready mindset will prepare you for the change in variance that will come … 134-135 W. H. Auden: “Choice of attention—to pay attention to this and ignore that—is to the inner life what choice of action is to the outer. In both cases man is responsible for his choice and must accept the consequences.” Pay attention, or accept the consequences of your failure. 142 Attention is a powerful mitigator to overconfidence: it forces you to constantly reevaluate your knowledge and your game plan, lest you become too tied to a certain course of action. And if you lose? Well, it allows you to admit when it’s actually your fault and not a bad beat. 147 Following up on Phil Galfond’s suggestion to be both a detective and a storyteller and figure out “what your opponent’s actions mean, and sometimes what they don’t mean.” [Like the dog that didn’t bark in the Sherlock Holmes “Silver Blaze” story.] 159 You don’t have to have studied the description-experience gap to understand, if you’re truly expert at something, that you need experience to balance out the descriptions. Otherwise, you’re left with the illusion of knowledge—knowledge without substance. You’re an armchair philosopher who thinks that just because she read an article about something she is a sudden expert. (David Dunning, a psychologist at the University of Michigan most famous for being one half of the Dunning-Kruger effect—the more incompetent you are, the less you’re aware of your incompetence—has found that people go quickly from being circumspect beginners, who are perfectly aware of their limitations, to “unconscious incompetents,” people who no longer realize how much they don’t know and instead fancy themselves quite proficient.) 161-162 Erik: Generally, the people who cash the most are actually losing players (Nassim Taleb’s Black Swan strategy, jp). You can’t be a winning player by min cashing. 190 The more you learn, the harder it gets; the better you get, the worse you are—because the flaws that you wouldn’t even think of looking at before are now visible and need to be addressed. 191 An edge, even a tiny one, is an edge worth pursuing if you have the time and energy. 208 Blake Eastman: “Before each action, stop, think about what you want to do, and execute.” … Streamlined decisions, no immediate actions, or reactions. A standard process. 217 John Boyd’s OODA: Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act. The way to outmaneuver your opponent is to get inside their OODA loop. 224 Here’s a free life lesson: seek out situations where you’re a favorite; avoid those where you’re an underdog. 237 [on folding] No matter how good your starting hand, you have to be willing to read the signs and let it go. One thing Erik has stressed, over and over, is to never feel committed to playing an event, ever. “See how you feel in the morning.” Tilt makes you revert to your worst self. 257 Jared Tindler, psychologist, “It all comes down to confidence, self-esteem, identity, what some people call ego.” 251 JT: “As far as hope in poker, f#¢k it. … You need to think in terms of preparation. Don’t worry about hoping. Just Do.” 252”

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“thepsychchic chips clips i How often are we actually in control, I wondered? And how does the perception of being in control in situations where luck is queen actually play out in our decision making? How do people respond when placed in uncertain situations, with incomplete information? 13 Personal accountability, without the possibility of deflecting onto someone else, is key. 41 There’s never a default to anything. It’s always a matter of deliberation. 56 Erik: You have to have a clear thought process for every single hand. What do I know? What have I seen? How will that help me make an informed judgment about this hand? 74 … find the fold … 86 Erik: There’s nothing like getting in there and making a bunch of mistakes. 88 Erik: Pick your spots. 91 Erik: Have you ever heard the expression ‘snap fold’? A snap fold, you do it immediately. You’re thrilled to let it go. So. snap fold. This lets you shove with basically the same enthusiasm. It tells you which hands to go with when you have different amounts of big blinds. 98 There’s a false sense of security in passivity. You think that you can’t get into too much trouble—but really, every passive decision leads to a slow but steady loss of chips. And chances are, if I’m choosing those lines at the table, there are deeper issues at play. Who knows how many proverbial chips a default passivity has cost me throughout my life. How many times have I walked away from situations because of someone else's show of strength, when I really shouldn't have. How many times I've passively stayed in a situation, eventually letting it get the better of me, instead of actively taking control and turning things around. Hanging back only seems like an easy solution. In truth, it can be the seed of far bigger problems. 100-101 Gambler's fallacy -- the faulty idea that probability has a memory. 107 Frank Lantz, NYU Game Center, former poker player: Part of what I get out of a game is being confronted with reality in a way that is not accommodating to my incorrect preconceptions. 109 Only play within your bankroll. 126 Re: Ladies Event: Yes, I completely understand the intention, but somehow, segregating women into a separate player pool, as if admitting that they can’t compete in an open player pool, feels equal parts degrading and demoralizing. … if I’m known as anything in this game, I want to be known as a good poker player, not a good female player. No modifiers need apply. 127 Erik: Bad beats are a really bad mental habit. You don’t want to ever dwell on them. It doesn’t help you become a better player. It’s like dumping your garbage on someone else’s lawn. It just stinks.” 132-33 No bad beats. Forget they ever happened. 136 As W H Auden told an interviewer, Webster Schott, in a 1970 conversation: "Language is the mother, not the handmaiden of thought; words will tell you things you never thought or felt before.” The language we use becomes our mental habits—and our mental habits determine how we learn, how we grow, what we become. It’s not just a question of semantics: telling bad beats stories matters. Our thinking about luck has real consequences in terms of our emotional well-being, our decisions and the way we implicitly view the world and our role in it. 133”

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“thepsychchic chips clips iii Jared gives me an assignment: I need to map out my emotional process so that I can start finding ways to solve each problem. I need to actually sit down and make a spreadsheet. Each time something happens, write it down in the situation trigger column. In the next column write a description of the thoughts, emotional reactions, and behaviors that the situation or trigger causes. In the next column give your best assessment of the underlying flaw or problem, and finally, write a logic statement that I can use in the moment to inject some rationality into the issue. 258 Jared’s 20 minute break routine for Maria: First 5 minutes of break: off load and brain dump. I write down some of the key hands so that they don’t occupy any of my headspace going forward. … Then a few minutes of contemplating my decision making. Asking myself: How was my thinking? Were there any emotionally compromised decisions? … Next 10 minutes: nothing. No poker talk, no thinking. Just walking and relaxing. And then, right before the end of break, a few minutes of warm-up for the next level. 276 - 277 EB White: “an honest ratio between pluck and luck.” 287 Food in Los Vegas: For sushi, Yui and Kabuto. For dinner close to the Rio, the Fat Greek, Peru Chicken, and Sazón. For when I’m feeling nostalgic for the jerk chicken of my local Crown Heights spots, Big Jerk. Lola’s for Cajun. Milos, but only for lunch. El Dorado for late-night poker sessions. Partage to celebrate. Lotus of Siam to drown your sorrows in delightful Thai. 314”

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