Well Read

WELL READ By: Cathy Shuck

East Tennessee Children’s Hospital

BETTER LIVING THROUGH POKER

One of the first things we learn in torts is that everything happens for a reason. There are always proximate causes and there is always somewhere to apportion fault. But in real life, knowing the but-for cause doesn’t necessarily help us accept the outcome. A parent is killed by an erratic driver – but why did it have to be my parent? Someone is selected for a lay-off – but why was it me? Even worse are the twists of fate that seem to have no cause at all: repeated miscarriages; a freak accident; a child with a rare disease. How do we make good decisions in a world full of events we can’t control?

Author and psychologist Maria Konnikova examines the balance between chance and control in The Biggest Bluff: How I Learned to Pay Attention, Master Myself, and Win.1 After experiencing what felt like a disproportionate amount of bad luck—an illness, job losses, and a death in the family—Konnikova sought out coping strategies. The one she decided to explore in depth was poker.

Poker, Konnikova explains, “unlike quite any other game, mirrors life. It isn’t the roulette wheel of pure chance, nor is it the chess of mathematical elegance and perfect information. Like the world we inhabit . . . [p]oker stands at the fulcrum that balances two oppositional forces in our lives—chance and control.” For her project, Konnikova chose No Limit Texas Hold ‘Em, the most popular form of poker. The game combines the knowable with the unknown: each player is dealt two cards that only she can see. The dealer, over multiple betting rounds, deals five additional cards, which everyone can see. Each player makes up her best five-card hand using any combination of her own cards and the common cards. Again, it is a combination of the known, the unknown, and chance.

Konnikova’s real goal, however, was not simply to accept the role of chance in her life, as the Serenity Prayer might counsel. Rather, she wanted to “reclai[m her] agency over chance”2 by actually getting good at poker. Her theory was that by acquiring the skills necessary to be a good poker player, including patience, good decision-making, and a meaningful understanding of probabilities, she would also become better at making decisions and living in the world. The thing that makes Konnikova’s story worth telling is that when she decided poker was her path to enlightenment, she had never played it and knew virtually nothing about the game. She nevertheless managed to apprentice herself to Erik Seidel, one of the top players in the world, with a goal of playing in the World Series of Poker within a year (and writing a book about it). Konnikova’s story is full of funny and fascinating fish-out-of-water experiences as she graduates from playing online poker in New Jersey cafes to playing tournaments in off-strip casinos in Las Vegas, and then to Monte Carlo and beyond.

Konnikova honed her poker skills with help from Seidel and other top-ranked players and through hours and hours and hours of play. The lessons she learned helped her become (spoiler alert) a surprisingly good player herself. Some of the best and most applicable to the rest of us are:

There is no single best way. Konnikova was initially frustrated by her coach’s refusal to tell her how to play particular hands, instead encouraging her to evaluate each situation independently. She eventually agreed that “[t]here’s never a single right way to play a hand—and there’s certainly no single right way to reach a goal.”3

Make a plan. Although hope is important to hold in our hearts, one of Konnikova’s teachers emphasizes that “hoping things go well” cannot be part of the plan. You cannot “plan” to get lucky. If you’re going to win, you have to be able to win with all cards, not just the good ones.

Have a reason for your decisions. When she first started playing, Konnikova’s coach had her keep track of all of her hands, and then review with him why made the choices she did each time. Why did you call instead of raise? Why didn’t you fold? He refused to congratulate her on lucky breaks, or allow her to dwell on an unfortunate turn of the cards. Rather, he trained her to “[f]ocus on the process, not the luck.”4

Understand your emotions and manage them. One teacher had Konnikova make a spreadsheet to track situations, triggers, responses, and underlying issues. Even with her background in psychology, Konnikova seemed surprised by how effectively she was able to identify patterns and come up with strategies to manage them. Who knew that Excel could be a tool for self-awareness?

Pay Attention. Her coach’s cardinal rule was a version of the advice we hear so often: be present, be in the moment, watch and listen to what is going on around you. “Chance is just chance: it is neither good nor bad nor personal.”5 Observing how others react to chance, and using all available information to make good decisions, are keys to success.

The Biggest Bluff is a well-written, entertaining read with helpful insights for these uncertain times. I recommend it to poker players and non-poker players alike.

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5 Konnikova, Maria. The Biggest Bluff: How I Learned to Pay Attention, Master Myself, and Win (Penguin 2020). Id. at 293. Id. at 239. Id. at 133. Id. at 323.