Book Review: The Biggest Bluff
The Biggest Bluff is Maria Konnikova’s story of going from nothing to winning in poker. We follow Konnikova’s quest while dabbling in the world of poker strategy and cognitive psychology.
I found myself rooting for her to succeed. I think this is because while the book title seems to generate ideas of deception and manipulation, Konnikova’s is determined to succeed through pure ways. She has a detest for male opponents who hit on her and belittle her, and for anyone that thinks she is winning through “lady luck”. Even after her poker breakout, she is obsessed with proving to herself and others she is not a one hit wonder. Her story is inspirational to me as it shows with dedicated practice and the right help from others, one can go from zero to hero.
She is aided by poker phenom Erik Seidel and a sports psychologist that eventually push her over the top. Konnikova is also relying on her own psychology background to make sense of it all. The mix of poker and psychology leads to a few great takeaways.
Process > Outcome
Bad beats drag you down. They focus your mind on something you can’t control—the cards—rather than something you can, the decision. They ignore the fact that the most we can do is make the best decision possible with the information we have; the outcome doesn’t matter. If you choose wisely, you should make that same choice over and over. Focusing on the unlucky runout is just toxic—and even if you’re not putting the garbage in someone’s yard, it’s already poisoning your mind and making you less able to execute clearheaded decisions in the future.
In poker and life, it is easy to be knocked down by unfair outcomes. All figures in this book stress focusing on the process. When Seidel and Konnikova review how poker hands played out, they never talk about the outcome. They focus on all the known and unknown variables at the time of decision to determine if the decision is right. This practice frees you of hindsight bias, helping to accelerate your learning and skillset. Ironically, by continuing to focus on your process, your long term outcomes will keep getting better.
Always be Observing
One of the most often-cited quotes about luck comes from Louis Pasteur: chance favors the prepared mind. What people often forget, though, is that the full statement is quite different: “Where observation is concerned, chance favors only the prepared mind.” We tend to focus on that last part, the prepared mind. Work hard, prepare yourself, so that when chance appears, you will notice it. But that first part is equally crucial: if you’re not observing well, observing closely to begin with, no amount of preparation is enough. The one is largely useless without the other.
Playing poker involves sitting at a table for hours and hours. When not in hands, some poker players checkout their phone or are more interested in the table talk than the current action. Seidel lets Konnikova know staying locked in and attentive to the game and her opponents is a way to gain an advantage. This is applicable to real life as well. Staying alert can help you learn more about your surroundings and can help you spot more opportunities.
They say experience is the best knowledge. But Konnikova shows how our experiences radically alter are thoughts in a non objective way. Training your mind to be in a more observant state rather then reactionary state will keep you in a more calm headspace further increasing your odds of making better decisions based on objective facts not emotions.
Mindset to Conquer Fear
Jared calls this one my beaten dog syndrome. “You don’t want future Maria to beat the shit out of you, and so you’re instinctively cowering to future Maria’s power.” I don’t have the guts because I’m afraid—still—of looking stupid, of making mistakes, of being judged and judging myself. Here’s how to deal with that beaten beast, he says: “Tell yourself, sure, I may be wrong, but cowering to future Maria is the bigger mistake. The bigger mistake is not taking the aggressive line, even if I’m wrong. And future Maria has to learn to be OK with that.” Future Maria sounds like a real bitch, I tell Jared.
One of Konnikova’s big breakthrough comes when she learns to play more aggressively. Jared, her sports psychologist, helps her achieve this with this awesome passage above. As we take more risks, we often become more risk adverse as we remember the times it didn’t work out vs when it did (Loss Aversion). And beat ourselves up for it. Jared’s framing helps us focus on our present self, make the correct decision and live in a world with much less regret.
Final Score: 80 / 100
Konnikova’s book is a mesh of a poker book and cognitive psychology book. I would not recommend this book unless you are interested in both topics. While her journey takes us around the world, we don’t get nearly enough deep dives into the poker world away from the tables. Such, this book lacks a bit of a wow factor. Still, I found myself gripped to Konnikova’s story. That combined with the quality takeaways made The Biggest Bluff an enjoyable read for me.