The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail-but Some Don't

by Nate Silver

ESPN broadcasts presented a highly sanitized version of what reality actually looks like at the poker table. For one thing, out of the necessity of compressing more than forty hours of play involving more than eight hundred players into six hours of broadcasts, they showed only a small fraction of the hands as they were actually played. What’s more, because of the ingenious invention of the “hole cam”—pinhole-size cameras installed around the edge of the table beside each player—the cards of not just Moneymaker but those of each of his opponents were revealed to the home audience as the hand was being played out, giving the audience the feeling of being clairvoyant. Poker is a pretty easy game if you know what cards your opponent holds. Moneymaker was cast as the protagonist who could do no wrong. Hands that a sober analysis might have concluded he’d played poorly were invariably praised by the announcers—rash bluffs became gutsy ones, premature folds became perceptive ones. Moneymaker was not some slightly-above-average schmoe getting the cards of his life*1 but a poker savant who was cunning enough to have developed into a world-class player almost overnight. The viewer was led to believe that poker is easy to learn, easy to profit from, and incredibly action-packed—none of which is true.