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April 11 - July 30, 2023
A number of years ago, Erik heard about a seminar led by Mike Caro. Caro is famous for his book on tells—live, in-the-moment reads of others at the table. “He’s a pretty eccentric guy,” Erik says. “And he’s walking around the stage and starts off by saying, ‘What is the object of poker?’” I nod in agreement. A question I’ve been asking myself frequently. Erik continues, “Somebody says, ‘Winning money.’ He says, ‘No.’ Somebody else says, ‘Winning a lot of pots.’ ‘No.’ He says, ‘The object of poker is making good decisions.’ I think that’s a really good way to look at poker.” He thinks for a
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There’s an idea in psychology, first introduced by Julian Rotter in 1966, called the locus of control. When something happens in the external environment, is it due to our own actions (skill) or some outside factor (chance)? People who have an internal locus of control tend to think that they affect outcomes, often more than they actually do, whereas people who have an external locus of control think that what they do doesn’t matter too much; events will be what they will be. Typically, an internal locus will lead to greater success: people who think they control events are mentally healthier
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I WALK BACK TO the Aria, where Erik is playing a slightly higher buy-in event, at $25,000 a pop. He’s on a break and I start recounting my unfortunate demise. “Stop,” he says, when I’m not even done with the part about having my shove called after flopping the nines. I stop, a bit confused. We haven’t even gotten to the good (or, rather, bad) bit. And it’s very unlike Erik to cut me off. He’s one of the best listeners I know. I look at him expectantly. “Do you have a question about how you played the hand?” “Well, not really,” I answer. “I mean, I had a set. . . .” “Then I don’t want to hear
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Our brains, it turns out, are veritable prediction machines. We are constantly making sense of the environment—and making guesses about what will happen. It’s called predictive processing: we actively think one step ahead and look at the environment accordingly. Our brains are more proactive than reactive. Whether our predictions are accurate or not, of course, depends on the inputs and the prediction-making process. Whether they improve in accuracy or not over time depends on our capacity and willingness to learn.
Teacher evaluations, for instance, have been found not to correlate well with actual student learning: sometimes, the most popular teachers aren’t the best teachers, and the ones who get worse evaluations are actually far more competent and end up teaching their students far more, based on objective assessments.
Most people think of poker as a way to get wealthy. And it is. Only not the way you think. I didn’t make millions. But the wealth of skill I acquired, the depth of decision-making ability, the emotional strength and self-knowledge—these will serve me long after my winnings have run dry.