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

by Maria Konnikova

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 it.” I’m taken aback. “Look, every player is going to want to tell you about the time their aces got cracked. Don’t be that player,” he continues. “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.” Well, that certainly gets the point across. But aren’t I allowed to vent just a bit? As it turns out, no, no I’m not. “Focus on the process, not the luck. Did I play correctly? Everything else is just BS in our heads,” Erik tells me. “Thinking that way won’t get you anywhere. You know about the randomness of it but it doesn’t help to think about it. You want to make sure you’re not the person in the poker room saying, ‘Can you believe what happened?’ That’s the other people.”