Poker Face!
A while ago I was listening to a podcast by Freakonomics Radio by the author of the book, Freakonomics, himself. Stephen J. Dubner.
“How to Make Your Own Luck”
Here Stephen talks to a psychology expert, Maria Konnikova on her recently published work, “The Biggest Bluff”.
She says life is a game of incomplete information and you never know everything. Maria is a doctorate in psychology and analyses the game of poker to unlock answers in life whether we create our own luck or not. You have to be comfortable with not knowing the end result of your actions. This concept is written in the Bhagavad Gita where Krishna tells Arjuna that one is entitled to perform his duties but not fruits of those actions.
Poker is highly meritocratic and depends on how the player reacts to the opponent. An age-old psychologist, Immanuel Kant, proposed betting as a solution to eradicate all evils in the society. Now, think for yourself and see what is polluting the society. Because we think we know everything and control anything that happens in life. As a result, it gets to our head. The reason why that psychologist says betting is the solution for it is because it will help us understand our own decision-making processes. False confidence is bred from ignorance of the probabilistic nature of life.
In this game or in life, every decision sends out a signal. A good player must know how to read these signals. It all depends on how you react to the other person and how the other person is reacting to you. Most certainly, the best player who is aware of these signals and acts on it, is most likely to win rather than the player who has the best fold.
Maria beautifully lays this concept called “Locus of Control” in her book. There are two types of loci, internal and external. Internal locus is where one blames or takes credit for themselves for the result and external is the same but you blame or give credit to luck or environment or God or whatever. Mostly, people take credit when they have good results and blame the environment for bad results. She says this mindset is not ideal, because it will or might lead to overconfidence. It is not good to lie in the extremes, where good or bad is just luck or all you. Which is under confidence and over confidence respectively. We must be in a “victor” mindset, where you are happy you were able to perform that duty and you are okay with whatever the result might be.
As a part of her research for her book, she studies Von Neumann’s Game Theory. He laid the foundation for this life altering concept named Game Theory. And he found poker to be a very interesting game because there was always a solvable component and also an incomplete piece of information. The rest of the games like chess, roulette, he could easily find the math behind it and win the game. Looking at poker, he relates it to complex strategic decisions that are taken in the highest levels of government. And this will help us understand how to make better decisions.
When Maria herself was playing poker she understood the various factors which are involved in a game. Gender, the way you dress, the way you speak played a role. A study says that in a workplace, when a woman tends to be affable, aggressive or is negotiating; she is more likely to be disliked or in a few cases disrespected. Maria found herself to unconsciously fall into that stereotypical bias despite knowing them as a psychologist. She says the men around her table tried to play soft with her, she took advantage of that situation and folded. According to her, gender or any other factor can be used as an advantage.
In her three-year study, the best way to lead in the game and ultimately life, is to figure out what works for you. There is no “right” way.
Concluding the podcast, Maria gave away a few words after which I was reflecting upon too.
1. Learn to be more mindful
2. Learn to be in tune with your thinking and feelings.
3. See yourself from an external perspective and analyze yourself
4. Before you do anything, think why you do what you do and how you do it.
One who does all these, is most likely to win.
