But for its costliness and dangers, no better education for life among men could be devised than the gambling table - especially the Poker table - Clemens France
The concept of the game of Poker is one of the few concepts which mimics the game of life. They are both played on the field of incomplete information and you can never always win or lose. At no point in your life can you claim to know everything about the environment you are in and have the desired outcome. Poker is the same. It is the perfect blend of the known and the unknown. You know the cards that you draw and the ones on the table at every turn. What you don’t know is what the other person has, and you have to act based on your judgment, skill, and luck.
I have mostly disliked conversations that give you the feeling that you can accomplish anything you set your mind on and that everything is possible. For what it’s worth, you cannot accomplish ‘everything’. I believe that you can accomplish things that fall within your strengths, level of perseverance, and unique skill set. As great as Newton and Einstein were in the field of Science, they would not have been as good or even close to being as good if they opted to be professional boxers. They just did not have the inclination, skills, or strength to excel in that field. The problem with believing that you can do everything is that quite often, you land up doing nothing.
Everytime teenagers or young adults are told this lie, what happens is that at some level you are passively advocating that certainty is absolute if you put your mind to something.
Most young people feel lost or uncertain because they do things that they think will lead to a certain and sure outcome, but those outcomes rarely come as desired. That’s when they feel dejected because they were certain that they ticked all the boxes and that one can get whatever you want.
The truth is, life always gets in the way.
The reason I like Poker is that at the very basic level it teaches you that any game you play, whether at the table or in life, is not just about maximizing your strengths in your belief to do something. It is about becoming comfortable with the fact that there is no such thing as certainty. You will never know everything about any situation or outcome, and Poker teaches you to be comfortable with that aspect. Every time you play Poker, you should remember to leave your certainty at the door because there is no such thing as 100%.
So why should teenagers learn to play this game?
For a minute, consider that your life is merely a sum of every decision you make and the outcome of those decisions. This means the most pivotal aspect of life is to know how to make a decision. Jon von Neumann, known as the founder of Game Theory, one of the fathers of the computer and one of the greatest mathematicians to have ever lived, believed that if he could solve the game of Poker he could prevent Nuclear War.
Neuman believed that Poker formed an analog for decision making outside of the table and in your life. He felt that this game has the best tools for decision making and learning. Poker teaches you how to take information from the environment correctly. There is no other game that is as subjective as Poker. This is because it contains human emotions, the ability to read a person and gauge their move, and the art of bluffing. Practically speaking, every time you play a new hand, you are playing a new game. The reason that AI has yet not been able to solve this game is probably that there is technically never a correct move.
You can relate every event in your life to ultimately a decision that has been made, either by you or for you by somebody else.
I believe one of the things we learn quite late in life is, how to make decisions. So here are a few reasons that I feel teenagers should learn to play Poker as it has the power to do more good than most other games and can provide a lifetime of value if used correctly.
The beauty of Betting
We judge the poker player for gambling; we respect the stockbroker for doing the same thing with far less information -
Maria Konnikova
I understand the bad press Betting gets and hence a lot of it seems to rub off on Poker. Yet, I think placing a wager on something, outside of the realm of speculation, is the best way for us to understand the degree of our confidence in something. You will only bet more when you are more confident.
Immanuel Kant, a German Philosopher believed that betting is an antitode to one of the great ills of society. It gives you the clarity between what it means to be 80% certain or 90% or 100% certain. To explain this point, Kant gives the example of a doctor who is asked to make a diagnosis. While the doctor will give his verdict to the best of his knowledge, that may not necessarily be accurate. His verdict is a reflection of his knowledge and the information he has available. Hence, he will treat his diagnosis as a fact. However, what if he had to bet on it?
The bet would most likely make him pause before he gives his final verdict because he would have something at stake. He may at this point realize that he will need more information to give a better verdict. The stakes make one reassess their position on something. If you had to ask that doctor if he would bet his life’s earnings on the verdict, he would be very cautious with his answer, and that would show you the strength of his belief in his diagnosis.
Very few of us see the upside of betting. The game of Poker always sees it, which is why it is not incidental but the most defining characteristic of the game.
Fighting the Recency Bias
Recency Bias is the bias that favors recent events over historic ones. Most of us at some level have a Recency Bias. This is why if you are investing in the stock market and you see the price of a stock going up, you tend to think that the momentum is with that stock and you too can cash out big while discounting all the other news about the stock that would in all probability change your mind. Another example of Recency Bias is when someone asks you how you are feeling and your answer is highly dependent on your most recent experience of the day and not how you felt since you woke up.
The issue with Recency Bias is that it stops you from seeing the complete picture. In fact, you tend to look at things in isolation rather than look at them holistically. A good poker player on the other hand will always learn to overcome this bias as the game demands your complete attention. To win a hand in Poker, you have to account for your opponent’s previous moves, anticipate their ability to fold, and try and evaluate their playing style - conservative or aggressive or balanced, to make an informed decision about what you can or should be doing. Poker is the evolved version of the Memory Game you would have played as a child.
Poker teaches you to introspect
Maria Konnikova in her book The Biggest Bluff explains how the numerous amount of variables in the world make it easy for us to blame something else, for something that we pulled the trigger on. Stock Traders will quite often blame the market when they were wrong in anticipating the certainty of the price movement. She adds, that the world is much messier than the Poker table, and hence it’s very convenient to blame someone else.
It is easy to have the illusion of skill when you are not immediately called out on it through feedback. Poker helps you get rid of the habit of illusion in the best way possible. Every hand you play or don’t play gives you information about the environment you are in. Your ability to channelize and act upon information while keeping in mind your strengths and weaknesses certainly improve when playing Poker.
Poker is exactly like life, but with instant karma -
Andrew Lichtenberge
Like everything in life Poker too has its downside. What activity doesn’t? Whether it is working excessively and overlooking your health, excessive drinking, or smoking. Anything, when not regulated by you, can have a negative effect on you.
Poker is driven by two kinds of truth. One which is based on perceptions and the other based on facts. The perception is that it is more gambling and less skill. In the same context, so is getting a job. What did you say to them that might have ticked them off? Are they going to not consider you because another candidate has more experience? Did you display enough conviction and interest? These are some of the questions that you will not be able to answer even after giving the interview. However, in Poker, you have the freedom to rise and fall at your own merit. You and only you, bear the consequences of your actions.
This game helps structure one of the most basic yet profound aspects of life. That is the decision-making process, and we are nothing but the outcome of our decisions.
Until next time…