
Maria Konnikova Shows Her Cards - dnetesn
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/10/science/maria-konnikova-poker.html
======
zone411
It's a possibility that Dr. Konnikova just played NY Times like a flute! That
would be legendary. I'll repeat my comments about this part:

"When you see someone looking a certain way, you assume they play a certain
way. So once I figure out how they view women, I can figure out how to play
against them. They’re not seeing me as a poker player, they’re seeing me as a
female poker player.

There are people who’d rather die than be bluffed by a woman. They’ll never
fold to me because that’s an affront to their masculinity.

I never bluff them. I know that no matter how strong my hand, they are still
going to call me because they just can’t fold to a girl.

Other people think women are incapable of bluffing. They think if I’m betting
really aggressively, it means I have an incredibly strong hand. I bluff those
people all the time."

I'm sorry but has anybody who praises these quotes actually played poker? This
kind of strategy would only work on complete fish. It'd be very quickly
exploited by any pro or a decent amateur.

I'd like her to name one pro or one good amateur in the world who thinks like
this "Other people think women are incapable of bluffing."

This article seems like a throwback to 2004 when this kind of strategy would
actually work on newbie players flooding casino tables.

I will however give Dr. Konnikova tons of credit if she got these quotes in
the paper, so that now she can exploit people who actually believed them. That
would be amazing. She seems like an accomplished and smart person, so this
seems most likely.

~~~
fizixer
From what I understand, what she's trying to say is that she divides the
players into two types, and for one type she never bluffs, and for the other,
she bluffs all the time.

But she didn't discuss how she figures out if the player belongs to category
one, or category two. There are two possible answers:

\- She follows her intuition by observing the player and player's demeanor.

\- She collects data on the players poker choices/tactics/strategies (in other
words, she studies the player's game history), and using some kind of
analysis, probably backed by a combination of her psychology and game theory
expertise, she reaches the conclusion on the likelihood of the player
belonging to category 1 or 2.

If it's the latter, then I have mad respect for her. If it's the former, my
best guess is that she's just going through the phase of beginner's luck, and
it won't last very long.

~~~
braythwayt
Well, she says:

1\. There are people who view women like X, and when I suss that out, I play
them like X'. 2\. There are people who view women like Y, and when I suss that
out, I play them like Y'.

That doesn't exclude the possibility she is fully aware that there are large
numbers of people who don't have views about women that affect their poker
play, and if they don't show view X or view Y, she just plays them normally.

So I'd say the quote suggests she divides players into AT LEAST two types, but
my instinct suggests she has a lot more than two categories :-)

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p1esk
>> _Do you have any insights on why grifting schemes appear to be
proliferating?

Fraud really thrives in moments of great social change and transition. We’re
in the midst of a technological revolution. That gives con artists huge
opportunities. People lose their frame of reference for what can and can’t be
real. _

~~~
oh_sigh
Any evidence that fraud doesn't thrive at all times, including times of change
and transition? This sounds like a just-so story.

~~~
keithpeter
Quote from OA that caught my eye as well...

 _"...We’re in the midst of a technological revolution. That gives con artists
huge opportunities. People lose their frame of reference for what can and
can’t be real."_

So I suppose the hypothesis is that more people have defective bullshit
detectors during big changes in any given field. A possible test of the
hypothesis would be to look at fraud prosecutions by domain of deception (high
tech stocks, property development) and by choice of victim (newly rich
technical people, people new to a country &c) and see how those vary with
time.

~~~
jib
Microsoft doesn’t know that you have a virus on your PC (and won’t call you
about it) but Facebook can identify your friends in a photo you posted better
than you can.

That is not obvious to most people, because the concept of customer service we
understand, while we really don’t understand learning algorithms.

~~~
acqq
> Microsoft doesn’t know that you have a virus on your PC

But technically Microsoft definitely can know that, if that were its goal.
There's nothing technologically lacking to have that knowledge. Most probably
it simply doesn't use that information, specifically doesn’t call random
users.

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webkike
Poker is an extremely interesting game that I have been diving head first into
ever since I cam home from college and had a bit of disposable income.

Besides the fact that it's a very fun game that bizarrely mirrors the real
world economy in many ways, it's a great way to make new friends in a town.
Unlike a lot of other games, poker is all about communication. It really
fosters connections when you play with the same people a bunch.

If you're interested in getting into poker, avoid the casino cash games at all
costs. Casinos take a rake or the pot - aka, transaction fees (oh wow, so
you're expected winnings are the growth of the economy minus transaction fees?
How economic!). If you're starting to play poker you'll want to see as many
hands as cheaply as possible. Try free bar poker or local cash games and try
to make your money last as long as possible. This means folding a lot of hands

It's interesting, because there is one thing that professional poker players
love and hate a lot: gamblers. A gambler will go all in on an extremely stupid
bet, such as a 45/55 heads up. Your EV is to lose with such bets but gamblers
will play them anyway. And hell, once about every two times they'll win.

~~~
leesec
Not trying to be a jerk but I disagree with about everything here.

Casino cash games are of the most profitable games, and certainly some of the
most accessible, given that they typically run at consistent hours with
usually a variety of tables/game times (depending on the size of casino).

Expected winnings are not the growth the economy, they are based off your
personal win rate in your personal player pool, established by playing a high
number of hands.

I agree you'll want to start by playing a lot of hands, but definitely do not
just try to 'make your money last as long as possible'. I would recommend
playing around a million hands online at the small stakes, using bank roll
management, and working your way up that way. Develop strategies by reading
some of the related content and adjusting it with your personal experience
against your player pool.

Professional poker players love 'gamblers', they make the world go round.

Note: This is for people who want to get good at poker and maybe make some
money off it. If you like to play just for fun, by all means do so at whatever
stakes you enjoy. Poker is honestly a lot more fun if you are just trying to
enjoy yourself and playing within your financial limits, and not trying to
play optimally.

~~~
webkike
Thanks! I was very misinformed!

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aml183
This article is a bit misleading. She might have won $200,000, but it doesn’t
account for buy-ins. Also, tournament poker has huge variance. It could take
years to know if someone is a winning player. If you play cash, a good player
will win something like 7/BB per hour. I’m not saying she is or isn’t a good
player, but the metrics used are misleading.

~~~
Nokinside
>$200,000 in tournament jackpots.

I have never played jackpot tournaments. If I understand correctly it's you
get a jackpot from winning several sit&go tournaments in a row. I don't know
how the money there is divided.

~~~
rezz
@nokinside the quote is poorly written, this isn't some special bonus she won,
she's amassed over 200k in earnings over the last 18 months. Her largest
single win being worth over 80k. You can view her stats here.

[http://pokerdb.thehendonmob.com/player.php?a=r&n=531869](http://pokerdb.thehendonmob.com/player.php?a=r&n=531869)

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keyle
I've always loved poker. I played for a year or so online for funsies and
watched a lot of videos of the pro.

Then one day I went to a casino and tried my luck there. I did very well,
cleaned up two guys. I went home way richer than I entered, and I felt sick to
my guts.

Never went back and stopped playing.

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ada1981
>> Sometimes I’ll go to New Jersey and hop onto the poker website at an
internet cafe. Online poker is illegal in New York, but not in Jersey. <<

Aka, VPN.

~~~
oh_sigh
When I worked for Amazon in NYC - back before NJ was paying sales taxes, we
were told we were allowed to work from home if we lived in NJ, but to say code
of something like "I'll be working from Penn Station tomorrow".

~~~
ada1981
Because they didn’t have a presence at that point in NJ?

Cool, tax fraud!

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raverbashing
One of my small pet peeves is how Texas Hold'em became the "standard" for
poker games as opposed to classic 5 cards each game

You get 2 cards and fold most of the time. Not really fun.

~~~
Zanni
My experience is the opposite. I think Hold 'em opens up the game for playing
more. Unless you're playing some crazy home game with wild cards, the classic
5-card games (draw, stud) are "you get 2 cards and fold most of the time." And
since you have less information about the other players' hands, you can't
exploit (bet) marginal edges as well. The 7-card games (including 7-card stud,
which _is_ a classic) are more fun.

~~~
raverbashing
The information sharing is something that changes the game, I agree.

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ada1981
No paywall: [https://outline.com/bJxgcH](https://outline.com/bJxgcH)

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gm3dmo
Can Google's AI win at poker?

~~~
efoto
Not necessarily Google AI. But AI is already at pro poker level.

[https://www.zdnet.com/article/researchers-reveal-how-
poker-p...](https://www.zdnet.com/article/researchers-reveal-how-poker-
playing-ai-beat-the-worlds-top-players/)

~~~
cepth
One caveat, the AI in those matches, Libratus, played heads-up Texas Hold 'Em,
i.e. 1 vs 1 play.

It's yet to be demonstrated that any program can defeat humans in 6 handed or
full-ring play, probably due in no small part to the variance in those games.

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ada1981
Kinda a light read, but interesting.

