Have you read Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner? I never wrote a review of it, and I doubt I’ll re-read it just for that purpose, but it’s got a lot of appeal for the poker player who’s interested in more than just poker. Though the book itself doesn’t mention poker, Levitt is himself an avid player who was at one time working on a statistical analysis of data from Full Tilt Poker (not sure what ever came of that).
In any event, the book is about applying the techniques of economics and analysis to such diverse topics as gangs and the illegal drug market, teachers who help students cheat on standardized tests, and the possible impact of legalized abortion on crime rates. To the extent that the book has an overarching point, it is that quite a few public policy solutions to society’s problems lack a basis in science, rationality, or rigorous, data-driven evaluation. They are more often driven by some combination of fear, prejudice, bias, politics, and good old-fashioned guesswork.
Poker, when pursued seriously, teaches the value of relying on data, evidence, and careful analysis over “feel” and hunches. Just like in life, you can guess and be right, or you can guess and be wrong but have things work out well for you anyway, but in the long-run the only winners are the ones who don’t guess, or perhaps more accurately make the most informed guesses we possibly can.
Even moreso than their first book, Levitt and Dubner’s sequel Superfreakonomics drove this point home, explicitly applying experimentation and statistical analysis to big problems like global climate change. All in all, I must say this was a far duller book than the first, and I wouldn’t recommend nearly as highly. As an example of people’s irrationality, however, they point to the fear and panic that the occasional shark bite scares up, despite the fact that such attacks are in fact extremely rare.
Today, the Freakonomics Blog highlights a 10-year-old girl who was bitten by a shark in New Smyrna Beach, Florida (where my grandmother spends her winters!) and had this to say about the experience:
“I like swimming in the ocean,” she said. “It’s a freak thing, and a one-in-a-million chance that I would get bitten by a shark. So it really wouldn’t happen again, I don’t think.”
Sounds like she’d make a fine poker player.
By the way, the most popular chapter in the original Freakonomics book, entitled “Why Do Drug Dealers Still Live With Their Moms?” and based on first-had sociological research by a graduate student named Sudhir Venkatesh, eventually spawned its own book, Gang Leader for a Day, which is far and away the best of the three. It details the experiences of a naive Indian-American graduate student who wanders into Chicago’s notorious Robert Taylor Homes housing projects, is essentially kidnapped by a gang, and eventually is taken under the wing of one of the organization’s higher ups as he learns about the numerous underground economies that operate in the vast public housing towers.
They got everything wrong about climate change. After this was pointed out to them, they tried to weasel their way out of it instead of just admitting they were wrong, did sloppy research, and allowed their own “prejudice, bias and politics” get in the way of intellectual integrity.
There’s also some contention about the whole abortion-rate/crime-rate business, but it doesn’t surprise me when, regardless of which side of the debate their on, men come up with arguments that totally disregard women’s autonomy and ability to make their own decisions.
Otherwise the books are interesting reading. However, I think poker players should always be careful about assuming that just because it sounds like it’s applicable to poker, it is. Poker really isn’t much like anything else.
Thanks for the links, Lin. I can’t vouch for the accuracy of their claims or their fidelity to their own argument, but I do believe they intend to make the case that carefully analyzed data ought to inform common sense and received wisdom, and I do believe that that’s quite applicable to poker.
Oh and agreed re: men’s arguments and women’s autonomy.