Author
Annie Duke
The poker professional who turned twenty years at the table into a science of deciding under uncertainty.
1 book on BookYol
The story and the impact
Annie Duke was a doctoral student in cognitive psychology at the University of Pennsylvania when illness interrupted her studies and she began playing poker to pay the bills. She played professionally for two decades, won a World Series of Poker bracelet, and left the game in 2012 to write and consult on decision-making.
Her argument, in Thinking in Bets and later in How to Decide and Quit, is that poker teaches what life hides: a good decision can lose and a bad one can win, and judging decisions by their outcomes, resulting, is the error that stops people learning. She returned to academia to finish the doctorate she had left, and works with companies and investors on decision process.
The signature
Duke writes from the table: hands, bad beats and the discipline of a player who had to separate skill from luck to survive, applied to hiring, investing and family decisions.