“Life is poker, not chess.”

Why it was said

The phrase that frames Thinking in Bets (2018). Annie Duke, a former professional poker player, builds it on a distinction drawn by the mathematician John von Neumann, a founder of game theory: chess is a game of complete information, while real life is full of hidden information, bluffing and luck.

What it actually means

In chess there is little luck and nothing hidden, so a loss almost always means a mistake. In poker you can play well and lose, or badly and win, because the cards are partly out of your control and other players hold information you cannot see. Duke's argument is that most real decisions, such as a hire, an investment or a career move, work like poker. That makes it a mistake to judge a decision only by how it turned out, a habit poker players call "resulting". The better question is whether the decision was sound given what could be known at the time. The distinction guards against two errors: blaming yourself for bad luck, and congratulating yourself for good luck you mistook for skill.

How to use it

1. 1Review one recent decision that went badly, and separate what you knew at the time from what you learned only afterwards.
2. 2Before a major choice, write down the outcomes you think possible and roughly how likely each one is.