Thinking in Bets Book Summary

Book Summary

15 min

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Brief Summary

Ultimately, every choice we make is a bet. With each decision, we put our resources at risk, such as energy, money, or other essentials to life. When we understand the nature of our choices and what strategies can help us make the best decisions, we step up our game and have the greatest hope for happiness and success. Understanding the strategies outlined in Thinking in Bets gives readers the confidence to assume risks and accept the outcomes with less negativity and more open-mindedness. Such a mental state will ensure you keep the upper hand.

About the Author

Annie Duke has won more than $4 million along with multiple professional Poker championships. She is the only woman to win the WSOP Tournament of Champions as well as the NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship. Duke has written a number of books including a series of instructional books for Poker players and an autobiography, How I Raised, Folded, Bluffed, Flirted, Cursed, and Won Millions at the World Series of Poker. Annie Duke is also a corporate speaker and consultant addressing the topic of decision-making strategies.

Topics

Psychology

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Key Insights

Tactics for successful living are often compared to the game of Chess. In her book, Thinking in Bets, Annie Duke outlines how the best strategies for making good decisions actually come from the game of Poker. Duke is a professional Poker player and uses her expertise to explain these strategies and how to apply them in daily living. Thinking in Bets is ultimately a blueprint for identifying decision-making deficiencies and creating a plan to overcome them. It is personal coaching with an original approach.

Negative Outcomes are NOT a Reflection of Poor Decisions

Associating negative outcomes with bad decisions can be instinctive. When something doesn’t go the way we expect, it’s common to blame the choices we made. Duke warns not to instantly make such associations. She says the fear and caution that can result may stifle the aggressive, game-changing decisions needed for future successes. One example used in the book is how the Seahawks lost to the Patriots in the Super Bowl. The play used was backed by solid data. According to Duke, it was the ever-present element of luck, not poor decision making that led to the loss.

Uncertainty is NOT Bad, and Being Wrong isn’t Either

It is built into our culture to believe that not knowing something is bad. In education, if we don’t know the answers on a test, it is considered a failure. To progress towards good decision making, we need to acknowledge and even embrace uncertainty. This keeps us from viewing everything in black and white. According to Duke, bets aren’t right or wrong based solely on the outcome. She points out that decision making improves when we don’t view past choices as “wrong” but as periods of learning. By redefining wrong as lessons instead of mistakes, we free ourselves from the fear of getting a bad result and are able to move towards more educated risk-taking.

Skill AND Luck Influence the Outcome of Every Bet

Winning Poker players are comfortable with uncertainty. They can place their bets without a great deal of evidence to rationalize the outcome. The ability to make impromptu decisions and live with them is an important skill. Accepting the existence of LUCK is required to play the game successfully. Knowing that you can’t predict most things will help you accept the fundamental truth that life is uncertain. Accepting this truth allows decision making to improve. Interestingly, we feel the pain of losses twice as much as the joy of wins, and in life, or Poker, we will actually be wrong more often than we will be right, setting ourselves up for unnecessary pain.

Most Often, We Bet AGAINST Ourselves

While this may sound negative, betting against ourselves simply means that we aren’t hedging our wagers against someone else. Its other versions of ourselves that we are rejecting. This is because every bet is gambling on a potential future. While one future will win, other future scenarios will lose. The problem we run into is that we tend to favor our present self at the expense...