95 Comments

If I wanted to become a competent poker player, eg be more likely to win when playing casually with friends, what path would you suggest?

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Hello Anne, I've enjoyed both of your books immensely. I've sent and given your book to friends and colleagues. I have no question but thank you for providing this discussion thread. I learned a lot from the other reader's questions and your answers. Great format. Thank you.

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Thank you for sharing your knowledge! Caught you on Brian Koppelman’s podcast recently and joined here. Looking forward to reading both the books in the near future.

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Along a similar vein, I’m wondering what’s underneath the thoughts we have that keep us from moving forward and doing something that might help us. Say hire a weight loss coach or go to bed earlier or leave a job we hate.

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Why do you think people make decisions without considering what information they are missing?

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I was struggling with a decision an upcoming decision. Which week in March 2024 to choose for a Canadian Ski vacation? I remembered your section in How do Decide, "When a decision is hard, that means it’s easy" and after re-reading it I made my decision in under 5 minutes!

The important decision was decide to do to the trip in the first place. This is in alignment with my values to live a great live, be healthy and fit, and have great adventures.

The decision of which week to choose seemed hard because both were great options, and I was focusing on the potential downsides (what if I choose week when the weather/snow conditions are bad?). In reality, the odd of this are nearly identical for both weeks, so fretting won't improve my decision. Also, If one of the weeks was my "only option" I'd jump on it and be thrilled. So, I picked a week, booked it, and moved on.

Thanks Annie for such great and practical advice. I could have fretted over this decision for weeks! Now I can focus on getting excited and in shape for next year's trip!

Mark

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Does anyone have a curriculum for teaching poker and probability in middle schoolers? If life is like poker rather than chess let’s expose kids to this early. As a parent it MIGHT be fun to host a tween poker night for actual face-to-face games rather than screen games. thoughts?

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I'm currently in the early stages of developing a risk tool to change how lenders look at the climate risks of certain assets. The current practice is to price a set of risks at zero, although lenders freely admit that the risk is not zero. (As a side note, I find it strange how people whose job it is to think about risk seem to have no feeling for the subject.) From these sparse details, do you have any recommendations for me? One thought I've had is to portray the events behind the risks with a high degree of detail and show the cause and effect but I'd be curious if there are practices you think I should follow.

I also want to say thanks for Thinking In Bets. It's had a tremendously positive impact on me.

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Just finished reading your book and thought it was very informative. If you have another revision of the book there's another story you might want to include about a major corporation that figured out when to abandon their major line of business. Intel was a semiconductor company when it was founded and they had a major share of the memory market in the 70's and 80's but Japanese manufacturers were taking market share and driving prices down precipitously. In the mid 80's the leaders Andy Grove and Gordon Moore had a conversation. As NPR reports

Grove says he and Moore were in his cubicle, "sitting around ... looking out the window, very sad." Then Grove asked Moore a question. "What would happen if somebody took us over, got rid of us — what would the new guy do?" he said. "Get out of the memory business," Moore answered. Grove agreed. And he suggested that they be the ones to get Intel out of the memory business.

https://www.npr.org/2012/04/06/150057676/intel-legends-moore-and-grove-making-it-last

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Annie- Loved "Thinking In Bets". It is a framework I find I ask myself on almost a daily basis now. It is a fantastic mental model for me. A question I wonder about - do you think you would make a better poker player today that you were say 10 years ago? In other words, beyond acquiring certain objective skills in any endeavor can decision making continue to improve indefinitely (or at least until cognitive decline occurs)?

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Hi Anne, I'm reading Quit now and I just commend that your storytelling is top-notch. The topic of quitting as a positive trait was always novel and useful, and you've added memorable to it.

I've two questions, both around any correlation between learning habits and quoting decisions.

1) Would you say single loop learning tends to contribute more toward status quo than quitting? If we opened ourselves to reflection, is it possible that we may decide more often to quit than to stick.

2) It is hard to get past defensive reasoning and question our assumptions when analyzing outcomes. That's the barrier, as I understand, between single and double loop learning. If so, is it plausible that a group is better placed at getting past this barrier than an individual. In the sense that it is easier to make group analysis (project retrospectives) fun by having someone moderate, but it is much harder for someone to decide to reflect upon a negative outcome on their own. I'm trying to explore if groups are at a learning advantage here.

Thank you!

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Feb 3, 2023·edited Feb 3, 2023

Annie (and forum): I may be missing something basic........ {EDIT I WAS - I have left the original coomet as an example of wrong thinking}............' but with regard to the Monty Hall problem do you accept the statistical outcome is correct? If the event can be argued not to be independent, random, and a one off can statistical probability even apply? For me Monty Hall is set-up so that the first decision becomes irrelevant in all ways. The real action starts and where probability first applies is when there are only two doors? Whilst the first decision will affect the thinking of the player he is faced (and always was going to be) with at best a 50-50 choice?' .......... {EDIT: NOW I THINK I HAVE GOT IT- . The car is behind Door A so he can never open that door. If you choose Door A then Monty will open EITHER door B OR door C (this is the key as the process only provides for ONE opening of these doors) Here you switch but lose. If you guess Door B he has to open Door C (as the Car is behind A) You switch to A and win. If you select C he opens Door B again you switch to A and win again. Overall 2-1 - Neat! A good lesson learnt about fully understanding the process and using information correctly}................ 'I suppose the point is that whilst it is always better to have cold hard numbers when deciding in the quest to provide these it is possible to go too far and pin mathematical certainties incorrectly or where they do not apply'

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Hello Annie, I've been following your writing ever since I heard you on a Jill on Money podcast episode a few years ago. I had known of your poker career before that though and it was such a pleasant surprise to re-discover you through the personal finance and behavioural psychology space. I quickly read through Thinking in Bets and How to Decide after that podcast episode, and Quit was one of my favourite books last year (along with Dan Pink's The Power of Regret and Maria Konnikova's The Biggest Bluff).

I've been pondering a behavioural situation lately that seems to be a pattern in my professional and social circle. I'm of the age where those I know seem to be falling into 2 noticeable groups: those who have stayed at the same job for many years/decades (sometimes it's their first and only job) and those who have worked at a dozen or more companies. Of those in the first group, many are unhappy but are unwilling to leave. A common reason they give is that they're hoping for a severance package. I'm guessing that this gives them a plausible and rational sounding reason to not make a change but then I read Quit and perhaps there's a strong omission-commission bias too. On paper I think the math is quite compelling that the expected value of a long-odds severance payout is lower than the well documented advantages of increasing one's income through more frequent job changes. No one is interested in seeing the numbers though :D Is this a scenario that's been academically studied? I'm a bit fascinated by it because if I squint really hard, I can see many behavioural biases within.

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Feb 2, 2023·edited Feb 2, 2023

In an uncertain environment any decision will normally have to go beyond the facts (the known) and there has to be management of that element of uncertainty. Whether we like it or not, to some degree, ‘feelings’ about the uncertainty will have a part in the process. It would be stupid for a person who has considerable experience of an environment not to use those feelings – it could be called judgement – in that ‘it looks right and feels right’ will normally beat it ‘looks right but feels wrong ’ or 'just looks right'? { Edit - PS In terms of the Monty Hall the 'look' is the choice which seems to have improved from 1 in 2 to 50-50 and ,as it stands now, actually is. But is the problem really statistical? Patrick Veitch (a noted British punter on horse racing) suggests the problem is actually behavioural because Monty Hall has shown you the goat and also knows what is behind the other doors. If you do not actually read between the lines then you would surely have some feeling about your original choice being wrong (even though you may stick with it for other reasons - it woud fall into the 'looks good- feels bad' category). }

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I just accepted new temporary new job assignment. Annie’s concept of Free Roll (if I don’t like this job it only lasts 4 month and I still can come back to my current job) and encouragement to assess probability of outcomes, (85-98%) probability that I’ll continue to frustrated with my current leadership in the next 6 months and 55% - 80% probability that I’ll enjoy new job that will lead to interesting new connections helped me make this decision.

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Your post on omission and commission bias gave me a lot to think about and I'm curious to hear your feedback on an idea that came up while applying your writing to risk taking. I think that we tend to think of risk dualistically, that we think we either hit home runs or strike out, which glosses over all the neutral outcomes. I think that when we increase the amount of risks we take, we think that the result will be to decrease positive outcomes and increase negative ones because equate "taking more risks" with irresponsible behaviors/decisions. But I think that what we're actually doing when we increase risk is squeezing some neutral outcomes out towards each end. The question becomes how often does the changed neutral outcome result in a positive or negative outcome instead. I'm curious to hear your thoughts and, if my thinking seems useful, how would you go about testing such an idea? Thanks.

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Hi Annie Duke! I am so happy to be here and have learned so much from your research and how to apply practical tools for better decision making that I use in my work and everyday life.

I learned about you from Dr. Nirav Shah from Stanford University. I I am the lead educator for his course on Healthcare Leadership. The students also love your work and have found it valuable as they lead and shift.

I look forward to more conversations with you and others around decision making for healthcare workers and their own wellbeing and Life/ Work integration

As Well as an athlete lover of sports decision making. Sports like football, Mountain Biking , Ice Climbing etc... some of my Favs I would love to start this with you!

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Feb 1, 2023·edited Feb 1, 2023

Hi, Annie!

I'm reading your book "Thinking In Bets" and have watched a few discussions in which you spoke. I've spent some thinking time about the topic of assigning probabilities to outcomes in the everyday world, as well as practicing that myself, some years back. For me, the practice seemed to be a subversion of recognizing indicators of a typical outcome. Assigning probability was like a guesstimate at a fuzzy match of indicators, pro and con, of the outcome. I could emphasize one indicator, and raise the probability, emphasize another, and lower the probability, think of an outcome, and feel confident it will occur, but then think of a contrary outcome, and find that just as credible. When deciding how to weigh uncertain outcomes, weighting schemes seemed untrustworthy, because they would fit any narrative that I wanted. Uncertainty was more like a choice among pretended-to beliefs. Truth was I was ignorant, just didn't have enough information, but was desperate to control my future in the short-term.

At the same time, I noticed that I could distinguish something I believed would occur from other possibilities according to whether I expected it to happen. It didn't matter that I could disagree with it's occurrence or think of plausible alternatives. I expected it to happen. It seemed like it was easier to believe and be wrong than it was to "develop uncertainty" about the future, if that makes any sense.

I've been puzzling over my subjective experience, wondering about its contrast with reports from people who claim that they find confidence in the future reassuring but then hate to be wrong. I hate to be wrong too, but I go ahead and have confidence about my claims right up until they're proved wrong. My use of credences, these partial beliefs about outcomes, with probabilities assigned to them, was just a way to dodge that my expectations had consequences for me that I didn't want to acknowledge. If I kept blaming probabilities, I could avoid acting on what I thought was true or avoid feeling trapped because there was nothing to do or nothing I was brave enough to do. However, now it seems better to qualify predictions with as many meaningful, explicit caveats as I can find, and have a robust response ready, since different outcomes could occur, but still keep a belief about what will occur if I'm going to act on that belief anyway (for example, because I have to act on that belief anyway). I try to find early indicators that what I want to do has been prevented from happening in advance by something else so that I don't waste my effort, unless I'm going to do it anyway, in which case, well....

Reading through all that, if you got this far, I welcome your thoughts and comments. I enjoy your grasp of bias and the overall structure you impose on decisions, but see your practice of assigning odds as more like measuring your own feelings of certainty, regardless of the facts. I find my certainty to be easy to falsify, when I have it, so I avoid doing that, it's an uncomfortable walk down memory lane. We are very different people in different environments, so maybe my way of thinking lacks applicability to you and most others, I haven't thought about that much. Either way, your general grasp of decision-making is solid, and you pack many useful recommendations and distinctions into your work.

Thank you.

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With implicit information we are still being impacted by the implicit data however the impact on our decision is unknown. So to have this hidden source more cognitively available we can weigh it with our explicit data. Seems a potential for increased data points though, causing some potential dissonance, thus reasonable that decision makers might avoid dealing with the implicit if nothing else than to avoid stress.

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Thinking in Bets is about probabilistic thinking in three categories: the known, the unknown, and the unknowable. Is there a default for % unknowable for given decisions? eg black swan stuff? how do you quantitatively balance or estimate known and unknown?

shout out Henry Gleitman

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Big fan of the field having read books by Kahneman, Ariely and you of course. I'm always amazed at the lower turnout for local elections vs. national ones, yet the former is much more likely to have a direct impact on the voter's life. Would you chalk this up to availability bias since national elections are so widely covered in the news whereas local ones have much less coverage or is there some other bias at play?

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Feb 1, 2023·edited Feb 2, 2023

The Book of Why: The New Science of Cause and Effect by Judea Pearl is my current read. I can’t claim to understand it all, but he explains how complicated interactions can be explored by diagramming them and calculating probabilities. At its most extreme, the methods offer the equivalent of a randomized control trial with just the data you happen to have on hand. The math and the concepts are just on the edge of my understanding, but I hope they will add to your insights into rational decision making.

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Hi Annie, I have both your books. Thank you!

Do you have any advice for someone who ...

a) avoids decisions due to fear of later regret, or

b) who values themselves based on the accuracy of their decisions?

Any further reading as well that could be helpful?

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Why do you think so many people operate with blinkers on? It’s a decision to be short sighted and only think first order. Do you think it’s the way we are shaped and conditioned?

Or do you think we are primed for survival and therefor most make decisions based on survive not thrive?

Or something else?

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Hello Annie,

I loved reading your book “Thinking in Bets -“. My immediate question that I wanted to find out an answer for was how do you find out the unconsciously formed beliefs you might have? If this is influencing the way I process information (motivated reasoning) then what are the ways to find out the beliefs I formed in the past unknowingly? (Hear it-->Believe it-->Vet rarely).

Thank you for your time.

Mandkhai

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Thanks for opening up this discussion, Annie! Just finished Thinking in Bets and about to start How to Decide.

I’ve got two questions my mind:

1. Do you have any thoughts or recommendations on decision-making frameworks for people with ADHD? I’m in the (arduous, labyrinthian) process of getting a diagnosis as an adult, which is making me more acutely aware of particular biases that I may either overlook or willfully (and irrationally) accept.

2. Do you have any suggestions on or can you recommend resources for assembling a decision-making support group? I’m a hard introvert when it come to online communities, so I’d love to find a very supportive guide for forming such a group online and/or a guide for starting an in-person group with strangers. (I don’t have enough friends in the area who are convinced of this premise, though I have already recommended your books.)

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I find this question fascinating as somebody who leads in schools for a couple of reasons:

1) we find that almost every school operates an implicit model for the practice of their teachers (good people off in classrooms making an enormous number of daily practice decisions at random) rather than an explicit practice framework. This robs any school of the chance for its teachers to practice consistently.

2) it really did get me thinking about that volume of bets (microdecisions) that teachers/principals make every day and how it must be among the highest for any profession.

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This is going to sound a bit morbid. As I get older I find myself thinking more about the decisions I am making throughout the day than ever before. Prior to starting any project or devoting my energy and time toward anything, I think about the "end point" of moving forward and work backward. Is this worth my time? Am I getting any value out of what I'm about to start? My time is valuable and I don't want to waste any of it. Go/no-go decision on anything is hard given how little time we all have on this planet.

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Unrelated but maybe related….I have been reflecting lately about how times that I’ve gone about my pursuits (education and music performance) in methodical ways, and in “intuitive” ways, for lack of a better term. Although music is an art, there are principles that apply. Same with teaching. I was struck today when I watched the video on Monty Hall and the selection of doors. I totally resisted the explanation of logic - until I didn’t! And it’s caused me to reflect on times when I’ve prepared for music performance (made decisions) using methodology and known, tested principles - even in art, proper decision making wins the day. At least at my level it does.

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Thanks! Your observation on the need to make explicit what's already implicit in your decisions fits in nicely with the Information Matrix I developed. http://instituteforfinancialtransparency.com/2018/05/14/yale-professor-basically-you-dont-understand-the-crisis/

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Thanks Annie,

I'm reading Quit right now.

Best,

Andrew

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Agree. Both of these are reinforced if the individual doesn't directly suffer the consequences of their decision.

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To me the most terrifying aspect of my (human) nature is my ability to make terrible decisions despite obvious evidence to the contrary. Evidence at the time of the decision - not only outcome evidence.

I quit a job at the tail end of covid with an airline after 25 years in the hope of a better lifestyle with another one. The problem with being a pilot is that when you quit, you go from senior captain to bottom of the list first officer and it takes a long, long time to work your way back up. So, here I am, having quit, and desperately regretting it. There's no lifestyle and there's a 66% salary cut. Never mind the other ugly surprises of the new job.

I guess I didn't do a proper pre-mortem, despite reading about them in How to Decide.

I also disregarded the advice of someone about whom I have a negative opinion (for having acted against my and our family's interests before) and overweighted the advice of someone I respected (a professional counsellor).

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Loved the Lit Video version of Thinking in Bets. Since then I've noticed an interesting dynamic. 1. Think of the win 2. Guess the probability 3. List aspects related to a true win 4. List the probabilities of each aspect 5. Calculate the probability. 5 is very different than 1. Going through this process helps make a better bet. Does this resonate?

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I would like to know if there is a way to communicate uncertainty to people who are certain of their beliefs, and where their certainty is likely false or overstated/too high.

For example people who are not experts in a field, have little actual knowledge in that field, and whose beliefs contradict the beliefs of a lot of experts in that field.

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I’ve been thinking a lot about the relationship between your rational brain and your embodied brain in decision-making. You might sub “cold cognition” for rational and “hot cognition” for embodied. Or conscious and subconscious. It came to mind when reading your piece today. Our cold cognition allows us to solve problems that no other animal can. Yet it also can serve as a barrier to good decision-making, one that the pigeons in your article today weren’t burdened with. I read recently that people who have suffered brain injuries that destroy their embodied brain but leave their rational brain completely intact are very capable or perceiving options in a given situation, but completely incapable of making a decision of any kind. I find that fascinating.

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I LOVED your books, Thinking in Bets and Quit. I'd be tremendously honored to have you come on my podcast, Meditations with Zohar; if so, email is zoharatkins at gmail dot com

Here's a metaphysical question: why is time structured in such a way that our decisions are irreversible and what would it do to our lives if we could go back and select the other options, as in sci movies like back to the future.

Does meaning of life derive fundamentally from the combination of uncertainty about how our actions will turn out and the irreversibility of our decisions?

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