Annie Duke Explains How To Apply Poker Skills To Markets And Other Business Decisions

Joe Weisenthal (0:09)

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast. I'm Joe Weisenthal.

Tracy Alloway (0:15)

And I'm Tracy Alloway.

Joe Weisenthal (0:17)

So Tracy, guess what? Today, we are going to... You're already laughing.

Tracy Alloway (0:22)

I am, because I know what you're going to say.

Joe Weisenthal (0:25)

Today, we are going to return to one of your favorite topics. It's a theme that we talk about a lot on this show, and I know you love it very much.

Tracy Alloway (0:33)

Okay, so it's either chess or poker.

Joe Weisenthal (0:35)

Oh, so you knew that I was being facetious when I said it was one of your favorite topics, you could tell?

Tracy Alloway (0:41)

Yeah. Yes.

Joe Weisenthal (0:43)

You're correct.

Tracy Alloway (0:43)

Every single episode is all about games.

Joe Weisenthal (0:47)

We do talk a lot about games for good reason, and we are going to be, among other things, talking about poker and some of the lessons that you can learn from playing poker. And of course, you know, we joke about how this is a frequent topic of our show, but, you know, there's good reason for it.

Tracy Alloway (1:05)

Yeah, people draw quite a few parallels between investing and the sort of game theory that you see either in chess or in poker. So I get why there's a natural fit.

I just struggle in every single one of these conversations because you start talking about a particular hand or a play either in poker or chess, and I am completely mystified. But I'm confident that one day we're actually going to sit down and play a game of poker, and this is all going to become clear to me. But in the meantime, who are we going to be discussing the game with?

Joe Weisenthal (1:38)

Well, I know you claim to be mystified, but I think you sell yourself a little short because you ask great questions in all of these that I wouldn't necessarily think of. I am so thrilled about today's episode. We are talking to one of my favorite poker players of all time, Annie Duke. She's one of the winningest players in World Series of Poker History. She won a bracelet in the Omaha High Low Tournament. She came 10th in the main event.

Basically, anyone who's ever watched poker for years on TV has seen her numerous times. And she is the author of a new book called Thinking In Bets, Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All The Facts.

Anyway, she's sitting across from me. It's very awkward to talk about someone in the third person and are four feet away. So, Annie, thank you very much for joining us.

Annie Duke (2:24)

Well, thank you for having me and actually speaking to me as supposed to about me.

Joe Weisenthal (2:29)

Sorry to get very uncomfortable.

Before we get into the book, and we obviously talk about lessons you learned from playing poker, how did you get into playing poker? I think anyone who watched poker for years knows your name and has seen you numerous times, but how did you get into playing?

Annie Duke (2:47)

So, it's a little bit of a windy path. After college, I went to graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania. I was studying cognitive science. I had a National Science Foundation Fellowship. I was there for five years actually and completed my master's, was getting my PhD, was right at the end going out to interview for professorships. And when that happened, I actually got sick as I was going out for my, actually my first job interview, my first job talk. And in academics, you can only do that once a year. So, because I was in the hospital, I had to defer basically for a year. So, during that year, I wasn't in school, I didn't have a fellowship, I needed money.

And my brother, Howard Lederer, was already an amazing player. He'd been playing for 10 years, a professional player. And actually, when I was in graduate school, he used to bring me to Vegas once a year as like a treat, as a vacation. And he would give me a tiny bit of money to go play, like it was a little boring, because he was playing all the time. So, I would sit and watch him, but sometimes I'd be like, can I go play? And he'd go send me to some game where you'd buy in for like $50 and, you know, here, go have fun.

So, I knew a little bit about the game and he obviously knew a lot about the game and suggested to me in that year that maybe I could play poker in the meantime while I was waiting to go back out onto the job market and academics.