November 22, 2025 • 52 mins
Most people are bad at spotting bluffs and tells – but there are ways to get better. Nate and Maria discuss tips and tricks from the poker table s with a live audience at Ludlow House in New York City.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. Welcome back to Risky Business, a show about making
better decisions. I'm Maria Kanakova.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
And I'm Nate Silver.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
He is Nate Silver.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
You often like crack up during can but like, yeah,
we're not going to do that to time.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Today We're going to be straight faced. So today on
the show, we have a really fun live show for you.
Today we're going to be talking about reading people, the
art of tell's deception, bluffing, and all all of that
fun stuff. And after we kind of lay the groundwork,
you guys better be paying really close attention because we'll
(01:02):
be having people come up here to demonstrate how much
you've learned about the art of greeting people.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
It's a five hundred dollar our entry fee. It's on
the back of your ticket.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
So, Nate, you and I have just come back from
Las Vegas, where we were both playing in the North
American Poker Tour Famous Any Famous, Famous NAPT And you
know poker and life are our games where there's bluffing. Nate,
(01:34):
how are you at bluffing? How are you at bluffing
and poker? And how are you at bluffing in life
which might otherwise be known as lying?
Speaker 2 (01:43):
I think I'm a pretty good bluffer in poker, both
kind of understanding like the game theory behind win to
bluff and also like kind of have a few tricks
to like pull things off right ironically in like real life,
I kind of I kind of been very bad at
lying in real life. I think my partner's here tonight,
so you can confirm or deny that potentially. But no,
(02:05):
I get very uncomfortable with you know, who is it
like a lie takes too much work? Right? Kind lazy? No,
It's like even things like like so when I was
hiring people at five thirty eight, were with at Disney, right, like,
what's the kind of the long term stability of this company?
At the ABC News ESPN, I be like, I don't
really know. You know, I'm under contract for a couple
(02:26):
of years and we'll see what happens and so like.
But I'm very comfortable, like in any type of negotiation
or relationship, like I don't think it serves people certainly
when purpose in the long run to kind of like
form a relationship on false pretenses because it gets discovered
later on. Right. No, So I'm an honest person mostly
out of like laziness in real life, but in the
(02:48):
context of poker. You know, poker would not exist without bluffing.
That's what makes poker poker. I don't consider bluffing in
poker to be lying. Also, when people, you know, people
ask you, oh, what did you have? Right, so people
are like, oh, if you actually ask a question, they
won't like literally lie, I will, I will, I will
lie my ass off, but like of what my ham was?
(03:10):
I think it's like part of the game, but only
a game. How about you are you Are you a bluffer? Maria?
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Well, you know, I when people ask me like, oh,
you know, you wrote a book about con artists and
now you're a poker player, so you're basically doing that.
And I want to say no, absolutely not, because, as
you say, poker is a game and bluffing is part
of it, right, It's actually part of the rules. So
everyone expects you to not tell the truth to bluff.
(03:37):
That is one of the strategic elements of the game.
Con Artists lie when they're supposed to be telling the truth.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Right.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Part of the rules of life is that we can
trust each other, Right, you can trust me, I can
trust you. We're not going to lie to each other
when we see each other. And in fact, there's actually
a lot of psychology that shows that humans have evolved
for truthful relationships, not for deception, and that kind of
(04:06):
trust is the default option. So in lots of study
where you have people play all sorts of games. So
we talk a lot about game theory on the show,
and there are lots of games where you start off
where you can either kind of cooperate or defect. Right,
you can play by the rules, or you can cheat,
you can lie. And it turns out that more often
than not, like in the absence of any kind of
(04:28):
incentive or pressure to the contrary, people start off cooperating
and they start off in a very trusting stance, and
that's actually, like, to me, that's really great, right, that's
a very like hopeful thing for humanity, and societies with
high levels of trust tend to do better. And you know,
the reason that humans are actually pretty bad at spotting
(04:50):
deception is that most people don't lie every day, right,
And it's evolutionarily beneficial to just assume people are telling
the truth. If you always thought everyone was lying like that,
that ain't a good That ain't a good place to do.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Like in like small communities. Then there's a reputational cast.
I'm not that you know gto about it. It's like
a reputational cost to lying or bad behavior, right, but
it varies lot by society. I was with my partner
and a friend in Korea for New Year's We were
like shopping one day in some very busy area, and
the shopkeeper at this very nice, busy shop went to
(05:27):
get lunch, right, and he just kind of leaves, he
leaves a door open. He's like, I'll be back in
ten minutes. I'm grabbing some lunch, right, And like you
could totally shoplift like whatever you want it because it's
such a high trust society there that like there might
be CCTV or whatever else. But like you take Marian,
I'm not a I stole. I will say I.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
Stole Confessions of Risky Business.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
I stole taco Bell from the University of Chicago cafeteria
one time, right. But the reason was because like the
line to check out, It's like it was like they
had like a pizza hut and a taco Bell and
some other shitty era Mark concessions, right, and it was
like a fifteen minute line to check out. I'm like,
I'm you know, it's worth running the risk of getting
caught dealing tacos if you have to wait fifteen minutes
(06:11):
to check out.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
All right, University of Chicago. Next time they bought, they
caught you. Yeah, so what happened? What were the repercussions hearing?
Speaker 2 (06:22):
And I don't know. It was the first offense, so
they let me off, basically, but I'm.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
So glad they let you graduate. And you know, we
wouldn't be sitting here otherwise. But but yeah, so so
to go back to your kind of original question, I
don't really you know, I don't think that I'm particularly
good at lying in real life because I really don't.
Now I tell white lies, and I think we all
tell white lies, which is one reason another reason why
(06:47):
we're so bad at spotting deception. Can you imagine what
would happen if you were able to tell every single
time someone said a white lie to you, Like, just
just think about it, right, Like it's so good to
see you.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Yeah, yeah, well I love it. I love that you
look great, but like, like, look.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
You know, if you have loved that baseball cafe.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Yea, thank you, marry that. If you have a friend
who cancels plans because they're sick. Maybe they're actually sick, right, Yeah,
maybe they're having a really bad day, right, Maybe the
fling of their life unexpectedly came into town. Right, maybe
who knows, right, But like you don't need to be
brutally honest, Like I'm not a big believer in like
(07:34):
I think people are like, oh, radical transparency about everything.
It's like you don't understand like the subtlety and like
the density of like human communication. Actually, one thing I
think you learned from AI models arts language models is
like how laden with density, like word choices are and
terns of phrase are and the particular analogy or allegory
that you might use, right, Because you're often trying to
(07:55):
communicate with like multiple people at once. Right, You're trying
to say one you're dog whistling to some group of people,
and you're saying you coming different things to different people.
It's often kind of less subtle than people think if
you consider like political communication example, But like language is
a very rich medium and a very like strategic medium.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Yeah, absolutely, And when you're communicating, And this is something
that you really learn in poker, is that language is
nonverbal too, right, when you kind of go from the
real life arena to kind of the arena something like games.
I used to be absolutely horrible at bluffing as well,
(08:34):
because I'm so uncomfortable lying right, and I felt really
and I felt really anxious and nervous when when I bluffed,
and if I got caught bluffing, I was like, oh, no, right,
I got cop bluffing. Where of course, the kind of
the common wisdom is that if you're never caught bluffing,
you're not bluffing enough. Right. It's part of the game.
(08:54):
You're you're supposed to be cop bluffing. Sometimes you're supposed
to bluff a lot. And what ended up actually helping
me and getting me kind of over the hump to
where I could start bluffing more successfully is when I
stopped thinking of it as deception and started thinking of
it as, oh, like, I understand the game better now,
and this is actually the correct move for me to make, right,
(09:17):
It is one of my strategic choices, and in this
particular moment, this is the proper strategy. And so it
you know, you were talking before about how you tell
the truth in real life, because it's just you're lazy, Well,
deception does create cognitive load, So it creates a lot
of kind of tension and extra overhead kind of inside
(09:38):
your brain. And because you have to kind of try
to think, does my story make sense? Right? Am I
being consistent? Is it logical? And you have to try
to think, oh, am I giving off anything? Right? Can
people tell? Like there's there's just a lot that starts happening.
So if you stop thinking of it as you know,
as a lie, you can actually reduce the cognitive load
(10:01):
and just say, Okay, this is how I should be
playing right.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Now, I'm like sometimes more comfortable bluffing than I am
with a strong man, right, which is a little Karen intuitive.
It might give you some reverse to but like the
way I look at it, Maria, is when I bet,
I'm saying I have a range of hands, right, I'm saying, Look,
I'm betting I might have some good hands. I might
have some bad hands. I don't want you to know
either way, right, I want to keep you guessing either way.
That's an honest statement of like my range of hands.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
So the reason I have I have my phone up
here for several reasons, but one of them is because
so we just got back from the NAPT and I
love that Natel said he feels more comfortable bluffing than
he does telling the truth. Because I got a message.
Oh yeah. So I have a substack called the Leap,
and one of my paid subscribers was at NAPT playing
(10:47):
and he played with Nate, and so I come home
to this message from him. You know, hi, Maria, it
was a nice meeting. Again. I had a great time
this trip despite not cashing. Please tell Nate that he
still bluffs too much. Oh no, So then I go,
I go, ha ha ha. I'll make sure to tell him.
(11:08):
And then he continues, and he says, I only saw
one big bluff that was caught by a pair on
a missed flush draw board. But from his past interviews
I learned about his high bluff frequency, which someone else
may have used at the table. I'm sure Nate's a
better player than man. Doesn't need my advice, but I'm
(11:29):
giving it to you anyway. So do you remember this hand.
Apparently some you know, someone noticed that you were bluffing
too much, Nate. How did you do in that tournament?
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Nate, Maria, So I write, So we're doing a little
thing with with Sam Greenwood runs a blog called pen
of the Day. So I wrote down for this whole
week of poker all my questionably played in hands. There
were quite a few, if we're being honest, right, but
like probably the three hands that I believe were the
worst plays or hands where I didn't bluff where I
(11:59):
should have. Right, it's like counterintuitive how often you actually
are supposed to bluff? Yeah, in poker, because it does
feel like really bad when you bluffing at caught. It
doesn't feel that bad when you have you have a
big value hand, When you have like a full house
or a flush or a straight and you bet and
you don't get called, right, then it's like, oh, okay,
(12:20):
well you know you didn't have anything you didn't pay off.
But if you don't bluff enough then you won't get
paid off as much. And so no, I think I
probably still I think I'm like, I bluff more than
the stereotyped version of Nate you have might assume, But
I probably still under bluff relative to game theory or
how often in practice it could probably could probably get
(12:41):
away with it.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Did you have any bluffs that you're very proud of?
Because I actually so this was a very good series
for me, and I had one bluff in particular that
I'm very proud of that actually enabled me to do
really well in the tournament that I did really well in.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
So some bluffs I like are where you make like
so empirically certain lines are underutilized. Right, So one bluff
I like is like often when people make like a
small bet, then the representing like a you know, oactch
have a me yocre ham, it's better than your hand, right,
I have top pair with a bad kicker or a
bad flesh or second pair, and you probably don't have
(13:17):
top pair given the way the hand was played out,
and then make like.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Small people who don't play poker. These are all like
second best hands.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
So the second where like I think my hand is
just like slightly better than you are. I love making small,
yep bluffs that are very cheap with hands I can
represent like second best hands trying to get a little value,
and they're very cheap, you know what I mean. I
made a bluff in a limit game, which is hard
to do. I was playing like some seven card stood
(13:44):
eight or better, right, and like I had a great draw.
Speaker 4 (13:47):
I could get a low or high or whatever.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
And I and I missed everything right, and the guy
bet and I'm I raise just like just raising, like
he's getting like fifteen to one, right, he has to
be right one out of fifteen times for his bluff
to right, and he folds the whole pot.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Right.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
I scooped the pot with a bluff, So that felt good, Maria.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Yeah, those are those are actually very smart bluffs when
you when you just bluff a little bit because it
seems like you want people to call you right. My
bluff that ended up working, though, was the very opposite.
I was out of position, so I was in the
big blind. So for people who don't play poker, being
out of position is not good, right, because you always
(14:25):
act first and the person you're playing with act second
and in everything. But also like when you're talking about
tells and reading people, you want more information, right, The
more information the better, and so getting to go second
is a huge advantage. And so I was out of
position against a player who's a very good player this
(14:46):
whole hand, and I had jack ten, you know, really
nice hand was suited. You know, I had a straight
draw and I just then ended up having a flush draw. Anyway,
I bricked everything but there were two different flush draws
on the board, and he bet, he raised, you know,
(15:08):
pre flop, he bet flop, he bet turned and then
the river comes, it completes the wrong flush, not mine,
and I have nothing and the pot is huge, and
I did something very unorthodox, and I just shoved before
he had a chance to act, so I took the
momentum from him, and he ended up folding. It was
(15:28):
very funny because this is a spot that people don't
bluff very often, right when the board changes so much,
because it's kind of suicidal to run that bluff. But
my suicidal bluff worked, and it felt really good because
I think that past me would not have been able
to do something like that, because once again, bluffing and
lying are two very different things. And this is also
(15:51):
where nonverbal tells come into play a little bit, because,
you know, something about his behavior made me think that
he had been trying to bully me out of the
hand for a long time, and so I was using
that as well to kind of inform my kind of
(16:11):
my thinking that maybe his hand was not so strong
that he'd feel compelled to call.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Yeah, I'm a big believer in nonverbal tells and kind
of it often. I mean there are sometimes specific things
I'm not sure when you have way too many secrets,
but it's more often kind of like an overall vibe.
I've Maria, I've kind of become a you can play
with me, like at the same table in a while,
become like a little bit more of a speech play
guy where I'll like, I'll like talk to people, especially Europeans.
(16:38):
The Europeans play poker are like they're very quiet, right,
I'm like, where are you from? You know which part
of Belli? They're usually from Belgium? Like which part of
Belgium are you from? Just kind of see if people
are comfortable or not, and like, you know, it's kind
of if you're if you're considering, Like let's say it's
a spot where like a player bets big on the river,
he might be bluffing. I'm not planning on rebraising either
(16:58):
because I'm all in any way, or or I'm not
going to raise right, and like you kind of get
free info just by talking to people. But it's an
overall kind of aura or vibe and like it's not
something mysterious, just like we are. We have like human interactions, right,
Like in real life, you hopefully have intuition for when
you're being deceived. For example, one is like when someone's
(17:21):
not telling the full story, and like, yeah, and poker,
you just kind of developed like this implicit database of
like semantics and signals, and you'd be like foolish, like
not to account for that. I don't think.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Yeah, I always like to talk to people, and I
think the reason that it works. I don't do it
for tells, but I do it, you know, because it
actually does help me later on. And this is the
journalist in me, right, Like I'm genuinely curious to find
out why people are there, what are they doing, what
(17:54):
are their motivations? You know, why are you playing this event?
Did you come? You know? Are you a professional? Are
you here because your wife gave you a present? Because
you've wanted to play this event forever? All of this
is information, right, All of this tells you something about
people and something that poker has really made me good at,
which you know, it's funny because you think of it
(18:14):
as kind of this cutthroat game, but it's actually made
me a much better listener, right, It's made me someone
who's much more attuned to the signals that other people
give out because I mean at the poker table, it
can help me take your money, but it also like
it's rewarded. Right, When you truly listen to other people,
(18:36):
you are able to understand where they're coming from, take
their perspective, which humans are really bad at doing. Right. Normally,
when we think we're taking someone else's perspective, what we're
doing is taking our perspective and lumping it onto the
other person. And we're like, oh, I know exactly what
you're thinking. It's what I would be thinking if I
(18:57):
were in your shoes, And that's usually completely wrong. Right,
we're so ego centric and to be able to kind
of actually take a step back and figure out, wait, no,
this is what they would be thinking because they've told
me more about themselves. It helps you strategically, but then
it helps you in real life just be a better person.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
No.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
One of the best pieces of poker advice I've listened
to you recently. I think he's from Hungry Horse Poker.
I think his name is Mark Goon, a good YouTuber. Right,
he's like, remember thinking about the poker world from the
opponent's point of view, right, like putting yourself in the
other player's shoes and like what's bothering them? Yeah, especially
for for amateur players, right, one thing you see all
(19:41):
the time and like big events like the main event
or other big events. The World Sairs of Poker is
like some guy comes in. He won his kind of
like local home game tournament. His friends bought him in
for tank the World Series of Poker. It's some prize
from some series they have, right, And you can like
kind of pinpoint the moment where something like I want
to play tight, gonna play solid, Right, you can like
pinpoint the moment when they kind of were like, shit,
(20:02):
this isn't working, right, they panic a little bit. Some
of these are more obvious. So I played a cash
game at the BLA show last night. I'm my way
out of town.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
This is true dgen behavior.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Guys would write football. There was a guy and now
we get into gendered stereotypes. Right, there was a guy
who had his like his girlfriend sitting directly behind him
making faces about every hand. I'm like, this guy probably
is not bluffing old punch right when like when it
(20:33):
was like his girlfriend's they are like approving it is
from them. Is like play in every hair like i'd be.
You know, he's not bluffing like ever, right, don't think so, Nate.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
The funny thing is it turns out that we humans
are remarkably good at controlling our faces. Right, We are
really good at poker faces. If you want to look
at nonverbal behavior, if you want to look at tells,
if you want to figure out is this person bluffing
in the case of poker or lying deceiving me in
(21:04):
the case of day to day interactions, looking at their
face is the wrong place to look.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
Look.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
There are lots of studies that show that basically our
faces give almost nothing away because we're so incredibly used
to controlling them. Right, that's the one thing you're always
thinking about, Like poker face, right am, I giving anything away?
That's something that most people are actually really, really good at.
But what you're not used to controlling is the rest
(21:30):
of your body. Right. You don't realize that you're leaking
information through your posture, through your hands, through your feet,
through all of these other things. That's where people should
be staring.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
No, it's it's the hands.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
It's the hands. Yes, anyone who's read the biggest bluff,
I have a whole chapter about the hands.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
It's the pulse. Often. I mean, I find a guy
in the main event that the World series where like
like literally had like a real time heart rate monitor
hook up to him, where like he just had this
thing where like his heart was beating his neck. If
you have that happen, it can happen to people temporarily
or permanently. We're like we're a skyrif wear like a
sweatshirt or something. Right, But like it was very correlated,
Like I knew because he made it. We just you know, look,
(22:10):
you pick up a whole vocabulary just based on having
a lot of reps doing these things. Right, he was
already making mannerisms that I associate with having like a
very strong hand. In this case, he had aces and
you saw his heartbeat and saw, Okay, here's a guy
where his heartbeat beats faster when he has his strong hand, right,
which is not true for everybody. Some people are the opposite.
(22:30):
And so like now, like I basically know is like
hand strength for the rest of the day, Like that's
a huge advantage that explicit is rare, but like, yeah,
it's often kind of like also watching people before you
get into big moments in the hand, right, because once
they're locked in, then they're self conscious. Like what you're
trying to figure out too, is like, okay, somebody makes
an action. Was that conscious? Was it unconscious? If it
(22:54):
was unconscious to them, become aware. Oh I took a
little bit a while to make that call. That might
look weak or it might look strong, depending on context.
It's all. It's like regular language, right, it's all. It's
all very contextual. They said that might be strong and
one context might be weak. In other context. You're trying
to like paint a semantic portrait.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
We'll be back right after this. So there's kind of
three bigger picture psych things here that I want to
kind of draw out. So first, the reason that Nate
was able to use some of this information is because
(23:38):
he had immediate feedback, which we normally don't have in life. Right,
He saw that pulse and then he saw that there
was a strong hand associated with it, and so he
had that. You know, this means that now imagine that
you didn't get to see the cards, you would have
no way of knowing if this was a signal of
strength or weakness, and the exact same thing might actually
(24:02):
signal very different outcomes, very different. You know, I'm being
lied to or this person and you know is telling
the truth, depending which kind of goes to point number two,
which is why it's so incredibly difficult to spot deception
in real life. Why, by the way, LIGHTE detector tests
are absolute bullshit, all of them. There's no good CIA FBI,
(24:27):
Like nobody has a good and actually accurate LE detector
because well, first of all, you can fake them. But secondly,
like you can tell if someone's stressed or nervous, right,
or if there's you know, something going on, if there's
cognitive load, but you have no access to why, right,
(24:48):
What is the why behind that? Am I stressed because
I'm lying? Or am I stressed because I'm telling the
truth and I'm afraid that you're not going to believe me? Right?
Or am I stressed because like I haven't gotten enough
sleep and this is a really.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Stressful situation if I am angry? Yeah? Or what were you? Exactly? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Exactly?
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Like I was like, so you're something, you bet you'll
put out whatever I'm betting seventy bucks, I put up
seven ten dollars chips or a fifty dollars chip, But
like if I'm like hungry and I have eaten, then
you can get like shaky hands, you like absolutely seventy bucks,
right y, because you don't want to like although honestly,
you know you can have reverse tels. Maybe you're a
little hungry and you know, and you like so you
(25:32):
kind of have some tremble. I mean they're like, I
do I do things. I don't have a little stitching
as a person. I'll do I do a little things
to mix it up. You know, I'm trying to be
unreadable and like because I'm like not like inherently a
very like still person, then maybe I tried to vary
things a little bit.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
Yeah, so that's so yeah. Number two like you really
don't know. Number three is something that you alluded to,
which is I think really really important when you're trying
to figure out, you know, how do I read this person,
whether it's at the poker table or not. And that's
you need a baseline of behavior to be able to
compare it to right. You need to know what this
(26:07):
person normally behaves like, which requires a ton of data
that frankly, you often don't have, right, which is why
I caution people a lot of the time not to
put too much stock in tells, whether it's at the
poker table or in a conversation where like, oh, I
think that guy's lying to me, right, do you know, like,
(26:29):
do you have a good baseline? Have you observed this
person in enough situations, in enough interactions where you know
what normal looks like so that you can tell what
deviation from normal looks like, and then do you have
feedback to know what that deviation means. So there's so
(26:49):
many steps that need to actually happen for you to
be able to make an actual read, which is why
when you see these meta analyzes and psychology of nonverbal
behavior usually you find that, you know, it's kind of
fifty to fifty right, that it's almost no better than chance.
And even if people can get better than chance, they
(27:10):
improve from like fifty percent to fifty four percent, right,
which sure four percents a lot, but it's still like
still incredibly noisy if you're trying.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
To know and also with a strategy, if you ignore
the bluffs or the tells for a second, right in
strategy in poker, I mean we all have some sense
for like empirically how the population plays. You're talking about
this before backstage, like, oh, this spot is underbluffed by
the player population overall. Therefore, if I buffed this spot,
people will fold a lot. But it feels like in
(27:43):
poker that can shift and adjust in different player populations,
and like, you know, look, one thing about having like
a capitalist, free market economy is like the market finds
a way. The market finds a way to exploit any loopholes,
to exploit any inefficiencies for better or worse. And the
same is true in poker that like, you know, look
right now, I'm probably you know, as a default, I'm
(28:04):
probably folding in a lot of spots because people probably
under bluff on average, right, unless there's like some type
of physical read or other read. Right, But if you
know that about me, then you can exploit the hell
out of me, you know, And so you have to
be constantly on your toes.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
Yeah, it's really interesting. One of the kind of first
things that I learned from Eric is that he would
never give me an answer to like how do I
play this hand in this situation, because he said, you know,
I can't tell you that because I'm not you. Right,
when people see me, they expect something, and when they
(28:41):
see you, they expect something else because you know, people
have biases, people have preconceptions about how different people play,
and you can probably get away with things that I
can't get away with. He's like, you know, if you
raise here, that looks so strong coming from you, right,
And the implication is, you know I'm female. I am
(29:03):
not you know, a world class ten bracelet whenever you know,
I'm a very different sort of player. And so when
I do something that, when I run a suicide bluff,
I get a fold. When somebody comes in, you know,
with sleeve tattoos and you know, a shaved head and
(29:26):
huge biceps and tries the exact same bluff, they're probably
going to get a call.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
Right, some of those huge bicep guys know exactly what
they're doing and they're putting their their false exactly. And
if you have some and being aware of life is
complicated and like I can get different. I mean you've
talked about written about because bluff. How like some men
want to beat the hell out of yeah women at
the table. Some want to be chivl risks and deferential. Right.
(29:51):
My version of that is, like I can have a
couple different stereotypes, like one is like, Okay, here is
a statistics nerd. He must be very tight and very straightforward.
The other is like, here's a guy who probably has
what do you say amount of money he's in this
is a hobby. He probably doesn't have some fun he
can afford the buyings he's splashing around, right, So, like people,
I can get bifcaate between like being seen as like
overly tight and overly loose and being very aware of
(30:14):
like your kind of microscopic like table image and things
like that, or like even what hat I wear, right, hat,
it's like wolf hat I sometimes wear that my partner hates, right,
but like that create some more aggressive image. You have
a Vegas Knight's hat that I sometimes wear, which is
like if you're playing in Vegas, it's like an old
man coffee local playing the game.
Speaker 3 (30:32):
Right.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
So like, even like wardrobe and things like that can
affect these perceptions.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
Yeah, absolutely absolutely, And I think we make judgments about
people all the time that are based on zero data.
And that's another reason why you know, spotting deception. Being
able to read people is so incredibly difficult because our
own baseline is incredibly biased. Right when you see anyone,
(30:56):
whether you know it or not, you are just constantly
like making judgments, judgments, judgments, judgments, and before they even
do anything. In poker, you do it before they play
a single hand. In real life, you do it before
you have a single conversation. Do you ever meet someone
and you're like, I don't like this person. You haven't
talked to them, and you're like, oh my god, this
person's just rubbing me the wrong way, right, And like
(31:19):
they might be perfectly nice and they haven't done anything,
and you might even end up liking them later, but like, yeah,
often you do, but like that initial reaction, like I
definitely have that like ooof yeah, And then and then
you have the opposite where like you're like, oh my god,
I love you. We're going to be best friends, right,
and then like by the end of the night, you're like,
go away please, Right, you are the most annoying human
(31:40):
I've ever met. But it goes in both ways. Both
times you make these subconscious judgments based on cues that
you probably don't even realize you're using. And it's because
we have years and years and years of experiences that
we're drawing on, right that make us who we are,
that are our own biases, our own perspectives, and that's why,
(32:04):
you know, reading people is hard in life and at
the poker table, and we're bad at it unless we
really really try to be empirically and data driven, which
again is difficult.
Speaker 4 (32:21):
And we'll be right back after this break, so.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
We'll see how well Nate controls some of his tells.
We are going to play a game called Lowden Thinks.
So what this game is is I, well, one person
it's going to be me this time, is going to
ask the Lawden who's going to be Nate, a question
(32:58):
which has a numerical answer. For instance, I could ask
him how many subway stops are there in New York City. Okay, Now,
the actual answers to this doesn't matter whatsoever. All that
matters is what Nate thinks it is. So Nate is
going to write his answer down. Don't write your answer
(33:18):
to this one, but for you have an estimate. Okay.
So Nate has an estimate. So he's going to write
it down so that we know that it's locked in
and that he's not lying, right. And then I'm going
to ask two people from the audience to come up,
and they are going to start kind of a bidding
war to try to figure out Nate's answers. So, for instance,
(33:42):
let's say it's the two of you ladies who are
coming up, and so you could say, you could say ten, right,
Nate thinks it's ten, and you would say ten's too low, right,
So you pick a number that's you are allowed to
say either under if you think it's under ten, or
pick another number. So you might be like ten, that's crazy,
(34:03):
fifty and you might be like, oh, fifty, that's crazy,
that's too high. Under. Basically, you keep going until one
person says under, and whoever gets closest to not the
real answer, but what Nate thinks the answer is is
the person who wins. So you know, let's say that
you had said two hundred and you had said under. Okay,
(34:26):
and Nate, what was your answer? All right?
Speaker 2 (34:31):
So you I think that's it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
Doesn't that's the point, right, it doesn't matter, So you
would have won because you said two hundred and you
had the under on two hundred. We don't care about
the actual answer, So your goal is not to immediately
start thinking about what is the answer to this. Your
goal is to think what does Nate think the answer is.
(34:58):
So you have to do everything we've talked about tonight.
You have to look at the world from Nate's perspective,
and you have to observe him, you know, observe his
tells because you know, if you had said, like hundred,
he'd probably give you a look like you're crazy. Or
maybe he's going to uh, you know, maybe he's going
to protect him his uh, his poker face. Yeah, his
range a little bit better than that. All right, So
(35:21):
can we have two volunteers from the audience to guess
our first a lotten question? We've got one hand back there, Yeah,
come on up, Yeah, you back there, and we need
a second. All right, up, you come all right. So
(35:44):
here's my question. How many podcasts are there in the
world right now?
Speaker 2 (35:52):
Can I ask for clarifying questions or no? How many podcasts?
Speaker 1 (35:59):
How many podcasts in the world? So Nate, let me
know when you've written down your answer and make sure, Okay,
I got it, you're locked in. All right? What's your name?
My name is Rob, and what's your name Roger? All right, Rob,
We're gonna start off the game with you, Rob. Why
don't you throw out a number? All right?
Speaker 3 (36:20):
Big m I'll say ten.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
Thousand, all right, Roger, are you gonna go over? Are
you gonna take the under? Over?
Speaker 2 (36:32):
All right?
Speaker 1 (36:32):
So what's your number?
Speaker 2 (36:34):
Twenty five? All right?
Speaker 1 (36:36):
Twenty five thousand, Rob, it's back to you, hess twenty five.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
I will I will match that.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
No, you can't match that. We're not sorry. You have to.
You have to either take a number that's higher or
say under. I'm gonna say thirty k. Okay, And remember, guys,
you need to be looking at Nate, not at me.
All right, So thirty k Roger? Are you? What are you?
(37:07):
What are you gonna do? Do you like thirty? Are
you under? Are you over? Oh? Look at Nate. He's
Nate's losing it over here, melting under pressure, a swearty guy.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
I have a better poker face, And.
Speaker 1 (37:27):
Alright, thirty five thousand, Rob, back to you. I'll go
under it, all right, Nate? What's your number?
Speaker 2 (37:36):
Three point six million? At right?
Speaker 1 (37:41):
All right, Roger, you win because you're closer, but you
are everyone is off by well, the two of you
are off by an order of magnitude from Nate's real guest.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
Do we know the real number?
Speaker 1 (37:52):
We do have the real number. I happen to look
it up because I wanted to know. Four point five million?
Speaker 2 (37:58):
Holy shit, pretty good might be an assasination thing.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
Guys, does everyone here have a podcast? Because it seems like, uh,
all right, we're gonna do We're gonna do. Do you
guys want one more shot?
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Can idem myself?
Speaker 1 (38:14):
Yes, yes, we're gonna do a re We're gonna do
a rematch because yeah, Rob wants a shot at redemption.
All right, let's take a shot. All right, So so
this one we'll do, uh, we'll do slightly non podcasting.
We'll pay uh respects to our venue. How many live
(38:39):
events does ludlow House host in a year.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
Of any kind?
Speaker 1 (38:45):
Many? Kind? No more clarifying questions leading the witness. You
got your number.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
I'm like, I'm like doing some deceptive shit, right, I
want people like you know, having reach side down. So
I'm trying to mix up.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
All right, we've got some We've got some deceptive tells.
All right, Rob, this one you start us off seven
and fifty All right, Roger under you're taking the under.
Oh well that was a short round of laden.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
Five fifty five. But what's the answer. This doesn't matter.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
The answer doesn't matter. This is what. I don't have
the answer too because it is not public. But as
far as I can tell, ludlow House does five to
six live events a week, so multiply that by okay,
maybe a little high, yeah, by fifty weeks.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
My justification was that as I was reading him, I
was like, I feel like he usually would aim high.
He did that with the how many podcasts were out
in the whole world.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
I like this, you're extrapolating, You're using available information, you
know what. I'm giving you an extra point for using
data in a good way. And so oh I'm getting
I'm getting booed. Apparently the audio the audience does not
like that. So Roger, congratulations, An I don't mean that
you are our London. Thanks champion, Thank you both so much.
(40:13):
Thank you for volunteering.
Speaker 3 (40:16):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
All right, we have time for a few questions. Yeah,
I just want to.
Speaker 3 (40:25):
Say, Maria, your book was the first book I read
when I started playing poker, and so really excited to
meet you.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
Thank you. I'm curious for you, guys.
Speaker 3 (40:34):
This is both a poker question while so out of
outside of poker, what do you think is the difference
between bias because you guys were talking about bias when
you're playing, and like the reputation reading the reputation of
someone at the table versus intuition, And do you feel
like intuition comes into play for you, like having cards,
sunds like, et cetera, or there's a big differentiation.
Speaker 1 (40:55):
That's that's a really great question. And I am someone
who people get mad at because I'm like, do not
follow your gut feeling. It's bullshit. So here's here's my rationale.
It's not always true. So humans have very strong gut feelings, right,
really strong intuitions, and our intuitions can be either true
(41:18):
or false. Right, they can be either correct or not.
When you study this and you actually kind of do
the psych experiments, it turns out that we are about
fifty to fifty at identifying correct from incorrect intuitions. So
we feel like they're equally valid either way. Right, We're
really really bad. Sometimes we think a correct one's wrong,
(41:39):
and sometimes we think a wrong one's correct at chance levels.
And so what I like to say is that the
data show that the intuitions that you can actually trust
are intuitions that aren't intuitions. They are deep expertise that
you don't necessarily have conscious access to how you know it.
(42:00):
So if you are an expert in this, right, if
you are someone who has you know, thousands and thousands
of hours of experience in this and like this is
really your area, then you might know something. Your brain
might be noticing patterns right there. I mean pattern recognition
going on that your conscious brain isn't aware of because
(42:21):
it's at a deeper level. So it feels like intuition
to you, but it's not. It's actually expertise that you've
worked really, really hard for. So the question you should
ask is is there a reason why I should know this? Right? Like?
Am I an expert in this field? Is this my domain?
Have I experienced this many many times before? And if
(42:42):
the answer is yes, then go for it, trust it.
If the answer is no, then rely on other things.
So what I would you know? Like in poker, I
would say, like if at the table, I think you know,
I think this person's bluffing, but I'm not sure why,
Versus if Eric's idell says, I think this person's bluffing,
but I'm not sure why. Trust Eric's intuition, don't trust mine.
(43:03):
Eric's been doing this shit since the eighties. Right, he's
a true expert. I'm not. And the funny thing is
when it comes to reading people, the theme of you
know this show, we all think we're experts because we
read people all the time, we make judgments all the time.
The problem is we don't know if we're right or not,
(43:24):
So it feels like expertise when it's not because you
don't get feedback. You're like, I think this person's lying, right,
I think this person's telling the truth. But you have
no idea, like you are constantly everyone thinks they're an
expert at reading people, but we don't, you know, unless
you're a poker player, or unless you're someone who constantly
gets feedback about whether your reads were correct or not,
you're a fake expert. Feels like expertise, but it's not.
Speaker 2 (43:47):
In terms of kind of like capital be biased. I'm
like not trying to be overly woke or anything, but
like making assumptions based on like race or gender doesn't
work for a one poker because people can like actually
take advantage of your expectation of them and therefore exploit you. Right, Absolutely,
age tells you a little bit more amateur versus professional
(44:10):
tells you a little bit more.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
Biggest bluffers I've ever encountered have been the like little
old men who you're like, oh, like he's so sweet,
he's not bluffing me.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
Yeah, it's like in your face because like and it
probably you know, these kind of older guys will probably
hire coaches or watch videos like I can get away
with impunity with like bluffing a lot, and so yeah,
I you know, any data you have when someone has
someone actually played a hand, right, it can be like
an old guy who's eighty five years old who looks
like he's senile. Right, if you catch him making some
(44:42):
huge bluff in the first hand he plays and like
that totally outweighs any priors that you had about about
his style.
Speaker 1 (44:49):
Of So always, when in doubt, use objective, observable data
and be very very skeptical of your gut unless you're
a true expert in it.
Speaker 2 (45:01):
Hi, my name is Julian. Great to mean you guys.
Speaker 5 (45:04):
My question is somewhat related, but it's essentially how do
you discern between making a re or observing a tell
that gives you an advantage versus falling for somebody trying
to deceive you with like a fake tell.
Speaker 1 (45:17):
It's a good question, and there's no there's no clear
cut answer, But I would say two things. One, despite
what Nate says, I would urge you all not to
try to throw fake tales. It's a very very risky proposition.
And normally fake tales give away way more than you
(45:38):
you know, than you're trying to. And I think that
the most you can try to do is just standardize
your behavior as much as possible. That's the advice that
I got from kind of a behavioral expert who coaches
poker players, is try to have a routine and follow
that same routine, because otherwise you're going to give off information.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
Now, it's true because like some tells can have the
reverse meaning based on very subtle distinctions. Right, Like you
bet someone takes a long time to make all on
the flop, right from like a truly novice player. We
both play like charity tournaments. Sometimes probably sincere they probably
are having trouble even reading the board telling how strong
their hand is. Right from like the next step upward,
(46:23):
then that might be deceiving you into betting again, right
and then beyond that, it's probably more random someone's liberately
randomizing or or whatever, but like knowing kind of what
level somebody is on and if they if they become
aware of something weird that occurs, right, you know, if
you become aware like so, like let's say that, like
(46:44):
you know, I have a hand where because it's I
haven't eaten in fifteen hours, right, my hand troubles a
little bit when I'm like making a bet. If I'm
aware of that, that will affect my play for the
rest of the hand. Like usually that's read as strength.
There are some players for which that's not true, right,
(47:05):
you know, sometimes stuck about reverse tells like can I
make myself kind of like fake tremble on command. I'm
not saying I've never tried that, you know what I mean.
But it's all very context driven, which is just like
human interaction. Right, The same statement can be ambiguous and
can mean five different things coming from five different people
or from the same person depending on the context who
they're speaking to. Very precise changes and wording and language
(47:29):
and things like that and facial expressions.
Speaker 6 (47:32):
Hi, We've spoke at the beginning about what you're comfortable with,
and I'm curious to know if you worry about the
slippery slope and how to keep a healthy boundary between
the things that you would consider to be acceptable, like
the bluffing being strategy and white lies with the pleasantries
going on versus going on to that deep end where
(47:53):
you know where is the line between that and then
suddenly in your day to day carrying it over too
much and losing track of what is a good lie,
so to speak, versus a bad lie where the con
people are.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
Yeah, I mean, I just try not to lie, to
be perfectly honest. You know. My next book that I'm
working on right now is about cheating in games, and
you know, being around kind of that sort of deceptive
behavior just gives me such awareness of how costly it
(48:25):
is and of how costly it is for society that
I've become more truthful as I've delved into that research,
because I just want to like distinguish myself as much
as possible from the people that I'm researching, because you
see what the social cost is right of people taking cheating,
(48:48):
you know, taking taking the rules of the game and
breaking them and bending them and being unsportsmenlike in their behavior.
So yeah, I think that there's really no slippery slope,
like in the sense that if I'm playing a game
like poker, you know, all bluff, it's a game, and
(49:08):
then I'm done playing the game. And I have zero
tolerance for angle shooting, which is something that's technically not cheating,
but is bending the rules right, So it's doing something
that's like a little underhanded, right to the to the
edge of actually like being caught out for cheating. Like
I hate that there are some players who say that
it's acceptable strategy, right, if it's within the rules and
(49:32):
it helps me win, I'm going to do it, And
I think that's gross. So, like I I think it's
made me less tolerant of all borderline behaviors.
Speaker 2 (49:42):
Yeah, I think ironically. I mean, like often the saddest
things you see at a poker table where there's someone
who just shouldn't be playing, often comes at the at
the lower stakes king. And it's also by the way,
we often experience the most like abusive behavior. Do you
speak up if are you a see something, say something?
Speaker 1 (49:57):
Yeah, I always because I have been abused myself at
the poker table as a female. You know, I'm usually
a very easy target, and especially when I just started
out playing you know, and nobody knew who I was,
and I was playing kind of lower stakes at kind
of these really kind of low end casinos. Like I
experienced a lot of abuse, and as I've kind of
(50:22):
grown in the game and kind of made my way
in it so that I'm a recognizable face and I
feel more comfortable there, I want to make sure to
use my voice to protect people. So if there's bad
behavior against other players, against dealers, against floor staff, I
will absolutely say something and call it out there. There
(50:45):
are a few poker players who hate me because I've
like I've called the floor on them and have told
them that what they were doing was not funny.
Speaker 2 (50:53):
Yeah, that's one thing you learned too, is like, because
people can be quiet and low key, right, but like,
I know lots of shit about people, I'm not saying
anything about, right, And the same is true and reverse,
especially if you are like kind of like a public
figure who's known both for poker and for non poker things.
But beware, the people are being very observant about what
you're doing too, and this s park people probably aren't
saying anything about it. There's some tactical advantage from remaining
(51:17):
quiet about it yep right.
Speaker 1 (51:20):
Well, thank you all so much for joining this live
taping of Risky Business. It was an absolute pleasure of
having you all here. I hope that you feel more
comfortable about reading tells and especially about reading Nate Silver.
And when it comes to a lot of thanks, thank
you all.
Speaker 2 (51:37):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (51:47):
Let us know what you think of the show. Reach
out to us at Risky Business at pushkin dot FM.
Risky Business is hosted by me Maria Kanakova.
Speaker 2 (51:56):
And by me Nate Silver. The show was a whole
production of Pushing Industries and iHeartMedia. This episode was produced
by Isaa Carter. Our associate producer is Sonya gerwit Lydia,
Jean Kott and Daphne Chen are our our editors, and
our executive producer is Jacob Goldstein. Mixing by Sarah Bruger.
Speaker 1 (52:15):
If you like the show, please rate and review us
so other people can find us too, But once again,
only if you like us. We don't want those bad
reviews out there. Thanks for tuning in.
Pushkin. Welcome back to Risky Business, a show about making
better decisions. I'm Maria Kanakova.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
And I'm Nate Silver.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
He is Nate Silver.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
You often like crack up during can but like, yeah,
we're not going to do that to time.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Today We're going to be straight faced. So today on
the show, we have a really fun live show for you.
Today we're going to be talking about reading people, the
art of tell's deception, bluffing, and all all of that
fun stuff. And after we kind of lay the groundwork,
you guys better be paying really close attention because we'll
(01:02):
be having people come up here to demonstrate how much
you've learned about the art of greeting people.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
It's a five hundred dollar our entry fee. It's on
the back of your ticket.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
So, Nate, you and I have just come back from
Las Vegas, where we were both playing in the North
American Poker Tour Famous Any Famous, Famous NAPT And you
know poker and life are our games where there's bluffing. Nate,
(01:34):
how are you at bluffing? How are you at bluffing
and poker? And how are you at bluffing in life
which might otherwise be known as lying?
Speaker 2 (01:43):
I think I'm a pretty good bluffer in poker, both
kind of understanding like the game theory behind win to
bluff and also like kind of have a few tricks
to like pull things off right ironically in like real life,
I kind of I kind of been very bad at
lying in real life. I think my partner's here tonight,
so you can confirm or deny that potentially. But no,
(02:05):
I get very uncomfortable with you know, who is it
like a lie takes too much work? Right? Kind lazy? No,
It's like even things like like so when I was
hiring people at five thirty eight, were with at Disney, right, like,
what's the kind of the long term stability of this company?
At the ABC News ESPN, I be like, I don't
really know. You know, I'm under contract for a couple
(02:26):
of years and we'll see what happens and so like.
But I'm very comfortable, like in any type of negotiation
or relationship, like I don't think it serves people certainly
when purpose in the long run to kind of like
form a relationship on false pretenses because it gets discovered
later on. Right. No, So I'm an honest person mostly
out of like laziness in real life, but in the
(02:48):
context of poker. You know, poker would not exist without bluffing.
That's what makes poker poker. I don't consider bluffing in
poker to be lying. Also, when people, you know, people
ask you, oh, what did you have? Right, so people
are like, oh, if you actually ask a question, they
won't like literally lie, I will, I will, I will
lie my ass off, but like of what my ham was?
(03:10):
I think it's like part of the game, but only
a game. How about you are you Are you a bluffer? Maria?
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Well, you know, I when people ask me like, oh,
you know, you wrote a book about con artists and
now you're a poker player, so you're basically doing that.
And I want to say no, absolutely not, because, as
you say, poker is a game and bluffing is part
of it, right, It's actually part of the rules. So
everyone expects you to not tell the truth to bluff.
(03:37):
That is one of the strategic elements of the game.
Con Artists lie when they're supposed to be telling the truth.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Right.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Part of the rules of life is that we can
trust each other, Right, you can trust me, I can
trust you. We're not going to lie to each other
when we see each other. And in fact, there's actually
a lot of psychology that shows that humans have evolved
for truthful relationships, not for deception, and that kind of
(04:06):
trust is the default option. So in lots of study
where you have people play all sorts of games. So
we talk a lot about game theory on the show,
and there are lots of games where you start off
where you can either kind of cooperate or defect. Right,
you can play by the rules, or you can cheat,
you can lie. And it turns out that more often
than not, like in the absence of any kind of
(04:28):
incentive or pressure to the contrary, people start off cooperating
and they start off in a very trusting stance, and
that's actually, like, to me, that's really great, right, that's
a very like hopeful thing for humanity, and societies with
high levels of trust tend to do better. And you know,
the reason that humans are actually pretty bad at spotting
(04:50):
deception is that most people don't lie every day, right,
And it's evolutionarily beneficial to just assume people are telling
the truth. If you always thought everyone was lying like that,
that ain't a good That ain't a good place to do.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Like in like small communities. Then there's a reputational cast.
I'm not that you know gto about it. It's like
a reputational cost to lying or bad behavior, right, but
it varies lot by society. I was with my partner
and a friend in Korea for New Year's We were
like shopping one day in some very busy area, and
the shopkeeper at this very nice, busy shop went to
(05:27):
get lunch, right, and he just kind of leaves, he
leaves a door open. He's like, I'll be back in
ten minutes. I'm grabbing some lunch, right, And like you
could totally shoplift like whatever you want it because it's
such a high trust society there that like there might
be CCTV or whatever else. But like you take Marian,
I'm not a I stole. I will say I.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
Stole Confessions of Risky Business.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
I stole taco Bell from the University of Chicago cafeteria
one time, right. But the reason was because like the
line to check out, It's like it was like they
had like a pizza hut and a taco Bell and
some other shitty era Mark concessions, right, and it was
like a fifteen minute line to check out. I'm like,
I'm you know, it's worth running the risk of getting
caught dealing tacos if you have to wait fifteen minutes
(06:11):
to check out.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
All right, University of Chicago. Next time they bought, they
caught you. Yeah, so what happened? What were the repercussions hearing?
Speaker 2 (06:22):
And I don't know. It was the first offense, so
they let me off, basically, but I'm.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
So glad they let you graduate. And you know, we
wouldn't be sitting here otherwise. But but yeah, so so
to go back to your kind of original question, I
don't really you know, I don't think that I'm particularly
good at lying in real life because I really don't.
Now I tell white lies, and I think we all
tell white lies, which is one reason another reason why
(06:47):
we're so bad at spotting deception. Can you imagine what
would happen if you were able to tell every single
time someone said a white lie to you, Like, just
just think about it, right, Like it's so good to
see you.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Yeah, yeah, well I love it. I love that you
look great, but like, like, look.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
You know, if you have loved that baseball cafe.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Yea, thank you, marry that. If you have a friend
who cancels plans because they're sick. Maybe they're actually sick, right, Yeah,
maybe they're having a really bad day, right, Maybe the
fling of their life unexpectedly came into town. Right, maybe
who knows, right, But like you don't need to be
brutally honest, Like I'm not a big believer in like
(07:34):
I think people are like, oh, radical transparency about everything.
It's like you don't understand like the subtlety and like
the density of like human communication. Actually, one thing I
think you learned from AI models arts language models is
like how laden with density, like word choices are and
terns of phrase are and the particular analogy or allegory
that you might use, right, Because you're often trying to
(07:55):
communicate with like multiple people at once. Right, You're trying
to say one you're dog whistling to some group of people,
and you're saying you coming different things to different people.
It's often kind of less subtle than people think if
you consider like political communication example, But like language is
a very rich medium and a very like strategic medium.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Yeah, absolutely, And when you're communicating, And this is something
that you really learn in poker, is that language is
nonverbal too, right, when you kind of go from the
real life arena to kind of the arena something like games.
I used to be absolutely horrible at bluffing as well,
(08:34):
because I'm so uncomfortable lying right, and I felt really
and I felt really anxious and nervous when when I bluffed,
and if I got caught bluffing, I was like, oh, no, right,
I got cop bluffing. Where of course, the kind of
the common wisdom is that if you're never caught bluffing,
you're not bluffing enough. Right. It's part of the game.
(08:54):
You're you're supposed to be cop bluffing. Sometimes you're supposed
to bluff a lot. And what ended up actually helping
me and getting me kind of over the hump to
where I could start bluffing more successfully is when I
stopped thinking of it as deception and started thinking of
it as, oh, like, I understand the game better now,
and this is actually the correct move for me to make, right,
(09:17):
It is one of my strategic choices, and in this
particular moment, this is the proper strategy. And so it
you know, you were talking before about how you tell
the truth in real life, because it's just you're lazy, Well,
deception does create cognitive load, So it creates a lot
of kind of tension and extra overhead kind of inside
(09:38):
your brain. And because you have to kind of try
to think, does my story make sense? Right? Am I
being consistent? Is it logical? And you have to try
to think, oh, am I giving off anything? Right? Can
people tell? Like there's there's just a lot that starts happening.
So if you stop thinking of it as you know,
as a lie, you can actually reduce the cognitive load
(10:01):
and just say, Okay, this is how I should be
playing right.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Now, I'm like sometimes more comfortable bluffing than I am
with a strong man, right, which is a little Karen intuitive.
It might give you some reverse to but like the
way I look at it, Maria, is when I bet,
I'm saying I have a range of hands, right, I'm saying, Look,
I'm betting I might have some good hands. I might
have some bad hands. I don't want you to know
either way, right, I want to keep you guessing either way.
That's an honest statement of like my range of hands.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
So the reason I have I have my phone up
here for several reasons, but one of them is because
so we just got back from the NAPT and I
love that Natel said he feels more comfortable bluffing than
he does telling the truth. Because I got a message.
Oh yeah. So I have a substack called the Leap,
and one of my paid subscribers was at NAPT playing
(10:47):
and he played with Nate, and so I come home
to this message from him. You know, hi, Maria, it
was a nice meeting. Again. I had a great time
this trip despite not cashing. Please tell Nate that he
still bluffs too much. Oh no, So then I go,
I go, ha ha ha. I'll make sure to tell him.
(11:08):
And then he continues, and he says, I only saw
one big bluff that was caught by a pair on
a missed flush draw board. But from his past interviews
I learned about his high bluff frequency, which someone else
may have used at the table. I'm sure Nate's a
better player than man. Doesn't need my advice, but I'm
(11:29):
giving it to you anyway. So do you remember this hand.
Apparently some you know, someone noticed that you were bluffing
too much, Nate. How did you do in that tournament?
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Nate, Maria, So I write, So we're doing a little
thing with with Sam Greenwood runs a blog called pen
of the Day. So I wrote down for this whole
week of poker all my questionably played in hands. There
were quite a few, if we're being honest, right, but
like probably the three hands that I believe were the
worst plays or hands where I didn't bluff where I
(11:59):
should have. Right, it's like counterintuitive how often you actually
are supposed to bluff? Yeah, in poker, because it does
feel like really bad when you bluffing at caught. It
doesn't feel that bad when you have you have a
big value hand, When you have like a full house
or a flush or a straight and you bet and
you don't get called, right, then it's like, oh, okay,
(12:20):
well you know you didn't have anything you didn't pay off.
But if you don't bluff enough then you won't get
paid off as much. And so no, I think I
probably still I think I'm like, I bluff more than
the stereotyped version of Nate you have might assume, But
I probably still under bluff relative to game theory or
how often in practice it could probably could probably get
(12:41):
away with it.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Did you have any bluffs that you're very proud of?
Because I actually so this was a very good series
for me, and I had one bluff in particular that
I'm very proud of that actually enabled me to do
really well in the tournament that I did really well in.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
So some bluffs I like are where you make like
so empirically certain lines are underutilized. Right, So one bluff
I like is like often when people make like a
small bet, then the representing like a you know, oactch
have a me yocre ham, it's better than your hand, right,
I have top pair with a bad kicker or a
bad flesh or second pair, and you probably don't have
(13:17):
top pair given the way the hand was played out,
and then make like.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Small people who don't play poker. These are all like
second best hands.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
So the second where like I think my hand is
just like slightly better than you are. I love making small,
yep bluffs that are very cheap with hands I can
represent like second best hands trying to get a little value,
and they're very cheap, you know what I mean. I
made a bluff in a limit game, which is hard
to do. I was playing like some seven card stood
(13:44):
eight or better, right, and like I had a great draw.
Speaker 4 (13:47):
I could get a low or high or whatever.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
And I and I missed everything right, and the guy
bet and I'm I raise just like just raising, like
he's getting like fifteen to one, right, he has to
be right one out of fifteen times for his bluff
to right, and he folds the whole pot.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Right.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
I scooped the pot with a bluff, So that felt good, Maria.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Yeah, those are those are actually very smart bluffs when
you when you just bluff a little bit because it
seems like you want people to call you right. My
bluff that ended up working, though, was the very opposite.
I was out of position, so I was in the
big blind. So for people who don't play poker, being
out of position is not good, right, because you always
(14:25):
act first and the person you're playing with act second
and in everything. But also like when you're talking about
tells and reading people, you want more information, right, The
more information the better, and so getting to go second
is a huge advantage. And so I was out of
position against a player who's a very good player this
(14:46):
whole hand, and I had jack ten, you know, really
nice hand was suited. You know, I had a straight
draw and I just then ended up having a flush draw. Anyway,
I bricked everything but there were two different flush draws
on the board, and he bet, he raised, you know,
(15:08):
pre flop, he bet flop, he bet turned and then
the river comes, it completes the wrong flush, not mine,
and I have nothing and the pot is huge, and
I did something very unorthodox, and I just shoved before
he had a chance to act, so I took the
momentum from him, and he ended up folding. It was
(15:28):
very funny because this is a spot that people don't
bluff very often, right when the board changes so much,
because it's kind of suicidal to run that bluff. But
my suicidal bluff worked, and it felt really good because
I think that past me would not have been able
to do something like that, because once again, bluffing and
lying are two very different things. And this is also
(15:51):
where nonverbal tells come into play a little bit, because,
you know, something about his behavior made me think that
he had been trying to bully me out of the
hand for a long time, and so I was using
that as well to kind of inform my kind of
(16:11):
my thinking that maybe his hand was not so strong
that he'd feel compelled to call.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Yeah, I'm a big believer in nonverbal tells and kind
of it often. I mean there are sometimes specific things
I'm not sure when you have way too many secrets,
but it's more often kind of like an overall vibe.
I've Maria, I've kind of become a you can play
with me, like at the same table in a while,
become like a little bit more of a speech play
guy where I'll like, I'll like talk to people, especially Europeans.
(16:38):
The Europeans play poker are like they're very quiet, right,
I'm like, where are you from? You know which part
of Belli? They're usually from Belgium? Like which part of
Belgium are you from? Just kind of see if people
are comfortable or not, and like, you know, it's kind
of if you're if you're considering, Like let's say it's
a spot where like a player bets big on the river,
he might be bluffing. I'm not planning on rebraising either
(16:58):
because I'm all in any way, or or I'm not
going to raise right, and like you kind of get
free info just by talking to people. But it's an
overall kind of aura or vibe and like it's not
something mysterious, just like we are. We have like human interactions, right,
Like in real life, you hopefully have intuition for when
you're being deceived. For example, one is like when someone's
(17:21):
not telling the full story, and like, yeah, and poker,
you just kind of developed like this implicit database of
like semantics and signals, and you'd be like foolish, like
not to account for that. I don't think.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Yeah, I always like to talk to people, and I
think the reason that it works. I don't do it
for tells, but I do it, you know, because it
actually does help me later on. And this is the
journalist in me, right, Like I'm genuinely curious to find
out why people are there, what are they doing, what
(17:54):
are their motivations? You know, why are you playing this event?
Did you come? You know? Are you a professional? Are
you here because your wife gave you a present? Because
you've wanted to play this event forever? All of this
is information, right, All of this tells you something about
people and something that poker has really made me good at,
which you know, it's funny because you think of it
(18:14):
as kind of this cutthroat game, but it's actually made
me a much better listener, right, It's made me someone
who's much more attuned to the signals that other people
give out because I mean at the poker table, it
can help me take your money, but it also like
it's rewarded. Right, When you truly listen to other people,
(18:36):
you are able to understand where they're coming from, take
their perspective, which humans are really bad at doing. Right. Normally,
when we think we're taking someone else's perspective, what we're
doing is taking our perspective and lumping it onto the
other person. And we're like, oh, I know exactly what
you're thinking. It's what I would be thinking if I
(18:57):
were in your shoes, And that's usually completely wrong. Right,
we're so ego centric and to be able to kind
of actually take a step back and figure out, wait, no,
this is what they would be thinking because they've told
me more about themselves. It helps you strategically, but then
it helps you in real life just be a better person.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
No.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
One of the best pieces of poker advice I've listened
to you recently. I think he's from Hungry Horse Poker.
I think his name is Mark Goon, a good YouTuber. Right,
he's like, remember thinking about the poker world from the
opponent's point of view, right, like putting yourself in the
other player's shoes and like what's bothering them? Yeah, especially
for for amateur players, right, one thing you see all
(19:41):
the time and like big events like the main event
or other big events. The World Sairs of Poker is
like some guy comes in. He won his kind of
like local home game tournament. His friends bought him in
for tank the World Series of Poker. It's some prize
from some series they have, right, And you can like
kind of pinpoint the moment where something like I want
to play tight, gonna play solid, Right, you can like
pinpoint the moment when they kind of were like, shit,
(20:02):
this isn't working, right, they panic a little bit. Some
of these are more obvious. So I played a cash
game at the BLA show last night. I'm my way
out of town.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
This is true dgen behavior.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Guys would write football. There was a guy and now
we get into gendered stereotypes. Right, there was a guy
who had his like his girlfriend sitting directly behind him
making faces about every hand. I'm like, this guy probably
is not bluffing old punch right when like when it
(20:33):
was like his girlfriend's they are like approving it is
from them. Is like play in every hair like i'd be.
You know, he's not bluffing like ever, right, don't think so, Nate.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
The funny thing is it turns out that we humans
are remarkably good at controlling our faces. Right, We are
really good at poker faces. If you want to look
at nonverbal behavior, if you want to look at tells,
if you want to figure out is this person bluffing
in the case of poker or lying deceiving me in
(21:04):
the case of day to day interactions, looking at their
face is the wrong place to look.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
Look.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
There are lots of studies that show that basically our
faces give almost nothing away because we're so incredibly used
to controlling them. Right, that's the one thing you're always
thinking about, Like poker face, right am, I giving anything away?
That's something that most people are actually really, really good at.
But what you're not used to controlling is the rest
(21:30):
of your body. Right. You don't realize that you're leaking
information through your posture, through your hands, through your feet,
through all of these other things. That's where people should
be staring.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
No, it's it's the hands.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
It's the hands. Yes, anyone who's read the biggest bluff,
I have a whole chapter about the hands.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
It's the pulse. Often. I mean, I find a guy
in the main event that the World series where like
like literally had like a real time heart rate monitor
hook up to him, where like he just had this
thing where like his heart was beating his neck. If
you have that happen, it can happen to people temporarily
or permanently. We're like we're a skyrif wear like a
sweatshirt or something. Right, But like it was very correlated,
Like I knew because he made it. We just you know, look,
(22:10):
you pick up a whole vocabulary just based on having
a lot of reps doing these things. Right, he was
already making mannerisms that I associate with having like a
very strong hand. In this case, he had aces and
you saw his heartbeat and saw, Okay, here's a guy
where his heartbeat beats faster when he has his strong hand, right,
which is not true for everybody. Some people are the opposite.
(22:30):
And so like now, like I basically know is like
hand strength for the rest of the day, Like that's
a huge advantage that explicit is rare, but like, yeah,
it's often kind of like also watching people before you
get into big moments in the hand, right, because once
they're locked in, then they're self conscious. Like what you're
trying to figure out too, is like, okay, somebody makes
an action. Was that conscious? Was it unconscious? If it
(22:54):
was unconscious to them, become aware. Oh I took a
little bit a while to make that call. That might
look weak or it might look strong, depending on context.
It's all. It's like regular language, right, it's all. It's
all very contextual. They said that might be strong and
one context might be weak. In other context. You're trying
to like paint a semantic portrait.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
We'll be back right after this. So there's kind of
three bigger picture psych things here that I want to
kind of draw out. So first, the reason that Nate
was able to use some of this information is because
(23:38):
he had immediate feedback, which we normally don't have in life. Right,
He saw that pulse and then he saw that there
was a strong hand associated with it, and so he
had that. You know, this means that now imagine that
you didn't get to see the cards, you would have
no way of knowing if this was a signal of
strength or weakness, and the exact same thing might actually
(24:02):
signal very different outcomes, very different. You know, I'm being
lied to or this person and you know is telling
the truth, depending which kind of goes to point number two,
which is why it's so incredibly difficult to spot deception
in real life. Why, by the way, LIGHTE detector tests
are absolute bullshit, all of them. There's no good CIA FBI,
(24:27):
Like nobody has a good and actually accurate LE detector
because well, first of all, you can fake them. But secondly,
like you can tell if someone's stressed or nervous, right,
or if there's you know, something going on, if there's
cognitive load, but you have no access to why, right,
(24:48):
What is the why behind that? Am I stressed because
I'm lying? Or am I stressed because I'm telling the
truth and I'm afraid that you're not going to believe me? Right?
Or am I stressed because like I haven't gotten enough
sleep and this is a really.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Stressful situation if I am angry? Yeah? Or what were you? Exactly? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Exactly?
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Like I was like, so you're something, you bet you'll
put out whatever I'm betting seventy bucks, I put up
seven ten dollars chips or a fifty dollars chip, But
like if I'm like hungry and I have eaten, then
you can get like shaky hands, you like absolutely seventy bucks,
right y, because you don't want to like although honestly,
you know you can have reverse tels. Maybe you're a
little hungry and you know, and you like so you
(25:32):
kind of have some tremble. I mean they're like, I
do I do things. I don't have a little stitching
as a person. I'll do I do a little things
to mix it up. You know, I'm trying to be
unreadable and like because I'm like not like inherently a
very like still person, then maybe I tried to vary
things a little bit.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
Yeah, so that's so yeah. Number two like you really
don't know. Number three is something that you alluded to,
which is I think really really important when you're trying
to figure out, you know, how do I read this person,
whether it's at the poker table or not. And that's
you need a baseline of behavior to be able to
compare it to right. You need to know what this
(26:07):
person normally behaves like, which requires a ton of data
that frankly, you often don't have, right, which is why
I caution people a lot of the time not to
put too much stock in tells, whether it's at the
poker table or in a conversation where like, oh, I
think that guy's lying to me, right, do you know, like,
(26:29):
do you have a good baseline? Have you observed this
person in enough situations, in enough interactions where you know
what normal looks like so that you can tell what
deviation from normal looks like, and then do you have
feedback to know what that deviation means. So there's so
(26:49):
many steps that need to actually happen for you to
be able to make an actual read, which is why
when you see these meta analyzes and psychology of nonverbal
behavior usually you find that, you know, it's kind of
fifty to fifty right, that it's almost no better than chance.
And even if people can get better than chance, they
(27:10):
improve from like fifty percent to fifty four percent, right,
which sure four percents a lot, but it's still like
still incredibly noisy if you're trying.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
To know and also with a strategy, if you ignore
the bluffs or the tells for a second, right in
strategy in poker, I mean we all have some sense
for like empirically how the population plays. You're talking about
this before backstage, like, oh, this spot is underbluffed by
the player population overall. Therefore, if I buffed this spot,
people will fold a lot. But it feels like in
(27:43):
poker that can shift and adjust in different player populations,
and like, you know, look, one thing about having like
a capitalist, free market economy is like the market finds
a way. The market finds a way to exploit any loopholes,
to exploit any inefficiencies for better or worse. And the
same is true in poker that like, you know, look
right now, I'm probably you know, as a default, I'm
(28:04):
probably folding in a lot of spots because people probably
under bluff on average, right, unless there's like some type
of physical read or other read. Right, But if you
know that about me, then you can exploit the hell
out of me, you know, And so you have to
be constantly on your toes.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
Yeah, it's really interesting. One of the kind of first
things that I learned from Eric is that he would
never give me an answer to like how do I
play this hand in this situation, because he said, you know,
I can't tell you that because I'm not you. Right,
when people see me, they expect something, and when they
(28:41):
see you, they expect something else because you know, people
have biases, people have preconceptions about how different people play,
and you can probably get away with things that I
can't get away with. He's like, you know, if you
raise here, that looks so strong coming from you, right,
And the implication is, you know I'm female. I am
(29:03):
not you know, a world class ten bracelet whenever you know,
I'm a very different sort of player. And so when
I do something that, when I run a suicide bluff,
I get a fold. When somebody comes in, you know,
with sleeve tattoos and you know, a shaved head and
(29:26):
huge biceps and tries the exact same bluff, they're probably
going to get a call.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
Right, some of those huge bicep guys know exactly what
they're doing and they're putting their their false exactly. And
if you have some and being aware of life is
complicated and like I can get different. I mean you've
talked about written about because bluff. How like some men
want to beat the hell out of yeah women at
the table. Some want to be chivl risks and deferential. Right.
(29:51):
My version of that is, like I can have a
couple different stereotypes, like one is like, Okay, here is
a statistics nerd. He must be very tight and very straightforward.
The other is like, here's a guy who probably has
what do you say amount of money he's in this
is a hobby. He probably doesn't have some fun he
can afford the buyings he's splashing around, right, So, like people,
I can get bifcaate between like being seen as like
overly tight and overly loose and being very aware of
(30:14):
like your kind of microscopic like table image and things
like that, or like even what hat I wear, right, hat,
it's like wolf hat I sometimes wear that my partner hates, right,
but like that create some more aggressive image. You have
a Vegas Knight's hat that I sometimes wear, which is
like if you're playing in Vegas, it's like an old
man coffee local playing the game.
Speaker 3 (30:32):
Right.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
So like, even like wardrobe and things like that can
affect these perceptions.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
Yeah, absolutely absolutely, And I think we make judgments about
people all the time that are based on zero data.
And that's another reason why you know, spotting deception. Being
able to read people is so incredibly difficult because our
own baseline is incredibly biased. Right when you see anyone,
(30:56):
whether you know it or not, you are just constantly
like making judgments, judgments, judgments, judgments, and before they even
do anything. In poker, you do it before they play
a single hand. In real life, you do it before
you have a single conversation. Do you ever meet someone
and you're like, I don't like this person. You haven't
talked to them, and you're like, oh my god, this
person's just rubbing me the wrong way, right, And like
(31:19):
they might be perfectly nice and they haven't done anything,
and you might even end up liking them later, but like, yeah,
often you do, but like that initial reaction, like I
definitely have that like ooof yeah, And then and then
you have the opposite where like you're like, oh my god,
I love you. We're going to be best friends, right,
and then like by the end of the night, you're like,
go away please, Right, you are the most annoying human
(31:40):
I've ever met. But it goes in both ways. Both
times you make these subconscious judgments based on cues that
you probably don't even realize you're using. And it's because
we have years and years and years of experiences that
we're drawing on, right that make us who we are,
that are our own biases, our own perspectives, and that's why,
(32:04):
you know, reading people is hard in life and at
the poker table, and we're bad at it unless we
really really try to be empirically and data driven, which
again is difficult.
Speaker 4 (32:21):
And we'll be right back after this break, so.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
We'll see how well Nate controls some of his tells.
We are going to play a game called Lowden Thinks.
So what this game is is I, well, one person
it's going to be me this time, is going to
ask the Lawden who's going to be Nate, a question
(32:58):
which has a numerical answer. For instance, I could ask
him how many subway stops are there in New York City. Okay, Now,
the actual answers to this doesn't matter whatsoever. All that
matters is what Nate thinks it is. So Nate is
going to write his answer down. Don't write your answer
(33:18):
to this one, but for you have an estimate. Okay.
So Nate has an estimate. So he's going to write
it down so that we know that it's locked in
and that he's not lying, right. And then I'm going
to ask two people from the audience to come up,
and they are going to start kind of a bidding
war to try to figure out Nate's answers. So, for instance,
(33:42):
let's say it's the two of you ladies who are
coming up, and so you could say, you could say ten, right,
Nate thinks it's ten, and you would say ten's too low, right,
So you pick a number that's you are allowed to
say either under if you think it's under ten, or
pick another number. So you might be like ten, that's crazy,
(34:03):
fifty and you might be like, oh, fifty, that's crazy,
that's too high. Under. Basically, you keep going until one
person says under, and whoever gets closest to not the
real answer, but what Nate thinks the answer is is
the person who wins. So you know, let's say that
you had said two hundred and you had said under. Okay,
(34:26):
and Nate, what was your answer? All right?
Speaker 2 (34:31):
So you I think that's it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
Doesn't that's the point, right, it doesn't matter, So you
would have won because you said two hundred and you
had the under on two hundred. We don't care about
the actual answer, So your goal is not to immediately
start thinking about what is the answer to this. Your
goal is to think what does Nate think the answer is.
(34:58):
So you have to do everything we've talked about tonight.
You have to look at the world from Nate's perspective,
and you have to observe him, you know, observe his
tells because you know, if you had said, like hundred,
he'd probably give you a look like you're crazy. Or
maybe he's going to uh, you know, maybe he's going
to protect him his uh, his poker face. Yeah, his
range a little bit better than that. All right, So
(35:21):
can we have two volunteers from the audience to guess
our first a lotten question? We've got one hand back there, Yeah,
come on up, Yeah, you back there, and we need
a second. All right, up, you come all right. So
(35:44):
here's my question. How many podcasts are there in the
world right now?
Speaker 2 (35:52):
Can I ask for clarifying questions or no? How many podcasts?
Speaker 1 (35:59):
How many podcasts in the world? So Nate, let me
know when you've written down your answer and make sure, Okay,
I got it, you're locked in. All right? What's your name?
My name is Rob, and what's your name Roger? All right, Rob,
We're gonna start off the game with you, Rob. Why
don't you throw out a number? All right?
Speaker 3 (36:20):
Big m I'll say ten.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
Thousand, all right, Roger, are you gonna go over? Are
you gonna take the under? Over?
Speaker 2 (36:32):
All right?
Speaker 1 (36:32):
So what's your number?
Speaker 2 (36:34):
Twenty five? All right?
Speaker 1 (36:36):
Twenty five thousand, Rob, it's back to you, hess twenty five.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
I will I will match that.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
No, you can't match that. We're not sorry. You have to.
You have to either take a number that's higher or
say under. I'm gonna say thirty k. Okay, And remember, guys,
you need to be looking at Nate, not at me.
All right, So thirty k Roger? Are you? What are you?
(37:07):
What are you gonna do? Do you like thirty? Are
you under? Are you over? Oh? Look at Nate. He's
Nate's losing it over here, melting under pressure, a swearty guy.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
I have a better poker face, And.
Speaker 1 (37:27):
Alright, thirty five thousand, Rob, back to you. I'll go
under it, all right, Nate? What's your number?
Speaker 2 (37:36):
Three point six million? At right?
Speaker 1 (37:41):
All right, Roger, you win because you're closer, but you
are everyone is off by well, the two of you
are off by an order of magnitude from Nate's real guest.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
Do we know the real number?
Speaker 1 (37:52):
We do have the real number. I happen to look
it up because I wanted to know. Four point five million?
Speaker 2 (37:58):
Holy shit, pretty good might be an assasination thing.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
Guys, does everyone here have a podcast? Because it seems like, uh,
all right, we're gonna do We're gonna do. Do you
guys want one more shot?
Speaker 2 (38:13):
Can idem myself?
Speaker 1 (38:14):
Yes, yes, we're gonna do a re We're gonna do
a rematch because yeah, Rob wants a shot at redemption.
All right, let's take a shot. All right, So so
this one we'll do, uh, we'll do slightly non podcasting.
We'll pay uh respects to our venue. How many live
(38:39):
events does ludlow House host in a year.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
Of any kind?
Speaker 1 (38:45):
Many? Kind? No more clarifying questions leading the witness. You
got your number.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
I'm like, I'm like doing some deceptive shit, right, I
want people like you know, having reach side down. So
I'm trying to mix up.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
All right, we've got some We've got some deceptive tells.
All right, Rob, this one you start us off seven
and fifty All right, Roger under you're taking the under.
Oh well that was a short round of laden.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
Five fifty five. But what's the answer. This doesn't matter.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
The answer doesn't matter. This is what. I don't have
the answer too because it is not public. But as
far as I can tell, ludlow House does five to
six live events a week, so multiply that by okay,
maybe a little high, yeah, by fifty weeks.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
My justification was that as I was reading him, I
was like, I feel like he usually would aim high.
He did that with the how many podcasts were out
in the whole world.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
I like this, you're extrapolating, You're using available information, you
know what. I'm giving you an extra point for using
data in a good way. And so oh I'm getting
I'm getting booed. Apparently the audio the audience does not
like that. So Roger, congratulations, An I don't mean that
you are our London. Thanks champion, Thank you both so much.
(40:13):
Thank you for volunteering.
Speaker 3 (40:16):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
All right, we have time for a few questions. Yeah,
I just want to.
Speaker 3 (40:25):
Say, Maria, your book was the first book I read
when I started playing poker, and so really excited to
meet you.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
Thank you. I'm curious for you, guys.
Speaker 3 (40:34):
This is both a poker question while so out of
outside of poker, what do you think is the difference
between bias because you guys were talking about bias when
you're playing, and like the reputation reading the reputation of
someone at the table versus intuition, And do you feel
like intuition comes into play for you, like having cards,
sunds like, et cetera, or there's a big differentiation.
Speaker 1 (40:55):
That's that's a really great question. And I am someone
who people get mad at because I'm like, do not
follow your gut feeling. It's bullshit. So here's here's my rationale.
It's not always true. So humans have very strong gut feelings, right,
really strong intuitions, and our intuitions can be either true
(41:18):
or false. Right, they can be either correct or not.
When you study this and you actually kind of do
the psych experiments, it turns out that we are about
fifty to fifty at identifying correct from incorrect intuitions. So
we feel like they're equally valid either way. Right, We're
really really bad. Sometimes we think a correct one's wrong,
(41:39):
and sometimes we think a wrong one's correct at chance levels.
And so what I like to say is that the
data show that the intuitions that you can actually trust
are intuitions that aren't intuitions. They are deep expertise that
you don't necessarily have conscious access to how you know it.
(42:00):
So if you are an expert in this, right, if
you are someone who has you know, thousands and thousands
of hours of experience in this and like this is
really your area, then you might know something. Your brain
might be noticing patterns right there. I mean pattern recognition
going on that your conscious brain isn't aware of because
(42:21):
it's at a deeper level. So it feels like intuition
to you, but it's not. It's actually expertise that you've
worked really, really hard for. So the question you should
ask is is there a reason why I should know this? Right? Like?
Am I an expert in this field? Is this my domain?
Have I experienced this many many times before? And if
(42:42):
the answer is yes, then go for it, trust it.
If the answer is no, then rely on other things.
So what I would you know? Like in poker, I
would say, like if at the table, I think you know,
I think this person's bluffing, but I'm not sure why,
Versus if Eric's idell says, I think this person's bluffing,
but I'm not sure why. Trust Eric's intuition, don't trust mine.
(43:03):
Eric's been doing this shit since the eighties. Right, he's
a true expert. I'm not. And the funny thing is
when it comes to reading people, the theme of you
know this show, we all think we're experts because we
read people all the time, we make judgments all the time.
The problem is we don't know if we're right or not,
(43:24):
So it feels like expertise when it's not because you
don't get feedback. You're like, I think this person's lying, right,
I think this person's telling the truth. But you have
no idea, like you are constantly everyone thinks they're an
expert at reading people, but we don't, you know, unless
you're a poker player, or unless you're someone who constantly
gets feedback about whether your reads were correct or not,
you're a fake expert. Feels like expertise, but it's not.
Speaker 2 (43:47):
In terms of kind of like capital be biased. I'm
like not trying to be overly woke or anything, but
like making assumptions based on like race or gender doesn't
work for a one poker because people can like actually
take advantage of your expectation of them and therefore exploit you. Right, Absolutely,
age tells you a little bit more amateur versus professional
(44:10):
tells you a little bit more.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
Biggest bluffers I've ever encountered have been the like little
old men who you're like, oh, like he's so sweet,
he's not bluffing me.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
Yeah, it's like in your face because like and it
probably you know, these kind of older guys will probably
hire coaches or watch videos like I can get away
with impunity with like bluffing a lot, and so yeah,
I you know, any data you have when someone has
someone actually played a hand, right, it can be like
an old guy who's eighty five years old who looks
like he's senile. Right, if you catch him making some
(44:42):
huge bluff in the first hand he plays and like
that totally outweighs any priors that you had about about
his style.
Speaker 1 (44:49):
Of So always, when in doubt, use objective, observable data
and be very very skeptical of your gut unless you're
a true expert in it.
Speaker 2 (45:01):
Hi, my name is Julian. Great to mean you guys.
Speaker 5 (45:04):
My question is somewhat related, but it's essentially how do
you discern between making a re or observing a tell
that gives you an advantage versus falling for somebody trying
to deceive you with like a fake tell.
Speaker 1 (45:17):
It's a good question, and there's no there's no clear
cut answer, But I would say two things. One, despite
what Nate says, I would urge you all not to
try to throw fake tales. It's a very very risky proposition.
And normally fake tales give away way more than you
(45:38):
you know, than you're trying to. And I think that
the most you can try to do is just standardize
your behavior as much as possible. That's the advice that
I got from kind of a behavioral expert who coaches
poker players, is try to have a routine and follow
that same routine, because otherwise you're going to give off information.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
Now, it's true because like some tells can have the
reverse meaning based on very subtle distinctions. Right, Like you
bet someone takes a long time to make all on
the flop, right from like a truly novice player. We
both play like charity tournaments. Sometimes probably sincere they probably
are having trouble even reading the board telling how strong
their hand is. Right from like the next step upward,
(46:23):
then that might be deceiving you into betting again, right
and then beyond that, it's probably more random someone's liberately
randomizing or or whatever, but like knowing kind of what
level somebody is on and if they if they become
aware of something weird that occurs, right, you know, if
you become aware like so, like let's say that, like
(46:44):
you know, I have a hand where because it's I
haven't eaten in fifteen hours, right, my hand troubles a
little bit when I'm like making a bet. If I'm
aware of that, that will affect my play for the
rest of the hand. Like usually that's read as strength.
There are some players for which that's not true, right,
(47:05):
you know, sometimes stuck about reverse tells like can I
make myself kind of like fake tremble on command. I'm
not saying I've never tried that, you know what I mean.
But it's all very context driven, which is just like
human interaction. Right, The same statement can be ambiguous and
can mean five different things coming from five different people
or from the same person depending on the context who
they're speaking to. Very precise changes and wording and language
(47:29):
and things like that and facial expressions.
Speaker 6 (47:32):
Hi, We've spoke at the beginning about what you're comfortable with,
and I'm curious to know if you worry about the
slippery slope and how to keep a healthy boundary between
the things that you would consider to be acceptable, like
the bluffing being strategy and white lies with the pleasantries
going on versus going on to that deep end where
(47:53):
you know where is the line between that and then
suddenly in your day to day carrying it over too
much and losing track of what is a good lie,
so to speak, versus a bad lie where the con
people are.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
Yeah, I mean, I just try not to lie, to
be perfectly honest. You know. My next book that I'm
working on right now is about cheating in games, and
you know, being around kind of that sort of deceptive
behavior just gives me such awareness of how costly it
(48:25):
is and of how costly it is for society that
I've become more truthful as I've delved into that research,
because I just want to like distinguish myself as much
as possible from the people that I'm researching, because you
see what the social cost is right of people taking cheating,
(48:48):
you know, taking taking the rules of the game and
breaking them and bending them and being unsportsmenlike in their behavior.
So yeah, I think that there's really no slippery slope,
like in the sense that if I'm playing a game
like poker, you know, all bluff, it's a game, and
(49:08):
then I'm done playing the game. And I have zero
tolerance for angle shooting, which is something that's technically not cheating,
but is bending the rules right, So it's doing something
that's like a little underhanded, right to the to the
edge of actually like being caught out for cheating. Like
I hate that there are some players who say that
it's acceptable strategy, right, if it's within the rules and
(49:32):
it helps me win, I'm going to do it, And
I think that's gross. So, like I I think it's
made me less tolerant of all borderline behaviors.
Speaker 2 (49:42):
Yeah, I think ironically. I mean, like often the saddest
things you see at a poker table where there's someone
who just shouldn't be playing, often comes at the at
the lower stakes king. And it's also by the way,
we often experience the most like abusive behavior. Do you
speak up if are you a see something, say something?
Speaker 1 (49:57):
Yeah, I always because I have been abused myself at
the poker table as a female. You know, I'm usually
a very easy target, and especially when I just started
out playing you know, and nobody knew who I was,
and I was playing kind of lower stakes at kind
of these really kind of low end casinos. Like I
experienced a lot of abuse, and as I've kind of
(50:22):
grown in the game and kind of made my way
in it so that I'm a recognizable face and I
feel more comfortable there, I want to make sure to
use my voice to protect people. So if there's bad
behavior against other players, against dealers, against floor staff, I
will absolutely say something and call it out there. There
(50:45):
are a few poker players who hate me because I've
like I've called the floor on them and have told
them that what they were doing was not funny.
Speaker 2 (50:53):
Yeah, that's one thing you learned too, is like, because
people can be quiet and low key, right, but like,
I know lots of shit about people, I'm not saying
anything about, right, And the same is true and reverse,
especially if you are like kind of like a public
figure who's known both for poker and for non poker things.
But beware, the people are being very observant about what
you're doing too, and this s park people probably aren't
saying anything about it. There's some tactical advantage from remaining
(51:17):
quiet about it yep right.
Speaker 1 (51:20):
Well, thank you all so much for joining this live
taping of Risky Business. It was an absolute pleasure of
having you all here. I hope that you feel more
comfortable about reading tells and especially about reading Nate Silver.
And when it comes to a lot of thanks, thank
you all.
Speaker 2 (51:37):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (51:47):
Let us know what you think of the show. Reach
out to us at Risky Business at pushkin dot FM.
Risky Business is hosted by me Maria Kanakova.
Speaker 2 (51:56):
And by me Nate Silver. The show was a whole
production of Pushing Industries and iHeartMedia. This episode was produced
by Isaa Carter. Our associate producer is Sonya gerwit Lydia,
Jean Kott and Daphne Chen are our our editors, and
our executive producer is Jacob Goldstein. Mixing by Sarah Bruger.
Speaker 1 (52:15):
If you like the show, please rate and review us
so other people can find us too, But once again,
only if you like us. We don't want those bad
reviews out there. Thanks for tuning in.
Hosts And Creators
Maria Konnikova
Nate Silver
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