December 12, 2024 • 40 mins
What were the best, worst, and most interesting decisions of 2024, and what can we learn from them? Nate and Maria award the year’s most notable decisions in our first annual Riskies awards show. Also: degen of the year, nit of the year, and the cognitive bias that best explains 2024.
Then, they give a quick poker update and answer a listener’s question about the expected value of learning multiple languages.
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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 (00:29):
And I'm Nate Silver, and I forgot during my audio
equipment to Las Vegas, so that's why I look ridiculous
if you're watching this on YouTube holding my phone to
my lips. Today, we have a special kind of year
end show for you. We're going to be awarding the Riskies.
This is our term for awards like DJ of the Year,
NIT of the Year, TILT of the Year, basically a
bunch of awards to people who made extraordinarily good or
(00:52):
bad decisions. We're very excited about.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
These, yep. And after the Riskies, we're going to be
talking a little bit about poker and our own Riskies
because Nate and I are both in Las Vegas right
now for the WPT series at the Wins, so we'll
talk a little bit about how that's going. And finally,
we're actually going to respond to a listener question about
bilingualism and does it make sense to learn a second language. Nate,
(01:21):
I'm really excited for our first of what I hope
will be annual Risky Awards, the Riskies to talk about
good and bad decisions of the year in all walks
of life. So obviously, you know, we talk a lot
about politics on the show, so we'll have some from politics,
but also from business and from sports and Hollywood, just
(01:42):
talking in general about risky decisions, which ones worked out,
which ones didn't, which ones were good, which ones were bad.
So let's get started and talk about awarding the first
risky for the Hero call of the Year. So a
decision that looked like it might have been a little
crazy at the time but turned out to be brilliant, right,
just like a hero callin poker when you're thinking, you're
(02:05):
thinking you have jack high and it's your tournament life
and you end up calling and you're right because the
other guy was bluffing with eight high or whatever it was. Nate,
do you have a hero call of the year?
Speaker 2 (02:18):
I think THEO the French Whale has to get the
Hero Call of the Year awards. So what do you make?
He ya eighty five billion dollars? So he here the
French Whale was on Polymarket, which I'm an advisor to,
and bet copious amounts millions of dollars that Trump would
win and kind of even like distorted it as a
(02:39):
loaded term, but like the whole market was effective, but
it's one trader. Poly market has good volume, but not
but you know it's not it's not the equities market
or something like that. Apparently did some polling where he
asked people, who are your neighbors owning? For this technique
is not that proven, but look it worked. A hero call,
by definition, is like if you get the answer right
(03:02):
for lots of money, then you have to get some
amount of some amount of credit right. A lot of
people didn't have the story of conference election. Our forecast
really had it. Literally had it more right Thom than
a coin flip. And so I'm going to give the
French whale THEO this award.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
I think that that's a beautiful Uh, that's a beautiful answer.
THEO absolutely deserves Hero Call of the Year because we
even talked on the podcast We're like this is insane, like, right,
who is this whale? Like what is going on? And yeah,
he ended up making a shit ton of money. So
congratulations THEO, You've made our Hero call of the year.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Congrats, Yes and come on the show.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Yes, we'd love to. We'd love to talk about how
you think about it. We Nate promises he will not
do his French accent for you. All right, So you know,
a flip side of the hero call is when you
make the wrong decision, right, what was the worst fold
(04:01):
of the year, So a decision that you know, ended
up making people think, you know, what were you thinking?
How could you fold? There? I have one for this,
but yeah, you go ahead. It seems like you're excited
about this one.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
I'm sorry, is this so on brand? I have to
go with like this, she should have picked Shapiro thing.
I know, it's I know it's very politics heavy, but
like you have this very charismatic politician who's like literally
the popular governor of the most important spring state, which
by the way, turned out to be the tipping point state, Pennsylvania,
and she picked Tim Walls, who was kind of weird
(04:35):
in practice, and like it just seemed like a no brainer.
And I can try and dissect why the campaign did this,
but like that that's a decision that's kind of the
opposite of the hero call, right, It's like, yeah, the
obvious play. If you don't make the obvious play, right,
if you have this amazing semi bluffing opportunity, you have
a straight draw and a flush draw, and you have
(04:56):
full equity, and you choose to play the hand differently
in some weird way than it better worked out well
or if not, we have the right to criticize you.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
So there's another award that comes a little bit later,
but I'm going to reference it now because I think
it's very Germane and it's an award that we're borrowing
from the podcast The Town, So thank you very much
The Town. And it's the second Haters I was write award,
and that Nate, I'm going to give to one of
the decisions that you've been talking about all year, which
(05:24):
is she should have chosen.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Shapiro, should have chosen the Shapiro.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
So I actually I went outside of politics sort of
and I said the worst fold was anyone who ended
up selling bitcoin at the beginning of the year, during
the bear market in January. Yeah, I think that that
was the worst fold, Like the people who were, you know,
like all in on bitcoin and then we're like, you
know what, I changed my mind, Like this is bad,
(05:50):
Like it's down to forty k Like shit, I bet
those people are not very happy right now. So I
think that and I don't think that it was. I
think that it was pretty obvious that they should not
be folding, right because you know how sicklical this market is.
You know how the bear bull cycles work, Like, if
you know what you're doing, you do not sell at
a bottom right there. But yeah, so that was that's
(06:12):
who I gave the the Worst fold of the Year
award two, so I think we can we can both
give out one.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Next up we have Cooler of the Year who had
a great hand but still lost.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
So here I went outside of our usual purview, right,
we were normally kind of very politics business, some sports
heavy here decided to go to Hollywood, and I am
giving this award to Greta Gerwig, who was the writer
and director of Barbie, who just got completely shut out
(06:50):
at the Oscars, losing everything, losing even some nominations. She
wasn't even nominated for directing and she lost for writing.
And I think that she was just like completely she
had a great hand. I think Barbie was a great
movie that did incredibly well, and for some reason she
was just like completely shut out of the Oscars this year.
(07:12):
That happens every year, you know, there's always someone, but
this one, I feel like, yeah, I felt a little
bit personal about it because I think, you know, she's female,
she's talented, she's great, And I actually did not like
Oppenheimer at all. I thought it was a horrible movie.
I thought it was really boring. I did not think
that it should have gotten all the awards it got,
so like I actually disagreed completely. This is from a
(07:34):
personal thing, but these are our awards, so they get
to be personal. That was my worst. That was my
cooler of the year. How about your name?
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Maybe the New York Yankees son off your baseball fan,
Juan Soto, this amazing young outfielder who is kind of
like the Ted Williams of his era, signed with the
crosstown rival New York Mets for almost eight hundred million
dollars the Yankees offered him. So when I'm sixty million
after making their first World Series run since two thousand
(08:03):
and nine, I guess because apparently the Yankees were just cheap,
like George Costanza for the Yankees and Seinfeld where like
they wouldn't give one so to a suite. They apparently
like harassed his family and his driver, and so he
was like, fuck you, I'm actually going to Steve Cohen
and the New York Mets. Pretty rare to see a
crosstown free agency move like that.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
All right, up next, Tilt of the Year. So what
was the most emotional decision of the year do you think?
Speaker 2 (08:32):
I mean, I'm going back to politics here, politics. Yep,
Joe Biden deciding deciding Aid to run for reelection and
that he was indefatible. And then the then the pardon
of Fial Sun Hunter. Yeah, I've got.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
The pardon as mine. So let's uh, let's unanimously give
the tilt of the year to Biden for making some
very emotional decisions. The deciding to run and the pardon
of Hunter. I think that that is absolutely you know,
that was tilt. The definition of tilt is letting emotions
into your decision process, right that you are no longer
(09:08):
evaluated things based on their expected value, based on their
actual kind of decision matrix. You are letting emotions that
are incidental and not integral to the decision into the decision.
And that's exactly what Joe Biden did.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Gto call of a year game theory optimalist call for
the most balanced, mathematically sound decision of the year.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Okay, so this one I went outside of politics. I
went into the business side because this is so incredibly rare.
I wanted to kind of compliment Apple on abandoning their
fora into electric vehicles, because most companies, after spending billions
(09:51):
on something, don't have the foresight, the knowledge, kind of
the perspicacity to say, you know what, we're not going
to be competitive here, it's not working. We're just going
to write it off and move on. And the market's
rewarded Apple. Actually, even though some people were like this
is insane, like, right, how can you step away from
a multi billion dollar investment? So I think that that
was Actually that is what gto is right, is actually
(10:13):
being able to make those types of really really tough
decisions because you realize, you know what, it doesn't matter.
We already spent that money and we can't get it back.
And if we realize we're not competitive, like I'm going
to fold my hand right and I'm gonna and I'm
going to walk away, and that's going to be okay.
And most companies are not capable of doing that. Most
CEOs are not capable of doing that. So I want
(10:35):
to reward Apple for a really good decision.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Yeah, maybe I give it a little shout out here
to Dan Campbell, the head coach of the Detroit Lions.
The Lions nearly made their first Super Bowl ever. Blew it.
That probably saved me. I don't want to even say
how much it is going to save me on it
last like a super Bowl trip. But Campbell's very aggressive
about going for it on fourth down. I'm making other
(11:01):
aggressive play calls which the GTO says is correct and
didn't work out. But they trust the system. And now
the Lions are the best team in the NFL so
far this year. So maybe I'll be spending my hard
earned dollars on a trip to New Orleans instead in
the Super Bowl.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Great, I'm on board with that, all right. How about
the Danny Kahneman Memorial Cognitive Bias of the Year Award.
What cognitive bias best explains twenty twenty four? So I'm
going to say that the bias that best encapsulates twenty
twenty four. And we're going back to politics. Here is
the sun cost fallacy, which is the inability to walk
(11:35):
away from sunk costs. And I think that the Biden campaign,
which is something that is going to you know, will
be feeling the repercussions of that for years to come
suffered from the sun cost fallacy. Right, the fact that oh,
you know, I am already I said, I'm running like
I'm not going to turn back on it. I'm going
(11:57):
to keep putting good time and good money after bad.
After it was becoming more and more clear that he
shouldn't run again, that he should step away, and the
sun cost fallacy I think literally cost them the election
because they you know, he did not step away. We've
talked about this so many times, but you know, the
fact that they didn't pivot, the fact that they kind
(12:18):
of didn't take the risk and take on the new
strategy and realize, you know what, we're only hurting ourselves
by continuing to put good time, good money, good energy
after bad. I think that that was the death the
death knell of this of this campaign. So to me,
the sun cost fallacy is the decision error that best
encapsulates this year.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Yeah, maybe I'll go with good old fashioned group think.
I suppose it's like also contained to the Democratic Party
where and inability and look, I think it's fundamentally and
kind of writing an article about this now, I think
it's kind of amazing, But Democrats adopt this velosophy they
kind of claim to be working on behalf of like
all these oppressed minorities, and then all the oppressed minorities
(13:03):
shift a long way toward Trump. And I think what
that is is that you actually look views among other elites,
and Democrats have kind of lost touch with with how
people outside their group think and what messages are appealing
and which aren't. And so I we you know, I
don't want to deter this too much, but I'll kind
of broadly give it to the Democratic Party. And how
(13:25):
capture among all the you know, cognitive elites actually can
be a problem in some ways makes sense. Here's a
fun one Djen of the Year. This is one of
the most prestigious awards.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
It is, well, I'm giving it to Epay Musuhara millions.
I don't think it doesn't get more DJN.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Can we call it the Epay Musahara Memorial Djen Award
of the Year in the future.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
I think in future years, I think that's what we
need to call it. And for people obviously who who
can't immediately put that name to a face. That was
Otani's interpreter who pleaded guilty to making at least seventeen
million dollars worth of sports bets gone wrong and using
(14:12):
Otani's accounts to cover those.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
And the Knit of the Year. Do you have a
good one for this? Harris okaymal Hair, Yeah, these are two.
The Kamala Harris memorial.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Yes, I got that.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
She refused to distance herself from Biden, even though they
didn't campaign on Biden's agenda either. They just said, oh, well,
let's help people ignore this and and yeah, the risk
a version of this campaign. And by the way, how
much is this her versus her campaign managers? I'm not sure,
but like that's the.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Campaign right at the end of the day, it's her campaign,
and if she disagrees with her campaign manager, she needs
to be like, no, fuck this, I'm not going to
be in it. So at the end of the day,
it's on her, just.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Like the campaign agrees with her. They're like, yo, yo,
you got you're shitting gear Kamala exactly exactly.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
So it seems like you agree with my Djena Knit
of the Year picks.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Absolutely, these are pretty easy ones.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
I think.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
The Risky Business bracelet. Who had the better which of
the two hosts? This is an easy one. They're only
two answers had the better poker, had the better poker year.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
I don't know, n it. Are you up or down?
Speaker 2 (15:21):
I have I'm definitely down in tournaments, and then I
have a quite good year in cash, and so I
don't actually know.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
All right, Well, the bracelet, I think we should do tournaments, right,
since bracelets.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Are Yeah, it's very it's very fiable, right, Yeah, it's verifiable.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Yeah, So I'm up in tournaments, So I guess I
get the bracelet for this year.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Yeah, I'm down a fair bit and I'll need to
have a good series here at the Wind, but the
cash is gone. I'm trying to think of myself as
more of a cash players some ways.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Yeah, that's wonderful, and I look forward to seeing you
on some big cash streams. And we can change this
from the bracelet awards to something else so that we
can just say poker prowess, whether cash or tournaments. I
don't know. So now we've got two awards that are
(16:09):
being taken from another podcast, The Town, which gives awards
the Mia Cool Pie I Was Wrong Award and the
second Haters I Was Right Award. So these are for
I think personal decisions, you know, personal things that we've done.
This is where I said that you should be the
second haters. I was right. I didn't have one for me,
but I had it for you, which was that she
should have gone for Shapiro. I think that that's I
(16:32):
think that you get that award, and uh, the Mia
Coolpie was Wrong award. I actually so, I think that
I was wrong when we had talked on the podcast
about kind of how important crypto was to the election,
and I'm like, it's a tiny percentage, it doesn't really matter.
I actually think that it ended up mattering a lot
more than I thought it would. And you know, and
(16:54):
especially kind of given the amount of money that was
donated given kind of some people who I think came
out and became single issue voters for Trump because of
his take on crypto. I actually think I was a
little bit wrong on that. I think I underestimate at
the cryptov.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
I'll give myself an award for nearly betting on with
Keith for boy who was a venture capitalist on the
ulcome in Florida, where Keith claimed he lives in Miami
now very proudly so that Kamala Harris would lose Florida
by eight points or more, and at the time she
was down only three points in the polling average, got
(17:34):
in a spat on Twitter and offered to bet one
hundred k, and actually kind of tried to facilitate this
and sent an email to a mutual friend saying, Hey, Keith,
if you want negotiate terms, here's person why who can
confirm this? And he didn't respond for four days, right,
and then the some morning a New York Times pull
comes out and has Harris down like thirteen or fifteen
(17:57):
points in Florida, and I'm like, fuck this. You know
you don't have a free option to make this bet whenever,
So the offer is rescinded, which he agreed it was
too late to accept the bet, certainly not recognizing the
complete collapse the Democratic Party in Florida and being lucky
to be able to pull out of that bet.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Yeah, I think I think that's a good one. And
the second haters I was right? Do you like my
choice for that?
Speaker 2 (18:20):
I have a lot, I mean, all the Biden related stuff,
like actually feel.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Like I was right about everything.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
It hurts, I know, the Biden debate stuff where I'm like,
actually the debate might go so bad, yeah, that he'll
have to pull out, Like people, that was kind of crazy, right,
I would not have given like more than like a
fifteen percent probability of that, but I kind of put
myself out there with at least raising his chance and
so all the Biden stuff, Yeah, I felt like, was my.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
You definitely put yourself out there, and I think and
I think you ended up being right about a lot
of it. So yes, I'm there for it all. Right. Now,
We're going to have two individual awards for us to
give out, So mine is the Maria Kanakova Award for
the Biggest bluff of the Year, and I am gonna
I'm going to get a lot of people mad for
(19:02):
this one, but I'm giving it to Sam Altman and
open Ai for bluffing about the mission and the non
profit nature of open Ai and getting you know, saying
how it was all about, you know, just just being
for the good of the world and then raising money
and saying, actually we're going to be for profit and
(19:23):
all of this stuff that like, obviously it was going
to be a business and obviously like this is where
it was heading. But I think a lot of people
believed his initial bluff, and this is something that's going
to be really important and open. Ai is you know
how Sam goes about it. I think this is an
important thing to track closely. So I think it's good
(19:44):
to realize that this is someone who is incredibly good
at bluffing, incredibly credible at bluffing, and bluffs a lot.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
I agree, I think. No, I think I think that's
a great pick. Maria, thank you. I mean he is.
I don't know if. I don't know if he's convincing
everyone necessarily, but but but he knows how to see
their bluff through. I'll say that much.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Yes, he does.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
The Nate Silver Award for Raverian of the Year. The Raverian,
of course a term from my book for this group
of I don't know the general kambling types. I think
you have to give it to our boy, Elon. I
just think you have to. He made this very big
bet where he was kind of in more of a
blue linen cultural space and has obviously gotten like red
(20:26):
pilled in various ways. But look, he bet two hundred
and fifty thousand, or people are still counting Abe's three hundred.
Excuse me, he bet like several hundred million dollars of
his own money. On Trump went very all in on
this movement and now has been rewarded with heading a
government or a quasi governmental agency named DOGE and getting
this guy he wanted elected. You know, it's a little
(20:49):
bit like this thing we said before, where if you
kind of make that hero call and not like the
odds were that bad. I mean, Biden was evidently in
trouble very early on. But I think you have to
like and again, I Elon is not my favorite representative
of the river right, even if you were such a conservatives.
You know, someone like Jay Bonicharia, who was an early
(21:10):
Stanford professor who was skeptical from the COVID lockdown stuff,
now named director of the n I h like he
is someone who I would personally like rather get a
beer with or something. But Elon's the obvious choice. I'm
not going to deny him his good year.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Well, this was this was a lot of fun. I like,
I like the riskies, and I like our renaming of
some of the awards.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
To the award.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
UH pay for Djon UH Forever More.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
We'll be back in just a minute to talk a
little bit about how the poker is going so far
and answer a listener question, M.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
M Nate, you are beautifully backlit by the Lovely Win Hotel.
So we are both in Las Vegas for the WPT.
(22:07):
I've been playing a few more events than you. You
came in and went straight into the three K, three
thousand dollars one day event yesterday. How did that go good?
Speaker 2 (22:19):
I finished thirteenth place for ten thousand bucks or nine
nine hundred something. I think technically, I know for tax
reasons are what they do it that way? Yeah, always
great to start out with with the decent sized cash.
In your first event, it was a very turbo event.
If our listeners don't know what that means, it means
that the blinds increased very fast. They start the event
(22:40):
at one they're trying to get it wrapped up by
two am, and with like two hundred players or whatever,
two hundred and fifty, I forget what it was. Then
that means you all of a sudden are playing for
very high stakes relatively amount of ships that you have,
and so requires hitting some big hands early and then
being aggressive and winning some coin flips. Being aware of
(23:01):
how the dynamics change in terms of we've talked about
ICM on this show before with the independence goals, independent model,
the goals to win money if you have it, not
not just maximize your first place chances, right, And so
I had to be I had a medium sized stack,
(23:21):
and I had to be a little bit cautious for
parts of the tournament, which is kind of which is
kind of no fun. But that's that's you know, I'm
plan booker to win money, not to not to make
friends and influence people. Well maybe that too. So we
were a little bit idiot times. I'm wound up getting
quite a few pay jumps to thirteenth place.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Yeah, well that's important, especially because you were not in
for one bullet. You were in for multiple bullets, right,
So you needed Maria.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
You have to you know, there's no record of that
on Handed Mob. Yeah all right, two bullets. I came in.
I came in aggressively, as one tends to do on
their first day in Las Vegas. Made it a big.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
People to know that you were not in it. Your
first bullet was bluffed off, So so you were you
You put in a good show of not being in
it first, and then you did it.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
I do think for like these one day. I mean,
I think it is worthwhile to like look a little
bit at like your life philosophy, right, and like what
your alternatives are, Like I don't want to like if
I bust out of the tournament before the dinner break,
then my partner's in town. You're in town, can go
get like a nice dinner somewhere and have relaxed night
in Vegas, and so like, I think there is something
(24:28):
where like increasing your variants a little bit in the
early stage is where you get a big stack or
not is a good life strategy. And also in this
tournament you kind of need a big stack or else
you're just or else you're just. I mean, the blinds
increase so fast that you're kind of have to play
very defensively or get very lucky. And so I think
it's actually worth in like these one day events. It's
(24:48):
not a slow structure. It's worth kind of saying I'm
gonna ether have a big stack, or go get some
go to a show or something funny.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Yeah, go big or go home. I totally get it.
But in all transparency, so the series has not started
off well for me. I have played so far three events.
So I played the opening eight hundred dollars event, which
was actually a fourth thousand dollar event for me, so
people can do the math in terms of re entries,
I did not cash. Then I played the Mystery Bounty,
(25:17):
which is a sixteen hundred dollar event, again full transparency,
it was only it was only a thirty two hundred
dollar event for me. So that one I managed to
sneak by with only two bullets and I bubbled bubbling
once again for people who don't know, is I busted
very very late in the night, basically when we were
about to reach day two and the money. So that
(25:37):
was not fun, and that was you know, that was
just a cooler hand. And I started the Prime, which
is the eleven hundred dollar event yesterday, and I ended
up busting. You can only rebuy once a day, so
i busted both of my bullets yesterday and I'm going
to play again today. As soon as we finish recording
our podcast, I'll make my way to the wind to
(25:58):
see unit where we can both try to find a
bit bag.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
I'm going to get a lot. I'm going to come
in after lunch. And I met at Looser.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
Yeah, yeah, I get it. Get a little lunch, but there's.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Lots of stuff. There's like a the main K tent.
The main ten K event starts next week.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
I guess this weekend, this coming weekend.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
This weekend, there is a free roll for.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
I did not get a seat into the free roll, Nate,
did you?
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Perhaps?
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Nay? Yes, I did not win a seat into the
free roll, and I'm not running well this series. So
they have if you enter, they have this promotion where
you join you know, Club WPT Gold or whatever kind
of the same thing that the free roll is advertising,
(26:48):
and then you get to draw from all of these
possible prizes, including a McLaren you know, two hundred and
fifty thousand dollars car, and all of these other amazing prizes,
including entry to the free roll. I drew a fucking hat, Nate,
A hat, yeah, And I had to be like, I'm sorry,
you can keep the hat.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
I can't take I bought. The hats are kind of
expensive there. It costs like forty bucks or something.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
Oh, Nate, I should have given you the hat. I
should have taken the hat.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
I didn't know.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
I didn't know. I turned my nose up at the hat.
I was like, I got the lowest value price oh,
there were also cash prizes. You could go into this cash.
There were so many good prizes, and I drew the hat.
I am not running well this tournament series so far,
you know, down almost ten thousand dollars and a hat.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Turn out around, let's turn around. I you know it happens.
I look my second leg of the World Series this year,
it's all kind of a blur. There was so much
politics news, but just brick everything right, So, oh, I
forget what it was over twelve or thirteen or something probably,
And that's very normal. The chances of that, if you
do the math, they're like quite a bit higher than
(27:58):
you might expect or want intuitively.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Absolutely, And I've had a very good year, so I'm
not complaining. I just want people to realize that there
is a lot of variance in this game. You know,
just like in life, you go through you go through
these periods where you know, things just don't come together,
and it's hard to forget that. It's hard to remember
that when things are coming together right, like when you're
running well, when you're cash and you're like, oh, this
is easy. Poker's easy. Life is great, And I think
(28:23):
that's true of life in general. Right, when things are
going well, you're like, yeah, this is good, this is
how life should be. But you do go through periods
when should hits the fan, when things do not go
as well as planned. But I hope I turn it
around and that some of your three k you know,
success rumps off on me so that I do not
have to then go and play the prime yet again,
(28:46):
because this is a one K event that's very worth
playing the maximount of times since it's probably the largest
one K event of the year. So it's exciting. It's
an exciting series. I'm looking forward to the rest and
I'm looking forward to running a little bit better, and
I hope both of us do. Let's take a break
and then let's take a listener question and talk about bilingualism.
(29:24):
We had a listener named Ed who had a question
about language learning. So should you learn a second language
or not? And he maintains that as a primary English speaker,
the ev for learning a second language is hugely negative,
that it's a time suck. English is common. There's no
(29:47):
obvious second language to learn that is better than any others,
you know. He talks about Spanish, Amandarin, that they're both
commonly spoken, but how often will he go to a
place where he'll only have that and no one to
broker communications, doubly so with internet translation. So yeah, he
just wants to know, is are there situations that make
(30:08):
it marginally positive for a not for a native English speaker,
assuming you're not living with bilingual parents and getting your
second language as a free.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
What are your what are your second language status is?
Speaker 1 (30:18):
Maria, Russian, French, Spanish, Italian and Persian.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
Jeez, okay, so you clearly you clearly don't agree with
a listener, Then no, I.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
Don't at all. I actually and I think that there's
a ton of research on why you want to learn
a second language that has nothing to do with, you know,
traveling over the world and having it be you know,
a you know, basically how to communicate with people that
I think, by the way, is incredibly important. I actually
think it's great to be able to speak the language
(30:52):
at least a little bit of the place that you're visiting.
It helps you appreciate it more, It helps you get
a different experience, and you will, you know, I like
going off the beaten path, right like I like going
to places that are kind of in in the back
alleys and like the local hidden places where oftentimes people
don't speak English. And I think that I think that
(31:13):
you just you gain a lot from life for being
able to speak the language. So I disagree with that,
but that's a matter of you know, opinion, right, And
I don't want to be like an obnoxious tourus because
if you think about it, basically everyone else in the
world is bilingual and they've learned English to help the
idiot Americans who refused to learn a second language, Like,
(31:33):
if you meet someone from the Netherlands, they're going to
speak English. If you meet someone from France, they're going
to speak English. And you know they they I think
are a lot richer for it because they have acquired
that second language. And I think that it's just it's
great to be able to do it as well. But
if we talk about the research, there are actually a
(31:54):
ton of benefits for your brain for for learning more
languages that actually I was wondering just before we get
into that, do you have kind of do you have
other languages and kind of what's your just high level
take on this.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
No, I look, I they took Spanish in high school
and learned just enough to pass out of my college
Spanish requirements. So I you know, I can listen at
like forty percent comprehension and read at sixty percent comprehension.
You know, restaurant menu stuff. I mean, in general, is
a foodie I can read. I actually prefer to read,
like I'd rather see an Italian menu in Italian than English,
(32:32):
because I trust my abilit of like a know the
original terms or translate more. But yeah, apart from apart
from that very limited basis, no, I look, I am
sympathetic to the research you're setting for a couple of reasons, right.
One is, I do think that like if you look
at like large language models, they suggest that like any
(32:53):
given language, whether it's English or Spanish, or French or Russian,
or whether it's computer language or mathematical language, is like
an incomplete representation of like the kind of implicit to
sound pretentious implicit vector space of human thought. Yeah, and
so having a wider like literal vocabulary that's not just
(33:14):
English based and interesting. I mean, the analogy I sometimes
make is like there are poker concepts that are hard
to translate if you haven't specifically played poker. Right, The
notion that like if you're indifferent between two decisions, that
like small factors make a difference. I mean it's kind
of legible in English, but like, but yeah, you know,
(33:34):
and sometimes I'm thinking a lot about poker, like programming
or things like that. It feels like it's improving some
other types of cognitive recognition, where if I'm really deep in
like doing some static coding or something, it's hard to know.
I mean, the question is kind of what are the
realistic trade offs? I mean, maybe if you did learn
programming language, maybe you did learn a craft deeply. I
you know, I think there is a lot of metaphors
(33:57):
in art and literature that I think are probably somewhat
parallel to language. Of course, you can read some of
those texts earlier easier if you have. If you have,
but yeah, I don't know. I like, where are you
making a big better or a small bet? Right? Like
should I do in my spare time take do a lingos?
(34:17):
So if we're at the EPT Paris next year, I
can kind of make half sentences or not right or
shout to go all in. I mean, where do you
line up there?
Speaker 1 (34:26):
Yeah? I think that that's a very personal decision. But
I think so. One of the things you mentioned, I
think there is a lot of work on which is
that our views of the world really are expanded by
having the proper vocabulary for it, right Like being able
to express your thoughts, emotions, kind of having the words
for things actually helps you, you know, figure out what
(34:48):
they are, helps you think more rationally, more logically, make
better decisions, and they're you know, sometimes I have a
Russian word for something that doesn't exist in English, and
it's a nuance. It's a distinction that I wouldn't otherwise have.
And we know that this is true of like just
physical perception of the world, right You people who have
who are artists, who have larger palette of colors and
(35:11):
know all the different hues, they actually are able to
distinguish more colors when you give them kind of a
color wheel. Where someone might be like, oh I see
red and green, they actually see more colors, right, Like,
their visual experience is different because they know what the
words are, and different languages have different words for things,
and I think that's really important. I think that that's
(35:32):
actually really cool. Like I love these learning learning kind
of even languages I don't know, learning words to express
certain concepts, certain states, you know, certain parts of the world.
But there are also other benefits beyond that. So first,
cognitive control, which is executive control, which is really important,
(35:52):
is better in bilinguals. So all of those cognitive functions
tend to be enhanced by having kind of the control
to switch between languages. Right, having all these different things
co exist in your mind, especially if you learn it young.
But right now, let's not talk about that, because that's
not what the question is. Right. He actually tries to
exclude people who had it as a freebie. So like
Russian for me is a freebie, but English is not.
(36:15):
I actually grew up modelingual just speaking Russian. I learned
English in school when I was already you know, when
I was five years old, so it wasn't quite a freebie,
but I was still a little kid. So let's just
call it a freebie. And then the other language.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
If you're Russian guys discussing poker at the table, do
they assume you don't know what they're saying.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
Sometimes when they don't, it's amazing because they'll say horrible
things about me, assumptions about me, or things about their hand.
And I've actually learned a lot of information. More and
more people realize I speak Russian these days, but a
lot of people still don't know. Yeah, so that is
a lot of fun. But the other thing that I
think that our listener would be very interested in knowing
(36:54):
is that it seems like people who speak more languages
actually age a lot better and their brains are protected
a lot longer and more strongly from dementia and cognitive decline.
So on average, people who are bilingual or or more
but let's just say bilingual, if they experience signs of
(37:15):
cognitive decline over four years later than people who aren't,
that's huge, right, Like, think about that, Like.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
Sotimes, we know this is not how do we know
this is not just selecting for higher socio economic status
and or education.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
So these studies are pretty well done with those types
of controls, right, So that's super easy to control for
you just put in a control for socioeconomic status and
you see does this still have an effect? And in
general it seems like it does. Now, this work is prelimited,
Like we all of these types of things are incredibly difficult, right,
These are really really hard things to study. So we
(37:49):
have a good sense that this that this might matter,
and we know that you know with like with dementia,
where you where you actually see Alzheimer's where you can
see kind of the plaques, et cetera. And then you
can just see like when did people you know, after
they die, like when did they start exhibiting signs? You
end up seeing that people who are bilingual exhibit signs
much later, so they're able to kind of compensate, right,
(38:12):
because you have different parts of your brain, you're able
to compensate for the loss in a much better way.
And I think that that's really interesting. Oftentimes there's a
lot of clinical evidence and it's quite quite interesting. But
when you have a stroke, you know when when something
goes really wrong in your brain, oftentimes people who are
bilingual switchlan like you forget one language but you retain
(38:35):
the other somehow. It's really cool. Yeah, there's some really
really cool stuff where your brain is much more flexible
and you have much more cognitive capacity to deal with
bad shit happening. And I think that that's something that
everyone should want, right, Like you want to think and
be sharper and have kind of those reserves for as
(38:57):
long as possible, so to me, it's just an absolute
no brainer for no pun intended for a lot of reasons.
But I think that all of these different areas of
research are interesting, Maria.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
Since we both have some poker to play and in
my case also lunch to eat. Do you want to
wrap up there?
Speaker 1 (39:16):
Yeah, that sounds good to me. I hope, dear ed,
that we've convinced you to learn a second language, that
it is actually plus ev for you for a number
of reasons, even though most people you encounter will be
able to speak English.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
If you have a listener question, dear listener, email us
at Risky Business all one word at Pushkin dot fm,
and maybe you will have the chance to be on
the air and to have let us have some fun
with your question instead.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
Risky Business is hosted by me Maria.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
Kannikova and byb Nate Silver.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
The show is a co production of Pushkin Industries and iHeartMedia.
This episode was produced by Isabelle Carter. Our associate producer
is Gabriel Hunter Chang. Our executive producer is Jacob Goldstein.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
If you like the show, please rate and review us
so all the people can find us too, And if
you to listen to an ad free version. Sign up
for Pushkin Plus For six, ten and nine a month,
you get access to ad free listening. Thanks for tuning in,
Pushkin. Welcome back to Risky Business, a show about making
better decisions. I'm Maria Kanakova.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
And I'm Nate Silver, and I forgot during my audio
equipment to Las Vegas, so that's why I look ridiculous
if you're watching this on YouTube holding my phone to
my lips. Today, we have a special kind of year
end show for you. We're going to be awarding the Riskies.
This is our term for awards like DJ of the Year,
NIT of the Year, TILT of the Year, basically a
bunch of awards to people who made extraordinarily good or
(00:52):
bad decisions. We're very excited about.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
These, yep. And after the Riskies, we're going to be
talking a little bit about poker and our own Riskies
because Nate and I are both in Las Vegas right
now for the WPT series at the Wins, so we'll
talk a little bit about how that's going. And finally,
we're actually going to respond to a listener question about
bilingualism and does it make sense to learn a second language. Nate,
(01:21):
I'm really excited for our first of what I hope
will be annual Risky Awards, the Riskies to talk about
good and bad decisions of the year in all walks
of life. So obviously, you know, we talk a lot
about politics on the show, so we'll have some from politics,
but also from business and from sports and Hollywood, just
(01:42):
talking in general about risky decisions, which ones worked out,
which ones didn't, which ones were good, which ones were bad.
So let's get started and talk about awarding the first
risky for the Hero call of the Year. So a
decision that looked like it might have been a little
crazy at the time but turned out to be brilliant, right,
just like a hero callin poker when you're thinking, you're
(02:05):
thinking you have jack high and it's your tournament life
and you end up calling and you're right because the
other guy was bluffing with eight high or whatever it was. Nate,
do you have a hero call of the year?
Speaker 2 (02:18):
I think THEO the French Whale has to get the
Hero Call of the Year awards. So what do you make?
He ya eighty five billion dollars? So he here the
French Whale was on Polymarket, which I'm an advisor to,
and bet copious amounts millions of dollars that Trump would
win and kind of even like distorted it as a
(02:39):
loaded term, but like the whole market was effective, but
it's one trader. Poly market has good volume, but not
but you know it's not it's not the equities market
or something like that. Apparently did some polling where he
asked people, who are your neighbors owning? For this technique
is not that proven, but look it worked. A hero call,
by definition, is like if you get the answer right
(03:02):
for lots of money, then you have to get some
amount of some amount of credit right. A lot of
people didn't have the story of conference election. Our forecast
really had it. Literally had it more right Thom than
a coin flip. And so I'm going to give the
French whale THEO this award.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
I think that that's a beautiful Uh, that's a beautiful answer.
THEO absolutely deserves Hero Call of the Year because we
even talked on the podcast We're like this is insane, like, right,
who is this whale? Like what is going on? And yeah,
he ended up making a shit ton of money. So
congratulations THEO, You've made our Hero call of the year.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Congrats, Yes and come on the show.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Yes, we'd love to. We'd love to talk about how
you think about it. We Nate promises he will not
do his French accent for you. All right, So you know,
a flip side of the hero call is when you
make the wrong decision, right, what was the worst fold
(04:01):
of the year, So a decision that you know, ended
up making people think, you know, what were you thinking?
How could you fold? There? I have one for this,
but yeah, you go ahead. It seems like you're excited
about this one.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
I'm sorry, is this so on brand? I have to
go with like this, she should have picked Shapiro thing.
I know, it's I know it's very politics heavy, but
like you have this very charismatic politician who's like literally
the popular governor of the most important spring state, which
by the way, turned out to be the tipping point state, Pennsylvania,
and she picked Tim Walls, who was kind of weird
(04:35):
in practice, and like it just seemed like a no brainer.
And I can try and dissect why the campaign did this,
but like that that's a decision that's kind of the
opposite of the hero call, right, It's like, yeah, the
obvious play. If you don't make the obvious play, right,
if you have this amazing semi bluffing opportunity, you have
a straight draw and a flush draw, and you have
(04:56):
full equity, and you choose to play the hand differently
in some weird way than it better worked out well
or if not, we have the right to criticize you.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
So there's another award that comes a little bit later,
but I'm going to reference it now because I think
it's very Germane and it's an award that we're borrowing
from the podcast The Town, So thank you very much
The Town. And it's the second Haters I was write award,
and that Nate, I'm going to give to one of
the decisions that you've been talking about all year, which
(05:24):
is she should have chosen.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Shapiro, should have chosen the Shapiro.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
So I actually I went outside of politics sort of
and I said the worst fold was anyone who ended
up selling bitcoin at the beginning of the year, during
the bear market in January. Yeah, I think that that
was the worst fold, Like the people who were, you know,
like all in on bitcoin and then we're like, you
know what, I changed my mind, Like this is bad,
(05:50):
Like it's down to forty k Like shit, I bet
those people are not very happy right now. So I
think that and I don't think that it was. I
think that it was pretty obvious that they should not
be folding, right because you know how sicklical this market is.
You know how the bear bull cycles work, Like, if
you know what you're doing, you do not sell at
a bottom right there. But yeah, so that was that's
(06:12):
who I gave the the Worst fold of the Year
award two, so I think we can we can both
give out one.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Next up we have Cooler of the Year who had
a great hand but still lost.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
So here I went outside of our usual purview, right,
we were normally kind of very politics business, some sports
heavy here decided to go to Hollywood, and I am
giving this award to Greta Gerwig, who was the writer
and director of Barbie, who just got completely shut out
(06:50):
at the Oscars, losing everything, losing even some nominations. She
wasn't even nominated for directing and she lost for writing.
And I think that she was just like completely she
had a great hand. I think Barbie was a great
movie that did incredibly well, and for some reason she
was just like completely shut out of the Oscars this year.
(07:12):
That happens every year, you know, there's always someone, but
this one, I feel like, yeah, I felt a little
bit personal about it because I think, you know, she's female,
she's talented, she's great, And I actually did not like
Oppenheimer at all. I thought it was a horrible movie.
I thought it was really boring. I did not think
that it should have gotten all the awards it got,
so like I actually disagreed completely. This is from a
(07:34):
personal thing, but these are our awards, so they get
to be personal. That was my worst. That was my
cooler of the year. How about your name?
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Maybe the New York Yankees son off your baseball fan,
Juan Soto, this amazing young outfielder who is kind of
like the Ted Williams of his era, signed with the
crosstown rival New York Mets for almost eight hundred million
dollars the Yankees offered him. So when I'm sixty million
after making their first World Series run since two thousand
(08:03):
and nine, I guess because apparently the Yankees were just cheap,
like George Costanza for the Yankees and Seinfeld where like
they wouldn't give one so to a suite. They apparently
like harassed his family and his driver, and so he
was like, fuck you, I'm actually going to Steve Cohen
and the New York Mets. Pretty rare to see a
crosstown free agency move like that.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
All right, up next, Tilt of the Year. So what
was the most emotional decision of the year do you think?
Speaker 2 (08:32):
I mean, I'm going back to politics here, politics. Yep,
Joe Biden deciding deciding Aid to run for reelection and
that he was indefatible. And then the then the pardon
of Fial Sun Hunter. Yeah, I've got.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
The pardon as mine. So let's uh, let's unanimously give
the tilt of the year to Biden for making some
very emotional decisions. The deciding to run and the pardon
of Hunter. I think that that is absolutely you know,
that was tilt. The definition of tilt is letting emotions
into your decision process, right that you are no longer
(09:08):
evaluated things based on their expected value, based on their
actual kind of decision matrix. You are letting emotions that
are incidental and not integral to the decision into the decision.
And that's exactly what Joe Biden did.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Gto call of a year game theory optimalist call for
the most balanced, mathematically sound decision of the year.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Okay, so this one I went outside of politics. I
went into the business side because this is so incredibly rare.
I wanted to kind of compliment Apple on abandoning their
fora into electric vehicles, because most companies, after spending billions
(09:51):
on something, don't have the foresight, the knowledge, kind of
the perspicacity to say, you know what, we're not going
to be competitive here, it's not working. We're just going
to write it off and move on. And the market's
rewarded Apple. Actually, even though some people were like this
is insane, like, right, how can you step away from
a multi billion dollar investment? So I think that that
was Actually that is what gto is right, is actually
(10:13):
being able to make those types of really really tough
decisions because you realize, you know what, it doesn't matter.
We already spent that money and we can't get it back.
And if we realize we're not competitive, like I'm going
to fold my hand right and I'm gonna and I'm
going to walk away, and that's going to be okay.
And most companies are not capable of doing that. Most
CEOs are not capable of doing that. So I want
(10:35):
to reward Apple for a really good decision.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Yeah, maybe I give it a little shout out here
to Dan Campbell, the head coach of the Detroit Lions.
The Lions nearly made their first Super Bowl ever. Blew it.
That probably saved me. I don't want to even say
how much it is going to save me on it
last like a super Bowl trip. But Campbell's very aggressive
about going for it on fourth down. I'm making other
(11:01):
aggressive play calls which the GTO says is correct and
didn't work out. But they trust the system. And now
the Lions are the best team in the NFL so
far this year. So maybe I'll be spending my hard
earned dollars on a trip to New Orleans instead in
the Super Bowl.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Great, I'm on board with that, all right. How about
the Danny Kahneman Memorial Cognitive Bias of the Year Award.
What cognitive bias best explains twenty twenty four? So I'm
going to say that the bias that best encapsulates twenty
twenty four. And we're going back to politics. Here is
the sun cost fallacy, which is the inability to walk
(11:35):
away from sunk costs. And I think that the Biden campaign,
which is something that is going to you know, will
be feeling the repercussions of that for years to come
suffered from the sun cost fallacy. Right, the fact that oh,
you know, I am already I said, I'm running like
I'm not going to turn back on it. I'm going
(11:57):
to keep putting good time and good money after bad.
After it was becoming more and more clear that he
shouldn't run again, that he should step away, and the
sun cost fallacy I think literally cost them the election
because they you know, he did not step away. We've
talked about this so many times, but you know, the
fact that they didn't pivot, the fact that they kind
(12:18):
of didn't take the risk and take on the new
strategy and realize, you know what, we're only hurting ourselves
by continuing to put good time, good money, good energy
after bad. I think that that was the death the
death knell of this of this campaign. So to me,
the sun cost fallacy is the decision error that best
encapsulates this year.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Yeah, maybe I'll go with good old fashioned group think.
I suppose it's like also contained to the Democratic Party
where and inability and look, I think it's fundamentally and
kind of writing an article about this now, I think
it's kind of amazing, But Democrats adopt this velosophy they
kind of claim to be working on behalf of like
all these oppressed minorities, and then all the oppressed minorities
(13:03):
shift a long way toward Trump. And I think what
that is is that you actually look views among other elites,
and Democrats have kind of lost touch with with how
people outside their group think and what messages are appealing
and which aren't. And so I we you know, I
don't want to deter this too much, but I'll kind
of broadly give it to the Democratic Party. And how
(13:25):
capture among all the you know, cognitive elites actually can
be a problem in some ways makes sense. Here's a
fun one Djen of the Year. This is one of
the most prestigious awards.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
It is, well, I'm giving it to Epay Musuhara millions.
I don't think it doesn't get more DJN.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Can we call it the Epay Musahara Memorial Djen Award
of the Year in the future.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
I think in future years, I think that's what we
need to call it. And for people obviously who who
can't immediately put that name to a face. That was
Otani's interpreter who pleaded guilty to making at least seventeen
million dollars worth of sports bets gone wrong and using
(14:12):
Otani's accounts to cover those.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
And the Knit of the Year. Do you have a
good one for this? Harris okaymal Hair, Yeah, these are two.
The Kamala Harris memorial.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Yes, I got that.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
She refused to distance herself from Biden, even though they
didn't campaign on Biden's agenda either. They just said, oh, well,
let's help people ignore this and and yeah, the risk
a version of this campaign. And by the way, how
much is this her versus her campaign managers? I'm not sure,
but like that's the.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Campaign right at the end of the day, it's her campaign,
and if she disagrees with her campaign manager, she needs
to be like, no, fuck this, I'm not going to
be in it. So at the end of the day,
it's on her, just.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Like the campaign agrees with her. They're like, yo, yo,
you got you're shitting gear Kamala exactly exactly.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
So it seems like you agree with my Djena Knit
of the Year picks.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Absolutely, these are pretty easy ones.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
I think.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
The Risky Business bracelet. Who had the better which of
the two hosts? This is an easy one. They're only
two answers had the better poker, had the better poker year.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
I don't know, n it. Are you up or down?
Speaker 2 (15:21):
I have I'm definitely down in tournaments, and then I
have a quite good year in cash, and so I
don't actually know.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
All right, Well, the bracelet, I think we should do tournaments, right,
since bracelets.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Are Yeah, it's very it's very fiable, right, Yeah, it's verifiable.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Yeah, So I'm up in tournaments, So I guess I
get the bracelet for this year.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Yeah, I'm down a fair bit and I'll need to
have a good series here at the Wind, but the
cash is gone. I'm trying to think of myself as
more of a cash players some ways.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Yeah, that's wonderful, and I look forward to seeing you
on some big cash streams. And we can change this
from the bracelet awards to something else so that we
can just say poker prowess, whether cash or tournaments. I
don't know. So now we've got two awards that are
(16:09):
being taken from another podcast, The Town, which gives awards
the Mia Cool Pie I Was Wrong Award and the
second Haters I Was Right Award. So these are for
I think personal decisions, you know, personal things that we've done.
This is where I said that you should be the
second haters. I was right. I didn't have one for me,
but I had it for you, which was that she
should have gone for Shapiro. I think that that's I
(16:32):
think that you get that award, and uh, the Mia
Coolpie was Wrong award. I actually so, I think that
I was wrong when we had talked on the podcast
about kind of how important crypto was to the election,
and I'm like, it's a tiny percentage, it doesn't really matter.
I actually think that it ended up mattering a lot
more than I thought it would. And you know, and
(16:54):
especially kind of given the amount of money that was
donated given kind of some people who I think came
out and became single issue voters for Trump because of
his take on crypto. I actually think I was a
little bit wrong on that. I think I underestimate at
the cryptov.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
I'll give myself an award for nearly betting on with
Keith for boy who was a venture capitalist on the
ulcome in Florida, where Keith claimed he lives in Miami
now very proudly so that Kamala Harris would lose Florida
by eight points or more, and at the time she
was down only three points in the polling average, got
(17:34):
in a spat on Twitter and offered to bet one
hundred k, and actually kind of tried to facilitate this
and sent an email to a mutual friend saying, Hey, Keith,
if you want negotiate terms, here's person why who can
confirm this? And he didn't respond for four days, right,
and then the some morning a New York Times pull
comes out and has Harris down like thirteen or fifteen
(17:57):
points in Florida, and I'm like, fuck this. You know
you don't have a free option to make this bet whenever,
So the offer is rescinded, which he agreed it was
too late to accept the bet, certainly not recognizing the
complete collapse the Democratic Party in Florida and being lucky
to be able to pull out of that bet.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Yeah, I think I think that's a good one. And
the second haters I was right? Do you like my
choice for that?
Speaker 2 (18:20):
I have a lot, I mean, all the Biden related stuff,
like actually feel.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Like I was right about everything.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
It hurts, I know, the Biden debate stuff where I'm like,
actually the debate might go so bad, yeah, that he'll
have to pull out, Like people, that was kind of crazy, right,
I would not have given like more than like a
fifteen percent probability of that, but I kind of put
myself out there with at least raising his chance and
so all the Biden stuff, Yeah, I felt like, was my.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
You definitely put yourself out there, and I think and
I think you ended up being right about a lot
of it. So yes, I'm there for it all. Right. Now,
We're going to have two individual awards for us to
give out, So mine is the Maria Kanakova Award for
the Biggest bluff of the Year, and I am gonna
I'm going to get a lot of people mad for
(19:02):
this one, but I'm giving it to Sam Altman and
open Ai for bluffing about the mission and the non
profit nature of open Ai and getting you know, saying
how it was all about, you know, just just being
for the good of the world and then raising money
and saying, actually we're going to be for profit and
(19:23):
all of this stuff that like, obviously it was going
to be a business and obviously like this is where
it was heading. But I think a lot of people
believed his initial bluff, and this is something that's going
to be really important and open. Ai is you know
how Sam goes about it. I think this is an
important thing to track closely. So I think it's good
(19:44):
to realize that this is someone who is incredibly good
at bluffing, incredibly credible at bluffing, and bluffs a lot.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
I agree, I think. No, I think I think that's
a great pick. Maria, thank you. I mean he is.
I don't know if. I don't know if he's convincing
everyone necessarily, but but but he knows how to see
their bluff through. I'll say that much.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Yes, he does.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
The Nate Silver Award for Raverian of the Year. The Raverian,
of course a term from my book for this group
of I don't know the general kambling types. I think
you have to give it to our boy, Elon. I
just think you have to. He made this very big
bet where he was kind of in more of a
blue linen cultural space and has obviously gotten like red
(20:26):
pilled in various ways. But look, he bet two hundred
and fifty thousand, or people are still counting Abe's three hundred.
Excuse me, he bet like several hundred million dollars of
his own money. On Trump went very all in on
this movement and now has been rewarded with heading a
government or a quasi governmental agency named DOGE and getting
this guy he wanted elected. You know, it's a little
(20:49):
bit like this thing we said before, where if you
kind of make that hero call and not like the
odds were that bad. I mean, Biden was evidently in
trouble very early on. But I think you have to
like and again, I Elon is not my favorite representative
of the river right, even if you were such a conservatives.
You know, someone like Jay Bonicharia, who was an early
(21:10):
Stanford professor who was skeptical from the COVID lockdown stuff,
now named director of the n I h like he
is someone who I would personally like rather get a
beer with or something. But Elon's the obvious choice. I'm
not going to deny him his good year.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Well, this was this was a lot of fun. I like,
I like the riskies, and I like our renaming of
some of the awards.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
To the award.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
UH pay for Djon UH Forever More.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
We'll be back in just a minute to talk a
little bit about how the poker is going so far
and answer a listener question, M.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
M Nate, you are beautifully backlit by the Lovely Win Hotel.
So we are both in Las Vegas for the WPT.
(22:07):
I've been playing a few more events than you. You
came in and went straight into the three K, three
thousand dollars one day event yesterday. How did that go good?
Speaker 2 (22:19):
I finished thirteenth place for ten thousand bucks or nine
nine hundred something. I think technically, I know for tax
reasons are what they do it that way? Yeah, always
great to start out with with the decent sized cash.
In your first event, it was a very turbo event.
If our listeners don't know what that means, it means
that the blinds increased very fast. They start the event
(22:40):
at one they're trying to get it wrapped up by
two am, and with like two hundred players or whatever,
two hundred and fifty, I forget what it was. Then
that means you all of a sudden are playing for
very high stakes relatively amount of ships that you have,
and so requires hitting some big hands early and then
being aggressive and winning some coin flips. Being aware of
(23:01):
how the dynamics change in terms of we've talked about
ICM on this show before with the independence goals, independent model,
the goals to win money if you have it, not
not just maximize your first place chances, right, And so
I had to be I had a medium sized stack,
(23:21):
and I had to be a little bit cautious for
parts of the tournament, which is kind of which is
kind of no fun. But that's that's you know, I'm
plan booker to win money, not to not to make
friends and influence people. Well maybe that too. So we
were a little bit idiot times. I'm wound up getting
quite a few pay jumps to thirteenth place.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Yeah, well that's important, especially because you were not in
for one bullet. You were in for multiple bullets, right,
So you needed Maria.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
You have to you know, there's no record of that
on Handed Mob. Yeah all right, two bullets. I came in.
I came in aggressively, as one tends to do on
their first day in Las Vegas. Made it a big.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
People to know that you were not in it. Your
first bullet was bluffed off, So so you were you
You put in a good show of not being in
it first, and then you did it.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
I do think for like these one day. I mean,
I think it is worthwhile to like look a little
bit at like your life philosophy, right, and like what
your alternatives are, Like I don't want to like if
I bust out of the tournament before the dinner break,
then my partner's in town. You're in town, can go
get like a nice dinner somewhere and have relaxed night
in Vegas, and so like, I think there is something
(24:28):
where like increasing your variants a little bit in the
early stage is where you get a big stack or
not is a good life strategy. And also in this
tournament you kind of need a big stack or else
you're just or else you're just. I mean, the blinds
increase so fast that you're kind of have to play
very defensively or get very lucky. And so I think
it's actually worth in like these one day events. It's
(24:48):
not a slow structure. It's worth kind of saying I'm
gonna ether have a big stack, or go get some
go to a show or something funny.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Yeah, go big or go home. I totally get it.
But in all transparency, so the series has not started
off well for me. I have played so far three events.
So I played the opening eight hundred dollars event, which
was actually a fourth thousand dollar event for me, so
people can do the math in terms of re entries,
I did not cash. Then I played the Mystery Bounty,
(25:17):
which is a sixteen hundred dollar event, again full transparency,
it was only it was only a thirty two hundred
dollar event for me. So that one I managed to
sneak by with only two bullets and I bubbled bubbling
once again for people who don't know, is I busted
very very late in the night, basically when we were
about to reach day two and the money. So that
(25:37):
was not fun, and that was you know, that was
just a cooler hand. And I started the Prime, which
is the eleven hundred dollar event yesterday, and I ended
up busting. You can only rebuy once a day, so
i busted both of my bullets yesterday and I'm going
to play again today. As soon as we finish recording
our podcast, I'll make my way to the wind to
(25:58):
see unit where we can both try to find a
bit bag.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
I'm going to get a lot. I'm going to come
in after lunch. And I met at Looser.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
Yeah, yeah, I get it. Get a little lunch, but there's.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Lots of stuff. There's like a the main K tent.
The main ten K event starts next week.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
I guess this weekend, this coming weekend.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
This weekend, there is a free roll for.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
I did not get a seat into the free roll, Nate,
did you?
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Perhaps?
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Nay? Yes, I did not win a seat into the
free roll, and I'm not running well this series. So
they have if you enter, they have this promotion where
you join you know, Club WPT Gold or whatever kind
of the same thing that the free roll is advertising,
(26:48):
and then you get to draw from all of these
possible prizes, including a McLaren you know, two hundred and
fifty thousand dollars car, and all of these other amazing prizes,
including entry to the free roll. I drew a fucking hat, Nate,
A hat, yeah, And I had to be like, I'm sorry,
you can keep the hat.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
I can't take I bought. The hats are kind of
expensive there. It costs like forty bucks or something.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
Oh, Nate, I should have given you the hat. I
should have taken the hat.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
I didn't know.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
I didn't know. I turned my nose up at the hat.
I was like, I got the lowest value price oh,
there were also cash prizes. You could go into this cash.
There were so many good prizes, and I drew the hat.
I am not running well this tournament series so far,
you know, down almost ten thousand dollars and a hat.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Turn out around, let's turn around. I you know it happens.
I look my second leg of the World Series this year,
it's all kind of a blur. There was so much
politics news, but just brick everything right, So, oh, I
forget what it was over twelve or thirteen or something probably,
And that's very normal. The chances of that, if you
do the math, they're like quite a bit higher than
(27:58):
you might expect or want intuitively.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Absolutely, And I've had a very good year, so I'm
not complaining. I just want people to realize that there
is a lot of variance in this game. You know,
just like in life, you go through you go through
these periods where you know, things just don't come together,
and it's hard to forget that. It's hard to remember
that when things are coming together right, like when you're
running well, when you're cash and you're like, oh, this
is easy. Poker's easy. Life is great, And I think
(28:23):
that's true of life in general. Right, when things are
going well, you're like, yeah, this is good, this is
how life should be. But you do go through periods
when should hits the fan, when things do not go
as well as planned. But I hope I turn it
around and that some of your three k you know,
success rumps off on me so that I do not
have to then go and play the prime yet again,
(28:46):
because this is a one K event that's very worth
playing the maximount of times since it's probably the largest
one K event of the year. So it's exciting. It's
an exciting series. I'm looking forward to the rest and
I'm looking forward to running a little bit better, and
I hope both of us do. Let's take a break
and then let's take a listener question and talk about bilingualism.
(29:24):
We had a listener named Ed who had a question
about language learning. So should you learn a second language
or not? And he maintains that as a primary English speaker,
the ev for learning a second language is hugely negative,
that it's a time suck. English is common. There's no
(29:47):
obvious second language to learn that is better than any others,
you know. He talks about Spanish, Amandarin, that they're both
commonly spoken, but how often will he go to a
place where he'll only have that and no one to
broker communications, doubly so with internet translation. So yeah, he
just wants to know, is are there situations that make
(30:08):
it marginally positive for a not for a native English speaker,
assuming you're not living with bilingual parents and getting your
second language as a free.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
What are your what are your second language status is?
Speaker 1 (30:18):
Maria, Russian, French, Spanish, Italian and Persian.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
Jeez, okay, so you clearly you clearly don't agree with
a listener, Then no, I.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
Don't at all. I actually and I think that there's
a ton of research on why you want to learn
a second language that has nothing to do with, you know,
traveling over the world and having it be you know,
a you know, basically how to communicate with people that
I think, by the way, is incredibly important. I actually
think it's great to be able to speak the language
(30:52):
at least a little bit of the place that you're visiting.
It helps you appreciate it more, It helps you get
a different experience, and you will, you know, I like
going off the beaten path, right like I like going
to places that are kind of in in the back
alleys and like the local hidden places where oftentimes people
don't speak English. And I think that I think that
(31:13):
you just you gain a lot from life for being
able to speak the language. So I disagree with that,
but that's a matter of you know, opinion, right, And
I don't want to be like an obnoxious tourus because
if you think about it, basically everyone else in the
world is bilingual and they've learned English to help the
idiot Americans who refused to learn a second language, Like,
(31:33):
if you meet someone from the Netherlands, they're going to
speak English. If you meet someone from France, they're going
to speak English. And you know they they I think
are a lot richer for it because they have acquired
that second language. And I think that it's just it's
great to be able to do it as well. But
if we talk about the research, there are actually a
(31:54):
ton of benefits for your brain for for learning more
languages that actually I was wondering just before we get
into that, do you have kind of do you have
other languages and kind of what's your just high level
take on this.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
No, I look, I they took Spanish in high school
and learned just enough to pass out of my college
Spanish requirements. So I you know, I can listen at
like forty percent comprehension and read at sixty percent comprehension.
You know, restaurant menu stuff. I mean, in general, is
a foodie I can read. I actually prefer to read,
like I'd rather see an Italian menu in Italian than English,
(32:32):
because I trust my abilit of like a know the
original terms or translate more. But yeah, apart from apart
from that very limited basis, no, I look, I am
sympathetic to the research you're setting for a couple of reasons, right.
One is, I do think that like if you look
at like large language models, they suggest that like any
(32:53):
given language, whether it's English or Spanish, or French or Russian,
or whether it's computer language or mathematical language, is like
an incomplete representation of like the kind of implicit to
sound pretentious implicit vector space of human thought. Yeah, and
so having a wider like literal vocabulary that's not just
(33:14):
English based and interesting. I mean, the analogy I sometimes
make is like there are poker concepts that are hard
to translate if you haven't specifically played poker. Right, The
notion that like if you're indifferent between two decisions, that
like small factors make a difference. I mean it's kind
of legible in English, but like, but yeah, you know,
(33:34):
and sometimes I'm thinking a lot about poker, like programming
or things like that. It feels like it's improving some
other types of cognitive recognition, where if I'm really deep in
like doing some static coding or something, it's hard to know.
I mean, the question is kind of what are the
realistic trade offs? I mean, maybe if you did learn
programming language, maybe you did learn a craft deeply. I
you know, I think there is a lot of metaphors
(33:57):
in art and literature that I think are probably somewhat
parallel to language. Of course, you can read some of
those texts earlier easier if you have. If you have,
but yeah, I don't know. I like, where are you
making a big better or a small bet? Right? Like
should I do in my spare time take do a lingos?
(34:17):
So if we're at the EPT Paris next year, I
can kind of make half sentences or not right or
shout to go all in. I mean, where do you
line up there?
Speaker 1 (34:26):
Yeah? I think that that's a very personal decision. But
I think so. One of the things you mentioned, I
think there is a lot of work on which is
that our views of the world really are expanded by
having the proper vocabulary for it, right Like being able
to express your thoughts, emotions, kind of having the words
for things actually helps you, you know, figure out what
(34:48):
they are, helps you think more rationally, more logically, make
better decisions, and they're you know, sometimes I have a
Russian word for something that doesn't exist in English, and
it's a nuance. It's a distinction that I wouldn't otherwise have.
And we know that this is true of like just
physical perception of the world, right You people who have
who are artists, who have larger palette of colors and
(35:11):
know all the different hues, they actually are able to
distinguish more colors when you give them kind of a
color wheel. Where someone might be like, oh I see
red and green, they actually see more colors, right, Like,
their visual experience is different because they know what the
words are, and different languages have different words for things,
and I think that's really important. I think that that's
(35:32):
actually really cool. Like I love these learning learning kind
of even languages I don't know, learning words to express
certain concepts, certain states, you know, certain parts of the world.
But there are also other benefits beyond that. So first,
cognitive control, which is executive control, which is really important,
(35:52):
is better in bilinguals. So all of those cognitive functions
tend to be enhanced by having kind of the control
to switch between languages. Right, having all these different things
co exist in your mind, especially if you learn it young.
But right now, let's not talk about that, because that's
not what the question is. Right. He actually tries to
exclude people who had it as a freebie. So like
Russian for me is a freebie, but English is not.
(36:15):
I actually grew up modelingual just speaking Russian. I learned
English in school when I was already you know, when
I was five years old, so it wasn't quite a freebie,
but I was still a little kid. So let's just
call it a freebie. And then the other language.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
If you're Russian guys discussing poker at the table, do
they assume you don't know what they're saying.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
Sometimes when they don't, it's amazing because they'll say horrible
things about me, assumptions about me, or things about their hand.
And I've actually learned a lot of information. More and
more people realize I speak Russian these days, but a
lot of people still don't know. Yeah, so that is
a lot of fun. But the other thing that I
think that our listener would be very interested in knowing
(36:54):
is that it seems like people who speak more languages
actually age a lot better and their brains are protected
a lot longer and more strongly from dementia and cognitive decline.
So on average, people who are bilingual or or more
but let's just say bilingual, if they experience signs of
(37:15):
cognitive decline over four years later than people who aren't,
that's huge, right, Like, think about that, Like.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
Sotimes, we know this is not how do we know
this is not just selecting for higher socio economic status
and or education.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
So these studies are pretty well done with those types
of controls, right, So that's super easy to control for
you just put in a control for socioeconomic status and
you see does this still have an effect? And in
general it seems like it does. Now, this work is prelimited,
Like we all of these types of things are incredibly difficult, right,
These are really really hard things to study. So we
(37:49):
have a good sense that this that this might matter,
and we know that you know with like with dementia,
where you where you actually see Alzheimer's where you can
see kind of the plaques, et cetera. And then you
can just see like when did people you know, after
they die, like when did they start exhibiting signs? You
end up seeing that people who are bilingual exhibit signs
much later, so they're able to kind of compensate, right,
(38:12):
because you have different parts of your brain, you're able
to compensate for the loss in a much better way.
And I think that that's really interesting. Oftentimes there's a
lot of clinical evidence and it's quite quite interesting. But
when you have a stroke, you know when when something
goes really wrong in your brain, oftentimes people who are
bilingual switchlan like you forget one language but you retain
(38:35):
the other somehow. It's really cool. Yeah, there's some really
really cool stuff where your brain is much more flexible
and you have much more cognitive capacity to deal with
bad shit happening. And I think that that's something that
everyone should want, right, Like you want to think and
be sharper and have kind of those reserves for as
(38:57):
long as possible, so to me, it's just an absolute
no brainer for no pun intended for a lot of reasons.
But I think that all of these different areas of
research are interesting, Maria.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
Since we both have some poker to play and in
my case also lunch to eat. Do you want to
wrap up there?
Speaker 1 (39:16):
Yeah, that sounds good to me. I hope, dear ed,
that we've convinced you to learn a second language, that
it is actually plus ev for you for a number
of reasons, even though most people you encounter will be
able to speak English.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
If you have a listener question, dear listener, email us
at Risky Business all one word at Pushkin dot fm,
and maybe you will have the chance to be on
the air and to have let us have some fun
with your question instead.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
Risky Business is hosted by me Maria.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
Kannikova and byb Nate Silver.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
The show is a co production of Pushkin Industries and iHeartMedia.
This episode was produced by Isabelle Carter. Our associate producer
is Gabriel Hunter Chang. Our executive producer is Jacob Goldstein.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
If you like the show, please rate and review us
so all the people can find us too, And if
you to listen to an ad free version. Sign up
for Pushkin Plus For six, ten and nine a month,
you get access to ad free listening. Thanks for tuning in,
Hosts And Creators
Maria Konnikova
Nate Silver
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