From Psychologist to Poker Champion - the Art of Decision-making: Dr. Maria Konnikova (NYT Bestselling Author of "The Biggest Bluff")

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As a high school student, in the next few years, I’ll make some major life decisions about where I’ll go to college and whether I’ll riddle myself with decades of student debt. How will I make the best decision? My guest today, Dr. Maria Konnikova, had a similar question about her own life. How do you assess a situation and decide the best option for yourself? And, if Fate pulls a fast one on you, how do you react accordingly? In search of answers to these questions, Dr. Konnikova, a journalist and Ph.D. in psychology, tackled the game that best simulates our constant decision-making in life. And what is that game? It might surprise you. It’s poker. For her NYT bestselling 2020 book, The Biggest Bluff, Dr. Konnikova took a deep dive into poker and ended up becoming an international poker champion and winner of over $300,000 in tournament earnings. In this episode of Aiming for the Moon, we’ll discuss what this taught her about decision-making and how we can apply these skills to our own lives.

Topics -

• Why poker?
• Games of complete information vs games of incomplete information and how they simulate life
• Life skills gleaned from poker
• The process of decision-making vs the result of the decision
• What is the biggest bluff?
• What books have had an impact on you?
• What advice do you have for teenagers?

Dr. Maria Konnikova is the author of Mastermind and The Confidence Game. She is a regular contributing writer for The New Yorker, and has written for The Atlantic, The New York Times, Slate, The New Republic, The Paris Review, The Wall Street Journal, Salon, The Boston Globe, Scientific American, Wired, and Smithsonian, among many other publications. Her writing has won numerous awards, including the 2019 Excellence in Science Journalism Award from the Society of Personality and Social Psychology. While researching The Biggest Bluff, Maria became an international poker champion and the winner of over $300,000 in tournament earnings. Maria also hosts the podcast The Grift from Panoply Media and is currently a visiting fellow at NYU’s School of Journalism. Her podcasting work earned her a National Magazine Award nomination in 2019. Maria graduated from Harvard University and received her Ph.D. in Psychology from Columbia University.

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