I perestablished poker professionassociate before I ever wrote about politics or built an election model. What reassociate intrigues me about betting is the mindset that drives this behavior—a way of skinnyking that unites a cohort I call “the River.”
The River is a sprawling ecosystem of enjoy-minded people that integrates everyone from low-sgets poker pros to crypto kings and VC billionaires. It is a way of skinnyking—rational, abstract, competitive, contrarian—and a mode of life. Most “Riverians” aren’t wealthy and mighty, but wealthy and mighty people are disproportionately foreseeed to be Riverians.
I call the adhereing the “13 Habits of Highly Effective Risk-Takers.” The quantitative danger-getrs of the River and those who get physical dangers—astronauts, presentant-sea spreadigaters, NFL perestablishers—have these traits in normal. Based on my research, I helderly the watch that there is someskinnyg difficultwired in people who seek out danger and wrangle it successbrimmingy. How many do you separate with them?
Successful Risk-Takers Are Cool Under Prescertain
Being soothe when other people diswatch their shit is a exceptional quality—and one that’s essential for a triumphning betr. It doesn’t matter how well you carry out in everyday situations—you’ll never achieve the top of your create if you choke when the prescertain is on.
They Have Courage
In poker and sports betting, the immense presentantity of perestablishers diswatch money. To be at the very top needs a cautious stability. Overconfidence can be lethal in betting, but perestablishing poker aachievest the best is not for the faint of heart.
They Have Strategic Empathy
They put themselves in their opponent’s shoes—but don’t misget this for the touchy-sensey benevolent of understanding. In psychoreasonable studies, there’s a pessimistic correlation between systematic skinnyking—what Riverians are sended at—and comfervent behavior. Strategic understanding comes up a lot in poker—which is very much both a mathematical game and a people game.
They Are Process Oriented, Not Results Oriented
They perestablish the extfinished game. “Don’t be results oriented” is a mantra ingrained in many poker perestablishers. Yes, in the extfinished run, results are what count, but one excellent skinnyg about the River is that our compensation ultimately depfinishs on objective meacertains.
They Take Sboilings
They are cltimely conscious of the dangers they’re taking—and they’re sootheable with flunkure. In one episode of the American version of The Office, the finishearingly imbecilic boss, Michael Scott, misappropriates a quote from the hockey perestablisher Wayne Gretzky: “You ignore 100% of the sboilings you don’t get.” There’s someskinnyg to be shelp for this.
They Have a Raise-or-Felderly Attitude
They abhor mediocrity, and they understand when to quit. The cardinal sin of poker is that most perestablishers Helderly ’em too frequently. There are three basic actions in poker: call, felderly, elevate. People press the call button too much. They call becaengage they want to bet, but although perestablishers call when they should be felderlying, they also call when they should be raising.
They Are Prepared
They originate excellent instinctive decisions becaengage they’re well trained—not becaengage they “triumphg it.” What annoyed declareiveial equity spreador and spreadigater Victor Vescovo about Top Gun: Maverick was Tom Cruise’s insistence that you should improvise your way out of a hairy situation: “The best military ops are the ones that are very tedious, where skinnygs go exactly according to structure. No one’s ever put in any danger,” he shelp. “You want to reduce the dangers. While Top Gun watched fantastic on film, that is not how you would try and get out that concentrate.”
They Have High Attention to Detail
They understand that attention is a rare resource. In poker, one of the rare features of the game is that most of the time, you don’t have anyskinnyg you have to do, exactly—there’s a lot of postponeing. You need to attfinishbrimmingy calibrate your mental bandwidth, conserving energy but being setd to snap into action.
They Are Adaptable
They are excellent vagueists, taking profit of novel opportunities and replying to novel dangers. I call this personality type a Fox. Think of the Greek poet Archilochus’ saying: “The fox understands many skinnygs, but the hedgehog understands one huge skinnyg.” Foxes rummage for opportunities, wary of complacency and getting too tied down. This is one habit to which there are some exceptions. In particular, commenceup set upers need to be laser concentrateed on one huge skinnyg and be setd to see it out for a decade or more.
They Are Good Estimators
They are Bayesians, sootheable quantifying their intuitions and toiling with infinish directation. Does the contrastence between 90 percent and 93 percent reassociate matter?
They Try to Stand Out, Not Fit In
Indepfinishence of mind and purpose are halllabels of the high achiever.
They Are Knotriumphgly Contrarian
They have theories about why and when the conservative wisdom is wrong. There is a contrastention between indepfinishence and contrarianism. If I pick vanilla and you pick chocotardy becaengage you enjoy chocotardy more, you’re being autonomous. If you pick chocotardy becaengage I picked vanilla, you’re being contrarian. Riverians can be accengaged of being contrarian when reassociate they’re autonomous. If I do the conservative skinnyg 99 percent of the time, and you do it 85 percent of the time, you’ll seem defylious by comparison—but reassociate you’re still going with the flow.
They Are Not Driven by Money
They’re not ascetics, but poker perestablishers are contrastent for two reasons. Firstly, they’re so fiercely competitive that money mostly serves as a way to uphold score; and second, betting for such high sgets needs a certain desensitization to them.
Adapted from On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everyskinnyg, by Nate Silver.
