The Biggest Bluff

Author: Maria Konnikova
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0525522646
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 369

Book Description
A New York Times bestseller • A New York Times Notable Book “The tale of how Konnikova followed a story about poker players and wound up becoming a story herself will have you riveted, first as you learn about her big winnings, and then as she conveys the lessons she learned both about human nature and herself.” —The Washington Post It's true that Maria Konnikova had never actually played poker before and didn't even know the rules when she approached Erik Seidel, Poker Hall of Fame inductee and winner of tens of millions of dollars in earnings, and convinced him to be her mentor. But she knew her man: a famously thoughtful and broad-minded player, he was intrigued by her pitch that she wasn't interested in making money so much as learning about life. She had faced a stretch of personal bad luck, and her reflections on the role of chance had led her to a giant of game theory, who pointed her to poker as the ultimate master class in learning to distinguish between what can be controlled and what can't. And she certainly brought something to the table, including a Ph.D. in psychology and an acclaimed and growing body of work on human behavior and how to hack it. So Seidel was in, and soon she was down the rabbit hole with him, into the wild, fiercely competitive, overwhelmingly masculine world of high-stakes Texas Hold'em, their initial end point the following year's World Series of Poker. But then something extraordinary happened. Under Seidel's guidance, Konnikova did have many epiphanies about life that derived from her new pursuit, including how to better read, not just her opponents but far more importantly herself; how to identify what tilted her into an emotional state that got in the way of good decisions; and how to get to a place where she could accept luck for what it was, and what it wasn't. But she also began to win. And win. In a little over a year, she began making earnest money from tournaments, ultimately totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars. She won a major title, got a sponsor, and got used to being on television, and to headlines like "How one writer's book deal turned her into a professional poker player." She even learned to like Las Vegas. But in the end, Maria Konnikova is a writer and student of human behavior, and ultimately the point was to render her incredible journey into a container for its invaluable lessons. The biggest bluff of all, she learned, is that skill is enough. Bad cards will come our way, but keeping our focus on how we play them and not on the outcome will keep us moving through many a dark patch, until the luck once again breaks our way.

Mastermind

Author: Maria Konnikova
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101606231
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 340

Book Description
The New York Times bestselling guide to thinking like literature's greatest detective. "Steven Pinker meets Sir Arthur Conan Doyle" (Boston Globe), by the author of The Confidence Game. No fictional character is more renowned for his powers of thought and observation than Sherlock Holmes. But is his extraordinary intellect merely a gift of fiction, or can we learn to cultivate these abilities ourselves, to improve our lives at work and at home? We can, says psychologist and journalist Maria Konnikova, and in Mastermind she shows us how. Beginning with the “brain attic”—Holmes’s metaphor for how we store information and organize knowledge—Konnikova unpacks the mental strategies that lead to clearer thinking and deeper insights. Drawing on twenty-first-century neuroscience and psychology, Mastermind explores Holmes’s unique methods of ever-present mindfulness, astute observation, and logical deduction. In doing so, it shows how each of us, with some self-awareness and a little practice, can employ these same methods to sharpen our perceptions, solve difficult problems, and enhance our creative powers. For Holmes aficionados and casual readers alike, Konnikova reveals how the world’s most keen-eyed detective can serve as an unparalleled guide to upgrading the mind.

The Biggest Game in Town

Author: Al Alvarez
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1408806630
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 120

Book Description
Since its first publication twenty years ago, The Biggest Game in Town has become a sought-after cult classic. Acclaimed writer and critic Al Alvarez delves into the murky and compelling world of high-stakes Vegas poker, where 'the next best thing to playing and winning is playing and losing'. Uncovering an exotic underground rich in ambiance and eccentricity, The Biggest Game in Town is a real one of a kind, deftly capturing the skewed psyches and peculiar rites of professional poker players who descend every year for the World Series of Poker. It's a world that seems almost too surprising and bizarre to be true. 'A cool, precise, sharply witty, vivid evocation of a place and people, their appearances, behaviour and speech..Mr Alvarez is a shrewd analyst of the psychology of gamblers and a cleverly selective recorder of their bizarre talk with which, directly and indirectly, they reveal their secure grasp of unreality and their insane courage' Sunday Telegraph 'It will have most readers sitting on the edge of their seats' Sunday Times 'A new classic on gambling...it's quite brilliant' Time Out 'This is a magnificent book. Beyond the straights and full houses, Alvarez has written about people who are extremely good at what they do, and about America' San Francisco Chronicle

Ike's Bluff

Author: Evan Thomas
Publisher: Little, Brown
ISBN: 0316217271
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 365

Book Description
Evan Thomas's startling account of how the underrated Dwight Eisenhower saved the world from nuclear holocaust. Upon assuming the presidency in 1953, Dwight Eisenhower set about to make good on his campaign promise to end the Korean War. Yet while Eisenhower was quickly viewed by many as a doddering lightweight, behind the bland smile and simple speech was a master tactician. To end the hostilities, Eisenhower would take a colossal risk by bluffing that he might use nuclear weapons against the Communist Chinese, while at the same time restraining his generals and advisors who favored the strikes. Ike's gamble was of such magnitude that there could be but two outcomes: thousands of lives saved, or millions of lives lost. A tense, vivid and revisionist account of a president who was then, and still is today, underestimated, Ike's Bluff is history at its most provocative and thrilling.

Positively Fifth Street

Author: James McManus
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374706204
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 450

Book Description
Rough sex, black magic, murder, and the science-and eros-of gambling meet in the ultimate book about Las Vegas James McManus was sent to Las Vegas by Harper's to cover the World Series of Poker in 2000, especially the mushrooming progress of women in the $23 million event, and the murder of Ted Binion, the tournament's prodigal host, purportedly done in by a stripper and her boyfriend with a technique so outré it took a Manhattan pathologist to identify it. Whether a jury would convict the attractive young couple was another story altogether. McManus risks his entire Harper's advance in a long-shot attempt to play in the tournament himself. Only with actual table experience, he tells his skeptical wife, can he capture the hair-raising brand of poker that determines the world champion. The heart of the book is his deliciously suspenseful account of the tournament itself-the players, the hand-to-hand combat, and his own unlikely progress in it. Written in the tradition of The Gambler and The Biggest Game in Town, Positively Fifth Street is a high-stakes adventure, a penetrating study of America's card game, and a terrifying but often hilarious account of one man's effort to understand what Edward O. Wilson has called "Pleistocene exigencies"-the eros and logistics of our primary competitive instincts.

The Confidence Game

Author: Maria Konnikova
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0143109871
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 354

Book Description
"It’s a startling and disconcerting read that should make you think twice every time a friend of a friend offers you the opportunity of a lifetime.” —Erik Larson, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Dead Wake and bestselling author of Devil in the White City Think you can’t get conned? Think again. The New York Times bestselling author of Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes explains how to spot the con before they spot you. “[An] excellent study of Con Artists, stories & the human need to believe” –Neil Gaiman, via Twitter A compelling investigation into the minds, motives, and methods of con artists—and the people who fall for their cons over and over again. While cheats and swindlers may be a dime a dozen, true conmen—the Bernie Madoffs, the Jim Bakkers, the Lance Armstrongs—are elegant, outsized personalities, artists of persuasion and exploiters of trust. How do they do it? Why are they successful? And what keeps us falling for it, over and over again? These are the questions that journalist and psychologist Maria Konnikova tackles in her mesmerizing new book. From multimillion-dollar Ponzi schemes to small-time frauds, Konnikova pulls together a selection of fascinating stories to demonstrate what all cons share in common, drawing on scientific, dramatic, and psychological perspectives. Insightful and gripping, the book brings readers into the world of the con, examining the relationship between artist and victim. The Confidence Game asks not only why we believe con artists, but also examines the very act of believing and how our sense of truth can be manipulated by those around us.

Relationship

Author: Janice Greenwood
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781735783208
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 74

Book Description

Lead From The Heart

Author: Mark C. Crowley
Publisher: Hay House, Inc
ISBN: 1401967612
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 306

Book Description
Leadership and engagement expert Mark C. Crowley shows how trading in the old business playbook for heart-led leadership strategies will create purpose-driven, dedicated employees and higher levels of performance. Revised and updated to address the needs of those managing Gen Z and millennial employees in addition to the latest global research on employee engagement. In this thoroughly revised and updated edition of his now classic book, visionary Mark C. Crowley provides the roadmap workplace leaders the world over are seeking: How to most successfully and sustainably inspire and manage other human beings in the post-pandemic era. · Nearly 50 million workers quit their jobs in the U.S. alone in 2021—a record number likely to be exceeded in 2022. · While we might imagine that an opportunity to earn greater pay is the key driver of this “Great Resignation,” research shows two-thirds of the reasons people leave jobs boil down to issues related to their engagement and overall well-being. · More specifically, people quit when they feel they aren’t valued, respected, appreciated, coached—or cared about personally—by their manager and organization. · Thanks in large part to the COVID pandemic and a global reset of what matters most to people in their lives, human beings have profoundly evolved in what they need and want in exchange for their work. · Consequently, a radical change in employee expectations demands that organizations and managers rapidly pivot by embracing leadership practices that match the moment. · The remedy to the Great Resignation is to adopt more humane ways of managing people knowing they inherently lead to infinitely greater engagement not to mention optimal employee performance. · In this new and updated version of his seminal and visionary book, Mark C. Crowley draws upon emerging medical and other scientific discoveries which prove it's the heart, not the mind, that drives human motivation and achievement. · While we’ve long been led to believe that human beings are essentially rational beings, new research shows that feelings and emotions far more often motivate human behavior and what people care about most and commit themselves to in their lives. · In light of this breakthrough understanding, it’s become incumbent upon workplace managers to pay great attention to their employees' emotional experience at work—far greater attention than any of us ever believed necessary. · Ironically, most of us were told the heart has no place in workplace management. In fact, most of us were taught that the heart acts like Kryptonite in leadership: it inherently undermines a manager's effectiveness - and lowers performance. · What makes this book so remarkable is that it brilliantly contradicts all those traditional beliefs and proves why people naturally and instinctively respond to managers who care about them personally and support their deep human needs. · To be absolutely clear, there's nothing soft or weak about the Lead From The Heart philosophy. Instead, it represents the future of workplace management and a roadmap to driving uncommon engagement, productivity and profitability when organizations around the world are wanting it most. · Rich with inspiring stories and illuminating research, this book proves that when you lead people with a greater balance of mind and heart, people naturally follow. And they also excel.

Bluff

Author: Michael Kardos
Publisher: Grove Press
ISBN: 0802165672
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 255

Book Description
A down-on-her-luck female magician is drawn into a dangerous criminal scheme in this “hopelessly addictive” thriller (Megan Abbott, Edgar Award–winning author of Give Me Your Hand). At twenty-seven, magician Natalie Webb is already a has-been. A card-trick prodigy, she took first place at the World of Magic competition at eighteen and has never again reached such heights. Now she lives alone in a New Jersey apartment with her pigeons and a pile of overdue bills. In a desperate ploy for extra cash, she follows up on an old offer to write for a glossy magazine and pitches the editor a seductive topic: the art of cheating at cards. But when Natalie meets the perfect subject for her piece—a poker cheat who dazzles at sleight of hand—what begins as a journalistic gamble soon leads her into a dangerous proposition with the highest of stakes . . . “Truly gasp-worthy.” —Library Journal, starred review “[A] delightfully surprising thriller.” —The Florida Times-Union “If you haven’t read Kardos yet, Bluff is the perfect place to start!” —Lisa Scottoline, New York Times–bestselling author of Someone Knows

The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King

Author: Michael Craig
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780446593977
Category : GAMES
Languages : en
Pages : 153

Book Description
A tale of outsized egos, appetites, and ambitions, this completely true, heart-stopping story tells of one man, 20 million dollars, and the most expensive game of poker ever played.