‘I went to Harvard and acquired a PhD – now I’m crushing poker video games for a dwelling’

Maria Konnikova isn’t your common poker participant.

She didn’t drop out of college. She didn’t be taught by taking part in dwelling video games together with her friends. She didn’t grind native on line casino video games within the hope of constructing it to the highest.

Instead, she went to Harvard and would later earn a PhD. She was a author for The New Yorker. She is a bestselling creator. And that was all earlier than she thought-about studying easy methods to play playing cards.

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“I think it gives poker a very different image from the ‘I dropped out of high school and I play poker’,” she says. “Some of the smartest people I met dropped out of high school to play poker. It’s a very unfair stereotype, but it exists, so I’d love to break through those barriers.”

Konnikova has lifetime match winnings of over half one million kilos, however her profession in poker is one thing of an accident.

She picked poker because the case examine for her third guide. Previously, she had written one guide about Sherlock Holmes and one other about con artists. There’s a whole lot of transferrable expertise with poker, however that’s not how she was approaching it.

Konnikova was fascinated the the sport of probability. Poker is a ability recreation – the very best gamers constantly win on the high degree – however each once in a while, the worst participant can get fortunate.

“It was more to do with learning how to metabolise the role of chance in your life,” she says.

“How do you learn to deal with the fact that you can be the hardest worker, or the best writer, who can get the best journalistic scoops, but then if you don’t get lucky, if you’re not in the right place, if you’re not healthy, if all these other pieces don’t come together, your career never takes off?

“And someone who you know didn’t work as hard does a lot better. It’s quote-unquote not fair. But life’s not fair.

“But how do you deal with that? How do you learn to push your edge? How do you learn to make good decisions regardless, even knowing that all this unfairness exists?

“Poker was my way of exploring that. I realised that everything I’d written about before, like all the Sherlock Holmes stuff, all fed into it and it enabled me to become much better, much more quickly than I otherwise would have been, because I had all of these skills that were applicable.”

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Konnikova’s coaching was intense, however she didn’t realise it on the time. She is shut pals with Erik Seidel, one of many best match poker gamers in historical past, and entrusted him with educating her the ropes.

She was having fun with herself, so she didn’t realise on the time simply how a lot she was taking part in. While studying the sport, she would discover herself both taking part in to learning the sport for 10 to 12 hours a day.

“It didn’t seem that crazy, but when I look back on it, well, I was working hundred hour weeks. I was living and breathing poker,” Konnikova says.

Now a PokerStars ambassador and a member of their Team Pro, Konnikova had no concept that she can be spending the very best a part of the next decade taking part in poker.

However, she is commonly the one lady taking part in at her desk; a scenario which faces so many different ladies who step into poker, with an estimated 95% of all poker gamers being male.

PokerStars are among the many manufacturers working arduous to vary that, with initiatives like their Women’s Bootcamp, which has helped give a pathway into the sport for quite a few ladies who maybe beforehand would not have discovered the sport.

Konnikova has discovered to make use of her gender to her benefit of the desk, by selecting up on how male gamers method the sport in a different way when arising towards a girl.

“I would actually say that people in general play differently against women than they play against men. But it’s not that universally the case that they have the same way of playing against women, so you have to actually figure out how they’re deviating incorrectly because I’m female.

“There are some individuals who suppose I by no means bluff, however then there are different individuals who won’t ever fold to me as a result of they’d quite be unsuitable and fold to a woman, so my technique goes to be the polar reverse.

“Those are the two types of people. So for one of them, I’m going to bluff shamelessly and the other, I’m never going to bluff because they’re never going to fold. You just need to figure out how are they adjusting and correctly. But if you think about it, that’s something that you have to do always.”

And Maria’s recommendation for ladies seeking to observe in her footsteps?

“In live poker, it’s getting much better. But there are assholes everywhere, but you need to understand that that’s a minority and that most people will have your back.

“Pick good events; pick places that are supportive of women, and some brands are much better than others. I would much rather play at a PokerStars event, than I would at like a random, small local casino. The worst things that have ever happened to me have been during smaller games. So try to pick your first events to be at places that have reputations for running good events where you’ll be able to say something.

“The different recommendation, I’d say, despite the fact that it’d really feel uncomfortable, converse up – and this recommendation goes to not simply ladies, however to males. If anybody’s misbehaving, say one thing. Do not let that s*** slide.

“I used to be really scared of doing that, but now it doesn’t matter if it’s not happening to me. If I see someone being an asshole to the dealer or to another player, I’m going to call them out and I’m going to call the floor. I don’t care if they think I’m a bitch. I don’t want anyone to be abused.”