3 lessons on decision-making from a poker champion | Liv Boeree 

Our egos love to downplay the luck factor when we're winning. Beautiful!

1) Mindful of luck despite ego 2) Use numerical probability 3) Use intuition mostly only for things you've done a LOT

I’ve played over half a million hands of online poker, and I played full time in casinos for a few years. And she’s right. The thing I learned that kinda haunts me is how tragic it is for some people to get lucky. If they won the first night they played and had maybe studied it just a tiny bit, they would spend years going broke over and over. When people win they think they’re a genius, and when they lose they think it’s just bad luck and the world is unfair. Everybody does it. And a LOT of non-technical people are so cocky that they think being able to shuffle their chips or identify which seat is called Under the Gun +1 makes them a highly skilled player who can beat just about anyone. But I suppose we all delude ourselves into thinking we have life figured out on some level, and most of the time it takes us way too long to realize we were pretty ignorant all along.

There is a 97% chance someone will claim to be the first commenter on a TED Talks video. There is a 68% chance two or more will.

The whole title wasn't displayed in the notification. I thought it was 3 decisions from a pokemon... was really intrigued.

Lol I literally use words like probably and sometimes BECAUSE I don't want to convey any real information🤣🤣

What an absolute beast. Coming from a live poker player, she's extremely intelligent and knowledgeable. She's been around the biggest games for awhile and married a great poker player Igor..do wish her nothing but the best...amazing to see her on T.T. :)

1) Don't overestimate your abilities because of easy success 2) Speak more specifically (i.e. say "%chance" instead of "probably") 3) Poker tourney winners wear glasses. Nerds wear glasses. Nerds don't use intuition. Therefore intuition must be bad... (except for easy stuff).

I've been a big fan of Liv for years. Great TED talk!

4th lesson: Everything you do conveys information. You can't be all loosy goosy, eating a sandwich, or checking your phone.

It's lessons like these that we all know, but often need to be reminded of.

bro you just crammed in the most useful info i've ever heard for a site anchor in five minutes and some change. huge W for making it short, clear and concise👁️👅👁️

And the award for the least nervous TED speaker goes to...

Well spoken, insightful talk.

Yes, yes and yes! TED, poker, and Liv :)

Amazing talk , loved it very much 😍

I remember that 2010 tournament win; that was a monumentally good ted talk.

Brilliant, clear and concise.

One of the my favorite poker players of this decade, she's awesome.

70% of the viewers find her attractive

She looked in the mirror and thought “I’m 100% hot”

amazing to see her on T.T

5:11 Malcom Gladwell's book Blink actually addresses this - for the bigger decisions in life, go with your gut.

Liv Boeree is so lively-and what a personality! I like her being on stage; she resembles very much a person I know in theatre.

Yep, all of this applies to investors as well. Pretty easy to feel like a genius when the market is on an upswing.

I love your motivational quotes, they make sense.

I use percentage probabilities when planning and explaining. My friends understand them better XD

Many thanks for your advice, Liv Boeree. Love you so much. We don't have any data to be based off.

This was an incredibly good ted talk

Liv was a TED speaker! WOW! I'm gonna look this video now) She's extremely smart! :)

Think, fast and slow. Great book. :)

There's a 69% chance people will take your opinion seriously if you look this good in real life.

I am not a pro, but I used to play a lot and studied a lot about the game. Poker definitely have taught me a bunch of life lessons beside what's mentioned in the video 1. stay focused on the goal - having fun vs making money. 2. adjust strategy according to situation - ppl nowadays always try to come up with formula to success and lot of ppl screwed up because situation can never be the same like poker. every time your opponents are different and their hands are different. tat's y I hate those poker videos saying you should do this when u have AK and you should do that when u have suited connector 3. analyzing - that's what I like the most about this game. analyzing your opponents and exploit their games. 4. you can never escape from tipping, have to tip the dealer when you are trying to make money at the table. hey why don we tip the floor manager. He is making sure we have a fair game

Now......... Imagine TONY G up next with his presentation.......

Too be honest the best poker players don’t have souls. Great short talk. I’ve been a profitable poker player for over a decade & using my gut is a huge part of my success.

perhaps, the most interesting talk on TED. so much packed into such a small syllabus...

Very good talk!

"I'm really tired of looking at Live Boeree's face" said no man ever.

Good talk Liv! Especially the part about intuition

what a great and interesting speaker.

Love Liv Boeree!

The data from intuition is your souls wisdom 👌🏼

Mesmerising, for so many reasons.

Beautiful, intelligent, confident, and successful. This is what a high quality woman looks like.

It takes a probable amount of wisdom to realise we know very little in reality. Liv ❤

Well said.

Poker is a results oriented game but can be boiled down to process. If you can get your process right (your skill level, the right playing style, the ability to adapt when needed) you can be successful. Trust your process but be prepared to alter it to suit.

i’m such a liv fan boy. go liv go 💋

Love this

It’s not right to say your intuition has no data. Your “gut feeling” is the result of a fantastically complicated subconscious evaluation of everything your brain has available, from knowledge, previous experience, probabilities, risk/reward, etc... It’s doing far more than you can process consciously and it’s doing it in the background while you’re still mouthing “hmmm”. There’s been talks on “gut feelings”, probably on TED. If something is too complex to evaluate consciously, your gut is a good, albeit unclear, alternative. The problem is you can’t cross examine or defend a feeling that your brain served up subconsciously without providing any logic. The “soul” I would’t trust because science can’t find it 🙃

Liv, you transpire confidence!

The rope that holds you when you are weak weakens with time so be strong!

1:40 You weren't overestimating yourself. That's nearly a typical Control Systems graph with a first peak overshoot basically being the highest point of your graph, and then a series of lower and lower overshoots, later settling down to within the tolerance band. Very very nice. Careful, methodical, ruthless, and utterly practical, rationally so, always. That is the way to go. When going for the big ones, the first peak overshoot is where you hope you'll land, the eventual low is what you prepare for, the worst case scenario so to speak, and the tolerance band should always be, probabilistically, higher than where you started. High chances, low reward is always preferable to low chances high reward. Because despite what every single success story on stage tells you, no one hears from the tens of thousands of failed gambles that never made it off the ground. Take care of yourself always. We have come a long long way from the medieval times. It's time we put our mathematics and our scientific brains to use. Guys, this is what even my friends, in Arts and Commerce say. Mathematics and Physics, also programming are very nice tools to have. They open up avenues, and interdisciplinary routes that you would not even contemplate otherwise. Life is irregular so why would subjects pertaining to what we do with it be do neatly divided into non-interacting piles? They interact, to create something truly ground-breaking. Remember Einstein dreaming up Newton and Maxwell together? Of how watching stationary electromagnetic waves, if you moved at 'c' in vaccuum violated Maxwell's laws? There is never a reason to not cultivate your mind. This is the true fruit of our times. And to be able to contribute to that field is what is my dream. P.S. There is a 90 per cent chance someone is going to say, and I quote- "No one cares."

Great!

Brilliant!!!!

True!

she is freaking awesome!!!

Superb.

so its LUCK, QUANTIFICATION and INTUITION. very nice talk

@4:21 that's an understatement for Christoph Vogelsang (bottom left)

Amazing

By far the prettiest woman in poker

I knew there was Tim down there!

wow, Liv is a data lady as well as a poker player. Love it!

I had to rewatch the video in order to absorb in what the speech was about. But on my... she is a work of art. If I have girlfriend this beautiful and smart, I'll definitely consider of putting a ring on it.

Brilliant

Wow she's beautiful.

Intuition is subconscious thinking and can be extremely effective on even the most complex problems But it can be derailed by triggers, such as emotional stress

95% dudes clicked because of her picture. 100% chance I did.

Short and to the point

Nice talk

This is nothing short of extraordinary. I came across similar material, and it was absolutely breathtaking. "Game Theory and the Pursuit of Algorithmic Fairness" by Jack Frostwell

Now that did deserved a standing ovation, thank you Liv and thank you Ted (100%)

Awesome

Truly brilliant advice ...

Seeing Igor there was kinda wholesome.:)

Ohhhh very nice

If you guys like this video, do checkout Verisateum's video on the importance of luck in success. In a nutshell, it argues for paradoxical thinking - assume confidence before you do something, but be grateful once you achieve it - as luck probably played the greater role in the end, all things being equal. So you gotta bring your A-game no matter what, luck is that extra something that is always needed to stay ahead of the crowd.

She makes some good points. Does anyone think she’s read the book titled, “Blink”?

Couldn't see point 3 slide because of RU-vid suggestion overlay.

Her posture is fantastic!

Nice

So, so true. We undervalue the role of dumb luck when we're having success. And there are totally benefits to quantifying odds and risks.

i love EPT tournaments

Happen to me in the stock market where I thought I was so brilliant

I actually speak in numbers too lol. It's very important to be specific

The only reason im here is because the presentation looks soooooooo good.

Very good points, well-delivered :D

i like this talk, and she is so beautiful, beautiful and smart, unbelievable!

OMG... I'm in love.

I could not seethe last picture she was presenting at the end of video because of random recommendation of other ted talks

I hate the Good morning/ messages giving daily dose of guidance even though you don't need it! Thanks for turning them down👍

The word probably means, 'a more than 50% chance but less than 100% chance', so it's meaning is quite specific. Granted the difference between 51% and 99% is pretty big but they are both probable. I was an English teacher for over 20 years and have seen people getting this incorrect with alarming regularity.

What is luck? I hear about it all the time, and still nobody confirmed how does it formed. Luck is a combination of hard and smart work, definite decision on your goal, persistence, faith, positive mental attitude, desire, self-talk, confidence, imagination, specialised knowledge (not a formal education), integrity, honesty, habit, etc... I like when someone put all of this in one word called "luck" in order to explain his excuses for not achieving anything meaningful in life. Most often people who failed to define others who keep trying and succeed as lucky, as the people who gave up on money trying to give a financial advice or the advice about how life is to be lived.

How do you not downplay your luck and simultaneously not overplay your intuition?

She sounds like Jen Barber from IT Crowd.

Which option would you choose if you had only one more year to live. Try that one if you are stuck :)

"The future is unknown but you can damn well try to estimate it" When making decisions I try to approximate probabilities of future events 94% of the time.

@ 4:18 damn she just roasted Kempe, Ike, Voggelsang etc 😂😭😭

When everything becomes data and numbers, I'll be there, gladly holding my bleeeding heart with my hands.