The Biggest Bluff

Except it really isn’t. Any tactician or strategist would tell you immediately that any edge is huge, and 2 percent is a big deal. What’s more, suitedness makes something a far stronger weapon: it’s easier to play. You have an added psychological edge because now you can navigate many situations much more clearly.

They write, “The observed differences in ROIs are highly statistically significant and far larger in magnitude than those observed in financial markets where fees charged by the money managers viewed as being most talented can run as high as three percent of assets under management and thirty percent of annual returns.” Success in poker, in other w

Unless you’re playing baccarat with an edge-sorting technique to guarantee your eventual win—noting subtle differences in patterns on the backs of cards that some decks unintentionally have—or counting cards at the blackjack table, you’re out to lose.

Theory of Games is his foundational text, and here’s what I learned within its pages: the entire theory was inspired by a single game—poker. “Real life consists of bluffing, of little tactics of deception, of asking yourself what is the other man going to think I mean to do,” von Neumann wrote. “And that is what games are about in my theory.”