Speaker 1: Pushkin. Welcome back to Risky Business, a show about making
Speaker 1: better decisions. I'm Maria Kanakova.
Speaker 2: And I'm Nate Silver.
Speaker 1: He is Nate Silver.
Speaker 2: You often like crack up during can but like, yeah,
Speaker 2: we're not going to do that to time.
Speaker 1: Today We're going to be straight faced. So today on
Speaker 1: the show, we have a really fun live show for you.
Speaker 1: Today we're going to be talking about reading people, the
Speaker 1: art of tell's deception, bluffing, and all all of that
Speaker 1: fun stuff. And after we kind of lay the groundwork,
Speaker 1: you guys better be paying really close attention because we'll
Speaker 1: be having people come up here to demonstrate how much
Speaker 1: you've learned about the art of greeting people.
Speaker 2: It's a five hundred dollar our entry fee. It's on
Speaker 2: the back of your ticket.
Speaker 1: So, Nate, you and I have just come back from
Speaker 1: Las Vegas, where we were both playing in the North
Speaker 1: American Poker Tour Famous Any Famous, Famous NAPT And you
Speaker 1: know poker and life are our games where there's bluffing. Nate,
Speaker 1: how are you at bluffing? How are you at bluffing
Speaker 1: and poker? And how are you at bluffing in life
Speaker 1: which might otherwise be known as lying?
Speaker 2: I think I'm a pretty good bluffer in poker, both
Speaker 2: kind of understanding like the game theory behind win to
Speaker 2: bluff and also like kind of have a few tricks
Speaker 2: to like pull things off right ironically in like real life,
Speaker 2: I kind of I kind of been very bad at
Speaker 2: lying in real life. I think my partner's here tonight,
Speaker 2: so you can confirm or deny that potentially. But no,
Speaker 2: I get very uncomfortable with you know, who is it
Speaker 2: like a lie takes too much work? Right? Kind lazy? No,
Speaker 2: It's like even things like like so when I was
Speaker 2: hiring people at five thirty eight, were with at Disney, right, like,
Speaker 2: what's the kind of the long term stability of this company?
Speaker 2: At the ABC News ESPN, I be like, I don't
Speaker 2: really know. You know, I'm under contract for a couple
Speaker 2: of years and we'll see what happens and so like.
Speaker 2: But I'm very comfortable, like in any type of negotiation
Speaker 2: or relationship, like I don't think it serves people certainly
Speaker 2: when purpose in the long run to kind of like
Speaker 2: form a relationship on false pretenses because it gets discovered
Speaker 2: later on. Right. No, So I'm an honest person mostly
Speaker 2: out of like laziness in real life, but in the
Speaker 2: context of poker. You know, poker would not exist without bluffing.
Speaker 2: That's what makes poker poker. I don't consider bluffing in
Speaker 2: poker to be lying. Also, when people, you know, people
Speaker 2: ask you, oh, what did you have? Right, so people
Speaker 2: are like, oh, if you actually ask a question, they
Speaker 2: won't like literally lie, I will, I will, I will
Speaker 2: lie my ass off, but like of what my ham was?
Speaker 2: I think it's like part of the game, but only
Speaker 2: a game. How about you are you Are you a bluffer? Maria?
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I when people ask me like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, you wrote a book about con artists and
Speaker 1: now you're a poker player, so you're basically doing that.
Speaker 1: And I want to say no, absolutely not, because, as
Speaker 1: you say, poker is a game and bluffing is part
Speaker 1: of it, right, It's actually part of the rules. So
Speaker 1: everyone expects you to not tell the truth to bluff.
Speaker 1: That is one of the strategic elements of the game.
Speaker 1: Con Artists lie when they're supposed to be telling the truth.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: Part of the rules of life is that we can
Speaker 1: trust each other, Right, you can trust me, I can
Speaker 1: trust you. We're not going to lie to each other
Speaker 1: when we see each other. And in fact, there's actually
Speaker 1: a lot of psychology that shows that humans have evolved
Speaker 1: for truthful relationships, not for deception, and that kind of
Speaker 1: trust is the default option. So in lots of study
Speaker 1: where you have people play all sorts of games. So
Speaker 1: we talk a lot about game theory on the show,
Speaker 1: and there are lots of games where you start off
Speaker 1: where you can either kind of cooperate or defect. Right,
Speaker 1: you can play by the rules, or you can cheat,
Speaker 1: you can lie. And it turns out that more often
Speaker 1: than not, like in the absence of any kind of
Speaker 1: incentive or pressure to the contrary, people start off cooperating
Speaker 1: and they start off in a very trusting stance, and
Speaker 1: that's actually, like, to me, that's really great, right, that's
Speaker 1: a very like hopeful thing for humanity, and societies with
Speaker 1: high levels of trust tend to do better. And you know,
Speaker 1: the reason that humans are actually pretty bad at spotting
Speaker 1: deception is that most people don't lie every day, right,
Speaker 1: And it's evolutionarily beneficial to just assume people are telling
Speaker 1: the truth. If you always thought everyone was lying like that,
Speaker 1: that ain't a good That ain't a good place to do.
Speaker 2: Like in like small communities. Then there's a reputational cast.
Speaker 2: I'm not that you know gto about it. It's like
Speaker 2: a reputational cost to lying or bad behavior, right, but
Speaker 2: it varies lot by society. I was with my partner
Speaker 2: and a friend in Korea for New Year's We were
Speaker 2: like shopping one day in some very busy area, and
Speaker 2: the shopkeeper at this very nice, busy shop went to
Speaker 2: get lunch, right, and he just kind of leaves, he
Speaker 2: leaves a door open. He's like, I'll be back in
Speaker 2: ten minutes. I'm grabbing some lunch, right, And like you
Speaker 2: could totally shoplift like whatever you want it because it's
Speaker 2: such a high trust society there that like there might
Speaker 2: be CCTV or whatever else. But like you take Marian,
Speaker 2: I'm not a I stole. I will say I.
Speaker 1: Stole Confessions of Risky Business.
Speaker 2: I stole taco Bell from the University of Chicago cafeteria
Speaker 2: one time, right. But the reason was because like the
Speaker 2: line to check out, It's like it was like they
Speaker 2: had like a pizza hut and a taco Bell and
Speaker 2: some other shitty era Mark concessions, right, and it was
Speaker 2: like a fifteen minute line to check out. I'm like,
Speaker 2: I'm you know, it's worth running the risk of getting
Speaker 2: caught dealing tacos if you have to wait fifteen minutes
Speaker 2: to check out.
Speaker 1: All right, University of Chicago. Next time they bought, they
Speaker 1: caught you. Yeah, so what happened? What were the repercussions hearing?
Speaker 2: And I don't know. It was the first offense, so
Speaker 2: they let me off, basically, but I'm.
Speaker 1: So glad they let you graduate. And you know, we
Speaker 1: wouldn't be sitting here otherwise. But but yeah, so so
Speaker 1: to go back to your kind of original question, I
Speaker 1: don't really you know, I don't think that I'm particularly
Speaker 1: good at lying in real life because I really don't.
Speaker 1: Now I tell white lies, and I think we all
Speaker 1: tell white lies, which is one reason another reason why
Speaker 1: we're so bad at spotting deception. Can you imagine what
Speaker 1: would happen if you were able to tell every single
Speaker 1: time someone said a white lie to you, Like, just
Speaker 1: just think about it, right, Like it's so good to
Speaker 1: see you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well I love it. I love that you
Speaker 2: look great, but like, like, look.
Speaker 1: You know, if you have loved that baseball cafe.
Speaker 2: Yea, thank you, marry that. If you have a friend
Speaker 2: who cancels plans because they're sick. Maybe they're actually sick, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: maybe they're having a really bad day, right, Maybe the
Speaker 2: fling of their life unexpectedly came into town. Right, maybe
Speaker 2: who knows, right, But like you don't need to be
Speaker 2: brutally honest, Like I'm not a big believer in like
Speaker 2: I think people are like, oh, radical transparency about everything.
Speaker 2: It's like you don't understand like the subtlety and like
Speaker 2: the density of like human communication. Actually, one thing I
Speaker 2: think you learned from AI models arts language models is
Speaker 2: like how laden with density, like word choices are and
Speaker 2: terns of phrase are and the particular analogy or allegory
Speaker 2: that you might use, right, Because you're often trying to
Speaker 2: communicate with like multiple people at once. Right, You're trying
Speaker 2: to say one you're dog whistling to some group of people,
Speaker 2: and you're saying you coming different things to different people.
Speaker 2: It's often kind of less subtle than people think if
Speaker 2: you consider like political communication example, But like language is
Speaker 2: a very rich medium and a very like strategic medium.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, And when you're communicating, And this is something
Speaker 1: that you really learn in poker, is that language is
Speaker 1: nonverbal too, right, when you kind of go from the
Speaker 1: real life arena to kind of the arena something like games.
Speaker 1: I used to be absolutely horrible at bluffing as well,
Speaker 1: because I'm so uncomfortable lying right, and I felt really
Speaker 1: and I felt really anxious and nervous when when I bluffed,
Speaker 1: and if I got caught bluffing, I was like, oh, no, right,
Speaker 1: I got cop bluffing. Where of course, the kind of
Speaker 1: the common wisdom is that if you're never caught bluffing,
Speaker 1: you're not bluffing enough. Right. It's part of the game.
Speaker 1: You're you're supposed to be cop bluffing. Sometimes you're supposed
Speaker 1: to bluff a lot. And what ended up actually helping
Speaker 1: me and getting me kind of over the hump to
Speaker 1: where I could start bluffing more successfully is when I
Speaker 1: stopped thinking of it as deception and started thinking of
Speaker 1: it as, oh, like, I understand the game better now,
Speaker 1: and this is actually the correct move for me to make, right,
Speaker 1: It is one of my strategic choices, and in this
Speaker 1: particular moment, this is the proper strategy. And so it
Speaker 1: you know, you were talking before about how you tell
Speaker 1: the truth in real life, because it's just you're lazy, Well,
Speaker 1: deception does create cognitive load, So it creates a lot
Speaker 1: of kind of tension and extra overhead kind of inside
Speaker 1: your brain. And because you have to kind of try
Speaker 1: to think, does my story make sense? Right? Am I
Speaker 1: being consistent? Is it logical? And you have to try
Speaker 1: to think, oh, am I giving off anything? Right? Can
Speaker 1: people tell? Like there's there's just a lot that starts happening.
Speaker 1: So if you stop thinking of it as you know,
Speaker 1: as a lie, you can actually reduce the cognitive load
Speaker 1: and just say, Okay, this is how I should be
Speaker 1: playing right.
Speaker 2: Now, I'm like sometimes more comfortable bluffing than I am
Speaker 2: with a strong man, right, which is a little Karen intuitive.
Speaker 2: It might give you some reverse to but like the
Speaker 2: way I look at it, Maria, is when I bet,
Speaker 2: I'm saying I have a range of hands, right, I'm saying, Look,
Speaker 2: I'm betting I might have some good hands. I might
Speaker 2: have some bad hands. I don't want you to know
Speaker 2: either way, right, I want to keep you guessing either way.
Speaker 2: That's an honest statement of like my range of hands.
Speaker 1: So the reason I have I have my phone up
Speaker 1: here for several reasons, but one of them is because
Speaker 1: so we just got back from the NAPT and I
Speaker 1: love that Natel said he feels more comfortable bluffing than
Speaker 1: he does telling the truth. Because I got a message.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah. So I have a substack called the Leap,
Speaker 1: and one of my paid subscribers was at NAPT playing
Speaker 1: and he played with Nate, and so I come home
Speaker 1: to this message from him. You know, hi, Maria, it
Speaker 1: was a nice meeting. Again. I had a great time
Speaker 1: this trip despite not cashing. Please tell Nate that he
Speaker 1: still bluffs too much. Oh no, So then I go,
Speaker 1: I go, ha ha ha. I'll make sure to tell him.
Speaker 1: And then he continues, and he says, I only saw
Speaker 1: one big bluff that was caught by a pair on
Speaker 1: a missed flush draw board. But from his past interviews
Speaker 1: I learned about his high bluff frequency, which someone else
Speaker 1: may have used at the table. I'm sure Nate's a
Speaker 1: better player than man. Doesn't need my advice, but I'm
Speaker 1: giving it to you anyway. So do you remember this hand.
Speaker 1: Apparently some you know, someone noticed that you were bluffing
Speaker 1: too much, Nate. How did you do in that tournament?
Speaker 2: Nate, Maria, So I write, So we're doing a little
Speaker 2: thing with with Sam Greenwood runs a blog called pen
Speaker 2: of the Day. So I wrote down for this whole
Speaker 2: week of poker all my questionably played in hands. There
Speaker 2: were quite a few, if we're being honest, right, but
Speaker 2: like probably the three hands that I believe were the
Speaker 2: worst plays or hands where I didn't bluff where I
Speaker 2: should have. Right, it's like counterintuitive how often you actually
Speaker 2: are supposed to bluff? Yeah, in poker, because it does
Speaker 2: feel like really bad when you bluffing at caught. It
Speaker 2: doesn't feel that bad when you have you have a
Speaker 2: big value hand, When you have like a full house
Speaker 2: or a flush or a straight and you bet and
Speaker 2: you don't get called, right, then it's like, oh, okay,
Speaker 2: well you know you didn't have anything you didn't pay off.
Speaker 2: But if you don't bluff enough then you won't get
Speaker 2: paid off as much. And so no, I think I
Speaker 2: probably still I think I'm like, I bluff more than
Speaker 2: the stereotyped version of Nate you have might assume, But
Speaker 2: I probably still under bluff relative to game theory or
Speaker 2: how often in practice it could probably could probably get
Speaker 2: away with it.
Speaker 1: Did you have any bluffs that you're very proud of?
Speaker 1: Because I actually so this was a very good series
Speaker 1: for me, and I had one bluff in particular that
Speaker 1: I'm very proud of that actually enabled me to do
Speaker 1: really well in the tournament that I did really well in.
Speaker 2: So some bluffs I like are where you make like
Speaker 2: so empirically certain lines are underutilized. Right, So one bluff
Speaker 2: I like is like often when people make like a
Speaker 2: small bet, then the representing like a you know, oactch
Speaker 2: have a me yocre ham, it's better than your hand, right,
Speaker 2: I have top pair with a bad kicker or a
Speaker 2: bad flesh or second pair, and you probably don't have
Speaker 2: top pair given the way the hand was played out,
Speaker 2: and then make like.
Speaker 1: Small people who don't play poker. These are all like
Speaker 1: second best hands.
Speaker 2: So the second where like I think my hand is
Speaker 2: just like slightly better than you are. I love making small,
Speaker 2: yep bluffs that are very cheap with hands I can
Speaker 2: represent like second best hands trying to get a little value,
Speaker 2: and they're very cheap, you know what I mean. I
Speaker 2: made a bluff in a limit game, which is hard
Speaker 2: to do. I was playing like some seven card stood
Speaker 2: eight or better, right, and like I had a great draw.
Speaker 4: I could get a low or high or whatever.
Speaker 2: And I and I missed everything right, and the guy
Speaker 2: bet and I'm I raise just like just raising, like
Speaker 2: he's getting like fifteen to one, right, he has to
Speaker 2: be right one out of fifteen times for his bluff
Speaker 2: to right, and he folds the whole pot.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: I scooped the pot with a bluff, So that felt good, Maria.
Speaker 1: Yeah, those are those are actually very smart bluffs when
Speaker 1: you when you just bluff a little bit because it
Speaker 1: seems like you want people to call you right. My
Speaker 1: bluff that ended up working, though, was the very opposite.
Speaker 1: I was out of position, so I was in the
Speaker 1: big blind. So for people who don't play poker, being
Speaker 1: out of position is not good, right, because you always
Speaker 1: act first and the person you're playing with act second
Speaker 1: and in everything. But also like when you're talking about
Speaker 1: tells and reading people, you want more information, right, The
Speaker 1: more information the better, and so getting to go second
Speaker 1: is a huge advantage. And so I was out of
Speaker 1: position against a player who's a very good player this
Speaker 1: whole hand, and I had jack ten, you know, really
Speaker 1: nice hand was suited. You know, I had a straight
Speaker 1: draw and I just then ended up having a flush draw. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I bricked everything but there were two different flush draws
Speaker 1: on the board, and he bet, he raised, you know,
Speaker 1: pre flop, he bet flop, he bet turned and then
Speaker 1: the river comes, it completes the wrong flush, not mine,
Speaker 1: and I have nothing and the pot is huge, and
Speaker 1: I did something very unorthodox, and I just shoved before
Speaker 1: he had a chance to act, so I took the
Speaker 1: momentum from him, and he ended up folding. It was
Speaker 1: very funny because this is a spot that people don't
Speaker 1: bluff very often, right when the board changes so much,
Speaker 1: because it's kind of suicidal to run that bluff. But
Speaker 1: my suicidal bluff worked, and it felt really good because
Speaker 1: I think that past me would not have been able
Speaker 1: to do something like that, because once again, bluffing and
Speaker 1: lying are two very different things. And this is also
Speaker 1: where nonverbal tells come into play a little bit, because,
Speaker 1: you know, something about his behavior made me think that
Speaker 1: he had been trying to bully me out of the
Speaker 1: hand for a long time, and so I was using
Speaker 1: that as well to kind of inform my kind of
Speaker 1: my thinking that maybe his hand was not so strong
Speaker 1: that he'd feel compelled to call.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm a big believer in nonverbal tells and kind
Speaker 2: of it often. I mean there are sometimes specific things
Speaker 2: I'm not sure when you have way too many secrets,
Speaker 2: but it's more often kind of like an overall vibe.
Speaker 2: I've Maria, I've kind of become a you can play
Speaker 2: with me, like at the same table in a while,
Speaker 2: become like a little bit more of a speech play
Speaker 2: guy where I'll like, I'll like talk to people, especially Europeans.
Speaker 2: The Europeans play poker are like they're very quiet, right,
Speaker 2: I'm like, where are you from? You know which part
Speaker 2: of Belli? They're usually from Belgium? Like which part of
Speaker 2: Belgium are you from? Just kind of see if people
Speaker 2: are comfortable or not, and like, you know, it's kind
Speaker 2: of if you're if you're considering, Like let's say it's
Speaker 2: a spot where like a player bets big on the river,
Speaker 2: he might be bluffing. I'm not planning on rebraising either
Speaker 2: because I'm all in any way, or or I'm not
Speaker 2: going to raise right, and like you kind of get
Speaker 2: free info just by talking to people. But it's an
Speaker 2: overall kind of aura or vibe and like it's not
Speaker 2: something mysterious, just like we are. We have like human interactions, right,
Speaker 2: Like in real life, you hopefully have intuition for when
Speaker 2: you're being deceived. For example, one is like when someone's
Speaker 2: not telling the full story, and like, yeah, and poker,
Speaker 2: you just kind of developed like this implicit database of
Speaker 2: like semantics and signals, and you'd be like foolish, like
Speaker 2: not to account for that. I don't think.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I always like to talk to people, and I
Speaker 1: think the reason that it works. I don't do it
Speaker 1: for tells, but I do it, you know, because it
Speaker 1: actually does help me later on. And this is the
Speaker 1: journalist in me, right, Like I'm genuinely curious to find
Speaker 1: out why people are there, what are they doing, what
Speaker 1: are their motivations? You know, why are you playing this event?
Speaker 1: Did you come? You know? Are you a professional? Are
Speaker 1: you here because your wife gave you a present? Because
Speaker 1: you've wanted to play this event forever? All of this
Speaker 1: is information, right, All of this tells you something about
Speaker 1: people and something that poker has really made me good at,
Speaker 1: which you know, it's funny because you think of it
Speaker 1: as kind of this cutthroat game, but it's actually made
Speaker 1: me a much better listener, right, It's made me someone
Speaker 1: who's much more attuned to the signals that other people
Speaker 1: give out because I mean at the poker table, it
Speaker 1: can help me take your money, but it also like
Speaker 1: it's rewarded. Right, When you truly listen to other people,
Speaker 1: you are able to understand where they're coming from, take
Speaker 1: their perspective, which humans are really bad at doing. Right. Normally,
Speaker 1: when we think we're taking someone else's perspective, what we're
Speaker 1: doing is taking our perspective and lumping it onto the
Speaker 1: other person. And we're like, oh, I know exactly what
Speaker 1: you're thinking. It's what I would be thinking if I
Speaker 1: were in your shoes, And that's usually completely wrong. Right,
Speaker 1: we're so ego centric and to be able to kind
Speaker 1: of actually take a step back and figure out, wait, no,
Speaker 1: this is what they would be thinking because they've told
Speaker 1: me more about themselves. It helps you strategically, but then
Speaker 1: it helps you in real life just be a better person.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 2: One of the best pieces of poker advice I've listened
Speaker 2: to you recently. I think he's from Hungry Horse Poker.
Speaker 2: I think his name is Mark Goon, a good YouTuber. Right,
Speaker 2: he's like, remember thinking about the poker world from the
Speaker 2: opponent's point of view, right, like putting yourself in the
Speaker 2: other player's shoes and like what's bothering them? Yeah, especially
Speaker 2: for for amateur players, right, one thing you see all
Speaker 2: the time and like big events like the main event
Speaker 2: or other big events. The World Sairs of Poker is
Speaker 2: like some guy comes in. He won his kind of
Speaker 2: like local home game tournament. His friends bought him in
Speaker 2: for tank the World Series of Poker. It's some prize
Speaker 2: from some series they have, right, And you can like
Speaker 2: kind of pinpoint the moment where something like I want
Speaker 2: to play tight, gonna play solid, Right, you can like
Speaker 2: pinpoint the moment when they kind of were like, shit,
Speaker 2: this isn't working, right, they panic a little bit. Some
Speaker 2: of these are more obvious. So I played a cash
Speaker 2: game at the BLA show last night. I'm my way
Speaker 2: out of town.
Speaker 1: This is true dgen behavior.
Speaker 2: Guys would write football. There was a guy and now
Speaker 2: we get into gendered stereotypes. Right, there was a guy
Speaker 2: who had his like his girlfriend sitting directly behind him
Speaker 2: making faces about every hand. I'm like, this guy probably
Speaker 2: is not bluffing old punch right when like when it
Speaker 2: was like his girlfriend's they are like approving it is
Speaker 2: from them. Is like play in every hair like i'd be.
Speaker 2: You know, he's not bluffing like ever, right, don't think so, Nate.
Speaker 1: The funny thing is it turns out that we humans
Speaker 1: are remarkably good at controlling our faces. Right, We are
Speaker 1: really good at poker faces. If you want to look
Speaker 1: at nonverbal behavior, if you want to look at tells,
Speaker 1: if you want to figure out is this person bluffing
Speaker 1: in the case of poker or lying deceiving me in
Speaker 1: the case of day to day interactions, looking at their
Speaker 1: face is the wrong place to look.
Speaker 3: Look.
Speaker 1: There are lots of studies that show that basically our
Speaker 1: faces give almost nothing away because we're so incredibly used
Speaker 1: to controlling them. Right, that's the one thing you're always
Speaker 1: thinking about, Like poker face, right am, I giving anything away?
Speaker 1: That's something that most people are actually really, really good at.
Speaker 1: But what you're not used to controlling is the rest
Speaker 1: of your body. Right. You don't realize that you're leaking
Speaker 1: information through your posture, through your hands, through your feet,
Speaker 1: through all of these other things. That's where people should
Speaker 1: be staring.
Speaker 2: No, it's it's the hands.
Speaker 1: It's the hands. Yes, anyone who's read the biggest bluff,
Speaker 1: I have a whole chapter about the hands.
Speaker 2: It's the pulse. Often. I mean, I find a guy
Speaker 2: in the main event that the World series where like
Speaker 2: like literally had like a real time heart rate monitor
Speaker 2: hook up to him, where like he just had this
Speaker 2: thing where like his heart was beating his neck. If
Speaker 2: you have that happen, it can happen to people temporarily
Speaker 2: or permanently. We're like we're a skyrif wear like a
Speaker 2: sweatshirt or something. Right, But like it was very correlated,
Speaker 2: Like I knew because he made it. We just you know, look,
Speaker 2: you pick up a whole vocabulary just based on having
Speaker 2: a lot of reps doing these things. Right, he was
Speaker 2: already making mannerisms that I associate with having like a
Speaker 2: very strong hand. In this case, he had aces and
Speaker 2: you saw his heartbeat and saw, Okay, here's a guy
Speaker 2: where his heartbeat beats faster when he has his strong hand, right,
Speaker 2: which is not true for everybody. Some people are the opposite.
Speaker 2: And so like now, like I basically know is like
Speaker 2: hand strength for the rest of the day, Like that's
Speaker 2: a huge advantage that explicit is rare, but like, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's often kind of like also watching people before you
Speaker 2: get into big moments in the hand, right, because once
Speaker 2: they're locked in, then they're self conscious. Like what you're
Speaker 2: trying to figure out too, is like, okay, somebody makes
Speaker 2: an action. Was that conscious? Was it unconscious? If it
Speaker 2: was unconscious to them, become aware. Oh I took a
Speaker 2: little bit a while to make that call. That might
Speaker 2: look weak or it might look strong, depending on context.
Speaker 2: It's all. It's like regular language, right, it's all. It's
Speaker 2: all very contextual. They said that might be strong and
Speaker 2: one context might be weak. In other context. You're trying
Speaker 2: to like paint a semantic portrait.
Speaker 1: We'll be back right after this. So there's kind of
Speaker 1: three bigger picture psych things here that I want to
Speaker 1: kind of draw out. So first, the reason that Nate
Speaker 1: was able to use some of this information is because
Speaker 1: he had immediate feedback, which we normally don't have in life. Right,
Speaker 1: He saw that pulse and then he saw that there
Speaker 1: was a strong hand associated with it, and so he
Speaker 1: had that. You know, this means that now imagine that
Speaker 1: you didn't get to see the cards, you would have
Speaker 1: no way of knowing if this was a signal of
Speaker 1: strength or weakness, and the exact same thing might actually
Speaker 1: signal very different outcomes, very different. You know, I'm being
Speaker 1: lied to or this person and you know is telling
Speaker 1: the truth, depending which kind of goes to point number two,
Speaker 1: which is why it's so incredibly difficult to spot deception
Speaker 1: in real life. Why, by the way, LIGHTE detector tests
Speaker 1: are absolute bullshit, all of them. There's no good CIA FBI,
Speaker 1: Like nobody has a good and actually accurate LE detector
Speaker 1: because well, first of all, you can fake them. But secondly,
Speaker 1: like you can tell if someone's stressed or nervous, right,
Speaker 1: or if there's you know, something going on, if there's
Speaker 1: cognitive load, but you have no access to why, right,
Speaker 1: What is the why behind that? Am I stressed because
Speaker 1: I'm lying? Or am I stressed because I'm telling the
Speaker 1: truth and I'm afraid that you're not going to believe me? Right?
Speaker 1: Or am I stressed because like I haven't gotten enough
Speaker 1: sleep and this is a really.
Speaker 2: Stressful situation if I am angry? Yeah? Or what were you? Exactly? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Exactly?
Speaker 2: Like I was like, so you're something, you bet you'll
Speaker 2: put out whatever I'm betting seventy bucks, I put up
Speaker 2: seven ten dollars chips or a fifty dollars chip, But
Speaker 2: like if I'm like hungry and I have eaten, then
Speaker 2: you can get like shaky hands, you like absolutely seventy bucks,
Speaker 2: right y, because you don't want to like although honestly,
Speaker 2: you know you can have reverse tels. Maybe you're a
Speaker 2: little hungry and you know, and you like so you
Speaker 2: kind of have some tremble. I mean they're like, I
Speaker 2: do I do things. I don't have a little stitching
Speaker 2: as a person. I'll do I do a little things
Speaker 2: to mix it up. You know, I'm trying to be
Speaker 2: unreadable and like because I'm like not like inherently a
Speaker 2: very like still person, then maybe I tried to vary
Speaker 2: things a little bit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's so yeah. Number two like you really
Speaker 1: don't know. Number three is something that you alluded to,
Speaker 1: which is I think really really important when you're trying
Speaker 1: to figure out, you know, how do I read this person,
Speaker 1: whether it's at the poker table or not. And that's
Speaker 1: you need a baseline of behavior to be able to
Speaker 1: compare it to right. You need to know what this
Speaker 1: person normally behaves like, which requires a ton of data
Speaker 1: that frankly, you often don't have, right, which is why
Speaker 1: I caution people a lot of the time not to
Speaker 1: put too much stock in tells, whether it's at the
Speaker 1: poker table or in a conversation where like, oh, I
Speaker 1: think that guy's lying to me, right, do you know, like,
Speaker 1: do you have a good baseline? Have you observed this
Speaker 1: person in enough situations, in enough interactions where you know
Speaker 1: what normal looks like so that you can tell what
Speaker 1: deviation from normal looks like, and then do you have
Speaker 1: feedback to know what that deviation means. So there's so
Speaker 1: many steps that need to actually happen for you to
Speaker 1: be able to make an actual read, which is why
Speaker 1: when you see these meta analyzes and psychology of nonverbal
Speaker 1: behavior usually you find that, you know, it's kind of
Speaker 1: fifty to fifty right, that it's almost no better than chance.
Speaker 1: And even if people can get better than chance, they
Speaker 1: improve from like fifty percent to fifty four percent, right,
Speaker 1: which sure four percents a lot, but it's still like
Speaker 1: still incredibly noisy if you're trying.
Speaker 2: To know and also with a strategy, if you ignore
Speaker 2: the bluffs or the tells for a second, right in
Speaker 2: strategy in poker, I mean we all have some sense
Speaker 2: for like empirically how the population plays. You're talking about
Speaker 2: this before backstage, like, oh, this spot is underbluffed by
Speaker 2: the player population overall. Therefore, if I buffed this spot,
Speaker 2: people will fold a lot. But it feels like in
Speaker 2: poker that can shift and adjust in different player populations,
Speaker 2: and like, you know, look, one thing about having like
Speaker 2: a capitalist, free market economy is like the market finds
Speaker 2: a way. The market finds a way to exploit any loopholes,
Speaker 2: to exploit any inefficiencies for better or worse. And the
Speaker 2: same is true in poker that like, you know, look
Speaker 2: right now, I'm probably you know, as a default, I'm
Speaker 2: probably folding in a lot of spots because people probably
Speaker 2: under bluff on average, right, unless there's like some type
Speaker 2: of physical read or other read. Right, But if you
Speaker 2: know that about me, then you can exploit the hell
Speaker 2: out of me, you know, And so you have to
Speaker 2: be constantly on your toes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really interesting. One of the kind of first
Speaker 1: things that I learned from Eric is that he would
Speaker 1: never give me an answer to like how do I
Speaker 1: play this hand in this situation, because he said, you know,
Speaker 1: I can't tell you that because I'm not you. Right,
Speaker 1: when people see me, they expect something, and when they
Speaker 1: see you, they expect something else because you know, people
Speaker 1: have biases, people have preconceptions about how different people play,
Speaker 1: and you can probably get away with things that I
Speaker 1: can't get away with. He's like, you know, if you
Speaker 1: raise here, that looks so strong coming from you, right,
Speaker 1: And the implication is, you know I'm female. I am
Speaker 1: not you know, a world class ten bracelet whenever you know,
Speaker 1: I'm a very different sort of player. And so when
Speaker 1: I do something that, when I run a suicide bluff,
Speaker 1: I get a fold. When somebody comes in, you know,
Speaker 1: with sleeve tattoos and you know, a shaved head and
Speaker 1: huge biceps and tries the exact same bluff, they're probably
Speaker 1: going to get a call.
Speaker 2: Right, some of those huge bicep guys know exactly what
Speaker 2: they're doing and they're putting their their false exactly. And
Speaker 2: if you have some and being aware of life is
Speaker 2: complicated and like I can get different. I mean you've
Speaker 2: talked about written about because bluff. How like some men
Speaker 2: want to beat the hell out of yeah women at
Speaker 2: the table. Some want to be chivl risks and deferential. Right.
Speaker 2: My version of that is, like I can have a
Speaker 2: couple different stereotypes, like one is like, Okay, here is
Speaker 2: a statistics nerd. He must be very tight and very straightforward.
Speaker 2: The other is like, here's a guy who probably has
Speaker 2: what do you say amount of money he's in this
Speaker 2: is a hobby. He probably doesn't have some fun he
Speaker 2: can afford the buyings he's splashing around, right, So, like people,
Speaker 2: I can get bifcaate between like being seen as like
Speaker 2: overly tight and overly loose and being very aware of
Speaker 2: like your kind of microscopic like table image and things
Speaker 2: like that, or like even what hat I wear, right, hat,
Speaker 2: it's like wolf hat I sometimes wear that my partner hates, right,
Speaker 2: but like that create some more aggressive image. You have
Speaker 2: a Vegas Knight's hat that I sometimes wear, which is
Speaker 2: like if you're playing in Vegas, it's like an old
Speaker 2: man coffee local playing the game.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: So like, even like wardrobe and things like that can
Speaker 2: affect these perceptions.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely absolutely, And I think we make judgments about
Speaker 1: people all the time that are based on zero data.
Speaker 1: And that's another reason why you know, spotting deception. Being
Speaker 1: able to read people is so incredibly difficult because our
Speaker 1: own baseline is incredibly biased. Right when you see anyone,
Speaker 1: whether you know it or not, you are just constantly
Speaker 1: like making judgments, judgments, judgments, judgments, and before they even
Speaker 1: do anything. In poker, you do it before they play
Speaker 1: a single hand. In real life, you do it before
Speaker 1: you have a single conversation. Do you ever meet someone
Speaker 1: and you're like, I don't like this person. You haven't
Speaker 1: talked to them, and you're like, oh my god, this
Speaker 1: person's just rubbing me the wrong way, right, And like
Speaker 1: they might be perfectly nice and they haven't done anything,
Speaker 1: and you might even end up liking them later, but like, yeah,
Speaker 1: often you do, but like that initial reaction, like I
Speaker 1: definitely have that like ooof yeah, And then and then
Speaker 1: you have the opposite where like you're like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I love you. We're going to be best friends, right,
Speaker 1: and then like by the end of the night, you're like,
Speaker 1: go away please, Right, you are the most annoying human
Speaker 1: I've ever met. But it goes in both ways. Both
Speaker 1: times you make these subconscious judgments based on cues that
Speaker 1: you probably don't even realize you're using. And it's because
Speaker 1: we have years and years and years of experiences that
Speaker 1: we're drawing on, right that make us who we are,
Speaker 1: that are our own biases, our own perspectives, and that's why,
Speaker 1: you know, reading people is hard in life and at
Speaker 1: the poker table, and we're bad at it unless we
Speaker 1: really really try to be empirically and data driven, which
Speaker 1: again is difficult.
Speaker 4: And we'll be right back after this break, so.
Speaker 1: We'll see how well Nate controls some of his tells.
Speaker 1: We are going to play a game called Lowden Thinks.
Speaker 1: So what this game is is I, well, one person
Speaker 1: it's going to be me this time, is going to
Speaker 1: ask the Lawden who's going to be Nate, a question
Speaker 1: which has a numerical answer. For instance, I could ask
Speaker 1: him how many subway stops are there in New York City. Okay, Now,
Speaker 1: the actual answers to this doesn't matter whatsoever. All that
Speaker 1: matters is what Nate thinks it is. So Nate is
Speaker 1: going to write his answer down. Don't write your answer
Speaker 1: to this one, but for you have an estimate. Okay.
Speaker 1: So Nate has an estimate. So he's going to write
Speaker 1: it down so that we know that it's locked in
Speaker 1: and that he's not lying, right. And then I'm going
Speaker 1: to ask two people from the audience to come up,
Speaker 1: and they are going to start kind of a bidding
Speaker 1: war to try to figure out Nate's answers. So, for instance,
Speaker 1: let's say it's the two of you ladies who are
Speaker 1: coming up, and so you could say, you could say ten, right,
Speaker 1: Nate thinks it's ten, and you would say ten's too low, right,
Speaker 1: So you pick a number that's you are allowed to
Speaker 1: say either under if you think it's under ten, or
Speaker 1: pick another number. So you might be like ten, that's crazy,
Speaker 1: fifty and you might be like, oh, fifty, that's crazy,
Speaker 1: that's too high. Under. Basically, you keep going until one
Speaker 1: person says under, and whoever gets closest to not the
Speaker 1: real answer, but what Nate thinks the answer is is
Speaker 1: the person who wins. So you know, let's say that
Speaker 1: you had said two hundred and you had said under. Okay,
Speaker 1: and Nate, what was your answer? All right?
Speaker 2: So you I think that's it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: Doesn't that's the point, right, it doesn't matter, So you
Speaker 1: would have won because you said two hundred and you
Speaker 1: had the under on two hundred. We don't care about
Speaker 1: the actual answer, So your goal is not to immediately
Speaker 1: start thinking about what is the answer to this. Your
Speaker 1: goal is to think what does Nate think the answer is.
Speaker 1: So you have to do everything we've talked about tonight.
Speaker 1: You have to look at the world from Nate's perspective,
Speaker 1: and you have to observe him, you know, observe his
Speaker 1: tells because you know, if you had said, like hundred,
Speaker 1: he'd probably give you a look like you're crazy. Or
Speaker 1: maybe he's going to uh, you know, maybe he's going
Speaker 1: to protect him his uh, his poker face. Yeah, his
Speaker 1: range a little bit better than that. All right, So
Speaker 1: can we have two volunteers from the audience to guess
Speaker 1: our first a lotten question? We've got one hand back there, Yeah,
Speaker 1: come on up, Yeah, you back there, and we need
Speaker 1: a second. All right, up, you come all right. So
Speaker 1: here's my question. How many podcasts are there in the
Speaker 1: world right now?
Speaker 2: Can I ask for clarifying questions or no? How many podcasts?
Speaker 1: How many podcasts in the world? So Nate, let me
Speaker 1: know when you've written down your answer and make sure, Okay,
Speaker 1: I got it, you're locked in. All right? What's your name?
Speaker 1: My name is Rob, and what's your name Roger? All right, Rob,
Speaker 1: We're gonna start off the game with you, Rob. Why
Speaker 1: don't you throw out a number? All right?
Speaker 3: Big m I'll say ten.
Speaker 1: Thousand, all right, Roger, are you gonna go over? Are
Speaker 1: you gonna take the under? Over?
Speaker 2: All right?
Speaker 1: So what's your number?
Speaker 2: Twenty five? All right?
Speaker 1: Twenty five thousand, Rob, it's back to you, hess twenty five.
Speaker 2: I will I will match that.
Speaker 1: No, you can't match that. We're not sorry. You have to.
Speaker 1: You have to either take a number that's higher or
Speaker 1: say under. I'm gonna say thirty k. Okay, And remember, guys,
Speaker 1: you need to be looking at Nate, not at me.
Speaker 1: All right, So thirty k Roger? Are you? What are you?
Speaker 1: What are you gonna do? Do you like thirty? Are
Speaker 1: you under? Are you over? Oh? Look at Nate. He's
Speaker 1: Nate's losing it over here, melting under pressure, a swearty guy.
Speaker 2: I have a better poker face, And.
Speaker 1: Alright, thirty five thousand, Rob, back to you. I'll go
Speaker 1: under it, all right, Nate? What's your number?
Speaker 2: Three point six million? At right?
Speaker 1: All right, Roger, you win because you're closer, but you
Speaker 1: are everyone is off by well, the two of you
Speaker 1: are off by an order of magnitude from Nate's real guest.
Speaker 2: Do we know the real number?
Speaker 1: We do have the real number. I happen to look
Speaker 1: it up because I wanted to know. Four point five million?
Speaker 2: Holy shit, pretty good might be an assasination thing.
Speaker 1: Guys, does everyone here have a podcast? Because it seems like, uh,
Speaker 1: all right, we're gonna do We're gonna do. Do you
Speaker 1: guys want one more shot?
Speaker 2: Can idem myself?
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, we're gonna do a re We're gonna do
Speaker 1: a rematch because yeah, Rob wants a shot at redemption.
Speaker 1: All right, let's take a shot. All right, So so
Speaker 1: this one we'll do, uh, we'll do slightly non podcasting.
Speaker 1: We'll pay uh respects to our venue. How many live
Speaker 1: events does ludlow House host in a year.
Speaker 2: Of any kind?
Speaker 1: Many? Kind? No more clarifying questions leading the witness. You
Speaker 1: got your number.
Speaker 2: I'm like, I'm like doing some deceptive shit, right, I
Speaker 2: want people like you know, having reach side down. So
Speaker 2: I'm trying to mix up.
Speaker 1: All right, we've got some We've got some deceptive tells.
Speaker 1: All right, Rob, this one you start us off seven
Speaker 1: and fifty All right, Roger under you're taking the under.
Speaker 1: Oh well that was a short round of laden.
Speaker 2: Five fifty five. But what's the answer. This doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: The answer doesn't matter. This is what. I don't have
Speaker 1: the answer too because it is not public. But as
Speaker 1: far as I can tell, ludlow House does five to
Speaker 1: six live events a week, so multiply that by okay,
Speaker 1: maybe a little high, yeah, by fifty weeks.
Speaker 2: My justification was that as I was reading him, I
Speaker 2: was like, I feel like he usually would aim high.
Speaker 2: He did that with the how many podcasts were out
Speaker 2: in the whole world.
Speaker 1: I like this, you're extrapolating, You're using available information, you
Speaker 1: know what. I'm giving you an extra point for using
Speaker 1: data in a good way. And so oh I'm getting
Speaker 1: I'm getting booed. Apparently the audio the audience does not
Speaker 1: like that. So Roger, congratulations, An I don't mean that
Speaker 1: you are our London. Thanks champion, Thank you both so much.
Speaker 1: Thank you for volunteering.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 1: All right, we have time for a few questions. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just want to.
Speaker 3: Say, Maria, your book was the first book I read
Speaker 3: when I started playing poker, and so really excited to
Speaker 3: meet you.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I'm curious for you, guys.
Speaker 3: This is both a poker question while so out of
Speaker 3: outside of poker, what do you think is the difference
Speaker 3: between bias because you guys were talking about bias when
Speaker 3: you're playing, and like the reputation reading the reputation of
Speaker 3: someone at the table versus intuition, And do you feel
Speaker 3: like intuition comes into play for you, like having cards,
Speaker 3: sunds like, et cetera, or there's a big differentiation.
Speaker 1: That's that's a really great question. And I am someone
Speaker 1: who people get mad at because I'm like, do not
Speaker 1: follow your gut feeling. It's bullshit. So here's here's my rationale.
Speaker 1: It's not always true. So humans have very strong gut feelings, right,
Speaker 1: really strong intuitions, and our intuitions can be either true
Speaker 1: or false. Right, they can be either correct or not.
Speaker 1: When you study this and you actually kind of do
Speaker 1: the psych experiments, it turns out that we are about
Speaker 1: fifty to fifty at identifying correct from incorrect intuitions. So
Speaker 1: we feel like they're equally valid either way. Right, We're
Speaker 1: really really bad. Sometimes we think a correct one's wrong,
Speaker 1: and sometimes we think a wrong one's correct at chance levels.
Speaker 1: And so what I like to say is that the
Speaker 1: data show that the intuitions that you can actually trust
Speaker 1: are intuitions that aren't intuitions. They are deep expertise that
Speaker 1: you don't necessarily have conscious access to how you know it.
Speaker 1: So if you are an expert in this, right, if
Speaker 1: you are someone who has you know, thousands and thousands
Speaker 1: of hours of experience in this and like this is
Speaker 1: really your area, then you might know something. Your brain
Speaker 1: might be noticing patterns right there. I mean pattern recognition
Speaker 1: going on that your conscious brain isn't aware of because
Speaker 1: it's at a deeper level. So it feels like intuition
Speaker 1: to you, but it's not. It's actually expertise that you've
Speaker 1: worked really, really hard for. So the question you should
Speaker 1: ask is is there a reason why I should know this? Right? Like?
Speaker 1: Am I an expert in this field? Is this my domain?
Speaker 1: Have I experienced this many many times before? And if
Speaker 1: the answer is yes, then go for it, trust it.
Speaker 1: If the answer is no, then rely on other things.
Speaker 1: So what I would you know? Like in poker, I
Speaker 1: would say, like if at the table, I think you know,
Speaker 1: I think this person's bluffing, but I'm not sure why,
Speaker 1: Versus if Eric's idell says, I think this person's bluffing,
Speaker 1: but I'm not sure why. Trust Eric's intuition, don't trust mine.
Speaker 1: Eric's been doing this shit since the eighties. Right, he's
Speaker 1: a true expert. I'm not. And the funny thing is
Speaker 1: when it comes to reading people, the theme of you
Speaker 1: know this show, we all think we're experts because we
Speaker 1: read people all the time, we make judgments all the time.
Speaker 1: The problem is we don't know if we're right or not,
Speaker 1: So it feels like expertise when it's not because you
Speaker 1: don't get feedback. You're like, I think this person's lying, right,
Speaker 1: I think this person's telling the truth. But you have
Speaker 1: no idea, like you are constantly everyone thinks they're an
Speaker 1: expert at reading people, but we don't, you know, unless
Speaker 1: you're a poker player, or unless you're someone who constantly
Speaker 1: gets feedback about whether your reads were correct or not,
Speaker 1: you're a fake expert. Feels like expertise, but it's not.
Speaker 2: In terms of kind of like capital be biased. I'm
Speaker 2: like not trying to be overly woke or anything, but
Speaker 2: like making assumptions based on like race or gender doesn't
Speaker 2: work for a one poker because people can like actually
Speaker 2: take advantage of your expectation of them and therefore exploit you. Right, Absolutely,
Speaker 2: age tells you a little bit more amateur versus professional
Speaker 2: tells you a little bit more.
Speaker 1: Biggest bluffers I've ever encountered have been the like little
Speaker 1: old men who you're like, oh, like he's so sweet,
Speaker 1: he's not bluffing me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like in your face because like and it
Speaker 2: probably you know, these kind of older guys will probably
Speaker 2: hire coaches or watch videos like I can get away
Speaker 2: with impunity with like bluffing a lot, and so yeah,
Speaker 2: I you know, any data you have when someone has
Speaker 2: someone actually played a hand, right, it can be like
Speaker 2: an old guy who's eighty five years old who looks
Speaker 2: like he's senile. Right, if you catch him making some
Speaker 2: huge bluff in the first hand he plays and like
Speaker 2: that totally outweighs any priors that you had about about
Speaker 2: his style.
Speaker 1: Of So always, when in doubt, use objective, observable data
Speaker 1: and be very very skeptical of your gut unless you're
Speaker 1: a true expert in it.
Speaker 2: Hi, my name is Julian. Great to mean you guys.
Speaker 5: My question is somewhat related, but it's essentially how do
Speaker 5: you discern between making a re or observing a tell
Speaker 5: that gives you an advantage versus falling for somebody trying
Speaker 5: to deceive you with like a fake tell.
Speaker 1: It's a good question, and there's no there's no clear
Speaker 1: cut answer, But I would say two things. One, despite
Speaker 1: what Nate says, I would urge you all not to
Speaker 1: try to throw fake tales. It's a very very risky proposition.
Speaker 1: And normally fake tales give away way more than you
Speaker 1: you know, than you're trying to. And I think that
Speaker 1: the most you can try to do is just standardize
Speaker 1: your behavior as much as possible. That's the advice that
Speaker 1: I got from kind of a behavioral expert who coaches
Speaker 1: poker players, is try to have a routine and follow
Speaker 1: that same routine, because otherwise you're going to give off information.
Speaker 2: Now, it's true because like some tells can have the
Speaker 2: reverse meaning based on very subtle distinctions. Right, Like you
Speaker 2: bet someone takes a long time to make all on
Speaker 2: the flop, right from like a truly novice player. We
Speaker 2: both play like charity tournaments. Sometimes probably sincere they probably
Speaker 2: are having trouble even reading the board telling how strong
Speaker 2: their hand is. Right from like the next step upward,
Speaker 2: then that might be deceiving you into betting again, right
Speaker 2: and then beyond that, it's probably more random someone's liberately
Speaker 2: randomizing or or whatever, but like knowing kind of what
Speaker 2: level somebody is on and if they if they become
Speaker 2: aware of something weird that occurs, right, you know, if
Speaker 2: you become aware like so, like let's say that, like
Speaker 2: you know, I have a hand where because it's I
Speaker 2: haven't eaten in fifteen hours, right, my hand troubles a
Speaker 2: little bit when I'm like making a bet. If I'm
Speaker 2: aware of that, that will affect my play for the
Speaker 2: rest of the hand. Like usually that's read as strength.
Speaker 2: There are some players for which that's not true, right,
Speaker 2: you know, sometimes stuck about reverse tells like can I
Speaker 2: make myself kind of like fake tremble on command. I'm
Speaker 2: not saying I've never tried that, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: But it's all very context driven, which is just like
Speaker 2: human interaction. Right, The same statement can be ambiguous and
Speaker 2: can mean five different things coming from five different people
Speaker 2: or from the same person depending on the context who
Speaker 2: they're speaking to. Very precise changes and wording and language
Speaker 2: and things like that and facial expressions.
Speaker 6: Hi, We've spoke at the beginning about what you're comfortable with,
Speaker 6: and I'm curious to know if you worry about the
Speaker 6: slippery slope and how to keep a healthy boundary between
Speaker 6: the things that you would consider to be acceptable, like
Speaker 6: the bluffing being strategy and white lies with the pleasantries
Speaker 6: going on versus going on to that deep end where
Speaker 6: you know where is the line between that and then
Speaker 6: suddenly in your day to day carrying it over too
Speaker 6: much and losing track of what is a good lie,
Speaker 6: so to speak, versus a bad lie where the con
Speaker 6: people are.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I just try not to lie, to
Speaker 1: be perfectly honest. You know. My next book that I'm
Speaker 1: working on right now is about cheating in games, and
Speaker 1: you know, being around kind of that sort of deceptive
Speaker 1: behavior just gives me such awareness of how costly it
Speaker 1: is and of how costly it is for society that
Speaker 1: I've become more truthful as I've delved into that research,
Speaker 1: because I just want to like distinguish myself as much
Speaker 1: as possible from the people that I'm researching, because you
Speaker 1: see what the social cost is right of people taking cheating,
Speaker 1: you know, taking taking the rules of the game and
Speaker 1: breaking them and bending them and being unsportsmenlike in their behavior.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I think that there's really no slippery slope,
Speaker 1: like in the sense that if I'm playing a game
Speaker 1: like poker, you know, all bluff, it's a game, and
Speaker 1: then I'm done playing the game. And I have zero
Speaker 1: tolerance for angle shooting, which is something that's technically not cheating,
Speaker 1: but is bending the rules right, So it's doing something
Speaker 1: that's like a little underhanded, right to the to the
Speaker 1: edge of actually like being caught out for cheating. Like
Speaker 1: I hate that there are some players who say that
Speaker 1: it's acceptable strategy, right, if it's within the rules and
Speaker 1: it helps me win, I'm going to do it, And
Speaker 1: I think that's gross. So, like I I think it's
Speaker 1: made me less tolerant of all borderline behaviors.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think ironically. I mean, like often the saddest
Speaker 2: things you see at a poker table where there's someone
Speaker 2: who just shouldn't be playing, often comes at the at
Speaker 2: the lower stakes king. And it's also by the way,
Speaker 2: we often experience the most like abusive behavior. Do you
Speaker 2: speak up if are you a see something, say something?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I always because I have been abused myself at
Speaker 1: the poker table as a female. You know, I'm usually
Speaker 1: a very easy target, and especially when I just started
Speaker 1: out playing you know, and nobody knew who I was,
Speaker 1: and I was playing kind of lower stakes at kind
Speaker 1: of these really kind of low end casinos. Like I
Speaker 1: experienced a lot of abuse, and as I've kind of
Speaker 1: grown in the game and kind of made my way
Speaker 1: in it so that I'm a recognizable face and I
Speaker 1: feel more comfortable there, I want to make sure to
Speaker 1: use my voice to protect people. So if there's bad
Speaker 1: behavior against other players, against dealers, against floor staff, I
Speaker 1: will absolutely say something and call it out there. There
Speaker 1: are a few poker players who hate me because I've
Speaker 1: like I've called the floor on them and have told
Speaker 1: them that what they were doing was not funny.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's one thing you learned too, is like, because
Speaker 2: people can be quiet and low key, right, but like,
Speaker 2: I know lots of shit about people, I'm not saying
Speaker 2: anything about, right, And the same is true and reverse,
Speaker 2: especially if you are like kind of like a public
Speaker 2: figure who's known both for poker and for non poker things.
Speaker 2: But beware, the people are being very observant about what
Speaker 2: you're doing too, and this s park people probably aren't
Speaker 2: saying anything about it. There's some tactical advantage from remaining
Speaker 2: quiet about it yep right.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you all so much for joining this live
Speaker 1: taping of Risky Business. It was an absolute pleasure of
Speaker 1: having you all here. I hope that you feel more
Speaker 1: comfortable about reading tells and especially about reading Nate Silver.
Speaker 1: And when it comes to a lot of thanks, thank
Speaker 1: you all.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Let us know what you think of the show. Reach
Speaker 1: out to us at Risky Business at pushkin dot FM.
Speaker 1: Risky Business is hosted by me Maria Kanakova.
Speaker 2: And by me Nate Silver. The show was a whole
Speaker 2: production of Pushing Industries and iHeartMedia. This episode was produced
Speaker 2: by Isaa Carter. Our associate producer is Sonya gerwit Lydia,
Speaker 2: Jean Kott and Daphne Chen are our our editors, and
Speaker 2: our executive producer is Jacob Goldstein. Mixing by Sarah Bruger.
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