Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hey everyone, I'm Maria Kanikova and welcome to a
Speaker 1: special episode of Risky Business, our podcast with Nate Silver
Speaker 1: about making better decisions. Except today it's just me and
Speaker 1: a very special guest, Jennifer Shahade. Jennifer is someone who
Speaker 1: I've known for many years, and she is a truly
Speaker 1: extraordinary individual. She is a two times Women's US Chess champ,
Speaker 1: the first woman to win the Junior Championship, a Woman's Grandmaster,
Speaker 1: and the author of multiple books, Play Like a Girl,
Speaker 1: Play Like a Champion, Chess Bitch, and Chess Queens, and
Speaker 1: the upcoming Thinking Sideways. Jennifer, thank you so so much
Speaker 1: for joining. So happy to have you here on Risky Business.
Speaker 2: Oh I'm so excited about your podcast. Maria. It's wonderful
Speaker 2: to be here.
Speaker 1: So I want to start with your upbringing, because you
Speaker 1: are someone who not only is in a risky business,
Speaker 1: because you and I are actually members of Poker Stars
Speaker 1: Team Pro together, so we also played poker and that's
Speaker 1: how we originally met. But you are someone who's been
Speaker 1: thinking through this lens of gaming for most of your life.
Speaker 1: So I'd like to go back to your childhood and
Speaker 1: I'd love for you to tell us about how you
Speaker 1: got introduced to the world of games.
Speaker 3: Oh, it's honestly before I can even remember. There's a
Speaker 3: picture of me when I was two years old playing
Speaker 3: against my brother in chess, and obviously I don't think
Speaker 3: I knew the moves quite then, but it definitely really
Speaker 3: predated any memories that I have. My parents are also
Speaker 3: big lovers of card games, poker, bred Everything in our
Speaker 3: life is about games, and they were also really big
Speaker 3: into sports and sports betting, so I know that's another
Speaker 3: aspect of this podcast, so I feel much at home here.
Speaker 1: I actually didn't know that about sports betting, so let's
Speaker 1: return to that in a second. But first, your brother
Speaker 1: is actually also someone who is well known in the
Speaker 1: world of chess, as is your father. Right, so you
Speaker 1: are someone who comes from what's known as a chess family.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, and it's really typical.
Speaker 3: Honestly, it's a very very typical way for chess players
Speaker 3: to get into the game is via their family, especially
Speaker 3: women players. I feel like when you talk to a
Speaker 3: female player, it's very very typical that her brother plays,
Speaker 3: her father plays, her mother plays, and I think a
Speaker 3: lot of that is it just gives them that like
Speaker 3: kind of built in support network.
Speaker 1: And what was it about the game chess that first
Speaker 1: attracted you? Was it the competitive angle or was it
Speaker 1: the fact that you're thinking about kind of decision making
Speaker 1: on a different level. Do you happen to remember because
Speaker 1: I you know, when I was a little kid, my
Speaker 1: parents tried to get me to play chess and that
Speaker 1: did not stick.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think I heard about this the Scholar's Mate right
Speaker 3: before exact listen.
Speaker 2: It happened to Beth Harmon and she recovered from it,
Speaker 2: So you know, you're good.
Speaker 1: Yes for listeners of the podcast who don't know this story.
Speaker 1: When I was in fifth grade, I learned how to
Speaker 1: play chess and during my first ever chess competition, succumbed
Speaker 1: to scholars mate, which is a mate in three moves.
Speaker 1: And that was a move that was done by a
Speaker 1: five year old when I was in fifth grade, and
Speaker 1: I never recovered and have never played chess since then. Such,
Speaker 1: you clearly had a very different experience.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I'm sure I got made it in the
Speaker 3: scholars I do remember getting made in the scholars Mate,
Speaker 3: and it's a bit of a tangent, but because it's
Speaker 3: risky business. I am going to mention a story about
Speaker 3: the scholar's mate. So a lot of kids like the
Speaker 3: like the horrible five year old who checkmated you and four,
Speaker 3: they try the scholar's mate because it works. But it's
Speaker 3: not a good opening, right, It's objectively bad because if
Speaker 3: your opponent knows to avoid it, then you know you're
Speaker 3: gonna get a bad position. So it's very much an
Speaker 3: equity calculation. So the Scholar's made at the age of
Speaker 3: like five and six, kids are thinking about that. Actually,
Speaker 3: and my son actually was sitting in on an online
Speaker 3: class with Magnus Carlson, the highest rated chess player in history.
Speaker 1: Your son, how old is he?
Speaker 2: He's seven now.
Speaker 1: And he is sitting in on a class with Magnus Carlson.
Speaker 1: And what's your son's name, Fabian? And who is he
Speaker 1: named after?
Speaker 3: Well, in a way, he was named after the world
Speaker 3: number two player, Fabiano Carojuana.
Speaker 2: Actually in a way, in a way, all right, So back.
Speaker 1: To your story. So Fabian is in this class with
Speaker 1: Magnus Curlson.
Speaker 3: And one of the kids asks Magnus, like, what do
Speaker 3: you think about the form of checkmate? And you know
Speaker 3: everybody's expecting Magnus is just gonna say no, don't play
Speaker 3: the form of checkmate. It's not a good opening, but
Speaker 3: it's like, yeah, you know, it's not that bad to
Speaker 3: try it. And I really I was like everybody was shocked.
Speaker 3: And one of the coaches in the in the room
Speaker 3: tried to like actually disagree.
Speaker 2: With Magnus on the air, and I'm like, wait a.
Speaker 3: Second, and no, I actually thought about it later and
Speaker 3: I really loved it because I think what he was
Speaker 3: trying to say.
Speaker 2: I mean, he didn't expand on it.
Speaker 3: But as many people might know, Magnus also really likes poker,
Speaker 3: and he also really likes sportsbetting. Is that, you know,
Speaker 3: why try to take away this instinct of children to
Speaker 3: go for equity, Like I actually it's a good instinct,
Speaker 3: you know, like, yeah, you're gonna look, you're not gonna
Speaker 3: get that check made every time, but the ten or
Speaker 3: twenty percent of the time that you do, you're gonna
Speaker 3: win in foremos. So you know, it was the first
Speaker 3: time I'd ever since heard a grandmaster say that, and
Speaker 3: it stuck with me.
Speaker 1: So that's actually a really interesting story. And I love
Speaker 1: how you mentioned the idea of equity and how we
Speaker 1: think about equity. And now in poker, when you're talking
Speaker 1: about equity, you're talking about something very specific, right, the
Speaker 1: equity of your hand, the future value of your hand,
Speaker 1: how many chips you can imagine getting in the future,
Speaker 1: And it's kind of this calculation that you're constantly trying
Speaker 1: to make. So when you're talking about equity in chess,
Speaker 1: are you thinking about it in the same way or
Speaker 1: is it slightly different?
Speaker 3: Well, that's a great question when it comes to talking
Speaker 3: about somebody like Magnus Carlson, because I really think that
Speaker 3: it used to be very different. When I was a
Speaker 3: kid playing chess, we didn't really think about equity or probability.
Speaker 3: It was more like we were looking for the best move,
Speaker 3: and that is the way that most chess computers taught
Speaker 3: us as well. But nowadays I think that chess players
Speaker 3: are thinking more like poker players.
Speaker 2: They are thinking about equity even more.
Speaker 3: They're thinking not just about what the best move is,
Speaker 3: but more about what move is likely to destabilize.
Speaker 2: Your opponent and make them potentially.
Speaker 3: Fall for the form of checkmate so that you can
Speaker 3: win that ten percent of the times. Right now, so
Speaker 3: it's become really a ruthless equity hunting game, just like poker.
Speaker 1: So you're really thinking about not just kind of the
Speaker 1: present moment, but the future, and you're trying to make
Speaker 1: this probabilistic calculation, not just what does this move mean
Speaker 1: right now, but what does this move mean for my
Speaker 1: future ability to win? Given that it might there's an
Speaker 1: ex probability that it's going to make my opponent get
Speaker 1: really nervous, there's a why probability that it's going to
Speaker 1: make my opponent blunder. So is that kind of how
Speaker 1: we're thinking about it now exactly?
Speaker 3: Of course, in chess, we're always trying to think about
Speaker 3: what our opponent will play. But usually when I was taught,
Speaker 3: I was always told always assume your opponent's going to
Speaker 3: play the best move, because if they play a weaker move,
Speaker 3: you'll win anyway. But if they play the best move,
Speaker 3: you need to really prepare for that. Nowadays, I think there's.
Speaker 2: A little bit more nuanced.
Speaker 3: Well, people will really think about the psychological aspect of
Speaker 3: the game of chess more, and in that way, I
Speaker 3: think the games of chess and poker are really starting
Speaker 3: to converge a little bit. Chess players are playing a
Speaker 3: little bit more like poker players, and well, we definitely
Speaker 3: know that poker players are a little bit more chess
Speaker 3: like these days in the way they study and approach
Speaker 3: the game.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's a really interesting point because one of
Speaker 1: the things that you said really jumped out at me.
Speaker 1: You said, in chess, we no longer kind of assume
Speaker 1: that that your opponent is going to make the best move,
Speaker 1: and in poker, you actually are now assuming that your
Speaker 1: opponent is going to play game theory optimal is going
Speaker 1: to make the best move every time, and you're trying
Speaker 1: to counter that because you know, in an interesting way,
Speaker 1: I think poker is at a stage of its evolution
Speaker 1: where chess has been for a while, where there are
Speaker 1: now solvers and kind of ways that try to approximate
Speaker 1: ideal behavior quote unquote, even though in poker it's it's
Speaker 1: different than in chess because it is an imperfect information game,
Speaker 1: but I do think it's this really interesting overlap in
Speaker 1: terms of decisions and in terms of what we consider
Speaker 1: to be optimal decision making.
Speaker 3: I think that's like the reason why honestly poker is
Speaker 3: so tantalizing, why it stood the test of time, that
Speaker 3: you kind of have to balance the two polls. To me,
Speaker 3: like the word poker itself, Like playing poker means adjusting,
Speaker 3: like being present, right, it's paying attention and like actually
Speaker 3: thinking about what your opponent is doing. And the other
Speaker 3: stuff is like the theory that you fall back on
Speaker 3: if you don't really pick up on anything, if your
Speaker 3: ability to try to pay attention and see what your
Speaker 3: opponents doesn't give you much of a read, and then
Speaker 3: you're just like, well, I guess this is what I
Speaker 3: have to do. And that to me is that like
Speaker 3: everlasting tension between like what you think and what you
Speaker 3: feel and having to choose between them in every situation.
Speaker 1: So it seems like what you're saying, and this is
Speaker 1: also me being biased as someone who plays poker and
Speaker 1: doesn't play chess, but it seems like poker is a
Speaker 1: better if we're trying. If we then go from the
Speaker 1: world of games to the world of real life, it
Speaker 1: seems like poker might be a better way of thinking
Speaker 1: about risk and decision making as we interact with people
Speaker 1: and make decisions away from the game table.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think poker does mirror life more than chess does,
Speaker 3: partly because it's not fair. You know, there's some people
Speaker 3: who get lucky. There's people who get lucky three or
Speaker 3: four times in a row. There are people who start
Speaker 3: out with the ability to rebuy, you know, over and
Speaker 3: over again and keep buying into the game even if
Speaker 3: they play badly or bust. So there's just a lot
Speaker 3: of more similarities with life. And then the fact that
Speaker 3: the currency of poker is money is chips, which stand
Speaker 3: for money, and so much about life is what power
Speaker 3: you have based on how much money you have and
Speaker 3: how much capital you have. So for sure, I think
Speaker 3: there are more like day to day decisions that you
Speaker 3: can make from poker. That said, as a lifel chess player,
Speaker 3: I have to give some shout outs to chests too,
Speaker 3: because one of the beautiful things about chess is that
Speaker 3: it does.
Speaker 2: Bring you into this like beautiful flow state.
Speaker 3: And that's really why I love chess for children too,
Speaker 3: because you can see them kind of achieve that state
Speaker 3: even at like six, seven, eight years old. And maybe
Speaker 3: they're not going to be professional chess players, I mean,
Speaker 3: very few of them will, but my hope is always
Speaker 3: that they'll remember that flow state and be able to
Speaker 3: kind of, you know, jump into that in other parts
Speaker 3: of their lives and just like forget about everything else
Speaker 3: that is going on and just, you know, enjoy the moment.
Speaker 1: So I think that that's an interesting thing about about
Speaker 1: chess versus poker that I hadn't really thought about, because
Speaker 1: for me, you know, poker is a way that I've
Speaker 1: actually been able to achieve flow states quite often because
Speaker 1: when you're really in the zone. Since it's the only
Speaker 1: game I play, it's the only time that kind of
Speaker 1: I've found myself in that sort of situation. When did
Speaker 1: you make the switch from chess to poker. Obviously you've
Speaker 1: never switched entirely, you still play chess, but in terms
Speaker 1: of kind of your interest, when did you start migrating
Speaker 1: in that direction?
Speaker 2: You know, it was kind of gradual.
Speaker 3: My brother got into poker, and I was dabbling in
Speaker 3: it via him and some of my other chess friends,
Speaker 3: because at the time of the poker boom, a lot
Speaker 3: of chess players, backgammon players, anyone who really had an
Speaker 3: interest in any kind of game were flocking to poker
Speaker 3: because they thought, honestly, it was easy money. And it's
Speaker 3: funny because I was a little slow to the game
Speaker 3: compared to them, And I remember my mother, who was
Speaker 3: the stone opposite of all my other poker friends' moms,
Speaker 3: because she she called me once and she.
Speaker 2: Was like, Jen, why aren't you playing more poker like
Speaker 2: your friends? What's going on?
Speaker 1: I love that?
Speaker 3: And so yeah, but I finally did take her advice
Speaker 3: and I got a bit more into it.
Speaker 2: But you know, I always have.
Speaker 3: I think one of the issues that it's a little
Speaker 3: underestimated and poker is that it's really important to have,
Speaker 3: especially if you want to play live poker, and in
Speaker 3: the United States right now, unfortunately, there's not a lot
Speaker 3: of regulated places that you can play online. You really
Speaker 3: need a decent chunk of money. It's not that easy
Speaker 3: to get in there. I mean, it's it's probably better
Speaker 3: than most games because you can kind of hang out
Speaker 3: and you know, spend go to like the UH one
Speaker 3: two or one three tables, like the lower poker table,
Speaker 3: the lowest buy in that you can find in Vegas
Speaker 3: or Atlantic City, and you can maybe have a few
Speaker 3: hours of entertainment for a couple hundred bucks.
Speaker 2: But overall, like it's an expensive hobby.
Speaker 3: I would say, so that that's probably why it took
Speaker 3: me a little while to get more into it.
Speaker 1: So your son plays chess, right now, but not poker, correct.
Speaker 3: Right, that's right. But he loves he loves watching poker.
Speaker 3: You're you're one of his favorite players. He likes, he
Speaker 3: likes you, Maria Hoe and chuannlu and well, of course me.
Speaker 3: So it's all about the top of women buyers. I love.
Speaker 1: I love that it's so female centric because that's actually
Speaker 1: that's so important, and you know, that's it's a really
Speaker 1: wonderful thing to see that women can also excel in
Speaker 1: a game that is so incredibly male dominated. When he
Speaker 1: watches poker, is he interested in the strategic elements? Is
Speaker 1: he thinking of it kind of in the same terms
Speaker 1: that you've taught him to think about chess.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I find that kids it's harder for them
Speaker 3: to understand poker than chess, even though you know, technically
Speaker 3: it probably is easier to teach an adult the roles
Speaker 3: of poker than the roles of chess, partly because kids
Speaker 3: don't usually know that much about about money, and I
Speaker 3: think also the probabilistic thinking is pretty tricky for them
Speaker 3: as well. So, yeah, he's definitely looking to see what
Speaker 3: people have and whether they're going to make their hand.
Speaker 2: But I wouldn't say it comes supernaturally to kids.
Speaker 1: And I think that that's a really crucial point because
Speaker 1: one of the things that I love about pokers that
Speaker 1: it does each probabilistic thinking, which is something that does
Speaker 1: not come naturally to the human brain at all. Right,
Speaker 1: we are so bad at calculating risk, at calculating probabilities,
Speaker 1: at thinking in that way. It's just not something that
Speaker 1: comes naturally at all to the human mind. We'll be
Speaker 1: back in a minute now, switching away from kind of
Speaker 1: you as gamer, and you now kind of in your
Speaker 1: professional life, so you are a writer as well. You're
Speaker 1: someone who's been involved professionally in chess organizations, in teaching
Speaker 1: and mentoring women in all of these things. How has
Speaker 1: your thinking about risk, about risk taking migrated over from
Speaker 1: the fact that you you up kind of trained in
Speaker 1: this game's way of thinking, and how has it not?
Speaker 1: Because I think that you obviously hear both perspectives, right.
Speaker 1: You hear the people who say, oh, you know, chess, poker,
Speaker 1: et cetera. They really helped me and they helped me
Speaker 1: make decisions. And then there are some people and maybe
Speaker 1: they wouldn't say it, but I know some poker players
Speaker 1: who are really good at poker and then just so
Speaker 1: so dumb away from the poker table. So I I'd
Speaker 1: love to hear how you think about it and kind
Speaker 1: of how your non poker life, non chess life has evolved.
Speaker 3: Oh, poker, absolutely, I'll start with poker because it's like
Speaker 3: more forefront of my mind. Poker absolutely helped me because
Speaker 3: I never took a finance class or an econ class,
Speaker 3: and I really feel like poker is just like a
Speaker 3: miniature lesson in finance, and just even the idea that
Speaker 3: if you just put your money in a checking account
Speaker 3: and don't do anything to it, you're technically losing money
Speaker 3: because of inflation. I mean, poker teaches you that very quickly,
Speaker 3: because you got annie and so the annies go up
Speaker 3: as the turn of it progresses, So you will lose
Speaker 3: money if you.
Speaker 2: Don't do anything.
Speaker 3: And I just love that analogy because I feel that
Speaker 3: you feel it very viscerally. If you play poker in
Speaker 3: a few tournaments and you don't play enough hands, you
Speaker 3: lose your money slowly. You play too many hands, you
Speaker 3: lose your money quickly. I mean, what better metaphor there
Speaker 3: is there for like investing wisely? I can't think of one.
Speaker 1: Did do you feel like you have a higher risk tolerance,
Speaker 1: because obviously you know, as a fellow writer, I know
Speaker 1: that writing books has a huge risk, both financially and personally,
Speaker 1: because you're putting yourself out there. Do you think that
Speaker 1: you were prepared more prepared to do that because you
Speaker 1: understand the way that risk works.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 3: I also started to understand, especially with bluffing, that if
Speaker 3: you in poker are never getting called and realizing that
Speaker 3: you know, hey, you've got it high, that you're actually
Speaker 3: not bluffing enough. And so I started to realize that
Speaker 3: maybe in life I wasn't taking enough risks because I
Speaker 3: wasn't getting told no enough. That people were too happy
Speaker 3: with me all the time. If people are always happy
Speaker 3: with you, it means that maybe you're not asking for enough,
Speaker 3: You're not putting enough pressure on them, You're not asking
Speaker 3: for enough money, you're not getting told no that is
Speaker 3: too high. And so I definitely figure that out from poker,
Speaker 3: and I think that that's a lesson that a lot
Speaker 3: of women have to learn from poker.
Speaker 1: I'd love to actually talk about that a little bit. Obviously,
Speaker 1: poker is an incredibly male dominated area, and chess is
Speaker 1: also an incredibly male dominated area. Now, when you start
Speaker 1: negotiating while female, right, it's like driving well drunk negotiating
Speaker 1: well female. I'm using that. I'm using that language on
Speaker 1: purpose because it's a very very different beast and I
Speaker 1: found that. You know, I was horrible at negotiating pre poker,
Speaker 1: and I am much better at negotiating now than I
Speaker 1: ever was before. But you still get penalized for trying
Speaker 1: to ask for more, for trying to actually get what
Speaker 1: you're worth as a woman, because the exact same tactics
Speaker 1: and this is true at the poker table too, that
Speaker 1: work for men don't work for women. You know, if
Speaker 1: I try to be as aggressive as you know some
Speaker 1: of the best male players, that might not work for
Speaker 1: me in the same way that it works for them.
Speaker 1: These are all things that you have to consider because
Speaker 1: decision making here isn't existing in a vacuum. You know,
Speaker 1: when you're making decisions and you're female and you're perceived
Speaker 1: as female, that's very different than when you're making decisions
Speaker 1: as a man and being perceived as a man.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, And I mean I think that's the reality, is
Speaker 3: that it's logical a lot of times for women to
Speaker 3: be less risky, and that's what we need to change.
Speaker 3: We need to change the circumstances so that they can
Speaker 3: take more risks wisely, because if you're going to be
Speaker 3: penalized if you take risk, if there's no childcare, if
Speaker 3: there's no you know, policies for women who leave the workplace,
Speaker 3: if they don't have as much capital, if their wages
Speaker 3: are lower, then actually it's really small art for them
Speaker 3: to be risk of ours, right, And so I do
Speaker 3: think it's not about telling women you should.
Speaker 2: Take more risks. That's only part of it.
Speaker 3: The other part of it is how do we create
Speaker 3: a circumstance where they can take more risk.
Speaker 1: I think that's a really really important point. And Nate
Speaker 1: and I, on actually the first ever episode of Risky Business,
Speaker 1: talked about the gender paid gap and how a lot
Speaker 1: of that is because women have to make different decisions,
Speaker 1: different choices, because women are penalized for having children, that
Speaker 1: there are a lot of things that society just isn't
Speaker 1: equipped for when it comes to negotiating well, female, deciding well, female,
Speaker 1: working well female.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, and I did listen to that episode, and I
Speaker 3: also really like the part in your book the Biggest
Speaker 3: Bluff where you talk about how you raised your speaker rate,
Speaker 3: and I believe you got an immediate yes. So it
Speaker 3: turned out that risk was one that worked out very
Speaker 3: much in your favor. But I'm sure occasionally you asked
Speaker 3: for so much they said they said no, and you
Speaker 3: had to enjoy that experience because it was part of
Speaker 3: you raising your rates for that Occasionally you get.
Speaker 1: To know, right, that's absolutely right. I think you have
Speaker 1: to become more comfortable with hearing no and with saying
Speaker 1: you know what, that's fine because this is what I'm
Speaker 1: worth and if you don't want to pay me that
Speaker 1: then then that's okay. And learning how to walk away
Speaker 1: as I think a skill that I learned from the
Speaker 1: poker table as.
Speaker 3: Well, absolutely super important. And I think even so through
Speaker 3: all that, I think I am still pretty risk averse
Speaker 3: in a few things like I am going to show
Speaker 3: off at the airport two and a half hours and
Speaker 3: if I'm only two hours early, I get a little
Speaker 3: bit stressed out.
Speaker 2: So you know.
Speaker 1: That is funny. I'm planning a trip to the airport
Speaker 1: and it's an international trip, and I'm trying to figure out,
Speaker 1: if you know, if I'm going to be pushing it
Speaker 1: if I arrive with an hour to spare, if that's
Speaker 1: going to be okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And there's that saying that if you're always if
Speaker 3: you're always on time for flights and you're not missing
Speaker 3: it off flights.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure I really buy that.
Speaker 1: No, it took me missing one very important flight for
Speaker 1: me to never never take that saying seriously. But I
Speaker 1: probably have a slightly higher risk tolerance in flights than you,
Speaker 1: so that'll be an individual difference. I do want to
Speaker 1: talk about since we are now talking about kind of
Speaker 1: being female in a world of men and the decisions
Speaker 1: that that women make in light of recent remarks by
Speaker 1: Andrew Huberman about women's pregnancies and some pretty fundamental misunderstanding
Speaker 1: of how probabilities work. I you know, I'd love for
Speaker 1: you to just kind of recount that a little bit.
Speaker 1: But it also reminded me of an abed that you
Speaker 1: wrote for The Wall Street Journal where you were correctly
Speaker 1: calculating similar probabilities about childbirth.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So I think it was a few weeks ago that
Speaker 3: Uberman put out Its actually was on his podcast, so
Speaker 3: it went viral on Twitter. But doctor Kuberman had podcast
Speaker 3: where he was talking about the chances of a woman
Speaker 3: getting pregnant after six cycles, and well, he said, well,
Speaker 3: it should be twenty percent the first time, right, and
Speaker 3: then twenty percent the second time, So then forty percent
Speaker 3: that you'd be pregnant by month two, and then sixty
Speaker 3: percent that you'd be pregnant by month three, eighty percent
Speaker 3: by month four, and then one hundred percent chances that
Speaker 3: she will be pregnant by month five. Right, And I think,
Speaker 3: then I don't know what happens on month six. I
Speaker 3: guess the incident. Okay, oh yes, because of course there's
Speaker 3: like a chance that you'd have twins.
Speaker 2: So that's where the twenty percent consent.
Speaker 3: And well, he got like, predictably, you know, a crush
Speaker 3: for this tweet, Like it must have had like thousands
Speaker 3: and thousands of quote tweets making fun of his incorrect math,
Speaker 3: and some people would would correctly state it, and to
Speaker 3: his credit, he did. He retracted it and explained what
Speaker 3: he got wrong, and he did it in a nice way.
Speaker 3: And I was actually really happy to see it because
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, this is a great learning opportunity
Speaker 3: because this has gone viral that this is not the
Speaker 3: way to calculate probability, because I have to tell you,
Speaker 3: before I played poker and before I tried to get pregnant,
Speaker 3: I don't think I knew exactly the correct way to
Speaker 3: set this up either. I mean, I've probably learned it
Speaker 3: in like middle school or high school math, but I
Speaker 3: don't know if I remembered it until a little later,
Speaker 3: until college, or even when I learned poker. So I
Speaker 3: think there's a lot of people out there who also
Speaker 3: didn't know, because it seems like, yeah.
Speaker 2: Why wouldn't you just add up the probabilities.
Speaker 3: Right, But what you really need to do is multiply
Speaker 3: the chance of me not pregnant a month one that's
Speaker 3: eighty percent, and then the second month is also eighty percent,
Speaker 3: and then you get sixty four and then minus that
Speaker 3: from one and.
Speaker 2: You get thirty six percent.
Speaker 3: Right, so that's my actual chance of pregnancy, and then
Speaker 3: it gets it continues on, and yeah, it's a bit
Speaker 3: frustrating because it means that your chances are actually lower
Speaker 3: than it would seem because you aren't more likely to
Speaker 3: get lucky just because you got unlucky the first time.
Speaker 3: It's basically a version of the gambler's fallacy, right that
Speaker 3: if you are healthy and there's no like medical reason
Speaker 3: for you not to be able to get pregnant. If
Speaker 3: you've got an unlucky the first four cycles and tough luck,
Speaker 3: you know you're still only got a twenty percent chance. Sorry,
Speaker 3: And we know that from poker, right, Like you could
Speaker 3: lose your hand where you're a fifty to fifty chance
Speaker 3: to win five times in a row and you're still
Speaker 3: fifty to fifty on that six chance. And it's very
Speaker 3: frustrating if you're getting unlucky, and it's super awesome if
Speaker 3: you're getting lucky, right. And I had personal experience on
Speaker 3: this in both sides. So with my son Fabian, who
Speaker 3: I mentioned earlier, I got lucky on the second try.
Speaker 3: So my husband and I we got pregnant almost immediately
Speaker 3: and it was a healthy pregnancy. It was an awesome pregnancy.
Speaker 3: Everything went perfectly. And so I'm like the person who
Speaker 3: just starts playing poker and wins their first tournament, I'm like,
Speaker 3: and I know this is very sensitive subject. So you know,
Speaker 3: to anybody who finds this very sensitive, you know, to
Speaker 3: feel free to pause and come back to the next section.
Speaker 3: But I, as a poker player and somebody who struggles
Speaker 3: with this. It actually helped me to think about in
Speaker 3: these terms. It could seem craven to other people, but
Speaker 3: I got super lucky, and then I had, of course
Speaker 3: an inflated sense of confidence that when I tried a
Speaker 3: couple years later, I would probably get lucky again, and
Speaker 3: unfortunately that was not the case.
Speaker 2: And this is more common than people think.
Speaker 3: It's called secondary infertility, where you have an easy time
Speaker 3: the first time, but then the second time you don't.
Speaker 3: You don't get there to use a poker expression, And
Speaker 3: when I finally did get pregnant, unfortunately, I had a
Speaker 3: pretty pretty late miscarriage.
Speaker 2: So yeah, it was, it was. It was a real nightmare.
Speaker 3: And I think that the experience of poker did help
Speaker 3: me because it taught me that I still had made
Speaker 3: some really good logical decisions.
Speaker 2: And like my husband and.
Speaker 3: I trying to get pregnant, and in most universes we
Speaker 3: would have had our two kids, but it just didn't
Speaker 3: work out in the one that we live because of
Speaker 3: the math going against us and us being in that
Speaker 3: kind of like unlucky category.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much for sharing that, and you know,
Speaker 1: I'm so I'm really sorry that you had to go
Speaker 1: through that experience. It's obviously, you know, a very emotional
Speaker 1: experience to have, and I really appreciate you sharing that
Speaker 1: because I do think that you know, it's important for
Speaker 1: people to hear it, but it's also important to just
Speaker 1: viscerally understand how probabilities work, and that's the world right.
Speaker 1: Probabilities are not correctly quote unquote distributed. They're not as
Speaker 1: pretty as you think they're going to be. And you know,
Speaker 1: nothing ever adds up to one hundred percent somehow, you
Speaker 1: always have those missing percents somewhere that go into another
Speaker 1: universe where something else happened.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, and I think it's really important for people to
Speaker 3: be aware of that, because I don't think I was
Speaker 3: fully aware of that. Like I certainly glanced at some
Speaker 3: of these charts earlier in life, but I don't think
Speaker 3: I was appreciated the odds of miscarriage, and being that
Speaker 3: I'm somebody who likes to show up at the airport
Speaker 3: three hours early. I do think that I probably would
Speaker 3: have started a family a little bit earlier if I
Speaker 3: had been as aware. So I like that people are
Speaker 3: being educated at it now. I'm very much a feminist,
Speaker 3: and so I think it's a completely awesome choice for
Speaker 3: people to have one child, to have no children. But
Speaker 3: what bothers me is the idea that there's somebody who
Speaker 3: wants children's but isn't really acquainted with the math, and
Speaker 3: then you know, has to struggle financially and emotionally through
Speaker 3: this kind of you know, turmoil.
Speaker 2: And if doctor Humerman is getting it wrong them, I can.
Speaker 3: Tell you there's a lot of women's in their twenties
Speaker 3: thirties who are men too, who were married to women
Speaker 3: and they want to have kids with like that don't
Speaker 3: know this math and you know, get hit by it
Speaker 3: and are a little bit disappointed and strung.
Speaker 2: And so, yeah, I was happy to see that. Fee.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, so PSA for people who like me have
Speaker 1: always said I hate math and math is not important.
Speaker 1: Math is really important and plays out in unexpected ways
Speaker 1: in life decisions, throughout your life. And I took statistics
Speaker 1: classes in grad school because I needed to, you know,
Speaker 1: have statistical analysis when I was working on my dissertation,
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera. But it never hit home in
Speaker 1: kind of an actual practical way until I sat down
Speaker 1: at a poker table and actually saw these probabilities at play,
Speaker 1: actually experienced what it felt like to be, you know,
Speaker 1: a seventy percent favorite ten times in a row and
Speaker 1: lose every single time, and say, wait, how is that happening?
Speaker 1: Right now you understand why all of these psychological fallacies exist.
Speaker 3: And then also just being grateful for the times that
Speaker 3: you're eighty percent hits. I think there's this feeling like, ah, yeah,
Speaker 3: well I was supposed to win, so I won. But no,
Speaker 3: I actually feel like gratitude when I, you know, have
Speaker 3: like a pleasant trip to wherever I'm going to, I'm.
Speaker 2: Like, wow, nothing went wrong, like ninety percent I got there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's it's good, right, It's a good feeling
Speaker 3: to appreciate that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's funny that you say that. I'm so glad
Speaker 1: you think about that as well, because whenever you know,
Speaker 1: I'm all in and I have aces, I always and
Speaker 1: this is totally irrational, but I give, like the poker
Speaker 1: gods a little prayer, and so you know, I hope
Speaker 1: it holds, right. I hope my ace is hold I
Speaker 1: hope that my chance of winning actually ends up turning
Speaker 1: into the outcome of winning. Because those two things are
Speaker 1: not one and the same.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. Yeah, appreciate every day that nothing goes horribly wrong.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's that's a good way that you can
Speaker 3: kind of become happier from poker.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, it has made me a happier person because it's
Speaker 1: made me able to let go of negative outcomes in
Speaker 1: real life much more easily, because you know, it's just
Speaker 1: a mindset of I can't control it. Did I make
Speaker 1: the right decision?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: Was I in eighty percent face? And then if it
Speaker 1: didn't go my way, I didn't hold but but I
Speaker 1: did the right thing. And sometimes that can be hard
Speaker 1: in practice, but it's it's definitely become much easier for
Speaker 1: me over time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've noticed that about you.
Speaker 3: You're very positive and like the things that you surround
Speaker 3: yourself with and the things you talk about and the
Speaker 3: people that.
Speaker 2: You surround yourself with.
Speaker 3: And I think that's like, you know that conscious choice
Speaker 3: is so important because obviously you have to be aware
Speaker 3: of negativity and bad outcomes, but you can control some
Speaker 3: parts of it. And it seems like you've done like
Speaker 3: a conscious job of that, Am I right?
Speaker 2: Ah?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, I mean it has been a conscious choice
Speaker 1: and I have called kind of the people that I
Speaker 1: associate with, so that I only really try to spend
Speaker 1: time with people who bring me joy and who put
Speaker 1: me in a positive space, and I try to focus
Speaker 1: on the positive elements because you know, the way that
Speaker 1: I think about it is life's too short to dwell
Speaker 1: on bad beats, and bad beats are going to happen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're your first rule from Eric's sidel right, absolutely
Speaker 3: bad beat stories.
Speaker 1: Yes, that is correct, And for people who haven't read
Speaker 1: the Biggest blow off Eric's Sidell is a poker legend
Speaker 1: and was my coach and mentor from the movie Rounders.
Speaker 3: But I feel like there's a life corollary for that
Speaker 3: for people who don't play poker, Like I think a
Speaker 3: really good one would be like a story about how
Speaker 3: you mister flight, or you miss your train or your
Speaker 3: travel was really unpleasant.
Speaker 2: I feel like that's a kind of like a bad
Speaker 2: beat story in a way.
Speaker 3: Sometimes they're interesting, and occasionally bad beat stories are interesting too,
Speaker 3: but I guess it's like the exception, not the rule.
Speaker 1: I think you're absolutely right, and I think that something
Speaker 1: that I actually learned from my mom that I've tried
Speaker 1: to internalize and that you know, Eric, the no bad
Speaker 1: beat stories for my whole life. She said, you know,
Speaker 1: don't complain, right, don't try to blame other people when
Speaker 1: things go wrong. Don't say, oh, well, you know, I
Speaker 1: can't believe this person scheduled this year. I can't believe
Speaker 1: this happened. I can't believe. Oh it's so unfair. She so,
Speaker 1: don't do that, because you can't control it. You can't
Speaker 1: control other people. So instead of blaming other people, just
Speaker 1: take the blame on yourself and try to figure out
Speaker 1: what can I do, what can I do differently next time,
Speaker 1: and what can I do right now to mitigate the situation.
Speaker 1: And that's just I think, a much more positive way
Speaker 1: of thinking about risk and of thinking about how you
Speaker 1: deal with it in the moment when those percentages, when
Speaker 1: that variance does not go in your direction, especially when
Speaker 1: you knew you were taking a gamble. Right, If I'm
Speaker 1: as a flight and I cut it close, that is
Speaker 1: on me. I should not blame the traffic. I should
Speaker 1: not blame the cab driver for taking the wrong route.
Speaker 1: You know, it is on me. It is not on
Speaker 1: any of those things. We'll be right back after the break.
Speaker 1: So now I want to actually just pause for a second.
Speaker 1: You're talking about you know, who you surround yourself with
Speaker 1: and life circumstances and all of these things, and your
Speaker 1: life circumstances have changed a little bit over the last
Speaker 1: few years because you know, you were incredibly brave and
Speaker 1: took a huge, huge personal risk when you exposed someone
Speaker 1: very well known in the chess community. And when you
Speaker 1: did that, multiple other women came forward as well. But
Speaker 1: you were reprimanded for it, you were blamed for it,
Speaker 1: and you ended up leaving your role in a lot
Speaker 1: of very prominent chess organizations which were a huge part
Speaker 1: of how you made a living.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, that has been a very big part of
Speaker 3: my life. And I should say that the abuser also
Speaker 3: was banned from these chess institutions, and so I am
Speaker 3: very proud of kind of the awareness that it's caused
Speaker 3: in the TESS community.
Speaker 2: And I can't speak in.
Speaker 3: More detail about it right now, but yeah, I really
Speaker 3: appreciate you know, your support on that, Marie as well,
Speaker 3: because I must say that having community in poker and
Speaker 3: in chass has been really beneficial to me because I
Speaker 3: found that the poker world has been so supportive, which
Speaker 3: you know, I wasn't honestly completely expecting. But you know,
Speaker 3: one of the things I think people do go to
Speaker 3: poker a lot of the time because they want to
Speaker 3: have their own, you know, their own careers, and sometimes
Speaker 3: that ends up being a secondary career as well, where
Speaker 3: they do poker and something else. And that always gives
Speaker 3: you more power, doesn't it.
Speaker 1: It absolutely does. And we won't talk about this more,
Speaker 1: but I do want to say that I'm very proud
Speaker 1: of you, and you clearly have taken kind of this
Speaker 1: risk taking from from the world of games to a
Speaker 1: very personal place in your life. You made the calculation,
Speaker 1: you knew what the costs could be, and you did
Speaker 1: it anyway. And being able to act like that and
Speaker 1: to do that in real life and not just to
Speaker 1: go all in at the poker table, because this is
Speaker 1: effectively what you were doing, right. You went all in
Speaker 1: and it was not a bluff, and that is something
Speaker 1: that takes a lot of guts and a lot of
Speaker 1: courage because it did upend your life. So I just
Speaker 1: want to I want to say that I think you
Speaker 1: should be incredibly proud of your ability to, you know,
Speaker 1: take risky decision making to an extreme that a lot
Speaker 1: of people would not be able to do.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: I would love to hear kind of what you have
Speaker 1: next in store. I know you have a new book
Speaker 1: coming out, Thinking Sideways, which is also about you know,
Speaker 1: risk and that kind of thinking, So i'd love to
Speaker 1: hear a little bit more about it. But i'd also
Speaker 1: just love to hear about how you're thinking about your
Speaker 1: life kind of moving forward, how your equity calculation. To
Speaker 1: bring it back to the beginning of our conversation, how
Speaker 1: that's looking right now.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, it's really an interesting time for me.
Speaker 3: Is I kind of like diving more into writing and
Speaker 3: to poker as well, And I feel like it's a
Speaker 3: very intellectually rich time for me, and it's just like
Speaker 3: so fun. I know that you're working on a book
Speaker 3: on cheating, and one thing that came up a lot
Speaker 3: in my recent book, Thinking Sideways, is also kind of
Speaker 3: the cheating and chess scandals that have erupted, and that's
Speaker 3: something I've really been thinking a lot, because it's just
Speaker 3: a story that doesn't die.
Speaker 1: What's kind of the basic idea of the book, what
Speaker 1: can we expect?
Speaker 3: Well, really, the basic idea of the book is ways
Speaker 3: you can learn about life from chess, and I add
Speaker 3: a lot of poker in there as well, And I
Speaker 3: think that the title will be quite interesting to people
Speaker 3: because when you ask a chess player how many moves
Speaker 3: you think ahead, you're often expecting that to be the
Speaker 3: secret of success, that they think ten moves ahead, whereas
Speaker 3: a weaker player would only think eight moves ahead. And now,
Speaker 3: whether there's some truth in that really good to chess
Speaker 3: players can think many moves ahead, like Beth Harmon staring
Speaker 3: at the ceiling. The truth is really more that great
Speaker 3: chess players think sideways, and that just means that they
Speaker 3: see an option that their opponent did not see, sometimes
Speaker 3: on move one, sometimes unmoved two. And it's much more
Speaker 3: likely that a chess player will see one of those
Speaker 3: options that you didn't see and that's why they beat you,
Speaker 3: than that they'll like out calculate you twenty moves ahead.
Speaker 3: This is really important for life right now too, because
Speaker 3: it's just like we were talking about with my own life
Speaker 3: and probably so many other listeners' lives as well, that
Speaker 3: you might not be able to plan for five years
Speaker 3: ahead right now, and that can be scary, but honestly,
Speaker 3: that's kind of the way of a chess player. It's
Speaker 3: unlikely that you're going to predict what five moves ahead
Speaker 3: looks like, but you can predict two or three better
Speaker 3: than your opponent. That's going to give you a really
Speaker 3: good chance to win.
Speaker 1: That's great, and I think that that's such a great
Speaker 1: metaphor for how we should be thinking in ways that
Speaker 1: are not necessarily the expected way of thinking. I love
Speaker 1: that idea of thinking sideways.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 3: I'm getting very much more into writing and speaking and
Speaker 3: also kind of diving back into poker and yes, which
Speaker 3: is a really interesting moment in my life where I'm
Speaker 3: kind of just like exploring kind of not totally new areas,
Speaker 3: but definitely I'm not exactly sure what the next few
Speaker 3: years are going to look like, and that's really exciting, scary,
Speaker 3: but also exciting.
Speaker 1: It is exciting. One thing poker teaches you is to
Speaker 1: be comfortable with uncertainty and excited about the prospect of
Speaker 1: not knowing what the future holds exactly.
Speaker 2: That's so well put. I love that.
Speaker 3: Yes, I mean, and it's not something that we're used
Speaker 3: to as much in like midlife, right Like, I think
Speaker 3: people are often trained that when you're young, you have
Speaker 3: no idea what's going to happen. Next, and that is normal,
Speaker 3: but in mid life, this idea of uncertainty, I think
Speaker 3: is very uncomfortable for people, especially if they have kids.
Speaker 3: But you know what, it's something that I think a
Speaker 3: lot of people are going to have to deal with
Speaker 3: more as the world is changing so rapidly, that we
Speaker 3: just have to get more comfortable with uncertainty, no matter
Speaker 3: what your circumstances are.
Speaker 2: Certainly me, but really for a lot of people, I.
Speaker 1: Think those are wise words. And even though we don't
Speaker 1: know what the future holds, I know that I'm very
Speaker 1: excited to see what it holds next for you. And
Speaker 1: I'm excited to read your new book, and I'm excited
Speaker 1: to see where you end up. And I'm so grateful
Speaker 1: that you've come here today to share your wisdom and
Speaker 1: your experience about decision making with us. I know it's
Speaker 1: been incredibly useful and inspirational to me, and I hope
Speaker 1: that our listeners feel the same way. So thanks so much, John,
Speaker 1: Thank you, Maria.
Speaker 2: This is awesome.
Speaker 1: Risky Business is hosted by me Maria Kanakova. The show
Speaker 1: is a co production of Pushkin Industries and iHeartMedia. This
Speaker 1: episode was produced by Isabelle Carter Our associate producer is
Speaker 1: Gabriel Hunter Chang. Our executive producer is Jacob Goldstein.