Comment by zone411 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by zone411 | Hacker News Reader

It's a possibility that Dr. Konnikova just played NY Times like a flute! That would be legendary. I'll repeat my comments about this part:

"When you see someone looking a certain way, you assume they play a certain way. So once I figure out how they view women, I can figure out how to play against them. They’re not seeing me as a poker player, they’re seeing me as a female poker player.

There are people who’d rather die than be bluffed by a woman. They’ll never fold to me because that’s an affront to their masculinity.

I never bluff them. I know that no matter how strong my hand, they are still going to call me because they just can’t fold to a girl.

Other people think women are incapable of bluffing. They think if I’m betting really aggressively, it means I have an incredibly strong hand. I bluff those people all the time."

I'm sorry but has anybody who praises these quotes actually played poker? This kind of strategy would only work on complete fish. It'd be very quickly exploited by any pro or a decent amateur.

I'd like her to name one pro or one good amateur in the world who thinks like this "Other people think women are incapable of bluffing."

This article seems like a throwback to 2004 when this kind of strategy would actually work on newbie players flooding casino tables.

I will however give Dr. Konnikova tons of credit if she got these quotes in the paper, so that now she can exploit people who actually believed them. That would be amazing. She seems like an accomplished and smart person, so this seems most likely.

> I'm sorry but has anybody who praises these quotes actually played poker? This kind of strategy would only work on complete fish. It'd be very quickly exploited by any pro or a decent amateur.

Check out the buy-ins [1] of the tournaments she is playing. You are way overestimating the skill levels of these players.

> This article seems like a throwback to 2004

I used a female avatar when playing online up until Black Friday, and while anecdotal, I swear by the effect. I have also been a witness to the way men play back at my women pro friends and at random women amateurs in a live setting.

There's a lot of embellishment in this piece and by Dr. Konnikova, but no, players didn't suddenly get smart after 2004.

1. http://pokerdb.thehendonmob.com/player.php?a=r&n=531869

She's playing smaller tournaments in addition to larger ones but the smaller tournaments by definition contribute less variance to her earnings.

In this comment I was responding on Twitter to people who actually thought that this is an amazing new idea she invented so it came out a little negative.

Have you tried using a female avatar after the Black Friday? The game has changed and Black Friday was one of the main reasons for fewer novices online. I remember reading on 2+2 forums about whether there was an effect on tournament registrations in live casinos and people reported little change. Many amateur online players just moved on to something else.

From what I understand, what she's trying to say is that she divides the players into two types, and for one type she never bluffs, and for the other, she bluffs all the time.

But she didn't discuss how she figures out if the player belongs to category one, or category two. There are two possible answers:

- She follows her intuition by observing the player and player's demeanor.

- She collects data on the players poker choices/tactics/strategies (in other words, she studies the player's game history), and using some kind of analysis, probably backed by a combination of her psychology and game theory expertise, she reaches the conclusion on the likelihood of the player belonging to category 1 or 2.

If it's the latter, then I have mad respect for her. If it's the former, my best guess is that she's just going through the phase of beginner's luck, and it won't last very long.

Well, she says:

1. There are people who view women like X, and when I suss that out, I play them like X'. 2. There are people who view women like Y, and when I suss that out, I play them like Y'.

That doesn't exclude the possibility she is fully aware that there are large numbers of people who don't have views about women that affect their poker play, and if they don't show view X or view Y, she just plays them normally.

So I'd say the quote suggests she divides players into AT LEAST two types, but my instinct suggests she has a lot more than two categories :-)

Being able to analyze people's play in hands would be very helpful to anybody but the play data is mostly available just for online play and even then it's hard to collect and likely against the rules of online casino.

I'm quite sure that she wouldn't find any frequent players with decent results who follow such a simplistic strategy against women. It would be a very large leak.

Just to add some color

BREAKING: Author and journalist Maria Konnikova becomes PokerStars Ambassador

https://www.pokerstars.com/en/blog/2018/author-journalist-ma...

> Maria Konnikova was just your ordinary psychologist and New Yorker writer when she began turning up at PokerStars events about 12 months ago.

Yep, anyone can do it, lol

Also does this article expose the stats of Maria's game? Itm, roi, bi? To me this article seems to be just a hype around upswing that Maria experiences. Downswing is just around the corner though.

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