Episode 20: Poker Legend Annie Duke on Making Smarter Decisions

The Power of Bold

Adam Pascarella interviews Annie Duke, a legendary professional poker player who recently released a book titled Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts. The episode begins with Annie discussing how she first became interested in decision making (03:12 – 05:49) and how she discovered its importance at the poker table (05:50 – 08:33). Annie then speaks about analyzing whether a decision is based on skill or luck (08:44 – 14:41) and her ideas on “resulting,” where people judge the quality of decisions based on the quality of outcomes (14:42 – 21:26). She then discusses situations where we can see resulting in our day-to-day lives (21:27 – 27:07) and how “thinking in bets” can help us become more objective decision makers when, for example, thinking about leaving our job to become an entrepreneur (27:08 – 34:24). The episode concludes with Annie speaking about the power of the “premortem” when making decisions (34:25 – 40:43) and steps we can take today to become better decision makers (40:44 – 47:31). For show notes and a transcript of this episode, please visit www.thepowerofbold.com.