Thinking books · Decision making · Annie Duke, 2018

Thinking in Bets — the big ideas

A professional poker player on deciding well when luck is part of every result.

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The big ideas

Resulting: judging a decision by its outcome. A good decision can end badly and a reckless one can end well, so learning from outcomes alone teaches the wrong lesson roughly as often as the right one.

Every decision is a bet on an uncertain future, including decisions that do not involve money — which makes "how sure am I" a required question rather than an optional one.

Saying a belief out loud with a confidence percentage attached changes how you hold it, and makes it possible to check your calibration later.

A truth-seeking group that rewards accuracy over agreement is the most reliable correction available, and has to be deliberately constructed.

Practise it — no need to have read it

Take a decision you are making. Write what you expect and how confident you are as a percentage. Put it somewhere you will find it.

A hint: When the outcome arrives, ask first whether it was luck or the reasoning.

Where it shows up in real life

• Hiring
• Investing
• Any decision you make repeatedly

Described in our own words with the source named — never quoted, and not a substitute for reading the book.