This is really great! I was hoping some sort of rationalist/poker mashup would materialize (and would have organized something like this myself if my rationalist knowledge matched my poker knowledge ;-)
I’ve always believed poker to be a great test for rationality. OK, maybe it’s not perfect—but who can suggest something better? Also, it’s got mainstream popularity going for it which is very valuable.
That said, there are other details which contribute to being good at poker. Last year I conducted an informal study into the personality traits of online poker players. There were only two measured factors which correlated (negatively) with poker success: age and Neuroticism. I would venture to say that a very rational person who also scores very high on the Neuroticism personality scale would not be good at poker. (Then again, a rational person could(?) retrain his or her level of Neuroticism, but then we’re entering the whole nature vs. nurture debate of personality and that’s a whole other topic...)
I’ll be following your blog and would love to help out any way I can!
This is really great! I was hoping some sort of rationalist/poker mashup would materialize (and would have organized something like this myself if my rationalist knowledge matched my poker knowledge ;-)
I’ve always believed poker to be a great test for rationality. OK, maybe it’s not perfect—but who can suggest something better? Also, it’s got mainstream popularity going for it which is very valuable.
That said, there are other details which contribute to being good at poker. Last year I conducted an informal study into the personality traits of online poker players. There were only two measured factors which correlated (negatively) with poker success: age and Neuroticism. I would venture to say that a very rational person who also scores very high on the Neuroticism personality scale would not be good at poker. (Then again, a rational person could(?) retrain his or her level of Neuroticism, but then we’re entering the whole nature vs. nurture debate of personality and that’s a whole other topic...)
I’ll be following your blog and would love to help out any way I can!