The life of a writer and regular journalist of media such as The New York Times, The Atlantic or Slate has taken a 180 degree turn thanks to the discoveries made in her latest research for a book. Maria Konnikova was going to spend a few months soaking up the idiosyncrasies of the professional poker universe, with such bad luck that she has discovered that she is too good with cards. For the time being he has postponed the writing of the book, has canceled his collaborations and is concentrating on his next tournaments.
For Konnikova to remain a writer is not a logical professional choice. In his first championship he managed to win $ 2,200 with his plays, and little by little his brands have improved since then: in January he finished first in the PCA National amassing $ 84,000. Winning the equivalent of an annual salary in a few bets made in a few hours makes it easy to leave the world of blogs.
It is possible that Konnikova had a series of knowledge that has caused her unexpected mastery on the table. He graduated from Harvard with a specialization in creative writing, a doctorate in psychology and has dedicated all his literary talent to explain the functioning of the minds of scammers.
The book that put it on the map was How to think like Sherlock Holmes ?, where he developed a theory about systems of mental concentration and empowerment of the subject's deductive abilities. In its columns and podcasts it combines its capacity for the creation of stories with scientific data about our power of manipulation. That is to say, it was someone who for decades had been studying indirectly how to lie convincingly, interpret the emotions of others and manage to use them in your favor.
As any professional in poker recognizes, reached a certain category the mere numerical strategy (an anticipation of variables, progressively detect the style of play of the opponent according to his moves) is exhausted and a second level of strategy begins to gain importance: your ability to take advantage of of the opponent's emotions and silence the false perception of control that characterizes the game.
Other poker professionals (Erik Seidel, Isaac Haxton) became Konnikova's tutors and helped her grow based on these ideas. From there, her merit to block her own feelings and attack those of the rest of the table even when there are tens of thousands of dollars at stake is what has led her to abandon her old life.
She is calm, hoping to see to what level of professionalism she is able to reach. And it also has another advantage. Although he began to lose levels at this very moment, he has already gained enough experience to return to his old job and give the world a book with wise lessons about poker as a mental game plan.
Nor is the first journalist who gets caught by the honeys of the object of study. There are also writers who have tried to dedicate themselves to sports, to enter leagues like the NFL so that, when their options run out, to dump them in a few pages. Another writer, Denver Broncos, changed his life to be an elite Scrabble player. High-level technology journalists like MG Siegler or Mike Moritz took advantage of their knowledge, abandoned the text editor and embraced risky investment. In the documentary world it is an even more habitual story.