Thinking in Bets cover art

Thinking in Bets

Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts

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Thinking in Bets

By: Annie Duke
Narrated by: Annie Duke
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About this listen

Wall Street Journal bestseller!

Poker champion turned business consultant Annie Duke teaches you how to get comfortable with uncertainty and make better decisions as a result.

In Super Bowl XLIX, Seahawks coach Pete Carroll made one of the most controversial calls in football history: With 26 seconds remaining, and trailing by four at the Patriots' one-yard line, he called for a pass instead of a handing off to his star running back. The pass was intercepted, and the Seahawks lost. Critics called it the dumbest play in history. But was the call really that bad? Or did Carroll actually make a great move that was ruined by bad luck?

Even the best decision doesn't yield the best outcome every time. There's always an element of luck that you can't control, and there is always information that is hidden from view. So the key to long-term success (and avoiding worrying yourself to death) is to think in bets: How sure am I? What are the possible ways things could turn out? What decision has the highest odds of success? Did I land in the unlucky 10% on the strategy that works 90% of the time? Or is my success attributable to dumb luck rather than great decision making?

Annie Duke, a former World Series of Poker champion turned business consultant, draws on examples from business, sports, politics, and (of course) poker to share tools anyone can use to embrace uncertainty and make better decisions. For most people, it's difficult to say "I'm not sure" in a world that values, and even rewards, the appearance of certainty. But professional poker players are comfortable with the fact that great decisions don't always lead to great outcomes and bad decisions don't always lead to bad outcomes.

By shifting your thinking from a need for certainty to a goal of accurately assessing what you know and what you don't, you'll be less vulnerable to reactive emotions, knee-jerk biases, and destructive habits in your decision making. You'll become more confident, calm, compassionate, and successful in the long run.

Includes a bonus PDF of charts and graphs.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2018 Annie Duke (P)2018 Penguin Audio
Decision-Making & Problem Solving Forecasting & Strategic Planning Leadership Psychology Business Career Poker Wall Street Consulting Behavioural Finance

Critic Reviews

"A big favorite among investors these days."–The New York Times

"A compact guide to probabilistic domains like poker, or venture capital... Recommend for people operating in the real world."–Marc Andreessen

"Duke’s discussion is full of wisdom and also of fun, warmth, humor and humanity. Her sharp, data-driven analysis comes with a large lesson, which is that losers should be willing to forgive themselves: Sometimes the right play just doesn’t work."–Cass Sunstein, co-author of Nudge

What listeners say about Thinking in Bets

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Absolutely amazing!

This book really opened my eyes to realizing how uncertain the world is and the value of thinking in bets. I find that my decision-thinking is markedly better now, and I will likely benefit from this clearer thinking for years to come. Thanks, Annie!! 😀

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Extraordinary!!

This is one of the best books I've consumed in years.

He ideas are enlightening and challenging.

Annie has an engaging style and has filed this book with relatable anecdotes and quality research.

Highly recommended.

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    3 out of 5 stars

Deeper than the title suggests

Cohesively, parts of the book don't run together as well as they should, however the overall content, insights and methodologies are clear and practical. Challenging perspective but easy to understand, there is a depth to the overall narrative of thinking in bets that is quite clear and the author provides some great ways to think about decision theory with a lens of probability.
Annie delivers the performance well.
Can recommend.

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Helps you stop feeling like a victim

This is an extraordinary book to help you through decision making. It's so easy to think of ourselves as unlucky, or occasionally as lucky. Thinking in Bets shows you that you actually do have more facts at hand than you realise.

Annie Duke learned from the best about how to be a professional poker player. Using her strong academic background, she was able to apply this to all kinds of decisions away from the poker table.

I found this book very helpful for recognising that even when I don't have certainty or all the facts, I've got enough to take the next good step.

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Love this book.

Love this book. Lays out the pitfalls and errors that I and presumably many others have committed over my career

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Great Thinking Book

I thought this book was fantastic! I've been grappling with some of the concepts in this book for some time but this really help me to solidify my thinking.

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Unbelievable map for structuring thinking. Very useful.

Unbelievable map for structuring thinking. Very useful. Articulate and practical it should hopefully really help reframe your thoughts.

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Thoroughly enjoyed this book

This book read by the author is both entertaining and thought provoking. I would highly recommend it for anyone interested in making more objective, better quality decisions in a world of uncertainty.

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disappointing for me but others may like it more

I have to say I was expecting more. I had just read thinking fast and slow by Daniel Kahneman so perhaps I had been anchored too high. It was pitched at a young adult reader level - which might be interesting for a young adult but a more sophisticated reader may find it a little simple.

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thoughtful concepts but dragged on a little

definitely made me think critically about the way I make decisions. Although the core concepts probably could have been summarised into half the length

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