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!

Sure, there are good poker psychology issues. I'm in agreement on that.

But you can be a very fine rationalist without being good at cards, and vice versa. (I consider myself a fine rationalist, and I am very good at both poker and bridge; over the last 100 hours I've played poker (the last three years; I don't play online because it's illegal) I'm up about $60 an hour, though that's likely unsustainable over the long haul. ($40 an hour is surely sustainable.)

But you can be nutty and be great at cards. And if your skill set isn't this - and you're not willing to commit to some real time at getting good - you're going to get crushed. The idea that simple rationalism is going to lead to big wins is just wrong. You need the math and (less, I think) reading the opponents. You also need to develop the skill of being hard to read.

--JRM

Is poker really doable? I was under the impression that amateurs were being driven out and even professionals were having difficulty dealing with poker bots and collusion.

Gambling online for money is illegal anyway in the US. Lying about your age isn't such a stretch.

A free man thinks of death least of all things

Does that mean "a free person thinks that death is the worst of all things" or "a free person thinks less often about death than about any other thing"?

(The former doesn't seem to have that much to do with freedom, so I'm guessing he meant the latter... in which case I agree with him, but probably not in the way he intended: yes, we won't think about death very often once we're free from it.)

"A free man thinks of death least of all things; and his wisdom is a meditation not of death but of life."

-Baruch Spinoza

17th century Dutch history

Have you read An Alternate History of the Netherlands? It is a pretty fun what-if about how Dutch history might have gone better for the Dutch. I wouldn't recommend reading past the present day however, the author isn't very good at projecting future technology trends.

Hi all. 25 yo New Yorker here. Been following this site for a while now, since Eliezer was still writing at OB.

Currently I'm working on two tech startups (it's fun to not get paid). My academic background is in cognitive psychology. In addition to AI, rationality, cognitive bias, sci fi, and the other usual suspects, my interests include architecture, poker, and 17th century Dutch history. ;)