Friday, January 31, 2014

When do you need to think hard?



Jen Shahade is an interesting person. I had the privilege of having breakfast with her during the WSOP two or three years ago, so can report that she is bright, funny, and charming. She plays poker well, but chess even better. Today she presented at TedX Baltimore, addresing a phenomenon common to both poker and chess, specifically, that sometimes it is necessary to think long and hard about a decision, and other times it is to your advantage to think very little and very quickly about a decision--even falling back onto a well-rehearsed default plan. Given that time and thought energy are limited resources, how do you know how much thinking a specific decision calls for?

You can watch her 11-minute presentation here:

http://new.livestream.com/tedx/baltimore2014

Go to about the 49:00 mark.

(Hat tip: @writerjen.)

2 comments:

THETA Poker said...

Thanks for pointing out that segment, which is now the bottom ("TEDxBaltimore2014 A") of two videos on the page. I can't believe I've been mispronouncing her name all these years...

Anonymous said...

I just finished listening to an interview with Vanessa Selbst where she mentioned the importance of knowing when to expend energy on a decision.
I always assumed you should be trying to play your A game at all times.
Very interesting.