Poker Faces- David M. Hayano - Recommendation

[Jesse Richman]

If people are interested, I got my copy about 3 years ago at the Gamblers Book Store, used, for around 20 bucks. No idea if they have more copies kicking around.

I'm no expert at all, but I was an anthropology major in college, and while I enjoyed the book as a poker player, I thought from an anthropological perspective that the book was awfully thin in its analysis. If Hayano ultimately chose poker over anthropology (as is implied above), he made the right choice! Still, it's worth reading if you can find it.

[npc]

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As an experienced poker player, Andy, do you agree with David's belief that going broke is an eventuality for poker players, and that it will happen more than once, usually? This, to me, would be true of losing players, but for winning players with an adequate bankroll(300 BB+), it seems that risk of ruin would be quite low, assuming that you nurture your bankroll and don't move up too fast and/or until you are ready.

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I think what you say is true, but also note that math on bankroll requirements wasn't widely known at this time. IIRC, Mason put the 300BB number (which I'm guessing is a bit high for games with only two betting rounds, although I don't have data to back that up) in GTaOT in 1987. It's possible that it was published in a magazine years before, but my guess is that most poker players, even winning ones, weren't doing this sort of math back then.

Remember the old school motto (I think voiced by Slim), "There's no shame in going broke, just in staying broke". Mathematical poker players, starting to emerge in the 70s and 80s, were the first generation of poker players to believe that this motto is untrue. It wouldn't surprise me to find that what Hayano was saying in 1982 was entirely true at that time.