In honor of her new book, Erik Seidel protégé Maria Konnikova wrote an article in The Atlantic about her journey from grinding online in a New Jersey coffee shop to winning the PCA national championship.

Pretty interesting article.

Check out her appearance on Sean Carroll's Mindscape podcast.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0FaPFlmjJM&t=758s

well written. Good story.

I sort of remember her name, had no idea sieborg coached her.

Nice... I've been meaning to check out that book, good reminder to do that.

Does she post on 2+2?

tl;dr?

So you won't be buying the book, then.

Nice to see her bringing some mainstream coverage to poker and presenting the game in a positive way.

Let´s conclude:

Winning a tournament (=being lucky) = Poker champion?

And insta write a book? LOL, who is degen enough to fall for that?

Not sure how you came to those conclusions.

First off, she decided to research decision-making in poker before ever having played a hand of tournament poker.

Second, and ironic in light of one of your 'conclusions', getting a better understanding of variance in everyday life decisions made with incomplete information was a driving force for choosing the subject to, first, research and, second, to write about.

I haven’t finished the book yet, but she been humble to the point of self-deprecation so far. Pretty confident the “poker champion” is just marketing and that’s not how she presents it in the book.

I found the article cool but her saying many consider Seidel the goat is comical. Maybe you could say this about Ivey or one of the top elite hs cash players but seidel..... lmao.

I looked her up on hendon and she actually has some solid results.

He is 4th on all time money list with his biggest cash only 2 million. 5th most popular all time. No one has played the biggest buyin tourneys for as long as him.

Oh no, you didn't!

Seidel is the most underrated player of all time. It all started with Rounders making him look like a big sucker who got trapped by Chan and he never cared enough to try to change his public image. He is literally the only other OG besides Doyle who can hang with today's biggest winners and he's been hanging for nearly four decades!

And why would you even say Ivey? Ivey is a notorious NLHE fish (relatively speaking) and when people are naming GOATS they're not usually talking about Stud bracelet winners.

I don't know how good Seidel really is, but the simple fact that a crusher from the 80's is still making waves in today's toughest fields, is what makes him a good candidate for being the greatest.

Yeah, it is important to keep in mind that the author usually isn't the one coming up with the article title.

"Insta" write a book? I remember she was in the middle of writing this book when she was interviewed on the Thinking Poker Podcast in February 2018.

I just bought the book but haven't started reading it.
But I think it's fair to say that, from a literary standpoint, this is the most serious poker book since Positively Fifth Street.

Srsly? Are you all paid by the author? LOL

if seidel isn't the goat he's up there
he's been absolutely crushing for over 30 years.
nobody has adapted as well as him over that time from what poker was to what its become.

The article is well written and interesting. I haven't read her book. The author appears intelligent and realistic about her skills, and the role of luck. Some men appear to be inclined to be more critical of a woman than they would a man who has some success in male dominant fields like poker.

Seidel is certainly one of poker's elite all time players, as proven by long term results. To insist otherwise would be ignorant.

Why do you have such a chip on your shoulder about something you've shown to know very little about?

Poker champion.... How many tournies did she win?


edit: Hendon mob has her at 1 win and 4 2nd places. ....she's a poker player, I'll give her that. I'd be more interested in her educated views on the game than acting like a champ. Someone like her datamining the long term effects of both the standard degen in poker and standard big winner in poker would be so much more compelling. Science would be awesome from this person, instead some BS about being a champion. This is ****ing bullshit.

Yea i never said he wasn’t great and has an elite resume. I just don’t think he’s in the goat conversation. He has 8 wsop titles? I just looked at his hendon and these mtts had 160 players (his first 2 titles). I feel you could put a solid midstakes online reg now in those fields and they would be crushing them. (Lets be honest that the game in the 90s isn’t what it is today- even if playing against a small field with top notch players like helmtuh, Chan etc.)

Exactly. I felt the same. The article title is pretty bad, especially for a tournament regular.

You do realise it's written for a non-poker audience. How do you think she should write for them?

"Anyway, so I was UTG+2 and I opened with JTs for 2.5 BBs. CO flats (ha, what a fish) and BTN raises to 9.5 BBs."

It's a story of a novice taking up a new game that she had misconceptions about, and what happened when she was coached by one of the winningest players of all time.

No nuance is required here. So what if she calls herself a "poker champion" or if Seidel isn't really the GOAT. No one except poker nerds care about either of those two things. And if poker nerds were smart enough to even realise why she wrote the book or who the target audience is (and isn't), then they wouldn't be complaining about it here.

yeah I'm confused why anyone here would criticize the book

she's clearly very successful outside of poker and didn't need to write it for extra fame or money and is very positive in her portrayal of poker overall

ship a live tourney for $100K and call yourself a poker champion too for all I care