Gist: the author, with a journalism and psychology background, decided to pick-up poker from scratch as a way to learn how to deal with randomness in life and focus on what we can control. The poker part serves as the training platform and medium of investigation for the author, and even without knowing anything about poker, I found this participatory journalism highly entertaining and yet educational at the same time.
At the end of the book, the author said that she plan to continue with poker instead of ending it after completing the journalism project.
I wonder if this is the best use of one’s time and talent; poker is a zero-sum game and contributes even less to the world than finance, which also moves things around but at leas can claim to increase market efficiency.
As a research scientist and product engineer, I would much prefer to be able to create things and solve problems, with even more opportunities (and necessities) to deal with external randomness and internal control.
