Poker Face

Wall Street is where poker and modern finance?and the theory behind these "games"?clash head on. In both worlds, real risk means real money is made or lost in a heart beat, and neither camp is always rational with the risk it takes. As a result, business and financial professionals who want to use poker insights to improve their job performance will find this entertaining book a "must read." So will poker players searching for an edge in applying the insights of risk-takers on Wall Street.

Within the confines of Lederer takes readers inside her childhood home where an unlikely transformation was brewing--one that would turn this darkly intellectual and game-happy group into a family of professional gamblers.

Lady Gaga is a once-in-a-decade artist and the rare instant celebrity whose appearance can become a cultural event. Callahan delivers the first biography of this ever-changing, always surprising, musical phenomenon.

“The intricacies of family and the complexities of the games they play mingle wonderfully here in a memoir quite unlike any other.”—George Plimpton, author of Truman Capote Katy Lederer grew up on the bucolic campus of an exclusive East Coast boarding school where her father taught English, her mother retreated into crosswords and scotch, and her much older siblings played “grown-up” games like gin rummy and chess. But Katy faced much more than the typical trials of childhood. Within the confines of the Lederer household an unlikely transformation was brewing, one that would turn this darkly intellectual and game-happy group into a family of professional gamblers. Poker Face is Katy Lederer’s perceptive account of her family’s lively history. From the long kitchen table where her mother played what seemed an endless game of solitaire, to the seedy New York bars where her brother first learned to play poker, to the glamorous Bellagio casino in Las Vegas, where her sister and brother wager hundreds of thousands of dollars a night at the tables, Lederer takes us on a tragicomic journey through a world where intelligence and deceit are used equally as currency. Not since Mary McCarthy’s Memories of a Catholic Girlhood has a writer cast such a witty and astringently analytic eye on the demands of growing up. An unflinching exploration of trust and betrayal, competition, suspicion, and unconventional familial love, Poker Face is a testament to the human spirit’s inventiveness when faced with unusually difficult odds.

A New York Times bestseller • A New York Times Notable Book “The tale of how Konnikova followed a story about poker players and wound up becoming a story herself will have you riveted, first as you learn about her big winnings, and then as she conveys the lessons she learned both about human nature and herself.” —The Washington Post It's true that Maria Konnikova had never actually played poker before and didn't even know the rules when she approached Erik Seidel, Poker Hall of Fame inductee and winner of tens of millions of dollars in earnings, and convinced him to be her mentor. But she knew her man: a famously thoughtful and broad-minded player, he was intrigued by her pitch that she wasn't interested in making money so much as learning about life. She had faced a stretch of personal bad luck, and her reflections on the role of chance had led her to a giant of game theory, who pointed her to poker as the ultimate master class in learning to distinguish between what can be controlled and what can't. And she certainly brought something to the table, including a Ph.D. in psychology and an acclaimed and growing body of work on human behavior and how to hack it. So Seidel was in, and soon she was down the rabbit hole with him, into the wild, fiercely competitive, overwhelmingly masculine world of high-stakes Texas Hold'em, their initial end point the following year's World Series of Poker. But then something extraordinary happened. Under Seidel's guidance, Konnikova did have many epiphanies about life that derived from her new pursuit, including how to better read, not just her opponents but far more importantly herself; how to identify what tilted her into an emotional state that got in the way of good decisions; and how to get to a place where she could accept luck for what it was, and what it wasn't. But she also began to win. And win. In a little over a year, she began making earnest money from tournaments, ultimately totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars. She won a major title, got a sponsor, and got used to being on television, and to headlines like "How one writer's book deal turned her into a professional poker player." She even learned to like Las Vegas. But in the end, Maria Konnikova is a writer and student of human behavior, and ultimately the point was to render her incredible journey into a container for its invaluable lessons. The biggest bluff of all, she learned, is that skill is enough. Bad cards will come our way, but keeping our focus on how we play them and not on the outcome will keep us moving through many a dark patch, until the luck once again breaks our way.

The author recounts his experiences on the lucrative Wall Street bond market of the 1980s, where young traders made millions in a very short time, in a humorous account of greed and epic folly.

What to expect and not to Expect From Poker Face Reader (TM) This groundbreaking program focuses on one topic, how to "read" a poker face, This unique system teaches readers to detect, interpret and exploit Poker Face Tells(TM). Players who master this new skill gain a winning advantage in poker. The system introduces players to ways of reading emotions in the face. These emotions appear as micro-expressions. Micro-expressions consist of brief facial movements that appear and vanish in a fraction of a second. Authors Lacey and Lane call the emotions that leak through masks "Poker Face Tells." Readers train their eyes to spot these fleeting expressions. In a poker game no one can conceal his feelings behind a poker face. That's why the authors say, "You can run, but you can't hide from a poker face reader!" By learning how to "read" a poker face, readers penetrate an opponent's false mask. They can even spot bluffs. Readers become expert at interpreting fleeting emotions within a tiny fraction of a second. Your opponents cannot hide expressions such as fear or disgust. Telltale emotional expressions are uncontrollable and unconscious. They are also invisible to most other players. Poker Face Reader focuses readers' attention on seven major emotions. They are Happiness, Sadness, Fear, Anger, Disgust, Surprise, and Contempt. The examples in the book exaggerate each emotion to help readers recognizes them in any poker situation. They reveal the strength or weakness of poker hands. An effective way for readers to become expert is a four-step process. The first step is to study the text and the pictures of each emotion. The second step is to practice observing many faces. Readers learn to practice skills in private meetings as well as with strangers in public settings. The third step is to practice spotting emotions while observing live poker games. The fourth step is to apply knowledge of poker face "tells" in live poker games. Readers will develop enough expertise to become skilled poker face readers. They can win in most small stakes games. The authors avoid distracting readers with discussions of such topics as bankroll management and poker math. When readers learn to read poker faces, they can make optimal use of other poker skills.. Respectfully, Richard A. Lacey, Ed.D. and Sherry Lane

In the small town of Elofisk lives many greedy people, and when Beth hits the lottery and collects the lump sum in cash, that greed is put to the test. When eight people team up into four and chase each other down to steal the money from one another, their greed gets in the way, and the money is stolen from all of them. Now, they must team up and work together to get the money back. Putting their hardships behind them will be challenging, but with Sams plan in poker, they could possibly make millions doing so.

Wall Street is where poker and modern finance?and the theory behind these "games"?clash head on. In both worlds, real risk means real money is made or lost in a heart beat, and neither camp is always rational with the risk it takes. As a result, business and financial professionals who want to use poker insights to improve their job performance will find this entertaining book a "must read." So will poker players searching for an edge in applying the insights of risk-takers on Wall Street.

The outcome of card games rests heavily on luck, but poker is predominantly a game of skill — and a major part of that skill is the ability to read an opponent's body language while maintaining control over your own unspoken signals. Explains each stage of lying and bluffing: James — a top body-language guru and image consultant — lays down, step by step, how to disguise your hand and unmask bluffers. By identifying body language giveaways — from posture, facial expressions, to how players hold their cards and chips — and what they reveal, we learn how to hide our emotions and give off misleading cues. Identifies four main poker "personalities": Most players display the traits of one of four different personality groups that influence how they play poker. Their verbal interactions and body language give them away. For each personality, Poker Face reveals the key physical tells that expose bluffing and winning or losing hands.