Liv Boeree on the Biases of Poker Players

British poker pro Liv Boeree appeared on an educational YouTube channel with almost 2 million subscribers "Big Think", where she talked about four biases people tend to have in everyday life that can also hurt them very much at the poker table. Watch the video below.

Boeree is one of the most successful female poker players out there with over $3.5 million in live tournament earnings. This year she was the only lady who managed to win a WSOP bracelet aside from the female-only Ladies Event - she finished first with her husband Igor Kurganov in the $10K tag team tournament. She also cashed in the Main Event, taking the 314th place for $35,267.

A few days ago the British poker pro was featured in a video released by the educational YouTube channel Big Think. There she discussed four types of biases people tend to have in their personal lives as well as at the poker table, and how it can hurt them while playing. This is not the first time Boeree decided to "educate the masses" publicly on No-limit Texas Hold'em, last June Oxford University's debate society the Oxford Union hosted her to talk about the science behind poker - you can watch the video of that here [3].

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In the Big Think video Boeree talked about "confirmation bias", which is the tendency to people to overvalue evidence that confirms whatever they desire to be true while undervaluing evidence that contradicts it; the "status quo bias", which means people are too reluctant to make changes even if a new way of doing things seems to be much more beneficial; the "sunk cost fallacy", which describes the habit of people not willing to give up on obviously lost causes after they put some time, energy or money into it; and lastly, she pointed out that she could have the same stack size in the same tournament, and depending on whether she lost or won big to get there - meaning whether she lost half her stack and got down from 100,000 chips to 50,000 or she just doubled up form 25,000 to 50,000 - she can feel very different about her situation even though is technically the same.

You can watch the full 6-minute video here.