jjd323's blog

I read. I read a lot, actually. And allsorts of books too, but with a tendency towards serious novels, short stories, and books that fall at into the political and social science genre. And poker books. Here is a short, illustrative list of the better books I have read this year:

• Little Daughter – Zoya Phan (As a teenager, Zoya was forced to flee her country after her village was attacked by the Burmese Army. She now lives in London and works for the human rights organization Burma Campaign UK. This is her story)
• The Shock Doctrine : The Rise of Disaster Capitalism – Naomi Klein (argues that the free market policies of Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman have risen to prominence in some countries because they were pushed through while the citizens were reacting to disasters or upheavals. It is implied that some man-made crises, such as the Falklands war, may have been created with the intention of being able to push through these unpopular reforms in their wake.)
• Shoot The Damn Dog : A Memoir of Depression – Sally Brampton ([the book] blasts the stigma of depression as a character failing or moral flaw and confronts the terrifying illness Winston Churchill called the black dog, an illness that humiliates, punishes and isolates its sufferers. It is also a practical book, offering ideas about what might help.)
• Water for Elephants – Sara Gruen (a historical novel that centres on a veterinary college dropout and his experiences working with animals, and people, in a travelling circus during the Great Depression)

At the minute I am reading a social science book – ‘The Craftsman’ by Richard Sennet . I will abridge the blurb on Amazon:
“Sennett posits that the spirit of craftsmanship – an ‘enduring, basic human impulse, the desire to do a job well for its own sake’ – is tragically lacking in many areas of the industrialized world. Craftsmanship, by combining skill, commitment and judgment, establishes a close relationship between head and hand, man and machine, that Sennett asserts is vital to physical, mental and societal well-being; the symptoms of craftsmanship-deficiency can be found in worker demoralization, inefficiency and waning loyalty from both employees and employers, as well as other (largely institutional) effects. Sennett looks at the evolution of craftsmanship, and issues of quality and ability (skill, not talent, makes a craftsman).”

I am finding that a lot of the ideas that are dissected in this book are directly relevant to my poker mindset. It’s one of those books that you read with a pencil in one hand while the other hand is busy making dog-ears on every other page. However, one main theme sticks out above the others; a lot of people using DC might benefit from hearing about it. The idea is that knowledge transfer between the master craftsman and the apprentice learner cannot be successful if viewed simply as a mere act in imitation.

The first concrete example given is that of Antonio Stradivari , and the luthier’s workshop that he ran in the late 17th/early 18th century. The point is that a neophyte could easily be taught the basic craft of making a violin under the instruction of the great master luthier; within a few years the art could be mastered. The best apprentices would move on and start their other luthier workshops, train their own neophytes, and so the cycle would continue. However, not one of these new masters was ever able to recreate an instrument equal to the genius of Stradivari. Nor does it matter.

The very best apprentices did not try to copy Stradivari. When starting their own workshop they took what they had learnt from their master and then went their own way. Even the most modern and technical musical research laboratories have failed to recreate a violin that a professional musician considers identical or equal to the works of Stradivari. The advice from the author is that the modern luthier, “should make the best violins possible according to his or her bright-enough lights rather than be immobilised, imprisoned by fruitless imitation.” Good practice, rather than some notion of correctness measured against an impossible-to-achieve gold standard, is heralded as the proper goal.

For the poker player, this means we should watch and learn from our instructors, coaches, and even our peers; we should not be trying to imitate them or worrying about some notion of perfection that we cannot even define. Instead, the student should seek to understand the basic framework of the game, gather all the tacit learning that they can, and then find their own way through understanding; innovate rather than imitate.