Good decision, bad outcome: what poker players and a neurosurgeon teach
October 6, 2026 · 18 min read
Liv Boeree separates luck from skill at the poker table, Daniel Negreanu explains variance and expected value after losing over a million dollars in one series, Chamath Palihapitiya uses poker as a model in which success is about making fewer mistakes, neurosurgeon Mark McLaughlin describes learning to stop judging himself by outcomes, and Josh Waitzkin keeps decision journals. Judging a choice by its process and not its result is what lets people keep making good choices through a run of bad luck.
The rules, numbers and steps worth keeping in front of you.
- One result is weak evidence; a good decision can lose and a bad one can win.
- Boeree: over ten hands the better player wins about 52 percent; over 10,000 hands nearly always.
- Boeree: for big one-off choices, write down your probabilities in advance.
- Negreanu: ask after losses and wins whether it was luck or your play.
- Negreanu: write down uncertain hands and review them with others.
- Negreanu: feel the loss for a night, then get back to work.
- Negreanu: a decision can only be judged against what you are trying to achieve.
- Palihapitiya: your edge is the other side's mistakes minus your own.
- Palihapitiya: make cheap mistakes fast and study them; slow down where errors are costly.
- Palihapitiya: beware the flattering story told after success.
- McLaughlin: do not judge yourself by outcomes; analyze without blame and keep improving.
- McLaughlin: when something goes wrong, reject your first impulse, list options, stabilize, re-evaluate.
- Waitzkin: keep a decision log and review it weeks later.
- Over a large sample, results are the evidence; this is no excuse to ignore them.
This is the short form. The full insight has every expert's reasoning, their own words and the sources.