The book is called “BLINK” and its written by Malcolm Gladwell and I feel it is a must read for any serious handicapper / sports gambler.
In the books first chapter it talks about the Getty Museum and a piece of sculpture that it wants to purchase for 10 million from a private art dealer. The Getty wants this piece because it is a one of a kind – something that has never surfaced on the market before. They hire all sorts of experts to determine its authenticity. Over the course of several months all of these experts come back and say that it is legit and not a forgery. The time studies on the minerals come back right, the comparison to other pieces of the time period come back right – everything the Getty was hoping for happened – the experts agreed it was not a forgery. So the Getty decided to invite several of the top experts of this type of sculpture in to look at it as one final test. One by one, the experts said things like “I hope you haven’t bought this yet” and “it just doesn’t look right” – and they were saying this within seconds of the sculpture being revealed. Their instant gut feeling was it was a forgery, they didn’t need to analyze it. They just knew. It turns out that the statue was indeed a forgery and the gut instincts of the experts were right instead of months of research. The book blink is about those few seconds in the minds of the experts where they knew “it just didn’t look right”.
Blink puts forth the theory that the subconscious can microprocess at speeds that rational thought cant compete with. It says that every decision we make is started by a suggestion from our subconscious and then altered by rational thought. This has very interesting implications upon gambling and handicapping. Is our gut instinct better when picking a game then analyzing a game for hours? That could depend upon how well our “gut instinct” is developed.
It is a cycle – all of the analysis you do helps build your subconscious ability to make the next decision better. So the analysis you do about handicapping over the years is built up in your brain and is fine tuned with snap decisions by your subconscious. Maybe you have had this happen – I know I have – where you see the lines for the first time and immediately you say “that doesn’t look right” without even thinking about it. That is the blink decision. And depending upon how much experience you have in that area can determine how good a decision that turns out to be.
The author talks of Boros who is one of these experts in picking stocks. His son says that Boros makes all of his decisions based on gut instinct – but tells all of his investors long stories to justify his decisions. No investor wants to hear that his millions are being invested by a guy that gets a feeling on something – so he patronizes them by making up long stories about value and throws in some statistics. In the end, it has nothing to do with anything except gut feelings. The author calls this “storytelling” to defend a gut decision.
On these forums, whenever anyone makes a pick there is a writeup along with it. Some long some short – but lots of people will read a writeup and piggyback a pick because the writeup sounds convincing. The writeup could be nothing more than storytelling – someone who has a gut feeling about a game and then goes searching for backup to his pick in order to tell the best story. In the end, we are all attracted to this. Studies have shown that results are secondary to the story – that in fact the best storytellers are followed more than those with better results and no storytelling. I find that very interesting.
Another interesting point the author makes is that the best “gut” decision makers cant explain how they do the things they do. Vic Braden, a tennis coach for many years, has developed a talent of predicting when a tennis pro will double fault. He can sit there and predict it everytime – with amazing accuracy – at one match predicting 16 of 17 double faults in that match. But when asked – he has absolutely no idea how he does it. He has studied tapes frame by frame and has been obsessed with figuring it out but he cant. He just knows when they will double fault and it drives him insane. Ted Williams was the same – he swore that his success at the plate was due to his ability to watch the ball all the way on to his bat. But it has been scientifically proven that a baseball hitter is literally blind at the last 3 feet of a baseball pitch and that it is impossible to see the impact. This was Williams storytelling – his instinct was guiding him but he had to come up with a story to explain it – and it was actually a story he believed.
So I believe there are many handicappers that because of experience can use gut instinct to better predict games than though extensive research. The problem is that when these people try to explain their method and success they cant – and get caught up in storytelling which trips the whole thing up.
We look for reasoning in everything we do in life. Sometimes the best decisions are made with reasoning that cannot be explained. But we demand explanations anyway. The next time you get a gut feeling about something it is quite possible that you should listen.
GL
COMMENTS APPRECIATED
In the books first chapter it talks about the Getty Museum and a piece of sculpture that it wants to purchase for 10 million from a private art dealer. The Getty wants this piece because it is a one of a kind – something that has never surfaced on the market before. They hire all sorts of experts to determine its authenticity. Over the course of several months all of these experts come back and say that it is legit and not a forgery. The time studies on the minerals come back right, the comparison to other pieces of the time period come back right – everything the Getty was hoping for happened – the experts agreed it was not a forgery. So the Getty decided to invite several of the top experts of this type of sculpture in to look at it as one final test. One by one, the experts said things like “I hope you haven’t bought this yet” and “it just doesn’t look right” – and they were saying this within seconds of the sculpture being revealed. Their instant gut feeling was it was a forgery, they didn’t need to analyze it. They just knew. It turns out that the statue was indeed a forgery and the gut instincts of the experts were right instead of months of research. The book blink is about those few seconds in the minds of the experts where they knew “it just didn’t look right”.
Blink puts forth the theory that the subconscious can microprocess at speeds that rational thought cant compete with. It says that every decision we make is started by a suggestion from our subconscious and then altered by rational thought. This has very interesting implications upon gambling and handicapping. Is our gut instinct better when picking a game then analyzing a game for hours? That could depend upon how well our “gut instinct” is developed.
It is a cycle – all of the analysis you do helps build your subconscious ability to make the next decision better. So the analysis you do about handicapping over the years is built up in your brain and is fine tuned with snap decisions by your subconscious. Maybe you have had this happen – I know I have – where you see the lines for the first time and immediately you say “that doesn’t look right” without even thinking about it. That is the blink decision. And depending upon how much experience you have in that area can determine how good a decision that turns out to be.
The author talks of Boros who is one of these experts in picking stocks. His son says that Boros makes all of his decisions based on gut instinct – but tells all of his investors long stories to justify his decisions. No investor wants to hear that his millions are being invested by a guy that gets a feeling on something – so he patronizes them by making up long stories about value and throws in some statistics. In the end, it has nothing to do with anything except gut feelings. The author calls this “storytelling” to defend a gut decision.
On these forums, whenever anyone makes a pick there is a writeup along with it. Some long some short – but lots of people will read a writeup and piggyback a pick because the writeup sounds convincing. The writeup could be nothing more than storytelling – someone who has a gut feeling about a game and then goes searching for backup to his pick in order to tell the best story. In the end, we are all attracted to this. Studies have shown that results are secondary to the story – that in fact the best storytellers are followed more than those with better results and no storytelling. I find that very interesting.
Another interesting point the author makes is that the best “gut” decision makers cant explain how they do the things they do. Vic Braden, a tennis coach for many years, has developed a talent of predicting when a tennis pro will double fault. He can sit there and predict it everytime – with amazing accuracy – at one match predicting 16 of 17 double faults in that match. But when asked – he has absolutely no idea how he does it. He has studied tapes frame by frame and has been obsessed with figuring it out but he cant. He just knows when they will double fault and it drives him insane. Ted Williams was the same – he swore that his success at the plate was due to his ability to watch the ball all the way on to his bat. But it has been scientifically proven that a baseball hitter is literally blind at the last 3 feet of a baseball pitch and that it is impossible to see the impact. This was Williams storytelling – his instinct was guiding him but he had to come up with a story to explain it – and it was actually a story he believed.
So I believe there are many handicappers that because of experience can use gut instinct to better predict games than though extensive research. The problem is that when these people try to explain their method and success they cant – and get caught up in storytelling which trips the whole thing up.
We look for reasoning in everything we do in life. Sometimes the best decisions are made with reasoning that cannot be explained. But we demand explanations anyway. The next time you get a gut feeling about something it is quite possible that you should listen.
GL
COMMENTS APPRECIATED
100% truth from the first to last letter and everywhere in between!
