Bestselling Author Maria Konnikova Uses First-Class Tutelage to Find Poker Success

In about 10 months, Maria Konnikova went from learning basic hand rankings to squaring off with grizzled professionals in high-stakes poker tournaments.

She’s been one of the biggest stories in poker over the past month because of her win earlier in January at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. She defeated 230 entries in the $1,650 no-limit hold’em PCA National Championship event for $84,600. Now, she’s at Borgata and still alive on Day 2 with dreams of having her name etched onto the WPT Champions Cup.

Konnikova is a two-time New York Times bestselling author, has written for Scientific American, The Atlantic, The Paris Review, and currently writes for The New Yorker. About a year ago, she decided to take on the poker world. After a fascination with the role luck plays in our lives, Konnikova decided to dive in head first and document a temporary full-time poker career with her latest book, The Biggest Bluff, which is scheduled for release at the end of the year.

With no background in gambling, she reached out to one of the game’s best for help. Soon after she put the wheels in motion, she was being coached by WPT Champions Club member Erik Seidel.

“He was actually pretty receptive from the get-go,” said Konnikova. “He is one of these people who kind of thinks outside the box. He was like ‘Oh, this is really cool. There is nothing like this.’ And he loves poker. He thought this would be good for poker.”

There are tons of talented poker professionals in the world. Why Seidel? Why not Ivey? Negreanu? Or one of the several younger wizards that became great on the virtual felt?

There were three key factors that led Konnikova to ask Seidel to take on the task of teaching a writer how to battle wits with veterans of the felt.

“I wanted someone who was consistently good over time,” said Konnikova. “Because poker is one of these games where there are a lot of players who are considered the best at any given moment, but then no one hears about them for five years. So, I needed someone who had a proven track record and if you look at Erik’s results, there is basically no one else like that. He has been consistently winning since the ‘80s.”

Aside from track record, Konnikova thought Seidel would be the best fit to mesh with her mentally.

“I wanted someone who had a thought process that would be in line with mine,” she said. “While I’ve got much more into [game theory optimal] play and working with solvers now, my background is in the psychological and human element. I didn’t’ want one of the young wizards to coach me as my primary coach because I’m not going to compete with them on their own turf.”

Lastly, Konnikova just wanted someone she liked to talk to and be around.

“I wanted someone who was nice,” explained Konnikova. “Because this was someone who I was going to be spending a lot of time with and so, Erik just struck me, I’ve never met him [at the time of decision], but he just seemed like a really good person. And he is. He’s amazing. He was my first choice.”

The duo started her path to poker enlightenment with a reading list. Seidel gave her a list of books and she took notes and asked questions about what she was reading. Then, she flew to Las Vegas and sweated him in some of the high roller events that were running at Aria. They discussed the hands he was playing and why he decided to take specific lines.

Then she started playing in tournaments herself. Konnikova didn’t just jump into high-stakes tournaments. Seidel forced her to start at the smallest stakes available in Las Vegas to get her to understand proper bankroll management, which is essential for a professional to thrive.

“He wouldn’t let me play in any tournaments above $65,” said Konnikova. “And $65 was high. So, I played a lot at the Golden Nugget and at Planet Hollywood and that kind of stuff. He said, ‘Until you start winning at these consistently, you can’t move up.’”

Along with learning risk management, Seidel forced her to analyze hands the same way a professional would.

“At the beginning, he was kind of very strict that I wasn’t telling him the hands correctly,” said Konnikova. “He kind of taught me what to pay attention to and how I should be thinking about hands by asking me questions like, ‘Well, how many times has this guy raised you?’ And I would be like, ‘I don’t know.’ In the beginning, it was really hard. I can’t pay attention to everyone’s chip stacks all the time. Then, it became second nature.”

After understanding how to correctly break down a hand, it was off to the races as she rapidly moved up in stakes.

Her first recorded cash was in March of last year in a $125 daily tournament at Foxwoods. By the summer, she was cashing in World Series of Poker events and was consistently cashing in mid- and high-stakes poker tournaments by the fall. Just a couple days after her win in the Caribbean, she cashed her first five-figure buy-in event, a 42nd-place finish in the PCA $10,300 Main Event.

As she became more advanced in her poker theory, Seidel recommended she talk to other high-stakes poker pros. Aside from Seidel, Phil Galfond and Jason Koon were two of the pros that were crucial to her success.

“I had a really basic question about set mining and he said, ‘OK, Jason Koon is your man,’” said Konnikova. “So, Jason Koon and I sat down and he gave me a lesson in what I should be thinking about. Why my odds have to be, what the ratios have to be, what the exact percentages are and kind of taking me through spots like that.”

For the moment, Konnikova is playing a full-time schedule, but that won’t last forever. This experience, after all, is for a book and is only temporary. As temporary as it has been, she still finds the mental aspect of the game stimulating and fulfilling.

“It’s one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done,” said Konnikova. “I feel intellectually stimulated all the time, emotionally challenged because it can be really tough. You learn a lot about yourself at the poker table. Mentally challenged on all levels. It’s been a huge learning process and a very engaging enterprise. I’ve found myself growing as a thinker and a person. It’s amazing.”

The challenges of poker she’s grown to love and sees herself sticking around the tables even after the book is out. Luckily for her, her two passions seem to be a good match.

“I really love the game and if I keep improving and having good results, I don’t see why I can’t do both,” said Konnikova. “Play poker and write. The two are very, very compatible. Both are professionals where you don’t have to be tied to any place. I can write from anywhere, so I can definitely see a future where I keep playing on kind of a semi-professional level until I don’t want to do it anymore.”

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