What's Luck Got to Do with It? PDF Download

Author: Joseph Mazur
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400834457
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
The hazards of feeling lucky in gambling Why do so many gamblers risk it all when they know the odds of winning are against them? Why do they believe dice are "hot" in a winning streak? Why do we expect heads on a coin toss after several flips have turned up tails? What's Luck Got to Do with It? takes a lively and eye-opening look at the mathematics, history, and psychology of gambling to reveal the most widely held misconceptions about luck. It exposes the hazards of feeling lucky, and uses the mathematics of predictable outcomes to show when our chances of winning are actually good. Mathematician Joseph Mazur traces the history of gambling from the earliest known archaeological evidence of dice playing among Neolithic peoples to the first systematic mathematical studies of games of chance during the Renaissance, from government-administered lotteries to the glittering seductions of grand casinos, and on to the global economic crisis brought on by financiers' trillion-dollar bets. Using plenty of engaging anecdotes, Mazur explains the mathematics behind gambling—including the laws of probability, statistics, betting against expectations, and the law of large numbers—and describes the psychological and emotional factors that entice people to put their faith in winning that ever-elusive jackpot despite its mathematical improbability. As entertaining as it is informative, What's Luck Got to Do with It? demonstrates the pervasive nature of our belief in luck and the deceptive psychology of winning and losing. Some images inside the book are unavailable due to digital copyright restrictions.

Author: Michael Darling
Publisher: Future House Publishing
ISBN: 9781944452995
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
“Got Luck checks off all my ‘must haves’ for a gritty detective story. If I ever ran into a problem the local cops couldn’t solve, I’d be lucky to have Got on my side—and so would you.” —Ali Cross, author of the Desolation series Police-officer-turned-private-investigator Goethe “Got” Luck is known for rolling with the punches and never taking anything too seriously. When he picks up a seemingly dead-end murder case, his life begins to take a crazy turn. Shot at, chased by people he has never met, and attacked by an invisible liondog, Got quickly learns that there is more to this world than meets the eye. He discovers the Fae. The Eternals. They who dwell in the Behindbeyond. Once, they ruled over ancient realms, but over the centuries, their power dwindled. Now someone wants to restore their rule and subjugate humankind. All it will cost is thousands of human lives. The clock is ticking. Getting the world out of this one will take a couple friends, more than a few well-placed insults, and a whole lot of Luck. “Got Luck is the private detective Harry Dresden would hire to solve a murder. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.” —Paul Genesse, author of the bestselling Iron Dragon series “Witty and charming, Got Luck is an enchanting nod to a detective noir.” —Candance Thomas, author of the Vivatera series

Author: Michael J. Mauboussin
Publisher: Harvard Business Press
ISBN: 1422184234
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
In this provocative book, Michael Mauboussin offers the structure needed to analyze the relative importance of skill and luck, offering concrete suggestions for making these insights work to your advantage by making better decisions.

Author: Liz Forkin Bohannon
Publisher: Baker Books
ISBN: 1493419161
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
There's no lack of people out there telling you to find your passion and dream big. But why does it seem like when we try, we so often end up more lost and overwhelmed than when we started? Liz Forkin Bohannon wants you to rethink everything you've been told about finding your passion and following your dreams. Why? Hate to break it to you, but you're likely never going to "find your passion." Because your passion and purpose are something you build--actively--day by day. In her signature tell-it-like-it-is fashion, Liz shares 14 actionable principles that will teach you how to do just that. With total transparency, Liz shares hilarious and heartbreaking stories of her journey of screwups and successes that illustrate the mindsets and principles that will give you a jolt of energy, inspiration, and direction toward your True North. By embracing your Inner Beginner, dreaming small, choosing curiosity over criticism, and so much more, Liz's story and the principles of Beginner's Pluck will have you on your way to building a life of purpose, passion, and lasting impact. Ready to rise to the occasion? It's time to make this life everything you want it to be. ****** "Brave, practical, and true, Liz shares her magical journey for anyone brave enough (and generous enough) to want to go on the journey of a lifetime."--Seth Godin "I met Liz more than a decade ago in Gulu, Uganda. Beginner's Pluck is a thoughtful book about what Liz has been strategically doing in the world, not merely optimistically hoping for. Her authentic voice is one I trust because I've seen what she's done. As you flip these pages, you won't want to be more like Liz. Instead, you'll want to figure out what your next steps are to release your passions, hopes, and love into a world which is in desperate need of someone just like you to engage it."--Bob Goff, hon. consul for the Republic of Uganda and author New York Times bestsellers Love Does and Everybody Always "I am SO VERY GLAD this book exists. We have long needed Liz's expert voice speaking into the minds of dreamers and doers, the ones who have the ideas and want to execute, and the ones who are exhaustedly executing. We want purpose in our day, and Liz does it with her life and teaches it here."--Annie F. Downs, bestselling author of 100 Days to Brave and Remember God

Author: Jim Collins
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062121006
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
Ten years after the worldwide bestseller Good to Great, Jim Collins returns withanother groundbreaking work, this time to ask: why do some companies thrive inuncertainty, even chaos, and others do not? Based on nine years of research,buttressed by rigorous analysis and infused with engaging stories, Collins andhis colleague Morten Hansen enumerate the principles for building a truly greatenterprise in unpredictable, tumultuous and fast-moving times. This book isclassic Collins: contrarian, data-driven and uplifting.

Author: Richard Wiseman
Publisher: Miramax Books
ISBN: 9781401359416
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Is luck just fate, or can you change it? A groundbreaking new scientific study of the phenomenon of luckand the ways we can bring good luck into our lives. What is luck? A psychic gift or a question of intelligence? And what is it that lucky people have that unlucky people lack? Psychologist Dr. Richard Wiseman put luck under a scientific microscope for the very first time, examining the different ways in which lucky and unlucky people think and behave. After three years of intensive interviews and experiments with over 400 volunteers, Wiseman arrived at an astonishing conclusion: Luck is something that can be learned. It is available to anyone willing to pay attention to the Four Essential Principles: . Creating Chance Opportunities . Thinking Lucky . Feeling Lucky . Denying Fate Readers can determine their capacity for luck as well as learn to change their luck through helpful exercises that appear throughout the book. Illustrated with anecdotes from the lives of the famous such as Harry Truman and Warren Buffett, The Luck Factor also richly portrays the lives of ordinary people who have been extraordinarily lucky or unlucky. Finally Dr. Wiseman gives us a look into "The Luck School" where he instructs unlucky people and also teaches lucky people how to further enhance their luck. Smart, enlightening, fun to read, and easy to follow, The Luck Factor will give you revolutionary insight into the lucky mind and could, quite simply, change your life.

Author: Nicholas Rescher
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Pre
ISBN: 0822972271
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
Luck touches us all. "Why me?" we complain when things go wrong—though seldom when things go right. But although luck has a firm hold on all our lives, we seldom reflect on it in a cogent, concerted way. In Luck, one of our most eminent philosophers offers a realistic view of the nature and operation of luck to help us come to sensible terms with life in a chaotic world. Differentiating luck from fate (inexorable destiny) and fortune (mere chance), Nicholas Rescher weaves a colorful tapestry of historical examples, from the use of lots in the Old and New Testaments to Thomas Gataker’s treatise of 1619 on the great English lottery of 1612, from casino gambling to playing the stock market. Because we are creatures of limited knowledge who do and must make decisions in the light of incomplete information, Rescher argues, we are inevitably at the mercy of luck. It behooves us to learn more about it.

Author: Matthew Erman
Publisher: Boom! Studios
ISBN: 1646685520
Category : Comics & Graphic Novels
Languages : en
Pages : 26

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Book Description
Reeling from their recent discovery that Joseph is more than what he seems, The Unfortunates must focus on their mission, but in order to have any chance to save the world they must get to the Core. Meanwhile, the Secretary of Luck and his cronies have invaded the Kismet Zone after our team’s disappearance and may ruin everything. And what do Ursa and Cassiopeia have to do with the final mission of the Core?

Author: Kristin Levine
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1440699402
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
The last thing Harry ?Dit? Sims expects when Emma Walker comes to town is to become friends. Proper -talking, brainy Emma doesn?t play baseball or fi sh too well, but she sure makes Dit think, especially about the differences between black and white. But soon Dit is thinking about a whole lot more when the town barber, who is black, is put on trial for a terrible crime. Together Dit and Emma come up with a daring plan to save him from the unthinkable. Set in 1917 and inspired by the author?s true family history, this is the poignant story of a remarkable friendship and the perils of small-town justice

Author: Maria Konnikova
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0525522646
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
A New York Times bestseller • A New York Times Notable Book “The tale of how Konnikova followed a story about poker players and wound up becoming a story herself will have you riveted, first as you learn about her big winnings, and then as she conveys the lessons she learned both about human nature and herself.” —The Washington Post It's true that Maria Konnikova had never actually played poker before and didn't even know the rules when she approached Erik Seidel, Poker Hall of Fame inductee and winner of tens of millions of dollars in earnings, and convinced him to be her mentor. But she knew her man: a famously thoughtful and broad-minded player, he was intrigued by her pitch that she wasn't interested in making money so much as learning about life. She had faced a stretch of personal bad luck, and her reflections on the role of chance had led her to a giant of game theory, who pointed her to poker as the ultimate master class in learning to distinguish between what can be controlled and what can't. And she certainly brought something to the table, including a Ph.D. in psychology and an acclaimed and growing body of work on human behavior and how to hack it. So Seidel was in, and soon she was down the rabbit hole with him, into the wild, fiercely competitive, overwhelmingly masculine world of high-stakes Texas Hold'em, their initial end point the following year's World Series of Poker. But then something extraordinary happened. Under Seidel's guidance, Konnikova did have many epiphanies about life that derived from her new pursuit, including how to better read, not just her opponents but far more importantly herself; how to identify what tilted her into an emotional state that got in the way of good decisions; and how to get to a place where she could accept luck for what it was, and what it wasn't. But she also began to win. And win. In a little over a year, she began making earnest money from tournaments, ultimately totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars. She won a major title, got a sponsor, and got used to being on television, and to headlines like "How one writer's book deal turned her into a professional poker player." She even learned to like Las Vegas. But in the end, Maria Konnikova is a writer and student of human behavior, and ultimately the point was to render her incredible journey into a container for its invaluable lessons. The biggest bluff of all, she learned, is that skill is enough. Bad cards will come our way, but keeping our focus on how we play them and not on the outcome will keep us moving through many a dark patch, until the luck once again breaks our way.