The Poker MBA: Winning in Business No Matter What Cards You're Dealt [Hardcover]

Greg Dinkin (Author), Jeffrey Gitomer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 23, 2002

The world of poker is the real world. Risk and reward are measured every second of the game. The same is true in business. An MBA is a nice credential, but the first step to business success is knowing how to read others, when to bluff, and when to walk away—no matter how high the stakes. The same is true in poker.

In The Poker MBA poker professional and MBA Greg Dinkin and bestselling author Jeffrey Gitomer show you how to apply the skills acquired at the poker table to all levels of business. By using the principles outlined in this book, you will achieve an edge over your competition and learn skills that aren’t taught in a traditional business school program. Shrewd poker players and their business counterparts are not born that way—they learned their craft, and you can, too.

There is no better training ground for business than a poker game, where your ability to think strategically and make split-second decisions determines whether you cash out a winner. A world-champion poker player like Amarillo Slim and a world-class businessman like Bill Gates each possess the same set of skills. Both men are:

* Strategic thinkers
* Shrewd decision makers
* Adept at reading others
* Able to recover from a loss
* Good enough actors to “fake it” and win—they can bluff

Whether you are an intern, a department manager, a salesperson, an entrepreneur, or the CEO of a major company, basic poker skills can be used to add to your business success. By understanding winning poker strategy, you’ll learn how to read people, close deals, negotiate contracts, motivate employees, build a brand, create customer loyalty, and make day-to-day business decisions that will contribute to your bottom line.

The Poker MBA takes you inside the high-stakes world of poker to show that winning at poker and winning at business are one and the same. Through the lens of poker, readers will learn sophisticated concepts such as expected value, regression to the mean, and discounted cash flows—all in a format that is entertaining and easy to understand.
If you see things from the perspective of others, the odds will fall in your favor, and you will be a winner in the long run. This book shows you how to use the traits of a poker professional to become a better risk taker and decision maker in order to profit more in business.

A poker book? Sure.

A business book? Absolutely.

But more important, The Poker MBA is a money book. Read it and you will improve your ability to think and execute so that the odds stay in your favor and you leave the game a winner.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Thanks to the song and movie by Kenny "The Gambler" Rogers, most of us now understand that "you've got to know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em." This axiom can be applied around a conference table as well as a card table. In The Poker MBA, Jeffrey Gitomer and Greg Dinkin take this concept to the extreme by drawing a world of business advice from the popular pastime. "There is no better training ground for business than a poker game, where your ability to measure risk and make split-second decisions determines whether you cash out a winner," note Dinkin, an MBA-carrying columnist for Card Player magazine, and Gitomer, a writer and sales-and-service consultant. The authors use simulated hands and real tournament settings to illustrate how both pursuits relate in strategy (reading the competition, keeping cards close to the table), technique (acting on prior knowledge, maintaining sufficient cash), and starting anew (choosing a setting, selecting proper partners). Sprinkling the book with quotes from the likes of Dale Carnegie, Sun Tzu, and Peter Drucker, they stress that success in each undertaking is largely determined by discipline, skill, and cunning, and they recount a variety of proven applications from cards that could prove equally effective in commerce. --Howard Rothman

From the Inside Flap

The world of poker is the real world. Risk and reward are measured every second of the game. The same is true in business. An MBA is a nice credential, but the first step to business success is knowing how to read others, when to bluff, and when to walk away?no matter how high the stakes. The same is true in poker.

In The Poker MBA poker professional and MBA Greg Dinkin and bestselling author Jeffrey Gitomer show you how to apply the skills acquired at the poker table to all levels of business. By using the principles outlined in this book, you will achieve an edge over your competition and learn skills that aren?t taught in a traditional business school program. Shrewd poker players and their business counterparts are not born that way?they learned their craft, and you can, too.

There is no better training ground for business than a poker game, where your ability to think strategically and make split-second decisions determines whether you cash out a winner. A world-champion poker player like Amarillo Slim and a world-class businessman like Bill Gates each possess the same set of skills. Both men are:

* Strategic thinkers
* Shrewd decision makers
* Adept at reading others
* Able to recover from a loss
* Good enough actors to ?fake it? and win?they can bluff

Whether you are an intern, a department manager, a salesperson, an entrepreneur, or the CEO of a major company, basic poker skills can be used to add to your business success. By understanding winning poker strategy, you?ll learn how to read people, close deals, negotiate contracts, motivate employees, build a brand, create customer loyalty, and make day-to-day business decisions that will contribute to your bottom line.

The Poker MBA takes you inside the high-stakes world of poker to show that winning at poker and winning at business are one and the same. Through the lens of poker, readers will learn sophisticated concepts such as expected value, regression to the mean, and discounted cash flows?all in a format that is entertaining and easy to understand.
If you see things from the perspective of others, the odds will fall in your favor, and you will be a winner in the long run. This book shows you how to use the traits of a poker professional to become a better risk taker and decision maker in order to profit more in business.

A poker book? Sure.

A business book? Absolutely.

But more important, The Poker MBA is a money book. Read it and you will improve your ability to think and execute so that the odds stay in your favor and you leave the game a winner.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Crown Business; 1st edition (April 23, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0609609866
• ISBN-13: 978-0609609866
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #393,747 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great compairson of poker to business, June 21, 2004

By 

"optiontradingcoach" (Arlington, VA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Poker MBA: Winning in Business No Matter What Cards You're Dealt (Hardcover)

One of the greatest so called business strategy books often cited is Sun-Tzu "The Art of War", a treatise on warfare which has been adapted to the business world given that the arena of business is muhc like warfare. It is not surprising at all that the game of Poker also can be used to draw lessons and strategies in the business world.

I am a poker player, option trader and businessman and I found the book did an excellent job of showing the fun, intrigue and skill of poker and how it is played and how we can learn to use those same skills in negotiations, management and making investments. The book is written with great little stories and examples with special highlights of kep points and chapter summaries of diferent issues. If you love Poker, then you will love the details the book covers on what skills the pros use in bluffing, playing their hands, and reading their opponents. You will also enjoy how the authors show the use of those skills in business dealings and how relevant and useful those skills are.

To the reviewer who criticized the book in its discussion of poker and business, I think the reviewer missed an excellent point of hte book. Business is NOT a chess game where two people with equal resources (same pieces on the baord) deal with each other and the individual's skill level determines the winner. In chess, everything is out there on the board and your emotion plays no role in affecting your other opponent. for example, one side cannot seem more desparate at the beginning of the game before the pieces have been moved.

However this is not true in the real world. In business negotations, parties do not have the same resource to compete with. Parties are also coming from different emotional states. One side may be very desparate to get a deal doen while the other has enough money to wait out the deal and see if something better comes along. The individual skill in such settings is how you use your resources and emotions and play with the hand that has been dealt to you. This is poker at its finest.

If you have a good hand, you still need to analyze what your opponent has and how he or she is betting. But what if they are bluffing? Don't we bluff in business deals as well. The same pshychology that goes into learning your opponent and determing if they are bluffing you based on teh card showing is the same skill we need to sit across from someone at a negotiation table and determine what they are offering and what we can offer. It is also true in managing people and handling investments. The skills of POKER are very transferable to the business world.

THis book does a great job of showing how the wonderful skills of poker can be used in the business world and I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. After just reading it once, it already got my mind thinking a different way when I consider future business proposals, negotiations or just dealing with co-workers on business issues.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating read on the strategy of business & poker, January 5, 2003

By 

newchapter "newchapter" (Atlanta, GA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Poker MBA: Winning in Business No Matter What Cards You're Dealt (Hardcover)

This book is well written and fun to read. The analogies between poker & business are undeniable and insightful.

1) Know your opponent. Don't assume that they think like you, often they don't.

"Bad players play their own hand. Good ones play their opponent's hand first, then worry about their own cards." (pg 15)

2) In negotiation (and poker), remember three rules:
a) don't give up something without getting something in return
b) keep a poker face (e.g. Boxers are trained to smile after being hit - to show their fortitude)
c) let your opponent feel like they are winning (so they will do business with you again)

3) The answer is rarely black/white. The answer is IT DEPENDS. Advanced poker players think on many different levels.

4) Don't gamble. Do your homework and know the odds. Take calculated risks. If possible, be the house (not the player) by creating the system that other people use and pay for.

5) "Information has value. Just as you wouldn't give away cash, don't give away ideas - unless they contribute to you or your organization."

"It's who you know and who knows you. Find out the people of influence that you need to know, and earn the right to meet them." (pg 89)

6) ". . .the minute you achieve success, people will be coming after you. The best way to guard against it is to keep your success to yourself. (pg 92)

7) Don't put yourself in the situation where you HAVE TO win. The urgency of the situation puts you at a disadvantage.

8) Poker is a zero-sum game, but life and business are not.

9) Pump it, or dump it. In poker ". . you typically should either raise the pot (pump it) and take control of the hand or fold (dump it) and get out entirely. Just calling is an option, but rarely the right one." (pg 107) The same applies to business, stick to your strengths. 80/20 principle.

10) Be tight and aggressive. For poker, play only a few hands, but play them hard. For business, focus your investments.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Universal skills for business success!, June 13, 2002

By 

"k_darius" (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Poker MBA: Winning in Business No Matter What Cards You're Dealt (Hardcover)

As an executive at a major investment firm, I use skills and concepts from game theory every day. Poker strategy and business strategy go hand-in-hand as this book explains in a fun, easy-to-apply framework using examples from Fortune 500 companies to startup businesses. You don't need to be a professional poker player to enjoy and learn from this book. The lessons passed along are concise and applicable to all aspects of business.

To the reviewer below, this book does NOT attempt to teach the reader how to play poker. You obviously did not read the book. Do yourself a favor: read the book, start applying the skills articulated in it, get a job and move out of your parents' basement.