Poker Face

Wall Street is where poker and modern finance?and the theory behind these "games"?clash head on. In both worlds, real risk means real money is made or lost in a heart beat, and neither camp is always rational with the risk it takes. As a result, business and financial professionals who want to use poker insights to improve their job performance will find this entertaining book a "must read." So will poker players searching for an edge in applying the insights of risk-takers on Wall Street.

Within the confines of Lederer takes readers inside her childhood home where an unlikely transformation was brewing--one that would turn this darkly intellectual and game-happy group into a family of professional gamblers.

In just a two-year span, Stefani Germanotta, a struggling performer in New York's Lower East Side burlesque scene, has become the global demographic-smashing pop icon known as Lady Gaga. She is a once-in-a-decade artist, a gifted singer, composer, designer, and performance artist who mixes high and low culture, the avant-garde with the accessible, authenticity with artifice. Who is Lady Gaga? She is a twenty-five-year-old woman whose stage mantra--"I'm a free bitch!"--is the polar opposite of who she is offstage: isolated, insecure, and unable to be alone. She is an outrÉ artist who wanted to be a sensitive singer-songwriter. She is a woman who says no man can ever compete with her career, but who goes back and forth with the ex-boyfriend who said she was too ambitious. She claims not to care what people think, but spends her downtime online, reading what people have to say about her. She claims to be a con artist and utterly authentic. She is never less than compelling. Based on more than fifty original interviews with friends, employees, rivals, and music industry veterans, Poker Face is the first in-depth biography of the extraordinary cultural phenomenon that is Lady Gaga.

“The intricacies of family and the complexities of the games they play mingle wonderfully here in a memoir quite unlike any other.”—George Plimpton, author of Truman Capote Katy Lederer grew up on the bucolic campus of an exclusive East Coast boarding school where her father taught English, her mother retreated into crosswords and scotch, and her much older siblings played “grown-up” games like gin rummy and chess. But Katy faced much more than the typical trials of childhood. Within the confines of the Lederer household an unlikely transformation was brewing, one that would turn this darkly intellectual and game-happy group into a family of professional gamblers. Poker Face is Katy Lederer’s perceptive account of her family’s lively history. From the long kitchen table where her mother played what seemed an endless game of solitaire, to the seedy New York bars where her brother first learned to play poker, to the glamorous Bellagio casino in Las Vegas, where her sister and brother wager hundreds of thousands of dollars a night at the tables, Lederer takes us on a tragicomic journey through a world where intelligence and deceit are used equally as currency. Not since Mary McCarthy’s Memories of a Catholic Girlhood has a writer cast such a witty and astringently analytic eye on the demands of growing up. An unflinching exploration of trust and betrayal, competition, suspicion, and unconventional familial love, Poker Face is a testament to the human spirit’s inventiveness when faced with unusually difficult odds.

Wall Street is where poker and modern finance?and the theory behind these "games"?clash head on. In both worlds, real risk means real money is made or lost in a heart beat, and neither camp is always rational with the risk it takes. As a result, business and financial professionals who want to use poker insights to improve their job performance will find this entertaining book a "must read." So will poker players searching for an edge in applying the insights of risk-takers on Wall Street.

Using the latest techniques from poker players to detect when your patients are lying to you. Forensic psychiatrists frequently deal with deceptive people. In these cases, malingering is the most common type of deception one encounters. However, deception on the part of mental health clients in other treatment settings is much broader and more complex than malingering, and learning the signs of deception can be useful for therapists in any specialty, especially those who do not necessarily take what their clients tell them at face value. The book begins with an introduction to some basic concepts concerning deception, with particular emphasis on “what it is” and “what it isn’t.” It then looks at the motivations behind and methods of deception in mental health practice, as well as the common contexts in which deception occurs. Finally, with an eye toward the detection of deception, the book looks at the game of poker as a “clinical case study” to explore whether the popular notion of “tells” has any relevance to the practice of mental health treatment. This short and uniquely illustrated guide will help mental health professionals determine when, why, and how their clients may lie to them. With some of the analysis based on insights from the world of poker players, readers will learn about methods of deception, reasons why clients deceive them, and the best methods to uncover the truth.

Understanding body language is vital for success in any walk of life, but in the game of poker it can mean the difference between winning or losing. Unlike other card games that rely primarily on luck for a win, poker is predominantly a game of skill, and a major part of that skill is the ability to read your opponent's body language while keeping in control of your own signals. The art of reading body language is complex and fascinating and Poker Face takes the reader through each stage in a comprehensive and entertaining way. Written for both the experienced player and the beginner, this book explains each stage of lying and bluffing, from the casual beginner's lies to the behaviour of the lie expert. Fast-paced, lively and funny, this book is a must for any serious player.