---
name: thinking-in-bets
description: Use when asked to "thinking in bets", "make decisions under uncertainty", "think probabilistically", "avoid resulting", "separate decision quality from outcomes", or "reduce bias in decisions". Helps make explicit bets and evaluate decisions on process, not results. The Thinking in Bets framework (from Annie Duke) applies poker strategy to business and life decisions.
---

# Thinking in Bets

## What It Is

Thinking in Bets is a framework for improving decision quality by separating **decisions from outcomes**. The core insight: **a good decision can have a bad outcome, and a bad decision can have a good outcome—luck is always involved.**

Most people judge decisions by their outcomes (called "resulting"). This is backwards. You can only control the quality of your decision, not the outcome.

The key shifts:
- Move from "Was I right?" to "Was my thinking process good?"
- Move from "What happened?" to "What did I know at the time?"
- Move from implicit assumptions to explicit, testable beliefs

## When to Use It

Use Thinking in Bets when you need to:

- **Evaluate past decisions** without outcome bias clouding judgment
- **Make decisions under uncertainty** where luck will influence results
- **Improve team decision-making** in meetings and planning
- **Set up pre-mortems and kill criteria** for projects
- **Shorten feedback loops** on decisions with delayed outcomes
- **Reduce cognitive biases** like overconfidence, hindsight bias, and sunk cost
- **Run better meetings** that surface true opinions, not groupthink

## When Not to Use It

- The decision is trivial with low stakes
- You have perfect information (rare)
- You're looking for permission to take a risk you've already decided on

## Resources

**Books:**
- *Thinking in Bets* by Annie Duke
- *Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away* by Annie Duke
- *Thinking, Fast and Slow* by Daniel Kahneman