World Backgammon Championship

Most people will know that there are no rivers in Monaco. The one I found there is the metaphorical waterway used by poker player and professional pollster Nate Silver to describe an ecosystem of people and ideas focused on probabilistic thinking and calculated risk-taking. The term is derived from poker, where the last community card to be revealed in a game of “Texas Hold ’Em” is known as the River. Poker players paddle about in the river, but so do stock-market traders, venture capitalists and anyone else consistently taking calculated risks. A politician deciding how to respond to Covid or a foreign invasion is “in the river.” In the broadest sense, we all live in it as we make risky decisions in an uncertain world, tipping our hats to Heraclitus from time to time.