Maria Konnikova

Maria Konnikova is the author, most recently, of The Biggest Bluff, a New York Times bestseller, one of the Times’ 100 Notable Books of 2020, and a finalist for the Telegraph Best Sports Writing Awards for 2021. She is the co-host, along with Nate Silver, of Risky Business, a weekly podcast from Pushkin and iHeartRadio, and the author of the weekly Substack The Leap. Her previous books are the bestsellers The Confidence Game, winner of the 2016 Robert P. Balles Prize in Critical Thinking, and Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes, an Anthony and Agatha Award finalist.

Konnikova is a regularly contributing writer for The New Yorker whose writing has won numerous awards, including the 2019 Excellence in Science Journalism Award from the Society of Personality and Social Psychology. While researching The Biggest Bluff, she became an international poker champion, a World Series of Poker Bracelet Winner, an ambassador for PokerStars Team Pro, and the winner of over $1,000,000 in tournament earnings.

Konnikovs’s writing has been featured in Best American Science and Nature Writing and has been translated into over twenty languages. She also formerly hosted the podcast The Grift from Panoply Media, on con artists and the lives they ruin. Her podcasting work earned her a National Magazine Award nomination in 2019.

Konnikova graduated from Harvard University and received her Ph.D. in psychology from Columbia University. She is currently working on a book about cheating in games.