You have to figure out what your own aptitudes are. If you play games where other people have the aptitudes and you don’t, you’re going to lose. And that’s as close to certain as any prediction that you can make. You have to figure out where you’ve got an edge. And you’ve got to play within your own circle of competence.
I don’t think you should spend much time being unhappy about the bad breaks. You get a lot of them, but you also get a lot of good ones. The thing to do is just to maximize your odds of using the good ones and minimizing the effects of the bad ones.
The right way to think is the way Zeckhauser plays bridge. It’s not that he’s so smart that he always knows the right answer. He just plays the odds better.
The best way to get what you want in life is to deserve what you want. How could it be otherwise? It’s not crazy enough so that the world is looking for a lot of undeserving people to reward.
It is remarkable how much long-term advantage people like us have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent.