Must-Read: David Einhorn (2006): Speech at the Value Investing Congress

…try to win lots of small pots… are the day traders of the poker tables. Others play any… two high cards… get outplayed after the flop by the loose aggressive types who eventually wear them down… long-only closet indexers who trade too much. Then there are the rocks…. They fold and they fold and they fold. They are going to wait until they know they have a huge advantage. Then they bet as much as they can. It is very hard to beat a player like this. They can last a long time. Once people figure them out, nobody will play them when they do play. So they don’t get the chance to get enough chips in when they have a large advantage. Could this be what is becoming of Berkshire Hathaway?… My poker style… is close to the patient players waiting for a big advantage…. I try to pick out one or two people at the table I want to play against…. When the situation feels right, I put in a big, aggressive raise with a marginal holding…. To do well in a poker tournament, you have to recognize a few non-traditional opportunities and you need to get people to sometimes fold the better hand…