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Daniel Negreanu: Poker | Lex Fridman Podcast #324


small model | large model

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you could be the seventh best player in the whole world,
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like literally seventh best player.
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But if you're playing with the other six, you're the sucker.
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You are like the worst player in the game, right?
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So like there's a lot of players, for example,
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like the Dan Blazarians of the world, right?
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He's not a top level player,
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like these guys you see on TV,
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but he probably makes more money than they do
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because he plays with people
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that are far below his skill level.
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So part of the skill of being a poker player
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is finding situations where you're profitable,
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regardless of your skill level.
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The following is a conversation with Daniel Negrano,
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one of the greatest poker players of all time.
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This is the Lex Friedman podcast.
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To support it, please check out our sponsors
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in the description.
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And now, dear friends, here's Daniel Negrano.
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Everything everyone does at the poker table
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conveys information.
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So let me ask sort of the big overview question.
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What are the various sources of information
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that you project and others project at the table
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that convey information?
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Well, there's several different things.
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There's the ones that are conscious
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and then there's the ones that are subconscious, right?
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Like on the conscious level,
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it might be something someone says, right?
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You know, you ask them a question and they say,
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oh, you know, you shouldn't call me here, you should.
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So there's the verbal tells.
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There's also the more, you know, subconscious stuff,
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body posture, right?
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The eyes, the throat, the pulse,
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various things that are, you know, less controllable.
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I find I use a combination of both
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to try to gain information,
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but generally when I have somebody more comfortable,
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they give off more.
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Like everyone has a different approach.
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Phil Ivey likes to intimidate.
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I go the other way.
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I want my opponents to be relaxed
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so that they'll give me more in that regard.
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So Phil Ivey likes to perturb the system,
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like mess with it to see what comes out.
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I think Phil has an aura about him
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where he wants you to know that he's watching you,
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be afraid, be uncomfortable,
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because when you're uncomfortable, I got you, right?
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And that's sort of his shtick where he, you know,
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and people do, like when you sit at a table with Phil Ivey,
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it's intimidating.
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He likes to rule by fear
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and you like to rule by, what is it, love?
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That's a really good way to put it.
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I never had anyone put it like that,
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but it makes a lot of sense.
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Yeah, you know, fear Phil Ivey,
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and then with me, it's fine, don't worry,
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I'll take your money, but you're gonna enjoy it.
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It's great.
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So that's what the talking at the table is about,
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is getting to be relaxed and get some of that gray area
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between the conscious and the subconscious
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to reveal something.
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Yeah, there's that too, and also just, you know,
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and this is just part of who I am anyway,
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like I like to talk to people,
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but one of the byproducts is the more I know about you,
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the more I likely know about how you think
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about different situations, right?
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So what do you do for a living?
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Oh, I'm a lawyer, I defend criminals.
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Okay, so this guy probably spends a lot of his time
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twisting the truth, trying to find, you know,
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and then, so then, you know, you already have a mindset
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of like, this guy might be more likely to bluff
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or he's probably comfortable doing that.
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Very subtle things like that.
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And you start to pick up cues on what nervousness looks like
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for this person, what the nervousness communicates,
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all that kind of stuff.
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So we're talking about physical tells here.
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Yeah, physical tells is a secondary thing.
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I was more specific like player profiling, right?
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And sort of understanding the type of mind
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that I'm dealing with, right?
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So again, somebody who's a lawyer is used to trying,
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is fine with being deceptive as part of a game, right?
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Whereas maybe somebody who's a Sunday school teacher
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and, you know, they don't feel comfortable,
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maybe they think bluffing might be dishonest, right?
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So they're less likely to try some shenanigans against you.
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So, and then the other thing too is,
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what type of person is this in terms of their, you know,
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like view on life, right?
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Are they positive?
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Do they feel like things go their way or they're not, right?
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There's those people that always, well, of course I lost,
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I always lose with this hand.
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And those types of people you can manipulate
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because when a card comes,
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that you don't have them beat, right?
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But you can pretend because they'll believe it.
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Like, of course you beat me.
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So you bet all your chips against them,
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knowing that you can scare them
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because they already feel like they're gonna lose.
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The inherent, like the cynicism.
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Exactly.
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Cynicism is easier to play against
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because you can convince them that their cards suck.
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Yeah, when somebody believes that they're a loser
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or they're unlucky, right?
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And that bad things happen to them always
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and they never catch a break.
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Well, you know, you can just help them make it true.
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What do you think about the rounders Teddy KGB
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when he does the Oreo tell?
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Do players at the high level communicate that kind of stuff?
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Do you think it's realistic to be able to have a tell
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like this that's partially subconscious?
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So first of all, I love Brian Koppelman who made the film.
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And I think what they were going for
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is something obvious to the general public, right?
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Like, okay, it's very clear, you know, he eats the cookie,
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he doesn't eat the cookie and it means one or the other.
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At the highest levels, something that, you know, blatant,
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you're not gonna find.
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You're gonna find a lot more subtle things,
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maybe with posture or timing or, you know,
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different things like that.
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But at the lower levels, you know, you might see some,
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you might see, you know, with a lot of people
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when they're in a hand and they've bet,
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whether they drink water in the hand
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is going to tell you something generally speaking.
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It's such an intimate part of the human experience
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that I feel like if you have food,
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you're gonna reveal something about yourself
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through the way you eat.
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I feel like that's a dangerous thing
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to have at the table.
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Well, the thing is, generally speaking,
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people don't eat food in the middle of a hand.
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Like they're not gonna bet and then just like grab a burger.
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What they will do though is, you know,
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they bet and it's up to you and then they're,
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whether they're, you know, uncomfortable
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or they do it unconsciously,
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they just want to do something
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to make themselves look relaxed or whatever.
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And then, you know, they grab a water
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where they don't really need it in that moment,
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but they're trying to take your mind off of the situation.
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So they, in the movie, wanted to show a simplistic version
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of something that does happen,
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something that's visually sort of clear.
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Yeah, because I think one of the things Rounders got right
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is that it's a poker movie, right?
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But you don't have to be great at poker
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or really understand poker to enjoy the movie.
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And that, you know, Oreo cookie tale,
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like everyone gets that.
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They're like, okay, that's simple.
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If he would have went with something more subtle,
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you know, like licking your lips or looking to the right,
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or I think it might've been lost on the audience.
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And they didn't actually explicitly say
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that that was a tell, I don't think.
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I thought they did everything to let you know, right?
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With the music and slow motion and he's staring at it
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and he's like, aha.
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Yeah, but they didn't actually say,
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you know, this is an obvious tell,
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like Matt Damon's character didn't talk.
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At the very end of it, you know,
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after he says, how the fuck did you lay that down?
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The monster, right?
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And he's like, he's like, you're not hungry?
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Not hungry, KGB?
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He's like, I keep on, but you, you know,
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so he sort of references it and then he takes the cookies.
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He notices, he's like, ah, he got me.
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And he breaks the, you know, the rack of cookies.
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Well, probably if you had that kind of tell on him,
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you wouldn't, and Matt Damon's character would not reveal.
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Well, he says in the movie, he says,
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normally I wouldn't reveal a tell,
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but I don't have that much time.
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Like I've got to rattle him some way.
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So that was one way to do that.
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How hard is it to do that to, in a KGB accent,
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to lay down a monster in those situations?
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In general, how hard is it to lay down
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a really strong hand, just psychologically?
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Yeah, no, I mean, I think it's incredibly difficult
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for the vast majority of people.
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You know, part of what makes professionals
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really, really good is recognizing a situation
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that's very, very dangerous and they need to, you know,
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jump ship.
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Like what happens to a lot of players
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is you get married to a hand.
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Let's say you have pocket aces,
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which is the best possible hand, right?
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But the board runs out where it's seven, eight, nine,
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and then there's a jack and then there's a six.
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It's like, you have a great hand to start,
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but you don't anymore.
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So one of the difficult things for the average player is,
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you know, once they've put money in, cutting their losses
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and saying, okay, let's move on to the next hand.
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It's a very, very difficult thing for a lot of people.
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At every stage of like pre flop all the way through,
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be able to just make a decision at that moment.
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So yeah, essentially not being attached.
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Okay, I've already put in $40,000 in this pot
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and this guy's bet another 20.
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Well, I mean, I gotta get my 40 back, right?
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Except, you know, in some cases you have to reassess
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individually this situation and realize,
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all right, well, this is a bad investment.
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So I got to cut my losses.
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By the way, I should mention that you have,
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you have an incredible YouTube channel
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where you explain a lot of stuff.
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You do a podcast, you do a lot of really awesome stuff.
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My probably favorite thing that you've done
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is your masterclass that people should definitely check out,
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masterclass.com slash Lux.
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There you go.
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No, but it really is one of my favorite masterclass courses,
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but also just a great introduction overview of poker.
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It's great for people like me who are beginners essentially,
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but it's probably really good for intermediate people too.
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I mean, there's a lot of really good detail there.
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Anyway, what are hand ranges
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and how do you begin to estimate the range of hands
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that your opponents have?
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Yeah, so I actually did, speaking to YouTube,
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I did a video on specifically this.
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Yes.
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Getting familiar with Rangers and essentially,
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you know, back in my day, the old days,
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we didn't talk about poker that way.
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We're like, I think he's got this
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or I think he's got that, right?
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Nobody thought of like the range of hands
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a player can have.
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So I guess the best example is,
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imagine like all the potential hands
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as being a part of a grid, right?
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So the first player to act,
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they could have any one of those hands, right?
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Anyone randomly dealt, right?
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But let's say now that that player raised to $3,000.
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Okay, well you can eliminate now from this grid,
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a whole bunch of hands that this player can no longer have
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because if they had a two and a three,
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they wouldn't do that.
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So you can say, okay, he probably has a big pair.
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He has ace king.
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You know, you've narrowed the range of hands down, right?
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Now through every action on the flop,
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on the turn and on the river,
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based on the decisions they make,
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you narrow it down even further.
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So the range of hands is the whole,
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the entirety of all the possibilities
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that this player you believe could have.
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And sometimes they fool you
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or they have a hand that you don't expect them
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to have in their range.
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And you know, maybe a little bit unorthodox
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doing some things you don't expect to throw you off,
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but a range is essentially all the possibilities
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and it narrows as by the time,
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before the flop it's endless,
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player raises, okay, it's minimized.
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You know, a player bets the flop,
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okay, it's minimized further.
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And then by the river, you know,
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you can narrow down the entire range to, you know,
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just maybe even a few hands.
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Is it always shrinking or is there sort of,
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as you get surprised?
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I mean, it's always just an estimate.
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So does it ever expand based on sort of chaotic,
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unpredicted surprising behavior of the players?
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It really should never expand.
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The range of hands should always get smaller, right?
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Like again, we start with the full scope
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and then you should factor in like, okay,
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these are all the possible hands
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you can have on the flop now, right?
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We can't have new hands on the turn.
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And if you get to that point where you think,
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oh, well, maybe he has this hand,
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then you sort of misjudged his range prior.
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So you're not thinking clearly.
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It should always shrink from the full scope to, you know,
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hopefully just a couple.
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Well, in that video, you also talk about,
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it used to be that you would play your hand,
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but now you're playing a range
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that you're representing a range.
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You're not even just playing your hand.
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So what does it mean to represent a certain range?
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Yeah, so that's another big thing
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that's different about poker from, you know,
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my day to today is that back in our day,
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we would like put people on one hand.
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I'm like, you probably have king nine
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or you have jacks or something like that.
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Now people are cognizant of the idea
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that you could have an entire range of hands.
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So then you ask yourself in situations,
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all right, I know what I have,
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but what I could have in his mind
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or my opponent's mind is any one of these hands.
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What would I do with the entirety of these hands?
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And so a lot of people that are trying to play optimally,
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you know, game theory optimal,
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they think in terms of what their range of hands would do
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rather than their very specific hand.
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So is bluffing in that context
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00:11:46.060
essentially misrepresenting the range of hands that you have?
link |
00:11:49.900
No. Is that how you think about it?
link |
00:11:51.160
Not exactly, because so an optimal range,
link |
00:11:53.220
like if I bet the river,
link |
00:11:54.620
if I'm playing game theory optimal,
link |
00:11:56.620
a portion of my range is going to be, I have it.
link |
00:11:59.040
I got the best hand.
link |
00:12:00.140
And a portion of my range is going to be bluffs
link |
00:12:01.860
and they'll be balanced.
link |
00:12:03.380
So in theory, no matter what you do,
link |
00:12:05.780
no matter what you do, if you call or you fold,
link |
00:12:08.120
in theory, it's just, you're printing a zero, as we say,
link |
00:12:11.620
you're not gaining or losing any EV,
link |
00:12:14.460
if you were to do it that way.
link |
00:12:15.380
What's EV?
link |
00:12:16.280
EV is expected value, right?
link |
00:12:18.140
So every play that you make,
link |
00:12:19.780
you know, it either is going to in the long run,
link |
00:12:21.960
you know, make you some money,
link |
00:12:22.980
or it's just a losing play.
link |
00:12:24.380
And as a professional,
link |
00:12:25.340
you try to make the fewest amount of minus EV plays you can.
link |
00:12:29.180
And the only reason you would make these minus EV plays
link |
00:12:31.860
is potentially if you were trying to set up your opponent
link |
00:12:34.140
for something later, right?
link |
00:12:35.740
So I might make some minus EV plays, right?
link |
00:12:38.660
So that I can exploit you later, right?
link |
00:12:40.500
So you're building up an image,
link |
00:12:42.720
a player profile that's false in some way.
link |
00:12:45.500
Something that I'm going to,
link |
00:12:46.340
I'm going to plant seeds in your mind
link |
00:12:48.000
so that I can exploit them later.
link |
00:12:49.560
So for example, why would players like show a big bluff?
link |
00:12:53.000
Like what would be the reason for that?
link |
00:12:54.760
They show a big bluff
link |
00:12:55.620
so that you know that they're capable of it.
link |
00:12:57.320
But maybe in their mind,
link |
00:12:58.260
you're never going to do that again.
link |
00:12:59.820
But now they think, you know, he bluffed me last time.
link |
00:13:02.460
Maybe he's doing it again.
link |
00:13:03.580
But that's a, what we call like a level, a leveling war.
link |
00:13:06.760
Because it, you know, you can go back and forth
link |
00:13:09.340
with whether or not, okay, this guy might know that.
link |
00:13:11.560
Like he showed a bluff
link |
00:13:12.460
because he's never going to bluff me again.
link |
00:13:14.320
So that that's where it gets a little.
link |
00:13:15.860
So that's a little bit different.
link |
00:13:17.940
The, when we're talking about hand rangers,
link |
00:13:19.620
that's different than building up a mental model
link |
00:13:23.200
of what your opponents,
link |
00:13:24.620
what your opponents think of you
link |
00:13:26.840
and what your opponents think that you think of them
link |
00:13:30.840
and so on and so forth.
link |
00:13:32.360
Are you trying to construct those kinds of mental models?
link |
00:13:35.760
And is that separate from the hand rangers?
link |
00:13:37.480
They go hand in hand, right?
link |
00:13:39.120
So if any given, in a given situation, right?
link |
00:13:41.360
My range has this many value hands and this many bluffs.
link |
00:13:45.160
Okay?
link |
00:13:46.000
So in theory, if I want to be balanced, you know,
link |
00:13:48.260
this is my range and this is what it looks like.
link |
00:13:49.920
I'll bet this 50% of the time, bet this 50% of the time.
link |
00:13:52.680
However, if I know that you think that I bluff too much,
link |
00:13:57.480
right, then I'm not going to bluff as much.
link |
00:13:59.100
I'm going to start,
link |
00:13:59.940
instead of betting these hands that I would 50, 50,
link |
00:14:02.140
now what I'll do is I'll do like 70, 30,
link |
00:14:04.640
where I'm basically value betting
link |
00:14:06.160
most of the time against you, you know, or vice versa.
link |
00:14:08.640
If I know you always fold because you think I have it,
link |
00:14:11.020
I'm going to veer the other way.
link |
00:14:12.360
And instead of bluffing 50%,
link |
00:14:13.520
I'll bluff 70, 80% of the time
link |
00:14:15.500
to take advantage of your perception of me.
link |
00:14:17.640
So to be successful,
link |
00:14:19.040
do you have to construct a solid model of all the players
link |
00:14:23.400
in the game or can you ignore them?
link |
00:14:26.600
I think it's really important.
link |
00:14:27.920
Like when I play, I have in my phone,
link |
00:14:29.880
I have a player profile of everyone that I play with.
link |
00:14:32.200
Whenever I pick up, whether it's physical tells
link |
00:14:34.040
or tendencies they like to, you know, that they have.
link |
00:14:38.760
And overall, that's just going to, you know,
link |
00:14:41.200
that's going to allow you to exploit more, right?
link |
00:14:43.840
So like if I played with somebody I've never played before,
link |
00:14:46.520
I'm probably just going to play optimally
link |
00:14:48.640
or at least as optimal as I know how until I start to,
link |
00:14:51.640
you know, gain some information on that player
link |
00:14:53.360
so that I can start to exploit them.
link |
00:14:55.500
So what's the, when you say optimally,
link |
00:14:57.420
what does optimally mean versus,
link |
00:14:59.520
so game theory optimal versus exploitative?
link |
00:15:04.400
Yeah, so that's like sort of the big debate in poker.
link |
00:15:06.640
We call it for short,
link |
00:15:07.800
GTO game theory optimal versus exploitative play.
link |
00:15:11.560
So GTO game theory optimal is the idea that no,
link |
00:15:15.160
like I'm going to set up my play
link |
00:15:16.920
so that no matter what you do, you cannot exploit me.
link |
00:15:20.400
So essentially that's playing rock, paper, scissors, right?
link |
00:15:23.960
And throwing 33% of each every time, right?
link |
00:15:27.640
Nothing you do can beat that, nothing.
link |
00:15:29.920
You'll never be able to beat that, right?
link |
00:15:31.980
Exploitative play is starting to notice that, okay,
link |
00:15:34.400
well, you know what?
link |
00:15:35.240
This guy loves rock.
link |
00:15:36.200
He loves playing rock.
link |
00:15:37.840
So I'm going to go paper a little more.
link |
00:15:39.460
So I'm going to take advantage of them.
link |
00:15:40.600
So I won't be through, but now all of a sudden,
link |
00:15:42.200
when I do that, I'm no longer playing optimal
link |
00:15:44.440
because if you knew that I was making that adjustment,
link |
00:15:46.240
now you can exploit me.
link |
00:15:47.960
So that's where the sort of what we call
link |
00:15:49.200
the leveling war happens, where people veer from,
link |
00:15:52.440
you know, the optimal line of, okay, 33% each for each one.
link |
00:15:56.420
You can't beat that, but you also can't win with that either.
link |
00:16:00.860
So you're always trying to be at the cutting,
link |
00:16:03.260
at the leading edge of suboptimal play.
link |
00:16:06.120
Yeah, you're going back and forth.
link |
00:16:07.200
And listen, at the highest levels,
link |
00:16:09.000
like online that these guys play,
link |
00:16:11.000
like they're trying to play pretty close
link |
00:16:13.000
to like game theory optimal
link |
00:16:15.120
because it's very difficult to do first of all.
link |
00:16:16.520
No human being will ever be able to compute
link |
00:16:20.040
at the level that computers can.
link |
00:16:21.640
It's just never going to happen.
link |
00:16:23.420
So that's where like the human mind has to come into play
link |
00:16:26.640
and say, all right, well, you know,
link |
00:16:28.480
if I was playing against the robot, I would do X,
link |
00:16:30.220
but I'm not, I'm playing against you.
link |
00:16:31.880
So I have to adjust.
link |
00:16:32.880
So does game theory optimal only look at the betting
link |
00:16:36.160
and the hands in the current hand
link |
00:16:40.560
or does it look at the history?
link |
00:16:42.280
So if you were to play optimally, optimally,
link |
00:16:44.600
would you need to look at the history
link |
00:16:46.280
of the individual players
link |
00:16:47.240
or just every hand is taken afresh?
link |
00:16:49.400
See, that's why I love playing exploitatively
link |
00:16:52.000
for the most part, because with GTO,
link |
00:16:54.840
anything that's happened in the past
link |
00:16:56.280
has no bearing on this situation.
link |
00:16:58.160
It's simply based on what is the optimal play
link |
00:17:00.680
in a vacuum in this spot.
link |
00:17:02.340
Whereas exploitatively, okay,
link |
00:17:03.840
this guy bluffs way too much in these spots.
link |
00:17:06.140
So now I can make an adjustment and call more, you know,
link |
00:17:08.980
based on past information.
link |
00:17:11.000
GTO doesn't take into account history at all.
link |
00:17:14.120
So like in a tournament,
link |
00:17:15.280
how quickly can you construct a player profile
link |
00:17:17.680
that you've never played before?
link |
00:17:19.360
Depends on the level of the buy in really, right?
link |
00:17:22.360
So the higher the buy in, generally speaking,
link |
00:17:25.600
you can assume if they're professionals,
link |
00:17:27.480
that they're gonna have pretty similar profiles
link |
00:17:29.600
because you know, everyone's playing,
link |
00:17:31.040
you know, if you're playing this game well,
link |
00:17:32.560
it looks similar, right?
link |
00:17:34.660
At the lower levels, you know,
link |
00:17:35.840
playing say in $1,000 or $1,500 buy in or less,
link |
00:17:39.020
you know, within a half an hour or an hour,
link |
00:17:41.800
I have an idea of all right,
link |
00:17:43.000
just by seeing how some players played a few hands that,
link |
00:17:46.840
you know, so here's the thing with poker,
link |
00:17:48.000
it's like, I can see one clue of what he did.
link |
00:17:50.080
And it tells me so much about what he'll do
link |
00:17:51.760
in a vast number of scenarios.
link |
00:17:53.920
And you're saying at the high level,
link |
00:17:55.120
people don't give too many clues.
link |
00:17:56.440
I mean, then.
link |
00:17:57.280
Well, at the highest level is,
link |
00:17:59.160
people are so much more similar
link |
00:18:00.480
in terms of their style of play.
link |
00:18:02.200
They try to find some kind of balance between the GTO.
link |
00:18:04.880
And now with all that we've seen on TV, right?
link |
00:18:07.240
Like people get to watch streams and whatever.
link |
00:18:08.880
So you get to watch all the top players play.
link |
00:18:10.860
So if you wanna learn how to play better,
link |
00:18:11.960
guess what you do?
link |
00:18:12.840
You copy what they're doing, essentially.
link |
00:18:14.920
Like, oh, he's only raising this much.
link |
00:18:16.440
I'm gonna do the same.
link |
00:18:17.560
They're betting this much.
link |
00:18:18.400
I'm gonna do the same.
link |
00:18:19.360
So as a result,
link |
00:18:21.520
what you end up having is sort of,
link |
00:18:25.120
you know, everyone deciding.
link |
00:18:26.600
Like, I guess it's similar in chess with openings, right?
link |
00:18:28.480
People figure out, okay, this is an opening.
link |
00:18:29.840
This is what you do.
link |
00:18:30.960
And that's it, you know?
link |
00:18:31.840
And then everyone's similar to that.
link |
00:18:33.360
And then you have, of course, the outliers
link |
00:18:35.060
who try to do things a little differently
link |
00:18:36.760
and confuse people.
link |
00:18:38.360
It seems like the outliers,
link |
00:18:39.500
like we talked offline that Magnus,
link |
00:18:41.400
in order to win Magnus Carlsen,
link |
00:18:43.480
has to play suboptimally in the openings
link |
00:18:45.980
to take his opponents out of the comfort zone
link |
00:18:49.320
so he can play what he calls pure chess
link |
00:18:51.520
as quickly as possible,
link |
00:18:52.880
which is just both short and deep calculations.
link |
00:18:56.280
Purely, you're looking at the board
link |
00:18:57.760
versus memorized openings and memorized lines.
link |
00:19:01.720
Is it the case that the best poker players
link |
00:19:05.440
are the ones that are able to, at the right time,
link |
00:19:09.760
play really suboptimally or really unorthodox?
link |
00:19:15.480
Yeah, specifically there's one guy
link |
00:19:17.080
who last year sort of took the poker world by storm,
link |
00:19:19.580
and his name was Michael Adamo.
link |
00:19:21.080
And he was doing things, like I said,
link |
00:19:22.840
you know, most of the top pros play very similarly
link |
00:19:25.100
with the way that they construct ranges
link |
00:19:27.280
and their bet sizing and all these kinds of things.
link |
00:19:28.860
He was doing some crazy things
link |
00:19:30.840
that nobody else was doing.
link |
00:19:32.720
So he studied sort of a different form of poker
link |
00:19:36.080
and it was unorthodox.
link |
00:19:38.080
And it, you know, it throws people off
link |
00:19:40.380
because he's in his comfort zone
link |
00:19:41.720
with these bet sizes and different things,
link |
00:19:43.360
whereas everyone else,
link |
00:19:44.400
they're not well studied in those spots.
link |
00:19:46.640
So as a result of him being unorthodox,
link |
00:19:49.200
he became like a monster and very difficult to play against
link |
00:19:51.640
because he really knew what he was doing with it.
link |
00:19:53.080
In tournament or cash games?
link |
00:19:54.800
It was tournaments, yeah.
link |
00:19:55.640
He was crushing tournaments.
link |
00:19:56.920
He was going against the norm
link |
00:19:58.640
in terms of what is like, you know,
link |
00:20:00.960
this is what you should do as a poker player in this spot.
link |
00:20:02.720
He wasn't doing that.
link |
00:20:04.160
He was doing what he thought was best
link |
00:20:05.800
and he was doing things outside the norm
link |
00:20:07.120
that again, in a vacuum, you could look at that
link |
00:20:08.960
and you go, that's incorrect.
link |
00:20:10.920
That he should not do.
link |
00:20:11.920
That is a clear cut mistake.
link |
00:20:13.700
Even, you know, the solvers or the computers
link |
00:20:16.240
or game theory would say, this is wrong what he's doing.
link |
00:20:18.520
But it's not wrong if he's doing it in a way
link |
00:20:21.400
that he's exploiting other players tendencies.
link |
00:20:24.200
So for example, with him,
link |
00:20:26.200
say he's playing far too aggressively, okay?
link |
00:20:28.640
That's not good unless your opponents
link |
00:20:31.280
are playing way too passively.
link |
00:20:33.000
So if your opponents are playing passively,
link |
00:20:34.720
the answer is to be more aggressive with them.
link |
00:20:36.420
And that's, I think one of the, you know,
link |
00:20:38.000
biggest advantages he had was he was willing to do that.
link |
00:20:40.820
So bet huge, big, big pots bluffing.
link |
00:20:44.440
Huge.
link |
00:20:45.280
So in a spot where somebody would make it a thousand,
link |
00:20:47.520
he's making it 22,000.
link |
00:20:49.440
Like what?
link |
00:20:50.440
What is this?
link |
00:20:51.280
This makes no sense.
link |
00:20:52.120
And then people kind of know he has nothing,
link |
00:20:53.720
but they're too afraid to call him on it.
link |
00:20:56.340
Well, and then sometimes what happens is
link |
00:20:58.160
this is where the leveling comes in.
link |
00:20:59.320
You're like, man, this guy's crazy.
link |
00:21:00.560
He's bluffing like nuts.
link |
00:21:01.600
Then he bets the 22,000 and you say,
link |
00:21:04.000
ah, I'm taking my stand.
link |
00:21:05.240
I call, and then he shows you like, you know,
link |
00:21:07.720
four of a kind or something like that.
link |
00:21:09.480
So he gets people out of their comfort zone.
link |
00:21:11.160
And I really enjoy watching him play.
link |
00:21:12.560
He's probably my favorite player to watch today.
link |
00:21:15.800
Watching a guy like that,
link |
00:21:16.880
what aspect of his play have you been able
link |
00:21:19.280
to incorporate into your own?
link |
00:21:20.800
Like, what do you learn from that?
link |
00:21:22.120
Cause you're constantly learning,
link |
00:21:23.000
you're constantly adjusting.
link |
00:21:23.960
Yeah.
link |
00:21:24.800
Well, no, and I love it.
link |
00:21:25.620
And as I said, so I think a lot of players
link |
00:21:27.160
sort of come to the same conclusions about
link |
00:21:28.840
this is how you play the spot, but he doesn't.
link |
00:21:30.760
And I love watching and thinking in terms of like,
link |
00:21:32.760
why he's doing this.
link |
00:21:33.800
And one specific thing, for example,
link |
00:21:35.480
is he's willing to really go for it.
link |
00:21:38.320
So in a spot where let's say he bets 2000,
link |
00:21:40.680
he knows he'll get you to call 2000, right?
link |
00:21:43.760
But he wants it all.
link |
00:21:45.480
He wants it all.
link |
00:21:46.360
So he says, you know what?
link |
00:21:47.800
I'll give up the 2000 that's guaranteed
link |
00:21:50.320
and I'll bet 50,000.
link |
00:21:52.780
And maybe if you call that now, you know,
link |
00:21:54.580
so listen, you lose the 2007, eight times,
link |
00:21:57.080
but if I get called for the 50 just once,
link |
00:21:59.680
you know, I'm profiting from that.
link |
00:22:01.280
And it also sets the, you know, the template for you
link |
00:22:05.120
to really sort of be a player
link |
00:22:07.040
that people are afraid to play against.
link |
00:22:08.120
He knocked me out in a tournament very early on
link |
00:22:11.080
in a huge event.
link |
00:22:12.200
And he had, he was so far ahead.
link |
00:22:14.400
He was one step ahead of my thought process in hand.
link |
00:22:17.520
And he did something that makes no sense whatsoever.
link |
00:22:19.920
I looked it up on the computer.
link |
00:22:21.400
Huge mistake, if you will, but not a mistake
link |
00:22:24.320
because he was taking advantage of my tendency.
link |
00:22:25.880
Do you remember the cars?
link |
00:22:26.800
Is there an example?
link |
00:22:27.640
I remember the whole thing.
link |
00:22:28.460
Yeah.
link |
00:22:29.300
I remember it like it was yesterday.
link |
00:22:30.760
Can you take it like through an example hand
link |
00:22:33.200
that really demonstrates it?
link |
00:22:34.800
So I'll explain the hand here.
link |
00:22:36.240
So I'm on the button and I have ace king,
link |
00:22:39.440
which is a very good hand.
link |
00:22:40.800
And I raise and he calls from the big blind.
link |
00:22:43.800
The flop is nine, seven, five.
link |
00:22:45.440
So I have nothing really here.
link |
00:22:47.040
He checks, I check behind.
link |
00:22:49.240
The turn card's an ace.
link |
00:22:51.320
He checks, I bet half the pot.
link |
00:22:53.560
There were 6,000 there, I bet 3,000, okay?
link |
00:22:56.820
Now this is not a typical thing you see people do,
link |
00:22:59.140
but he raised me to 36,000.
link |
00:23:01.760
Massive raise, bigger than the size of the pot.
link |
00:23:04.560
What was the flop again?
link |
00:23:05.720
Nine, seven, five, turn an ace.
link |
00:23:08.000
What is he representing exactly?
link |
00:23:10.040
Well, he could have a straight,
link |
00:23:10.880
he could have three, three of a kind.
link |
00:23:12.200
He could have, you know, aces up.
link |
00:23:13.600
He could have a whole bunch of hands.
link |
00:23:14.760
So he check raises me big to 36,000.
link |
00:23:16.960
I call the bet.
link |
00:23:18.160
So now there's something like 75,000.
link |
00:23:20.040
The river is a five.
link |
00:23:23.640
So the board pairs, okay?
link |
00:23:26.840
He thinks for a while and he bets all of it,
link |
00:23:29.040
which is three times the pot.
link |
00:23:30.600
He bets 225,000.
link |
00:23:32.300
There's only 75,000 out there, right?
link |
00:23:34.720
And in theory, he should never ever have a hand
link |
00:23:36.960
that can do that, right?
link |
00:23:38.640
So it confused me.
link |
00:23:39.960
And I was like, okay, well, this guy's aggressive.
link |
00:23:41.840
He likes to bluff and all this kind of stuff.
link |
00:23:43.220
So I made the call with the ace king
link |
00:23:45.280
and he turned over six, eight.
link |
00:23:47.200
So we had a straight, but here's the thing.
link |
00:23:49.720
In theory, that river card is bad for him.
link |
00:23:52.920
When I call the turn, I have a lot of the time,
link |
00:23:55.980
three of a kind, two pair that just made a full house.
link |
00:23:58.320
So he was risking that.
link |
00:23:59.640
And the reason he did it was
link |
00:24:01.300
because he thought I would perceive him to be bluffing a lot.
link |
00:24:05.480
So he just went for it and it worked.
link |
00:24:07.520
He was able to double up right away
link |
00:24:09.240
and knock me out of the tournament like an hour in.
link |
00:24:11.160
Do you think he thought you might fold?
link |
00:24:12.600
Like what is it?
link |
00:24:13.440
I think specific, I think it was, it came down to this.
link |
00:24:15.120
It's as simple as this.
link |
00:24:17.000
He was cognizant of his image
link |
00:24:19.580
as being a wild, aggressive bluffer, right?
link |
00:24:21.680
And he was fully taking advantage of me,
link |
00:24:24.240
knowing that my tendency in these spots is to be curious.
link |
00:24:27.540
And I want to call and I want to see it.
link |
00:24:29.400
So he was fully taking advantage of the fact
link |
00:24:31.760
that he thought I would call too often.
link |
00:24:33.520
Because otherwise his play makes no sense.
link |
00:24:35.800
A small bet, a medium sized bet, those make sense.
link |
00:24:39.000
But the bet that he made in theory is indefensible.
link |
00:24:42.800
It's just like clearly a mistake.
link |
00:24:45.140
But that's why poker is so fascinating
link |
00:24:47.040
because he makes this play and it wasn't a mistake.
link |
00:24:48.880
It was above the rim, is what it was.
link |
00:24:50.840
Do you think he put you on ace something?
link |
00:24:53.300
I think exactly what he thought I had,
link |
00:24:54.760
was ace king or something like that.
link |
00:24:57.160
You know?
link |
00:24:58.000
That is so fun.
link |
00:24:58.840
That is so fun that the two players at such a high level
link |
00:25:01.240
were able to mess with each other's mind.
link |
00:25:03.720
How old is he?
link |
00:25:04.540
Is he young?
link |
00:25:05.380
He's in his 20s, yeah.
link |
00:25:06.200
I feel like that takes a lot of guts
link |
00:25:07.760
to take risks like that.
link |
00:25:10.040
Well, that's what's great about him.
link |
00:25:11.280
He's certainly never accused
link |
00:25:12.480
of not having the guts to put it in.
link |
00:25:13.840
And that's scary to play against, right?
link |
00:25:15.540
The easiest opponent to play against
link |
00:25:17.000
is one who's just straightforward,
link |
00:25:18.940
passive, you know, not wild and crazy.
link |
00:25:21.660
Playing against him,
link |
00:25:23.120
he's going to put you in the blender, as we say.
link |
00:25:25.080
Yeah, how can you control
link |
00:25:28.840
what you're perceived as representing?
link |
00:25:31.960
What hand you're perceived of as representing?
link |
00:25:34.360
So if we're, if the game of modern poker is,
link |
00:25:38.400
others are representing certain hands
link |
00:25:40.560
through the information they convey,
link |
00:25:42.280
and you're representing a certain hand range, sorry,
link |
00:25:45.840
through your play, how can you control that?
link |
00:25:47.540
Or is that not, is that the wrong way to think about it?
link |
00:25:50.740
But isn't bluffing and bet sizing
link |
00:25:54.200
and all of that kind of stuff essentially controlling
link |
00:25:57.400
what others perceive as the hand range you have?
link |
00:26:01.200
Ultimately, in terms of like controlling
link |
00:26:04.000
people's perception of you, you can't fully control it,
link |
00:26:06.520
but you can do things to sway it, right?
link |
00:26:10.720
As I said earlier, showing bluffs and things like that,
link |
00:26:12.880
you know, leads your opponent to think
link |
00:26:14.160
maybe you do this more often than you're supposed to
link |
00:26:16.240
or whatever the case may be.
link |
00:26:17.080
But in terms of like controlling, you know,
link |
00:26:21.220
what your opponent can think about your hands
link |
00:26:24.620
in certain spots, I don't really think it equates that way.
link |
00:26:26.420
It doesn't really, you know, I think what people do
link |
00:26:28.260
when they're playing a hand is they think in terms of,
link |
00:26:29.980
all right, what does my range look like here?
link |
00:26:33.100
Okay, so my range has value.
link |
00:26:35.460
So you look at, you know,
link |
00:26:36.660
the actual hand you have secondarily.
link |
00:26:38.880
So you say, okay, well, I could have this,
link |
00:26:41.340
I could have this, I actually have this, right?
link |
00:26:43.780
But I could have all these hands.
link |
00:26:44.860
So my opponent, if he's thinking on a high level,
link |
00:26:46.780
he knows I could have all these hands and I have this one.
link |
00:26:49.080
So what do I do with this one, right, in the bigger scope
link |
00:26:51.380
of things?
link |
00:26:52.220
I guess I'm trying to understand if your betting
link |
00:26:55.860
isn't a bet, preflop, your bet,
link |
00:26:58.980
doesn't that narrow the hand ranges?
link |
00:27:01.500
Doesn't matter what you have, it narrows the end.
link |
00:27:04.660
Absolutely.
link |
00:27:05.540
And if you bet big combined with the perception of you
link |
00:27:11.820
at the table, doesn't that represent the hand range?
link |
00:27:14.720
Uh huh, absolutely.
link |
00:27:16.020
So like you can, with betting essentially control
link |
00:27:18.240
what people estimate you to have.
link |
00:27:20.220
Sure, so that makes it, so yeah, so that's true.
link |
00:27:23.380
So for example, one of the most extreme examples is,
link |
00:27:26.440
we have, there's spots where there's a bet
link |
00:27:29.660
that's considered polarizing, right?
link |
00:27:31.920
So let's say there's a thousand in the pot
link |
00:27:34.540
and you bet 10,000, which is crazy big, right?
link |
00:27:37.380
That's saying one of two things.
link |
00:27:38.580
I either have the absolute best possible hand
link |
00:27:41.380
or absolutely nothing,
link |
00:27:42.700
because any of the hands in the middle,
link |
00:27:44.140
I wouldn't do that with.
link |
00:27:45.540
So I'm essentially telling you when I bet that,
link |
00:27:47.980
I'm like, I either got it or I got,
link |
00:27:51.220
I don't have a mediocre hand,
link |
00:27:52.540
like just a pair of nines or a pair of tens.
link |
00:27:54.520
I have a royal flush or have nine high.
link |
00:27:57.820
So with my bet sizing,
link |
00:27:59.620
I can control how my opponent is perceiving
link |
00:28:02.540
what my range is gonna be.
link |
00:28:03.380
So for example, similarly, if I bet small, right?
link |
00:28:07.220
Well, that could be a lot of hands, right?
link |
00:28:09.540
That could represent a big part of my range.
link |
00:28:12.180
The bigger the bet, the more, the narrower the range.
link |
00:28:14.740
Apparently the more polarized it is.
link |
00:28:16.220
Yeah, how far could you get
link |
00:28:19.380
without looking at your cards?
link |
00:28:20.580
Do you think how well could you do?
link |
00:28:22.700
It depends on who I'm playing with, right?
link |
00:28:24.740
So if I was playing in a tournament
link |
00:28:26.380
with mediocre or weak players,
link |
00:28:28.320
I think I could probably do pretty well.
link |
00:28:30.620
But even like world class.
link |
00:28:32.420
World class, I don't think you'd have much of a chance,
link |
00:28:34.380
really, I mean.
link |
00:28:35.220
The question is trying to get at like,
link |
00:28:36.580
how important is it that the actual hands you have
link |
00:28:39.060
versus the hands you're representing?
link |
00:28:41.900
Right, so that's the question of essentially,
link |
00:28:43.460
if you're not looking at your hand preflop,
link |
00:28:45.100
you're basically giving up a fundamental advantage, right?
link |
00:28:48.260
Where you're gonna be playing way suboptimally
link |
00:28:50.660
in terms of your hand selection, right?
link |
00:28:52.080
Cause if you don't look at your hand,
link |
00:28:53.420
you might have a two and a three.
link |
00:28:54.880
That's not good, but now you're playing it.
link |
00:28:56.940
So you've invested whatever, two, 3000 bucks
link |
00:28:59.620
with absolute garbage,
link |
00:29:01.060
and it's very difficult to climb that hill, right?
link |
00:29:03.700
So it's much better to actually look at your cards
link |
00:29:05.540
and go, okay, I'll throw away the two and three
link |
00:29:07.340
and I'll play the ace king.
link |
00:29:08.860
Speaking of garbage, you've said that 10, seven
link |
00:29:12.140
is your favorite poker hand to play.
link |
00:29:13.580
Is that still the case and what aspect of it
link |
00:29:16.840
is that you enjoy?
link |
00:29:18.820
Yeah, so it's one of those viewer discretion is advised.
link |
00:29:21.580
Like 10, seven, I've just noticed throughout my life,
link |
00:29:24.340
you know, it's a tendency thing that I've been lucky with it.
link |
00:29:27.280
So that's just sort of,
link |
00:29:28.180
but it's not like I'm gonna look at 10, seven and go,
link |
00:29:30.220
oh, wow, you know, I'm gonna call it all in
link |
00:29:32.300
or anything like that.
link |
00:29:33.260
I'll play it in situations where it makes sense,
link |
00:29:35.740
but you know, it's rare cause it's not a very good hand.
link |
00:29:38.260
But is there some aspect of belief
link |
00:29:42.960
in the magic of this hand manifests quality of play?
link |
00:29:47.020
Or is that a little?
link |
00:29:47.860
There should be.
link |
00:29:48.700
So here's the thing, it's, you know,
link |
00:29:49.940
poker players, some have said
link |
00:29:51.460
it's unlucky to be superstitious,
link |
00:29:53.340
but we're all a little bit superstitious, a little bit.
link |
00:29:55.940
You know, and so I don't know,
link |
00:29:57.300
maybe it is a case where when I have 10, seven,
link |
00:29:59.240
I feel somehow energetically that, you know,
link |
00:30:01.900
I'm more likely to catch something,
link |
00:30:03.260
which may actually make me more apt to be aggressive
link |
00:30:06.020
and confident in the hand.
link |
00:30:07.340
But you really shouldn't let yourself do that.
link |
00:30:10.060
Like you're not supposed to fall in love
link |
00:30:11.180
with any specific hands.
link |
00:30:12.780
Yeah, but you know, uncertainty is ruthless.
link |
00:30:18.220
It's, you know, the fact that it's a game of statistics,
link |
00:30:23.380
it can be too painful for the human psychology.
link |
00:30:26.900
So maybe you have to hold on to certain superstitions.
link |
00:30:30.820
Because, you know, I mean, there's a cold absurdity
link |
00:30:34.420
to the fact that you can play extremely well and still lose.
link |
00:30:38.740
I mean, actually this year you've played the,
link |
00:30:43.980
what is it, 50 days of World Series of Poker.
link |
00:30:47.700
And it seems like, at least from the perspective
link |
00:30:50.980
of me looking at it through the internet,
link |
00:30:53.020
it seems like there's a lot of hands
link |
00:30:54.620
that you were like 70, 30, 80, 20, all in hands
link |
00:30:59.140
that you just did not, were not going your way.
link |
00:31:02.420
That can sort of break you mentally.
link |
00:31:04.220
Absolutely.
link |
00:31:05.460
Yeah, one of the hardest things, especially about playing,
link |
00:31:07.460
because cash games and tournaments are different.
link |
00:31:09.620
One of the most difficult things about, you know,
link |
00:31:11.140
being a tournament player is resilience.
link |
00:31:13.380
Because more often than not, like,
link |
00:31:14.820
so if there's a tournament with a thousand people,
link |
00:31:17.420
to win the tournament, you have to get all of the chips.
link |
00:31:19.460
That means there's one winner and 999 losers.
link |
00:31:22.220
So it's very rare that you actually like win all the chips.
link |
00:31:25.500
So you're essentially at some point
link |
00:31:27.220
in every tournament you play,
link |
00:31:28.180
gonna deal with like really bad luck and disappointment.
link |
00:31:31.320
And sometimes those streaks can have you question yourself
link |
00:31:34.540
and be introspective about, okay,
link |
00:31:35.980
so I think I'm 47 now.
link |
00:31:38.020
I think I've gotten better as time went on
link |
00:31:40.220
between distinguishing, okay,
link |
00:31:42.140
am I losing right now because of bad luck?
link |
00:31:44.720
Or is it fundamentally decisions I'm making
link |
00:31:47.020
are not very good, right?
link |
00:31:48.820
And that's one of the hardest things
link |
00:31:50.220
for anyone who plays poker to get to, right?
link |
00:31:53.300
Why am I losing?
link |
00:31:54.340
Am I losing because of my opponents being better?
link |
00:31:57.300
I'm not playing well, or am I losing just because of luck?
link |
00:31:59.460
And because there's so much variance in poker,
link |
00:32:02.580
a lot of players can be confused
link |
00:32:04.780
on both sides of the coin.
link |
00:32:06.020
One guy's winning and he thinks he's great.
link |
00:32:07.700
He's really not, wait till the cards break even as we say.
link |
00:32:11.020
I think there's a lot of parallels to life as well.
link |
00:32:13.500
If you get screwed over, over and over,
link |
00:32:15.620
it's hard to know if you're doing something wrong
link |
00:32:17.980
or if it's just bad luck.
link |
00:32:19.940
I think they did a study.
link |
00:32:20.980
I remember there was like a study
link |
00:32:22.060
that was mostly related to gambling,
link |
00:32:23.900
but it was mice and they put them in a little maze
link |
00:32:25.980
and they go down these three tubes
link |
00:32:27.940
and they go down this one tube and there'd be cheese, right?
link |
00:32:30.900
And then they go down again, cheese.
link |
00:32:32.780
Three times in a row there was cheese there, right?
link |
00:32:34.980
The next time there was an electric shock there, not cheese.
link |
00:32:39.500
The rat went, you know, the mouse went to get zapped.
link |
00:32:42.980
He got zapped, okay, came back.
link |
00:32:44.660
He kept going back to get zapped until he died.
link |
00:32:47.420
Like he kept going because he found cheese there.
link |
00:32:50.500
He has one there.
link |
00:32:52.100
So he continued to go chase that win
link |
00:32:54.740
despite it being, you know, now all of a sudden
link |
00:32:57.140
not worthwhile till he died.
link |
00:32:59.340
And essentially what they said was
link |
00:33:01.260
that is essentially how they compared it
link |
00:33:03.340
to like, you know, the gambling brain
link |
00:33:04.980
and how people think about gambling.
link |
00:33:06.780
You're chasing the wins.
link |
00:33:08.180
You learn too much.
link |
00:33:09.860
You sort of overgeneralize the lessons learned
link |
00:33:12.420
from the times you've won.
link |
00:33:13.460
So yeah, like beginner's luck can be detrimental.
link |
00:33:15.620
If you have some early luck and you believe
link |
00:33:17.980
that this is just the way it's supposed to be forever,
link |
00:33:20.780
you know, it can put you in a delusional state
link |
00:33:23.500
where, you know, you feel like I'm just great,
link |
00:33:26.500
but no, you're not.
link |
00:33:27.420
You were just lucky in the beginning.
link |
00:33:28.740
I actually played poker once in Vegas.
link |
00:33:31.460
It was a, it wasn't a tournament,
link |
00:33:34.060
but it was a kind of tournament like style.
link |
00:33:37.900
I already forgot what it was.
link |
00:33:39.060
But what I do remember is that I had four of a kind.
link |
00:33:42.980
So the last hand I've ever played in poker was,
link |
00:33:46.500
I got a four of a kind and there was a couple of others
link |
00:33:50.580
with really strong hands.
link |
00:33:51.460
So everybody went all in.
link |
00:33:53.100
And I think you get some kind of bonus
link |
00:33:54.580
for getting four of a kind.
link |
00:33:55.500
Bad beat jackpot you were playing in.
link |
00:33:56.860
Yeah, so something like this.
link |
00:33:58.460
I apologize if I don't know the details,
link |
00:34:00.380
but I just remember winning a lot of money
link |
00:34:02.300
and I walked away from the table.
link |
00:34:04.060
I said, I'm not playing poker again.
link |
00:34:05.260
This is great.
link |
00:34:06.100
I'm gonna hit it up top.
link |
00:34:07.060
Cause I started to feel like this is your,
link |
00:34:09.340
I started to think,
link |
00:34:10.180
even though I haven't really played poker at all,
link |
00:34:12.180
that I'm good.
link |
00:34:13.300
And that was a really dangerous feeling.
link |
00:34:15.420
And everybody was really mad for walking away
link |
00:34:17.180
from the table.
link |
00:34:18.140
One of the other things that I think is interesting
link |
00:34:19.460
about poker too is good is relative, right?
link |
00:34:21.980
So you could be the seventh best player in the whole world,
link |
00:34:25.180
like literally seventh best player.
link |
00:34:26.900
But if you're playing with the other six,
link |
00:34:29.460
you're the sucker.
link |
00:34:30.940
You are like the worst player in the game, right?
link |
00:34:33.820
So like there's a lot of players, for example,
link |
00:34:36.580
like the Dan Blazarians of the world, right?
link |
00:34:38.420
He's not a top level player,
link |
00:34:40.580
like these guys you see on TV,
link |
00:34:42.500
but he probably makes more money than they do
link |
00:34:44.620
because he plays with people
link |
00:34:46.020
that are far below his skill level.
link |
00:34:47.660
So part of the skill of being a poker player
link |
00:34:50.220
is finding situations where you're profitable,
link |
00:34:53.580
regardless of your skill level.
link |
00:34:55.620
Another connection to life.
link |
00:34:57.900
Do you think Dan Blazarian is telling the truth
link |
00:35:01.140
about having made, what is it, $50, $100 million?
link |
00:35:04.740
Just a huge amount of money playing poker.
link |
00:35:06.860
Considering what I know about the private games
link |
00:35:09.380
and the types of players who play in these private games
link |
00:35:11.420
and the stakes that they play,
link |
00:35:12.780
I absolutely believe Dan has made,
link |
00:35:14.900
I don't know how many millions,
link |
00:35:16.180
but whether it's 50 or whatever,
link |
00:35:17.780
but it wouldn't surprise me
link |
00:35:19.500
that if you play in these games within a year
link |
00:35:21.660
or you find the right businessman
link |
00:35:23.900
who has way too much Bitcoin money,
link |
00:35:26.140
and in one night you take him for 20 million,
link |
00:35:28.300
I absolutely could see it.
link |
00:35:29.660
I don't see any reason why.
link |
00:35:30.980
Listen, where he got his money initially,
link |
00:35:33.020
that's up to interpretation from his father or whatever,
link |
00:35:36.540
but has he made a bunch of money playing poker?
link |
00:35:38.940
Absolutely, no question.
link |
00:35:40.620
Do you feel, as somebody who loves the game,
link |
00:35:43.180
do you think there's something almost ethically wrong
link |
00:35:46.300
in playing people much worse than you?
link |
00:35:48.780
So yeah, that's a good question
link |
00:35:50.180
because part of the reason I played poker
link |
00:35:53.500
and wanted to become professional
link |
00:35:54.580
was I wanted to make my mother proud, right?
link |
00:35:57.180
And I don't think she would be proud of me
link |
00:35:58.540
taking Grandma Betty's last $5 and down the street,
link |
00:36:03.020
sending her broke and taking her pension check.
link |
00:36:05.260
So I play at the high stakes
link |
00:36:06.500
against people who can afford it.
link |
00:36:07.780
They know who I am.
link |
00:36:08.660
I'm not a hustler.
link |
00:36:09.500
I'm not pretending I'm bad at poker to squeeze in.
link |
00:36:12.540
I was thinking about this just yesterday
link |
00:36:13.940
because I played in a game
link |
00:36:15.060
that if I played that sort of role
link |
00:36:17.900
where a lot of guys do pros
link |
00:36:19.260
that sort of play down their skill level,
link |
00:36:21.620
pretend they're just one of the guys,
link |
00:36:23.420
these guys can make $20, $30 million in a year, legitimately.
link |
00:36:27.540
Like I believe that like, if I did that,
link |
00:36:29.500
if I just said, you know what, I'm gonna go down that path,
link |
00:36:31.580
get into these games in LA, you know,
link |
00:36:33.100
and travel and do all this kind of stuff,
link |
00:36:34.500
I can make 20 million a year.
link |
00:36:35.660
But it feels a little greasy, right?
link |
00:36:38.100
I don't like to kiss anyone's ass.
link |
00:36:39.620
I don't like to ask anyone for a favor or things like that.
link |
00:36:43.300
So, but yeah, like I feel, listen,
link |
00:36:48.700
a rich guy who wants to sit down with a million bucks
link |
00:36:51.180
and get drunk and lose it, I have no empathy for that.
link |
00:36:53.180
I'm like, I don't have any moral qualms with that.
link |
00:36:55.620
So if a grandma Betty is a billionaire.
link |
00:36:59.260
Send it, send it, right?
link |
00:37:01.180
You know, absolutely, why not?
link |
00:37:04.940
Well, let me ask you about a tough period
link |
00:37:06.900
of your recent life.
link |
00:37:08.020
You had a rough, like we mentioned,
link |
00:37:10.060
the World Series of Poker losing $1.1 million over 48 days.
link |
00:37:15.380
What were you going through mentally during that?
link |
00:37:18.440
So here's the thing, you know, I do, like you said,
link |
00:37:20.280
I do a YouTube vlog every day.
link |
00:37:21.520
So I kind of share my thoughts and listen,
link |
00:37:23.820
I can edit that thing and keep out the bad stuff,
link |
00:37:26.740
but I think it's more authentic and genuine to show people
link |
00:37:29.820
the actual struggles and the pain that I go through,
link |
00:37:32.060
you know, without it.
link |
00:37:32.900
And I'd say the one thing I'm most proud of
link |
00:37:35.020
throughout the entire thing is the resilience
link |
00:37:36.620
because there are moments you see me where I'm broken.
link |
00:37:39.020
I'm just like, I can't take it.
link |
00:37:39.980
I broke a selfie stick this year.
link |
00:37:41.720
Like I was filming it.
link |
00:37:42.940
Cause you know, I do for my vlog,
link |
00:37:43.940
I smashed the stick through it in the corner, right?
link |
00:37:46.220
It's just, that was my like hit rock bottom moment.
link |
00:37:49.220
And then I put the camera on me and I was like, all right,
link |
00:37:51.220
I'll let people see it.
link |
00:37:52.340
But mentally it was very difficult
link |
00:37:53.860
because there was a feeling of hopelessness
link |
00:37:56.860
where I was making good decisions.
link |
00:38:00.020
Like I genuinely felt like I'm playing really, really well.
link |
00:38:02.680
But every time my money went in and my opponent's money
link |
00:38:04.940
went in and say, I was 60%, 70%, 80%
link |
00:38:08.140
for about a two week stretch, I lost every one of those.
link |
00:38:11.460
And you start to wonder, you're like,
link |
00:38:13.500
I can't win if I never win, you know, in these spots.
link |
00:38:16.900
So it was difficult.
link |
00:38:18.300
Luckily I have, you know, 20 odd years of experience
link |
00:38:20.980
on how to deal with it.
link |
00:38:21.980
And so, as I said, I wake up the next day, ready to go.
link |
00:38:26.020
So as if nothing happened.
link |
00:38:27.940
To a certain degree.
link |
00:38:28.780
Obviously, you know, the more,
link |
00:38:30.500
the more it happens in the higher vines,
link |
00:38:32.180
like the one where I broke the selfie stick,
link |
00:38:34.020
I lost 500,000 in that tournament, right?
link |
00:38:37.060
And it was like the last card, it was painful.
link |
00:38:38.980
I think you lost.
link |
00:38:40.260
Yeah, that was great, that video.
link |
00:38:43.340
I think he lost.
link |
00:38:45.020
What led up to the selfie stick gate?
link |
00:38:47.540
Like what, you just lost your shit
link |
00:38:49.620
for a, like a hundred milliseconds.
link |
00:38:53.780
Like it was very brief.
link |
00:38:55.340
You're just like, what, the world wasn't making any sense.
link |
00:38:58.300
Like, how do I keep losing kind of thing?
link |
00:39:00.780
How did you, why did you lose your shit?
link |
00:39:02.460
You should never really think like this,
link |
00:39:03.700
but part of me felt like I deserved to win this, right?
link |
00:39:06.940
So part of me was like, listen,
link |
00:39:07.780
I've lost so many in the last two weeks, all right.
link |
00:39:10.100
Let, you know, the poker gods be kind to me right now.
link |
00:39:12.660
Let me win this.
link |
00:39:13.500
And it looked good.
link |
00:39:14.380
I was in a great situation on the flop,
link |
00:39:17.140
great situation on the turn.
link |
00:39:18.260
I'm about to be a competitor.
link |
00:39:20.020
I'm going to be a contender in this tournament
link |
00:39:21.900
to win a big prize pool and turn the whole thing around.
link |
00:39:24.620
It's all there for the taking.
link |
00:39:26.460
And then boom, the last card, it just, you know,
link |
00:39:29.380
it was a couple of weeks of frustration
link |
00:39:31.500
in the moment of filming that I just had, you know,
link |
00:39:33.820
sort of a visceral reaction, you know,
link |
00:39:35.540
and I smacked the, smacked the selfie stick.
link |
00:39:37.780
And then like, I, it was, I see a corner, it's safe.
link |
00:39:40.340
I threw the selfie stick on the ground.
link |
00:39:41.900
And of course, social media blows up about how, you know,
link |
00:39:45.180
it was a violent act, you know?
link |
00:39:47.620
I mean, it's like, have you never watched sports?
link |
00:39:49.420
Have you never seen a guy on the golf course
link |
00:39:51.420
smack his club or throw their helmet?
link |
00:39:53.420
Like, you know, there was the,
link |
00:39:55.180
there's a guy, Justin Bonomo is a poker player.
link |
00:39:57.380
And he's a super, how to, for lack of a better word,
link |
00:40:00.580
offended by everything.
link |
00:40:02.020
And he was equating my throwing a stick on the ground
link |
00:40:04.740
to violence against women, domestic abuse,
link |
00:40:07.500
and the idea that like,
link |
00:40:09.180
this makes women feel unsafe to play poker.
link |
00:40:12.060
And so that was kind of a running joke
link |
00:40:13.460
for the last two weeks where every time I sat at a table,
link |
00:40:15.820
the guys would be like, oh, I feel unsafe, I feel unsafe.
link |
00:40:19.340
Yeah.
link |
00:40:20.180
Can you take me through the hand?
link |
00:40:21.020
Do you remember what the hand was?
link |
00:40:21.840
Like, what was the...
link |
00:40:22.680
Yeah, so it was a, you know, a player on the button raised.
link |
00:40:25.700
David Peters, very aggressive player.
link |
00:40:27.460
He went all in from the blind
link |
00:40:29.060
and I had a pair of pocket tens.
link |
00:40:31.060
So I went with my tens and he had queen 10 of spades.
link |
00:40:34.100
So I was good.
link |
00:40:35.380
I have way the best hand.
link |
00:40:37.020
And the flop was like king nine, three, one spade.
link |
00:40:40.100
Turn was like the eight of spades.
link |
00:40:42.460
So now he has a flush draw and the river was another spade.
link |
00:40:45.220
So he caught spade, spade, and he made a flush.
link |
00:40:47.740
Wow, but statistically you were winning the whole time.
link |
00:40:50.660
Yeah, I was winning it up until the last card.
link |
00:40:52.300
What did he go all in on?
link |
00:40:53.860
Was it a bluff?
link |
00:40:54.900
He made what's considered like a pretty standard play
link |
00:40:57.140
in modern poker where, you know, a guy raised
link |
00:40:59.500
and he was just trying to pick up, you know, what was there.
link |
00:41:01.500
And he ran into a hand in the big blind
link |
00:41:03.140
and you know, he got lucky.
link |
00:41:04.420
So what was the throughout the strategy of preparation,
link |
00:41:08.420
the strategy of play?
link |
00:41:09.820
So you're playing so many days.
link |
00:41:12.580
Are you trying to ignore the results
link |
00:41:14.380
and stick to a particular strategy?
link |
00:41:16.900
Yes, for the most part, you know,
link |
00:41:19.500
what I'm trying to do is like,
link |
00:41:21.580
I formulate a strategy for the whole seven weeks
link |
00:41:23.260
cause there's a varying degree of buy ins too.
link |
00:41:25.940
Like you have small ones, like 1500,
link |
00:41:28.340
then you've got like $250,000 buy in.
link |
00:41:30.220
So I map out the seven weeks and right,
link |
00:41:33.460
I'll give a little bit of mental energy to the 1500,
link |
00:41:36.340
which means I'll be on my phone.
link |
00:41:37.580
I'm not gonna, I don't care as much about this one,
link |
00:41:39.700
but the 250K fully engaged, fully focused, you know,
link |
00:41:43.820
up against obviously the higher the buy in,
link |
00:41:45.740
you know, super top competition.
link |
00:41:48.260
And you know, as far as strategy goes,
link |
00:41:50.940
focusing on each day, playing the best I can,
link |
00:41:53.940
not the result.
link |
00:41:55.580
Like, cause if you focus on the result,
link |
00:41:57.260
you're focusing in the wrong place.
link |
00:41:58.700
Your focus should be on the decisions you actually make.
link |
00:42:02.020
Right, and if you're making good decisions consistently,
link |
00:42:04.620
you have to continue to do that.
link |
00:42:05.700
The frustrating part is this,
link |
00:42:06.980
with poker, unlike chess or other things,
link |
00:42:09.060
making the best possible decision doesn't mean you win.
link |
00:42:12.420
Often you lose, you don't, chess.
link |
00:42:15.540
Well, Magnus Carlsen has also talked about that.
link |
00:42:20.860
There's some non deterministic thing about chess too,
link |
00:42:25.300
given the limited cognitive capacity of the human mind.
link |
00:42:30.260
So he says that the world championship should have
link |
00:42:33.100
20, 30, 40, 50 games, not the few that they have.
link |
00:42:36.660
It's too low of a sample.
link |
00:42:38.300
So in that sense, the high stakes poker tournaments
link |
00:42:41.980
are very too low sample.
link |
00:42:44.300
Sure, yeah.
link |
00:42:45.340
Well, when you think of the world series of poker,
link |
00:42:47.220
so as you said, I lost about 1 million, right?
link |
00:42:49.820
In one tournament, that was 500,000.
link |
00:42:52.300
So then, you know, like a few others here
link |
00:42:53.820
of high buying tournaments.
link |
00:42:54.660
So the sample or the amount was, you know,
link |
00:42:57.700
40, 50 total tournaments with, you know, high variance.
link |
00:43:00.540
And if you don't run well or do well in the highest buy ins,
link |
00:43:03.340
you know, you're gonna have a losing summer.
link |
00:43:06.060
So you did a podcast on the mental game a few years ago,
link |
00:43:08.780
but then that's just something you really care about.
link |
00:43:10.660
So what aspects of the mental game in poker
link |
00:43:13.020
is most difficult to master?
link |
00:43:15.300
I think the most difficult thing for people
link |
00:43:16.940
is self awareness, right?
link |
00:43:18.860
And resilience, self awareness to know, okay,
link |
00:43:21.380
so, you know, again, is it, am I not doing as well
link |
00:43:24.940
as I could be because of luck
link |
00:43:26.340
or is there things that I can learn?
link |
00:43:28.020
And I always look to mistakes as opportunities.
link |
00:43:30.220
I really do.
link |
00:43:31.300
When I make a mistake in a poker hand, right?
link |
00:43:34.100
Call it a breakdown or whatever,
link |
00:43:36.340
that's where breakthroughs happen.
link |
00:43:38.180
And I'm like, oh, you know what I could have done here?
link |
00:43:40.940
I could have done this and that would have been really good
link |
00:43:43.620
and I'm gonna do that going forward.
link |
00:43:44.900
So I think like with anything, you know,
link |
00:43:48.060
when you start out playing golf,
link |
00:43:50.060
like your goal is to just hit the ball, right?
link |
00:43:52.860
Then you try to hit it in the air,
link |
00:43:54.780
then you're trying to hit it straight,
link |
00:43:56.220
then you're trying to hit it on the green,
link |
00:43:57.980
then you're trying to hit it closer to the green
link |
00:43:59.220
to the point where the pros get where, you know,
link |
00:44:02.180
they're so finite, they're trying to hit it 63 yards
link |
00:44:05.180
and spin it back three yards.
link |
00:44:06.940
It's imperfect.
link |
00:44:08.460
Like they don't hit the perfect shot
link |
00:44:10.340
because the perfect shot for them is it goes in,
link |
00:44:12.820
but they try and make the mistakes smaller
link |
00:44:14.580
and smaller and smaller.
link |
00:44:15.540
Poker is the same.
link |
00:44:17.060
We all make mistakes consistently.
link |
00:44:19.180
The goal is to minimize, especially the big ones.
link |
00:44:23.180
What was the lowest point for you psychologically
link |
00:44:27.500
in poker in general, actually?
link |
00:44:28.900
Maybe it was this year, maybe it was in general.
link |
00:44:31.220
Do you remember there was times in your life,
link |
00:44:33.380
speaking of resilience,
link |
00:44:34.860
that were extremely difficult to you mentally?
link |
00:44:37.660
Yeah, so early on, you know, as basically as a teenager,
link |
00:44:41.260
I was playing in Toronto and then in my early 20s,
link |
00:44:43.100
I'm like, I'm going to Vegas, right?
link |
00:44:44.780
And I thought I was the best.
link |
00:44:46.340
I'm like 21 years old, I'm like, check me out, right?
link |
00:44:49.620
Show up with $3,000, 24 hours later, you know, money's gone.
link |
00:44:54.940
And I remember the moment vividly.
link |
00:44:58.420
It was at the Binion's Horse,
link |
00:44:59.260
it was about three in the morning.
link |
00:45:00.580
I was playing with seven other people.
link |
00:45:02.740
You know, I lost my last chips.
link |
00:45:04.580
I went to the bathroom, washed up, got out.
link |
00:45:08.100
They all left.
link |
00:45:09.540
And it was like a moment where I realized like, okay,
link |
00:45:11.300
in Toronto, I was the big fish.
link |
00:45:12.900
But here, they were playing because of me.
link |
00:45:15.180
I was the sucker.
link |
00:45:16.180
I remembered every one of their faces.
link |
00:45:17.980
And then I remember not having enough money
link |
00:45:19.500
to get back to budget suites where I was staying.
link |
00:45:22.100
So I walked, you know, I walked.
link |
00:45:24.980
And in that moment I was thinking about like,
link |
00:45:26.500
is this something that I'll be able to do?
link |
00:45:28.020
Am I good enough?
link |
00:45:29.340
You know, what am I going to do now?
link |
00:45:30.700
I'm in Vegas, I don't know anybody and I have no money,
link |
00:45:34.020
right?
link |
00:45:34.860
So that was certainly like what felt like a low point,
link |
00:45:37.700
walking back behind Paradise and Twain,
link |
00:45:40.180
which is not a great part of town.
link |
00:45:43.100
Where did you find the strength to answer yes
link |
00:45:46.300
to that question that you can still do good?
link |
00:45:48.940
I think this has been sort of a pattern in my life
link |
00:45:51.100
where like in the evening after it happens,
link |
00:45:53.580
like I don't have it.
link |
00:45:54.780
You know, I don't have that feeling of hope or,
link |
00:45:57.700
you know, resilience, if you will.
link |
00:45:59.420
I'm allowing myself to experience despair,
link |
00:46:02.500
which is exactly where I'm at.
link |
00:46:04.260
But then a good night's sleep, wake up the next morning
link |
00:46:06.980
and just within me, I have that inner confidence to say,
link |
00:46:10.060
you know what?
link |
00:46:10.900
Fuck it, get back on the hobby horse,
link |
00:46:13.180
find a way, make it work, right?
link |
00:46:15.860
But I do believe it's really therapeutic and worthwhile
link |
00:46:19.060
to allow yourself to feel and vent.
link |
00:46:21.740
So many people today, the Instagram culture world,
link |
00:46:24.500
I call it, it's like they want to act like they're perfect.
link |
00:46:26.820
Nothing bothers them, bullshit, right?
link |
00:46:28.860
You're pissed off, it's okay to show it.
link |
00:46:30.500
Emotion's fine, we all have it.
link |
00:46:32.260
There's no reason you have to suppress it.
link |
00:46:34.140
Obviously, you don't want to have guys throwing selfie sticks
link |
00:46:36.380
around the room every time they lose a pot, right?
link |
00:46:39.060
But, you know, a little bit of...
link |
00:46:40.900
You're gonna make everybody feel unsafe.
link |
00:46:42.420
Yeah, exactly.
link |
00:46:43.260
That happens.
link |
00:46:44.420
So you're saying, there is a culture of saying,
link |
00:46:46.740
you know, stay positive, all this kind of stuff,
link |
00:46:48.380
but you know, when you feel despair, don't resist it,
link |
00:46:52.020
ride it out.
link |
00:46:52.940
Because it doesn't go away, right?
link |
00:46:54.860
That feeling, you know, you think you put it away
link |
00:46:56.300
in the pit of your stomach and you think, you know,
link |
00:46:57.820
it's gone, it's not, it's still there.
link |
00:46:59.460
Let yourself go, fuck!
link |
00:47:00.940
Yeah.
link |
00:47:01.780
It's all right.
link |
00:47:02.740
You know, there's nothing wrong with being
link |
00:47:05.060
a little bit emotional, because once you've experienced it,
link |
00:47:07.120
you let it out, now you can move past it.
link |
00:47:10.120
Yeah, and I feel like, as long as your brain chemistry
link |
00:47:12.740
can support it, you can usually learn a good lesson
link |
00:47:16.620
from it, like you become stronger,
link |
00:47:18.660
you become more resilient through it.
link |
00:47:20.300
It's really interesting.
link |
00:47:21.260
And a good night's sleep can really help.
link |
00:47:23.080
Absolutely, yeah.
link |
00:47:24.680
So through 2022, and in general, what is a perfect day
link |
00:47:29.560
in the life of Daniel Negrano look like
link |
00:47:31.460
when you're, like on a day when you have to play
link |
00:47:34.940
a big game, big tournament game and so on?
link |
00:47:37.620
So like, what time do you wake up?
link |
00:47:39.820
What do you eat for breakfast?
link |
00:47:41.220
So my life is twofold.
link |
00:47:43.660
Like one, when I'm playing hardcore, and one when I'm not.
link |
00:47:47.360
And they look very different, right?
link |
00:47:49.340
So I'll give you a quick glimpse of like when I'm not,
link |
00:47:51.860
up at 10, you know, breakfast, in the gym at noon,
link |
00:47:55.820
you know, post workout,
link |
00:47:58.780
meal, coffee, walk, like, you know, I try to get,
link |
00:48:04.460
that's what I do for cardio, you know,
link |
00:48:06.140
and just very like home bodied.
link |
00:48:07.340
I don't leave the house.
link |
00:48:08.260
It's very like boring and mundane, right?
link |
00:48:10.660
Long distance walks.
link |
00:48:11.580
So like, what do you do when you're walking?
link |
00:48:13.060
You're thinking about stuff?
link |
00:48:14.060
Well, no, honestly, I just walk on the treadmill.
link |
00:48:15.740
I try to get 15,000 steps a day.
link |
00:48:17.980
And I just walk for basically like an hour
link |
00:48:19.740
while I watch a show or I'm on the computer
link |
00:48:21.620
or something like that, you know, I'm on the treadmill.
link |
00:48:23.460
Why walk and not running?
link |
00:48:25.580
Well, I mean, I think walking, I mean,
link |
00:48:27.580
I do a little bit of running, but hardly any.
link |
00:48:29.380
I don't enjoy it.
link |
00:48:30.660
Like, I just like walking.
link |
00:48:31.900
And frankly, for fat loss,
link |
00:48:33.180
when it's usually what I'm doing after big poker tournaments
link |
00:48:36.220
is getting back in shape, that walking's ideal for it, right?
link |
00:48:40.140
So essentially it's like the tale of two.
link |
00:48:41.700
During the World Series of Poker,
link |
00:48:43.580
all my sort of structured life thrown out the window.
link |
00:48:47.740
There's no walking.
link |
00:48:48.860
There's very little walking.
link |
00:48:50.180
There's very little working out.
link |
00:48:51.340
There's very little anything.
link |
00:48:52.180
I go into the World Series, you know,
link |
00:48:54.140
like this year I went in around 157
link |
00:48:57.460
and I expected to gain about 10 pounds
link |
00:48:59.420
during the World Series.
link |
00:49:00.260
Not good pounds, it wasn't muscle,
link |
00:49:01.940
but that's about what I did, 165.
link |
00:49:03.700
And then I spend the next month trying to, you know, lose it.
link |
00:49:06.580
But during the World Series, when I'm playing,
link |
00:49:08.500
the most important thing without question
link |
00:49:10.860
that I have to focus on,
link |
00:49:12.060
and this is why I stopped focusing
link |
00:49:13.980
on working on all this stuff is sleep.
link |
00:49:16.460
If I'm not rested, I'm useless.
link |
00:49:18.380
If I only get five, six hours
link |
00:49:20.380
and I have to go back the next day and play 14 hours,
link |
00:49:23.500
the chances of me being at my best, very, very slim.
link |
00:49:26.460
So sleep is a priority.
link |
00:49:27.500
What's the perfect amount of sleep for you on those days?
link |
00:49:30.060
Eight, seven?
link |
00:49:30.900
So eight hours is my go to every night.
link |
00:49:33.980
During the World Series of Poker, it's just not possible
link |
00:49:36.540
because of the way that it's structured.
link |
00:49:37.900
Sometimes the tournaments end at 2.15 a.m.
link |
00:49:40.980
I get home about three o clock.
link |
00:49:44.340
Takes me 30 minutes, 40 minutes to get to sleep.
link |
00:49:46.900
So now let's say I'm in bed by four.
link |
00:49:48.780
Well, the tournament's at, you know, two.
link |
00:49:51.660
So I have to get up and whatever.
link |
00:49:53.540
So it's very difficult to get exactly eight
link |
00:49:55.060
a lot of the time.
link |
00:49:56.100
You know, and also get back there in time.
link |
00:49:57.660
Is there any hacks to quiet the mind?
link |
00:50:01.380
Because you're going on a pretty intense rollercoaster
link |
00:50:04.580
mentally when you're playing.
link |
00:50:07.780
Is there any tricks to getting to sleep
link |
00:50:10.100
given the rollercoaster?
link |
00:50:10.940
I've been very lucky.
link |
00:50:12.060
Like I'm blessed.
link |
00:50:12.900
I don't know if it's because of diet or what,
link |
00:50:14.700
but I've always been a very good sleeper.
link |
00:50:16.700
You just shut off.
link |
00:50:17.580
I get to sleep and I sleep like a baby, you know?
link |
00:50:19.980
And I also nap really well.
link |
00:50:21.840
Like during the World Series, sometimes what will happen
link |
00:50:23.660
is let's say I get knocked out of one event at 4 p.m.
link |
00:50:26.340
And there's another one that I can jump in.
link |
00:50:28.460
Instead of jumping right into it,
link |
00:50:30.100
I'll go into like a private room and take 45 minute nap.
link |
00:50:34.220
And you know, and give me enough energy to continue
link |
00:50:36.980
and sort of reset my mind.
link |
00:50:38.300
Yeah, and it solves a lot of problems with the nap too.
link |
00:50:41.060
It does.
link |
00:50:41.900
Yeah, I feel like the nap is a magical trick in life.
link |
00:50:46.180
What else, diet wise?
link |
00:50:47.540
What do you, your mind is going, you know,
link |
00:50:52.220
pretty intensely all day.
link |
00:50:53.980
Yeah, so during like, like I said,
link |
00:50:55.860
when I'm not playing, I'm super regimented.
link |
00:50:58.740
You know, I have, I literally measure everything.
link |
00:51:01.740
You know, I count calories, I count macros,
link |
00:51:04.420
I follow it to a T.
link |
00:51:05.900
Pretty balanced diet or any?
link |
00:51:07.420
I'm a vegan.
link |
00:51:08.260
Vegan, yeah.
link |
00:51:09.100
So it's, you know, a vegan diet, like.
link |
00:51:10.540
But balanced in terms of carbs and protein.
link |
00:51:12.140
Yeah, yeah, no, I mean, I eat a healthy amount.
link |
00:51:13.980
I'm doing probably 150 grams of protein,
link |
00:51:17.820
like 60 grams of fat, 50, and then about.
link |
00:51:20.140
And try to measure it all out.
link |
00:51:21.460
I do, yeah, I basically, I created a meal plan.
link |
00:51:23.460
So what I did for myself is,
link |
00:51:24.700
cause I'm really anal and I made a spreadsheet
link |
00:51:26.780
with like a day's food and I have six different ones.
link |
00:51:29.660
So I just follow it.
link |
00:51:30.940
Like I don't, it actually makes my life so much easier
link |
00:51:34.580
when I don't have to think about what I'm going to eat
link |
00:51:35.860
for lunch or what I'm going to eat for dinner.
link |
00:51:37.060
I already know what I'm going to eat.
link |
00:51:38.100
I already wrote it down and it doesn't get boring
link |
00:51:40.300
because I'm switching it up every day, you know,
link |
00:51:42.460
every six days and occasionally I'll, you know,
link |
00:51:45.140
splurge or do something different.
link |
00:51:46.300
During the World Series of Poker,
link |
00:51:47.900
I eat whatever the fuck I want to eat.
link |
00:51:50.140
Like it's at 2 a.m. I don't crave
link |
00:51:52.820
like a broccoli carrot salad.
link |
00:51:54.900
Like I want chocolate, candy and chips.
link |
00:51:58.660
So I'll just do it.
link |
00:51:59.500
So you listen to the cravings.
link |
00:52:01.340
Yeah, I realized like.
link |
00:52:02.900
It's surprising because like,
link |
00:52:04.180
you're so regimented outside of that.
link |
00:52:06.580
It's really difficult.
link |
00:52:07.740
Like I've done it before
link |
00:52:08.860
where I played the World Series of Poker
link |
00:52:10.420
and I made it a point to work out every day.
link |
00:52:13.140
But what that did was it sacrificed sleep.
link |
00:52:15.780
So then I found like at 1 a.m. I would be more tired,
link |
00:52:18.780
you know, because I've expended more energy
link |
00:52:20.620
than I would otherwise.
link |
00:52:21.460
So I essentially like look at the World Series
link |
00:52:23.740
is six, seven weeks where my body's
link |
00:52:25.220
just gonna take a beating, not like UFC fighter,
link |
00:52:27.940
but like a different kind of beating.
link |
00:52:29.380
And that's okay because I have so much confidence
link |
00:52:31.620
that within six weeks of just like eating right
link |
00:52:34.980
and working out, I can get back to where I was.
link |
00:52:36.820
But it's just hilarious to me that you'd be eating chocolate.
link |
00:52:39.100
What eating chocolate in bed
link |
00:52:40.420
as you're trying to get to sleep is this.
link |
00:52:42.820
Like literally a bag of like chips or chocolate,
link |
00:52:45.580
like on my way home and before bed,
link |
00:52:48.260
you know, just whatever.
link |
00:52:49.300
This is what the professional athlete does
link |
00:52:51.340
at the highest, most difficult event of his career.
link |
00:52:54.060
Okay, so what else is there in terms of mental preparation
link |
00:52:58.620
and focus and meditation, those kinds of things
link |
00:53:01.380
leading up to the games?
link |
00:53:03.100
Is there anything you like to,
link |
00:53:05.260
like any rituals you like to follow?
link |
00:53:07.860
So yeah, I have dabbled in the past
link |
00:53:10.100
with like meditation and different things like that.
link |
00:53:11.740
And I know that there's health benefits to it.
link |
00:53:13.540
And I understand that a lot of people get a lot from it
link |
00:53:16.340
and I've done it for a good amount of time,
link |
00:53:18.540
like long periods of time.
link |
00:53:20.340
I found that for me, I think it was predominantly placebo.
link |
00:53:23.740
Like it really wasn't doing anything for me
link |
00:53:26.380
that I felt like it was, it felt like I was doing something,
link |
00:53:28.540
but I really, I didn't see any specific results from it.
link |
00:53:31.860
So I don't really do that too much.
link |
00:53:33.980
One thing that I will do for me is leading up
link |
00:53:37.340
is there's so much footage now
link |
00:53:39.260
that I'll make it a point to like watch my opponents
link |
00:53:42.260
and then with like my phone, I'll take notes
link |
00:53:45.620
and I'll keep track of different things that I'm seeing.
link |
00:53:47.980
And that sort of, and then what I'll do
link |
00:53:49.500
is I'll formulate a game plan.
link |
00:53:50.940
Like I'm playing the Poker Masters coming up
link |
00:53:52.940
in about a week.
link |
00:53:54.100
And I'll look to see the tendencies
link |
00:53:55.900
of what my opponents are doing.
link |
00:53:56.780
And then I'll come up with like some things
link |
00:53:58.540
that I'm gonna do, some tricks of the trade, if you will.
link |
00:54:00.500
Not game theory optimal stuff,
link |
00:54:02.380
stuff that I think, oh, they're making a mistake here
link |
00:54:04.540
that I can exploit.
link |
00:54:05.900
And then I look to do that in different ways
link |
00:54:07.900
and always look to throw curve balls.
link |
00:54:11.700
How hard is that process?
link |
00:54:14.220
Do you enjoy it or is it like really hard work
link |
00:54:16.180
to analyze the players to try to understand
link |
00:54:18.980
what are the different holes?
link |
00:54:20.100
What are the different mistakes?
link |
00:54:21.100
What are the strengths to avoid and that kind of stuff?
link |
00:54:23.700
I think the only thing that makes it harder
link |
00:54:25.580
is when you're young, right?
link |
00:54:27.340
And you're in your twenties
link |
00:54:28.180
and you're trying to make your nest egg.
link |
00:54:29.820
You're like, you're trying to make your retirement money.
link |
00:54:31.700
You're hungry, right?
link |
00:54:32.860
You're like clubber Lang and you know the gym, you're hungry.
link |
00:54:35.380
Whereas, you know, Rocky's in there taking pictures
link |
00:54:37.380
and smiling and doing commercials and stuff like that.
link |
00:54:39.860
So I am 47, I'm financially okay.
link |
00:54:42.380
I don't need to win.
link |
00:54:44.020
I don't need to compete at the highest levels.
link |
00:54:46.140
So I think it was a boxer.
link |
00:54:47.540
I don't remember which one.
link |
00:54:48.900
When asked this, he was asked the question,
link |
00:54:51.500
how do you get up in the morning still
link |
00:54:53.020
and do those morning runs?
link |
00:54:54.660
And he says, you know what?
link |
00:54:55.500
I'll be honest with you.
link |
00:54:56.460
It's a lot more difficult doing the 4 a.m. run
link |
00:54:58.780
in silk pajamas, right?
link |
00:55:00.700
It just is, right?
link |
00:55:02.020
But I've always been self motivated
link |
00:55:05.700
and I've always found a way.
link |
00:55:07.020
So it's harder in the sense of like, it's not a need.
link |
00:55:10.900
I can still get by without it.
link |
00:55:12.940
But so in that regard, it does feel like a little bit
link |
00:55:15.540
of work where like, oh my God,
link |
00:55:16.700
that's a lot of footage I gotta get through.
link |
00:55:18.900
And I don't know that I have the time or I don't know
link |
00:55:20.300
that I wanna spend 10 hours of my day doing that
link |
00:55:23.980
when I could be doing other things.
link |
00:55:25.620
I mean, what do you still love about poker?
link |
00:55:28.980
When you said, when you enter,
link |
00:55:30.500
like the times you catch yourself just being able
link |
00:55:34.380
to sort of take in the awe of it.
link |
00:55:37.820
What aspects do you love?
link |
00:55:39.260
I think that like for me,
link |
00:55:40.380
I've always been really competitive,
link |
00:55:42.100
but I was never gonna be a professional athlete
link |
00:55:44.060
or a professional snooker player.
link |
00:55:45.140
I wasn't good enough at any of that stuff.
link |
00:55:46.740
I didn't have the body type, whatever.
link |
00:55:49.100
But poker, it sort of levels the playing field, right?
link |
00:55:51.540
You're six, five, 240, big deal.
link |
00:55:54.220
We're not fighting here.
link |
00:55:55.860
We're fighting a different type of war.
link |
00:55:57.540
So the competitive aspect,
link |
00:55:58.940
I also have always been fueled throughout my career
link |
00:56:02.660
by doubters.
link |
00:56:04.180
So this is probably unhealthy,
link |
00:56:05.660
but every time people say like, you're done,
link |
00:56:09.020
you're washed up, you can't win anymore,
link |
00:56:10.460
it just makes me wanna prove them wrong, right?
link |
00:56:13.580
So I have a little bit of that in me,
link |
00:56:15.260
which again, you're reading the comments
link |
00:56:17.060
and all these kinds of,
link |
00:56:17.900
like I've been told many times throughout my career
link |
00:56:19.680
for the last 15 that I'm done.
link |
00:56:21.180
I can't compete anymore.
link |
00:56:22.540
And I enjoy proving them wrong.
link |
00:56:27.260
Yeah, the game has changed so much.
link |
00:56:31.780
The greats of the past surely cannot be the greats
link |
00:56:34.340
of the present.
link |
00:56:35.180
That kind of commentary will continue for every sport.
link |
00:56:38.820
And certainly for poker,
link |
00:56:40.020
because poker really changed a lot
link |
00:56:42.100
over the past couple of decades.
link |
00:56:43.700
Can you speak to how much it has changed?
link |
00:56:45.660
Yeah.
link |
00:56:46.500
Because you've been at the top for so long.
link |
00:56:47.420
Yeah, so complacency is a big issue
link |
00:56:49.380
for people who make it, if you will, right?
link |
00:56:51.360
So in my era of the poker boom, around the early 2000s,
link |
00:56:54.300
there was a group of players who were the big names,
link |
00:56:56.500
the stars of the game.
link |
00:56:57.700
Well, a lot of them had their egos out of whack
link |
00:57:01.380
where they just felt like, okay, I'm the best, that's it.
link |
00:57:03.920
Like, no, there's young guys learning,
link |
00:57:05.620
there's new software, there's solvers,
link |
00:57:07.900
there's all these kinds of things.
link |
00:57:08.740
And if you're not keeping up, then you'll get surpassed.
link |
00:57:11.100
And I remember myself at a very early age saying,
link |
00:57:14.140
I never want to be that guy.
link |
00:57:15.300
And it was one of my first events in the late 90s.
link |
00:57:17.820
I was the young buck playing with the Tom McAvoy's
link |
00:57:21.020
and Brad Doughty, the guys of the era, right?
link |
00:57:23.500
And I was doing things more aggressively
link |
00:57:25.420
and they were scoffing at all these young kids
link |
00:57:27.900
with their aggressive three and all this stuff.
link |
00:57:29.900
And they were sort of mocking it, you know?
link |
00:57:31.120
And I thought, never be that guy.
link |
00:57:33.180
Always have the humility to be introspective
link |
00:57:35.920
and always have the respect for your opponents
link |
00:57:38.140
that while you think you've got it all figured out,
link |
00:57:41.180
they're learning new things and you can learn from them.
link |
00:57:43.340
So I've always been willing to sort of swallow my pride
link |
00:57:46.540
and get coached by younger players
link |
00:57:48.780
who I might even be better than,
link |
00:57:50.240
but they see blind spots that I have that I might not.
link |
00:57:53.260
And they, you know, they helped me improve my game.
link |
00:57:55.220
I've always been willing to sort of look every six months
link |
00:57:57.900
or a year and say, is what I'm doing working?
link |
00:57:59.300
And if not, how do I get better?
link |
00:58:01.620
But most people from my generation, they go the other way.
link |
00:58:06.320
I don't know, they just have this idea
link |
00:58:07.420
that they figured it all out.
link |
00:58:08.260
Once you feel like you've mastered it,
link |
00:58:10.020
there's nothing left to learn.
link |
00:58:10.860
That's the moment where everyone else
link |
00:58:12.540
starts to surpass you.
link |
00:58:14.820
That's the moment where you lose the mastery
link |
00:58:17.780
because it's always evolving.
link |
00:58:18.860
How has the game changed?
link |
00:58:20.660
So the game has changed
link |
00:58:21.620
in terms of the way people learn it, right?
link |
00:58:23.780
When I started out, the only way to learn how to play poker
link |
00:58:25.660
was to sit your ass on the chair and play.
link |
00:58:28.380
In person?
link |
00:58:29.200
Yes, in person, play.
link |
00:58:31.060
Maybe you jot down hands on a notepad.
link |
00:58:32.820
We didn't even have cell phones back then, right?
link |
00:58:34.740
So I would write notes.
link |
00:58:36.380
I actually brought a notepad.
link |
00:58:37.860
And then you don't analyze it
link |
00:58:39.100
and sort of try to figure it out that way
link |
00:58:41.340
and think about maybe talking to friends
link |
00:58:44.580
and different players.
link |
00:58:45.520
Like when I grew up, there was John Jawanda,
link |
00:58:47.220
Alan Cunningham and Phil Ivey.
link |
00:58:48.700
And we would sort of create
link |
00:58:50.580
like a little bit of a mastermind.
link |
00:58:52.220
Well, how would you play this hand?
link |
00:58:53.220
What would you do here?
link |
00:58:54.060
That was the extent of it, right?
link |
00:58:56.080
We never had the correct answers.
link |
00:58:57.900
We always had theories about what might be right.
link |
00:59:00.480
Not until about five, six years ago
link |
00:59:03.180
where everything changed.
link |
00:59:04.580
Where artificial intelligence created solvers
link |
00:59:07.500
that will specifically say, okay, this is the optimal play.
link |
00:59:11.020
This is the game theory optimal play.
link |
00:59:12.780
So now it introduced poker to a whole new group
link |
00:59:16.180
of like personality types.
link |
00:59:18.500
In my day, it was people that were dregs of society
link |
00:59:21.440
that didn't fit in, not college goers with a degree.
link |
00:59:24.220
These are people who were street hustlers playing pool.
link |
00:59:26.540
They found poker and they had these unique lives, right?
link |
00:59:29.640
But now because poker can be studied,
link |
00:59:32.740
much like you study university or college,
link |
00:59:35.300
you had, for example, the German contingent
link |
00:59:37.440
who was literally analyzing data
link |
00:59:39.300
and coming up with strategies based on this.
link |
00:59:41.300
And it's like, what?
link |
00:59:42.620
And the old guy, got to play by feel or whatever.
link |
00:59:45.780
And they're like, they're learning.
link |
00:59:47.340
So I guess the way that you describe it is like
link |
00:59:49.460
in the old days, it required skill and talent,
link |
00:59:52.140
a card sense, right?
link |
00:59:53.860
That was the only way to become good.
link |
00:59:55.100
And today that's not the case.
link |
00:59:56.960
Good study habits, a good work ethic in that regard
link |
00:59:59.540
can make you like a really good player.
link |
01:00:01.220
Even if you aren't all that talented or gifted,
link |
01:00:05.020
having a good work ethic is a talent, right?
link |
01:00:07.460
Not necessarily card sense, but if you're able to put
link |
01:00:09.860
in the work and study from these solvers,
link |
01:00:12.180
you essentially have the perfect study tool now
link |
01:00:15.420
that we didn't have in my day.
link |
01:00:17.160
So what do the solvers give you?
link |
01:00:19.900
Do you start to memorize the optimal play
link |
01:00:22.120
for every single hand?
link |
01:00:24.120
You try your best.
link |
01:00:25.300
So again, solvers are imperfect as well,
link |
01:00:28.720
in terms of the way the humans utilize them, right?
link |
01:00:32.700
Because you can give solvers a certain number of inputs
link |
01:00:36.860
in terms of what you want it to solve,
link |
01:00:38.500
but a solver can think on many, many levels.
link |
01:00:40.900
So for example, the way that a typical player
link |
01:00:43.240
would do a solve is to say, okay,
link |
01:00:45.580
what does a solver think is the best play here?
link |
01:00:47.860
Bet one third pot, bet two thirds pot,
link |
01:00:50.700
or bet one and a half times pot, okay?
link |
01:00:52.580
You give it three parameters, it comes out with an output
link |
01:00:55.820
and it tells you what you should do
link |
01:00:57.420
with all the different hands you have.
link |
01:00:59.320
However, that's a simplified version
link |
01:01:01.820
of what a solver would really do,
link |
01:01:02.940
because a solver might decide
link |
01:01:04.580
that seven times the pot is best, 10% of the pot.
link |
01:01:08.100
But when you're putting in a solve,
link |
01:01:09.860
you can only put in specific parameters.
link |
01:01:12.540
So that's why, frankly, that's typically the number,
link |
01:01:14.900
one third, two third, and one and a half times pot
link |
01:01:17.140
is what people often do.
link |
01:01:18.500
So they sort of have a vague idea of what a solver wants.
link |
01:01:21.860
But again, imperfect in terms of the implementation of it.
link |
01:01:26.660
And memorizing all the variables,
link |
01:01:29.060
like that King Jack offsuit with the King of Diamonds
link |
01:01:31.780
is 13%, no human brain can do that.
link |
01:01:35.800
So what you do is you bucket it.
link |
01:01:37.500
Like you bucket it into say, instead of 10,000 variables,
link |
01:01:41.000
you have 10 buckets and you say, okay,
link |
01:01:42.580
with these hands, we do roughly this,
link |
01:01:44.100
and we do roughly this.
link |
01:01:45.140
And you try your best to stay within those lines.
link |
01:01:48.260
But again, what I love about live poker partly
link |
01:01:50.460
is that nobody will ever be able to master game theory,
link |
01:01:54.560
and mimic a solver.
link |
01:01:57.800
But you also have to incorporate your position,
link |
01:02:03.080
where you are, and obviously what cards you have,
link |
01:02:06.460
but also the size of your stack,
link |
01:02:08.920
how much money you have,
link |
01:02:09.920
and also whether you have the ability
link |
01:02:12.440
or desire to buy in, all those kinds of things.
link |
01:02:15.460
So you have to calculate all of that, right?
link |
01:02:17.600
So the solver will do that, right?
link |
01:02:20.440
And essentially, you don't input your hand.
link |
01:02:23.120
It tells you, you'll look at the grade,
link |
01:02:25.600
and be like, all right, this is my hand,
link |
01:02:27.320
and it tells you what it is.
link |
01:02:28.160
But it tells you what you would do with any hand, right?
link |
01:02:30.960
It gives you the full output.
link |
01:02:32.280
And that actually gives you a better idea,
link |
01:02:34.040
because you're ultimately, like you said,
link |
01:02:36.800
playing a range of hands, not a hand.
link |
01:02:39.400
And the solvers do things that are really interesting.
link |
01:02:41.240
You've seen AlphaGo, I would imagine.
link |
01:02:43.040
Brilliant film, right, I thought.
link |
01:02:44.680
And I thought what was interesting is there was,
link |
01:02:46.920
you know, accepted theory from all the top Go players,
link |
01:02:50.280
this is what you do.
link |
01:02:51.160
But the AI was doing things way different,
link |
01:02:54.360
and they're like, this has to be wrong,
link |
01:02:55.720
but really it wasn't.
link |
01:02:56.880
So for example, a solver may say this, right?
link |
01:03:00.760
Let's say you bet on the end, and you bet a lot,
link |
01:03:04.360
and a solver may say, you should fold here
link |
01:03:07.460
with a pair of kings and a queen kicker,
link |
01:03:10.040
which is, you know, a pair of kings,
link |
01:03:12.000
but call with a pair of fours and an ace kicker.
link |
01:03:15.080
So it's essentially telling you
link |
01:03:16.900
that you should fold this hand
link |
01:03:18.800
that is much better than this.
link |
01:03:20.080
So it begs the question, why?
link |
01:03:23.160
Because what the solvers do is they use the information
link |
01:03:27.000
of your own cards to formulate all the possible hands
link |
01:03:30.400
your opponent can have.
link |
01:03:32.080
So if your opponent is,
link |
01:03:34.160
so basically if you had the king, queen,
link |
01:03:36.640
you know, it may say, for lack of a better nerdy term,
link |
01:03:41.760
it blocks potential bluffing hands
link |
01:03:43.480
that your opponent can have.
link |
01:03:44.680
So let's say if your opponent would bluff with queen, jack,
link |
01:03:47.760
but you have a queen.
link |
01:03:49.160
So there are less combinations of queen, jack.
link |
01:03:51.320
So it will find a better bluff catcher, if you will.
link |
01:03:54.200
So that's what's really not intuitive to poker players.
link |
01:03:56.560
Poker players usually think like,
link |
01:03:58.040
well, this, my hand is pretty good, so I got a call,
link |
01:04:00.820
but that's not how a solver would think.
link |
01:04:02.600
Solver uses, you know, common matrix and, you know.
link |
01:04:06.920
And sometimes it's tough to get the good why answers
link |
01:04:10.620
you just did for why a solver thinks something is better,
link |
01:04:13.320
or maybe in poker it's a little bit easier,
link |
01:04:14.880
but in the case of go and chess, it's not always obvious why,
link |
01:04:18.880
because it's not gonna explain stuff to you.
link |
01:04:20.560
I think one of the best ways to learn poker
link |
01:04:23.480
is when you see a solver output
link |
01:04:25.120
and it tells you one of these things, try to figure out why.
link |
01:04:28.280
Why does this solver do this?
link |
01:04:30.040
Why does it want you to call with this and fold this?
link |
01:04:32.440
And try to think about it on a deeper level.
link |
01:04:34.200
And you go, aha, probably because this card
link |
01:04:36.860
that I have here, you know, changes the range
link |
01:04:39.720
of my opponent's, you know, potential.
link |
01:04:42.600
I'd love to get your opinion
link |
01:04:43.960
on your relationship with solvers.
link |
01:04:45.600
Because for example, Magnus doesn't use them.
link |
01:04:47.960
His team uses them.
link |
01:04:49.400
Cause he feels like he's going to rely on it too much.
link |
01:04:54.200
And you can't use it when you're playing.
link |
01:04:57.120
What you really want is to build up
link |
01:04:58.840
an extremely strong intuition without the help of a solver.
link |
01:05:02.780
Is there some aspect of that that rings true to you?
link |
01:05:04.920
Absolutely.
link |
01:05:05.740
I totally can relate to what Magnus is saying.
link |
01:05:07.080
First and foremost, because when solvers
link |
01:05:08.640
was first introduced, I didn't come from that world.
link |
01:05:11.120
I was so intimidated because I didn't know how to use it.
link |
01:05:13.640
I don't know how to do an input.
link |
01:05:15.400
So I had two guys, one guy's a data scientist
link |
01:05:17.560
and, you know, another guy's like a poker savant,
link |
01:05:20.000
if you will, and they coached me and they did it.
link |
01:05:22.520
So today, if I was in a tough spot, you know,
link |
01:05:25.720
and I'm like, I don't know, what would a solver do?
link |
01:05:27.120
I will send them the hand and they'll run the solve for me.
link |
01:05:30.980
And then sort of give me the parameters of what to do.
link |
01:05:33.360
When I was playing, you know,
link |
01:05:34.920
regularly using solvers with them,
link |
01:05:36.720
we were spending six to eight hours a day
link |
01:05:38.240
going over all these solves.
link |
01:05:40.320
So intuitively I started to think and learn
link |
01:05:42.760
about what the solver would want,
link |
01:05:44.100
but I sort of understand where Magnus is coming from
link |
01:05:46.080
in that you don't want to become a slave to the sim,
link |
01:05:48.320
as I say, right?
link |
01:05:49.760
There's one kid I know, I joked with him,
link |
01:05:51.680
his name is Landon Tice.
link |
01:05:53.160
And, you know, he made a play that the sim, you know,
link |
01:05:56.200
would say, this is a good play.
link |
01:05:57.880
But I'm like, it's a good play, you know,
link |
01:06:00.080
in a simulated world against the robot.
link |
01:06:01.840
It's not in practice against the human, right?
link |
01:06:05.120
You don't need to be doing that.
link |
01:06:06.660
So if you become a slave to the sim
link |
01:06:08.760
and always do what the sim says,
link |
01:06:10.640
you're handcuffed to a certain degree.
link |
01:06:13.080
Is there some, at the highest level plays,
link |
01:06:16.040
there's still a role for feel and intuition?
link |
01:06:19.520
Absolutely.
link |
01:06:20.360
If you're not doing that,
link |
01:06:21.200
cause here's the thing, right?
link |
01:06:22.760
No human being plays perfectly balanced
link |
01:06:25.600
in game three optimal like a robot would.
link |
01:06:27.640
They're not, right?
link |
01:06:29.200
So there are opportunities there to take advantage
link |
01:06:31.000
of the things that they do that are slightly too aggressive
link |
01:06:34.360
or less aggressive.
link |
01:06:35.840
You know, for example,
link |
01:06:37.200
say most human beings don't bluff enough in a certain spot.
link |
01:06:41.120
So you don't have to call with the correct range of hands.
link |
01:06:44.680
You don't have to,
link |
01:06:45.640
because they're not bluffing at the optimal frequency.
link |
01:06:48.040
So you don't have to call at the optimal frequency.
link |
01:06:50.520
You'd be making this mistake, frankly, if you did.
link |
01:06:53.880
What's the difference between in person and online play,
link |
01:06:58.520
given that context?
link |
01:06:59.560
Yeah, well, online poker and live poker,
link |
01:07:02.040
it's the same game, right?
link |
01:07:03.400
Same, it's poker,
link |
01:07:04.240
but it's different in so many levels, right?
link |
01:07:07.840
I think playing online,
link |
01:07:08.880
you have to focus far more on fundamentals.
link |
01:07:11.040
You know, on game theory,
link |
01:07:12.200
you don't have the added bonus of looking across the table
link |
01:07:14.960
and getting any sense of whether your opponent
link |
01:07:17.040
is strong or weak, they're bluffing, whatever, you know.
link |
01:07:20.280
And also because online poker, those that play it,
link |
01:07:24.680
you play far more hands.
link |
01:07:26.720
Like some of these guys are playing 10, 20 tables
link |
01:07:28.880
at the same time, right?
link |
01:07:30.440
So you're just, you're hitting the long run really quickly
link |
01:07:32.400
and you're creating a database on your opponents, right?
link |
01:07:35.080
So let's say, you know, online, I can see your data.
link |
01:07:37.520
I'm like, well, this guy, he's playing 40% of hands.
link |
01:07:40.480
He's betting the river 80% of the time.
link |
01:07:43.240
So now I can use that data and, you know,
link |
01:07:45.560
exploit you that way.
link |
01:07:46.400
When you play live, you don't have that.
link |
01:07:49.000
Do you enjoy playing online?
link |
01:07:51.160
I enjoy, so with online poker, I enjoy the convenience of it
link |
01:07:54.400
because, you know, you can be on your couch
link |
01:07:55.720
in your underwear, not leave your house.
link |
01:07:57.400
Do you also play multiple games at the same time
link |
01:08:00.080
or do you try to play one game?
link |
01:08:01.520
I typically like to play one or two,
link |
01:08:03.640
but I can play up to four.
link |
01:08:05.120
I find that past four, it's hard for me to keep up
link |
01:08:09.360
and keep track of what's actually happening.
link |
01:08:11.360
You know, it's a different mindset required.
link |
01:08:13.240
Like a lot of these young guys,
link |
01:08:14.240
they're accustomed to 20 tables at a time.
link |
01:08:17.720
It feels like the purity of the game is gone.
link |
01:08:20.680
It's much more robotic, right?
link |
01:08:22.000
So if you're playing 20 tables,
link |
01:08:23.800
you're just making decisions based on like what, you know,
link |
01:08:27.040
you're not thinking about the depth of the situation
link |
01:08:30.280
and what just happened 15 minutes ago.
link |
01:08:31.640
You don't even know what happened
link |
01:08:32.600
because you can't pay attention to all that at once.
link |
01:08:35.360
And some of the magic of poker is the low sample.
link |
01:08:37.560
I agree.
link |
01:08:38.400
For example, and sorry to be bringing up Magnus so much,
link |
01:08:41.240
but there's so much parallel between the two of you
link |
01:08:42.960
and the poker and the chess world.
link |
01:08:45.640
He hates Olympics and world championships
link |
01:08:49.160
and all that kind of stuff because it's so low sample.
link |
01:08:51.760
But to me, that's part of the magic of it.
link |
01:08:53.440
There's the World Series of Poker, the main event.
link |
01:08:56.880
There's a magic to it.
link |
01:08:58.440
I agree, yeah.
link |
01:08:59.320
And I don't know what that is exactly
link |
01:09:00.920
because so much of the stake is so rare,
link |
01:09:03.760
so much drama and heartbreak leading up to it
link |
01:09:07.840
that all somehow, yeah, it accumulates
link |
01:09:12.160
to that magical moment when somebody wins.
link |
01:09:15.360
Especially that event,
link |
01:09:16.400
the World Series of Poker main event historically,
link |
01:09:18.280
like that's it, you know, that's the pinnacle.
link |
01:09:20.040
That's where like mainstream watches,
link |
01:09:21.520
that's where people are tuning in
link |
01:09:23.240
and the gravity of the moment, you know,
link |
01:09:25.440
it's so much bigger than people,
link |
01:09:26.640
like everyone gets the opportunity
link |
01:09:28.320
to play armchair quarterback too, right?
link |
01:09:30.400
Oh, he should do this.
link |
01:09:31.440
You're not there.
link |
01:09:32.520
You're not under the lights.
link |
01:09:33.560
You're not under the pressure.
link |
01:09:34.920
You know, it might seem easy for you at home to be like,
link |
01:09:37.400
well, yeah, but you can see the whole cards.
link |
01:09:39.320
You know, they can't.
link |
01:09:40.440
Certainly the idea of the small sample with tournaments,
link |
01:09:44.160
I like the idea that you don't have to worry about,
link |
01:09:49.400
oh, well, if I do this now, then in the future,
link |
01:09:52.920
you know, I won't be balanced.
link |
01:09:53.960
I have to be balanced here or anything like that.
link |
01:09:55.640
That's like really boring and lame, right?
link |
01:09:57.960
Again, that is kind of the way the younger generation
link |
01:10:00.720
learns how to play the game, being balanced in every spot
link |
01:10:03.600
and then randomizing, you know, like, oh,
link |
01:10:07.960
I'm supposed to do this 50% of the time.
link |
01:10:09.240
Okay, so if my left card is red, I'll do it.
link |
01:10:12.360
And if it's black, I don't.
link |
01:10:13.240
So you're not even making,
link |
01:10:14.400
you're no longer making actual decisions for yourself.
link |
01:10:17.000
You're just randomizing.
link |
01:10:18.440
And that's way less fun for me
link |
01:10:20.720
than tailoring it to the situation.
link |
01:10:23.200
And the final table at the main event,
link |
01:10:24.720
there's none of that.
link |
01:10:25.560
You have to, I mean, it's all or nothing.
link |
01:10:28.240
Well, you shouldn't be, but there are like, again,
link |
01:10:30.520
I think a lot of the young guys,
link |
01:10:31.560
they are thinking in that regard,
link |
01:10:32.880
like, oh, randomization.
link |
01:10:34.800
Maybe at that table, the final table at the main event,
link |
01:10:38.000
what's a hand that stands out to you
link |
01:10:39.720
that was especially gutsy and powerful or memorable
link |
01:10:44.080
for that you've seen in the history of poker?
link |
01:10:46.080
Well, for me, the one that stands out
link |
01:10:47.520
and probably because I was so young
link |
01:10:49.600
and it was my first year, like one of my wife,
link |
01:10:51.800
won a bracelet that year,
link |
01:10:53.240
was I was friends with Scotty Wynn, the Prince of Poker.
link |
01:10:56.400
And he was heads up against the guy named Kevin McBride.
link |
01:10:58.960
And I was on the rail, you know, I'm like, wow,
link |
01:11:00.880
he's gonna, you know, he's heads up.
link |
01:11:02.280
And he was so cool.
link |
01:11:03.480
Like he had a mullet, but it's perfect, right?
link |
01:11:05.960
He had the white shirt, the black thing.
link |
01:11:07.640
He's drinking a Michelob, smoking a cigarette, whatever,
link |
01:11:10.520
you know, all chill.
link |
01:11:12.120
He bets it all on the river.
link |
01:11:13.800
And the guy's thinking, and he psychologically owned him.
link |
01:11:17.760
And he said, he goes with his beer, he goes,
link |
01:11:20.160
you call gonna be all over baby.
link |
01:11:21.760
Ha ha ha, that's right.
link |
01:11:23.560
Okay, so this guy who was an amateur heard that
link |
01:11:27.120
and was like, there's so much pressure
link |
01:11:29.120
in this moment right now.
link |
01:11:30.240
I can't handle this pressure.
link |
01:11:31.840
But Scotty just told me, if I call here,
link |
01:11:33.920
the pressure's gone.
link |
01:11:34.920
I don't have to be under it anymore.
link |
01:11:36.200
So he sort of hypnotized them into making the call,
link |
01:11:39.760
you know, and Scotty had it.
link |
01:11:41.440
Scotty had, you know, the full house
link |
01:11:43.240
and it was over for the guy.
link |
01:11:44.200
You call gonna be all over baby.
link |
01:11:45.960
It was, I just, I love that aspect,
link |
01:11:47.880
sort of the table talk dynamic,
link |
01:11:49.320
which isn't as prevalent today as it was back then,
link |
01:11:54.160
but that one sticks out.
link |
01:11:55.200
And it probably, because it was one of my first.
link |
01:11:57.120
So the few words you say at the table can completely affect
link |
01:12:03.000
a hand like that.
link |
01:12:05.120
That's almost, that's scary.
link |
01:12:07.660
It was just so cool to me, you know,
link |
01:12:09.720
like just how he was so calm.
link |
01:12:11.900
And I think that too, added more pressure to the amateur.
link |
01:12:14.920
And I think like, again, part of it is,
link |
01:12:17.540
even back then it was 1998,
link |
01:12:19.400
there's still a big rail of people and there's lights
link |
01:12:21.640
and they're, you know, they're filming
link |
01:12:22.920
and all this kind of stuff.
link |
01:12:23.760
And it's a lot of pressure for a guy
link |
01:12:25.280
who's never been in this environment.
link |
01:12:26.560
And now I'm telling you, it can all be over soon.
link |
01:12:31.080
It will all be over soon.
link |
01:12:33.560
Just call, it's finished.
link |
01:12:36.840
Something about that accent too.
link |
01:12:39.160
Now you're a master at table talk as well.
link |
01:12:41.640
Do you have, do you just kind of go with your gut,
link |
01:12:45.240
you flow with it?
link |
01:12:46.200
Or is there a deliberate strategy with this sometimes?
link |
01:12:49.240
There's usually some sort of strategy that I think about
link |
01:12:51.760
in terms of what I want to say and whatnot.
link |
01:12:53.380
But a lot of the time I just go, I go with it, you know,
link |
01:12:56.520
the more you talk, the more information you get.
link |
01:12:59.160
Yeah, but in some cases against really good players,
link |
01:13:02.000
you're just giving away information, right?
link |
01:13:04.280
Like if I'm playing against Phil Ivey,
link |
01:13:05.600
I'm not engaging in anything.
link |
01:13:08.020
Cause he can read through it.
link |
01:13:08.960
He can sense based on what I'm saying, you know,
link |
01:13:11.480
the clues and where I'm trying to take him.
link |
01:13:13.640
And he reads through, he sees the tree through the forest
link |
01:13:16.540
or whatever you want to call it,
link |
01:13:17.620
the forest through the trees.
link |
01:13:18.980
And you know, so then I would just be like
link |
01:13:23.080
allowing myself to be exploitable.
link |
01:13:24.480
Is some of it just for fun?
link |
01:13:26.640
Because at the end of the day, if you're having fun,
link |
01:13:29.400
you might be at the top of your game.
link |
01:13:31.280
I've been thinking about this a lot lately actually.
link |
01:13:33.320
It's funny you bring this up
link |
01:13:34.500
because I've been thinking about when I'm at my best.
link |
01:13:36.960
And I think I'm at my best when I am comfortable like that.
link |
01:13:39.500
Right?
link |
01:13:40.340
Where I'm not so stiff and worried about, you know,
link |
01:13:42.960
checking properly and worried about reading people.
link |
01:13:44.920
I'm like, no, I'm me.
link |
01:13:46.440
All right, I'm going to play some poker.
link |
01:13:47.280
What do you want?
link |
01:13:48.120
Do you want to call me?
link |
01:13:48.940
Call, go ahead, do what you want.
link |
01:13:49.780
Right?
link |
01:13:50.600
Cause then I realized, you know, ultimately it was like,
link |
01:13:51.640
I'm comfortable in that.
link |
01:13:53.080
My opponents aren't as comfortable in that.
link |
01:13:54.600
They're comfortable with this, you know, the robot thing.
link |
01:13:57.240
But I thought more about that and how,
link |
01:13:59.960
especially with some tournaments coming up,
link |
01:14:01.920
I plan on really kind of sort of getting back to my roots
link |
01:14:05.400
in that regard.
link |
01:14:07.640
I love it.
link |
01:14:08.480
From a spectator perspective, I love it.
link |
01:14:10.040
But it's also interesting whenever you see a Daniel
link |
01:14:11.880
on the ground of quiet.
link |
01:14:15.080
That's an interesting, like it feels like a calm
link |
01:14:19.360
before a storm of sorts.
link |
01:14:20.880
So I'm sure that's also part of it.
link |
01:14:22.440
Yeah, like I've gone, I've ebbed and flowed.
link |
01:14:24.160
And like I said, you know, I took on some coaches
link |
01:14:25.960
and that was really learning game theory.
link |
01:14:27.360
Cause I felt like it was important to always stick,
link |
01:14:29.600
you know, keep up with what's going on.
link |
01:14:31.160
And then I do feel like to some degree,
link |
01:14:33.480
it sort of took away a little bit of my own
link |
01:14:37.760
instinctual ideas in terms of what I should be doing.
link |
01:14:39.840
Right?
link |
01:14:40.680
So I think like the most dangerous version of myself
link |
01:14:43.840
is a deep understanding of the game theory
link |
01:14:46.820
with my wisdom of many years of,
link |
01:14:50.040
and comfort of just sort of like being myself at the table.
link |
01:14:53.240
And being relaxed.
link |
01:14:54.440
Relaxed.
link |
01:14:55.280
Letting your mind flow.
link |
01:14:56.600
Let me ask you the greatest, the goat question,
link |
01:14:59.280
greatest of all time.
link |
01:15:00.280
Can you make the case for a few folks?
link |
01:15:03.320
So first you tweeted referring to Phil Ivey as the goat,
link |
01:15:07.480
saying the goat doing goat things.
link |
01:15:09.320
That's a recent tweet.
link |
01:15:10.720
So can you make the case for Phil Ivey,
link |
01:15:14.240
or maybe who is the greatest poker player of all time?
link |
01:15:17.560
Would you put Phil?
link |
01:15:19.040
For me, until someone knocks him off the podium,
link |
01:15:21.880
the king of poker and the goat is Phil Ivey.
link |
01:15:24.680
Okay?
link |
01:15:25.520
So, and the reason I say that is,
link |
01:15:26.340
I think of poker as more than just one game.
link |
01:15:28.240
Right?
link |
01:15:29.080
There's different variants.
link |
01:15:29.920
You know, there's Holdem, Omaha, Stud, Triple Draw,
link |
01:15:32.480
all these different types of games.
link |
01:15:33.960
And Phil in every arena has been dominant.
link |
01:15:37.920
Whether it was tournament poker, dominated it.
link |
01:15:40.560
Mixed game, high stakes poker in Bobby's room, dominated.
link |
01:15:43.680
Online poker against all the wizards, dominated.
link |
01:15:46.900
Made millions in every arena.
link |
01:15:48.600
And, you know, he sort of took a few years away from poker
link |
01:15:51.200
with his legal troubles and things like that,
link |
01:15:52.720
but he's back.
link |
01:15:53.680
You know, he's been playing in the high roller series again.
link |
01:15:56.280
And, you know, he comes from,
link |
01:15:58.160
he's cut from a different cloth,
link |
01:15:59.860
but he has a tenacity and a focus that's unparalleled,
link |
01:16:03.700
I think.
link |
01:16:04.540
When he's in the zone, I mean, for lack,
link |
01:16:06.480
and this has nothing to do with race.
link |
01:16:08.080
It really has to do with mannerism,
link |
01:16:09.560
but he does remind me of like a combination
link |
01:16:12.320
of Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods
link |
01:16:14.000
in the way that he approaches it.
link |
01:16:15.080
He's very intense.
link |
01:16:16.720
And he outworks everybody, you know?
link |
01:16:19.040
And I think, frankly,
link |
01:16:20.400
a lot of his mannerisms do come from them
link |
01:16:22.580
because he's young watching these guys on TV.
link |
01:16:25.000
And a lot of his ways of being, you know,
link |
01:16:27.280
his learned behavior, I think probably from people like that.
link |
01:16:29.400
People at the top of their sport
link |
01:16:31.320
and people that are Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan
link |
01:16:34.400
aren't just at the top of their sport,
link |
01:16:35.720
but they kind of dominate the sport
link |
01:16:37.160
to some kind of aura that.
link |
01:16:38.440
There's a uniqueness to them.
link |
01:16:39.720
They're not built like us.
link |
01:16:41.440
They're not, you know, they're not.
link |
01:16:42.760
Like I wish, I wish I could have the kind of focus
link |
01:16:45.200
that Phil Ivey has, you know, and see everything
link |
01:16:47.120
that he's saying.
link |
01:16:47.960
I just, that's not me, you know?
link |
01:16:49.520
I don't have that.
link |
01:16:50.400
And he does, he has that gene, whatever it is.
link |
01:16:53.400
But they also look like they're not having that much fun.
link |
01:16:55.700
They're more focused on the perfection,
link |
01:16:58.180
like a dogged pursuit of perfection.
link |
01:17:00.080
And you know, that might even be true.
link |
01:17:01.880
It might not be as fun.
link |
01:17:03.080
You know, I don't know.
link |
01:17:03.920
Like I have fun at the table.
link |
01:17:05.080
When you look outwardly, you look at someone,
link |
01:17:07.200
like maybe he is having a blast.
link |
01:17:08.560
Maybe that's just the way that he likes, you know?
link |
01:17:11.080
Like is Tiger Woods having fun when he's like on 17
link |
01:17:13.880
about to win a major?
link |
01:17:14.720
It doesn't look like it, theoretically.
link |
01:17:16.920
Well, if you look at Michael Jordan,
link |
01:17:19.240
I don't know about Tiger Woods,
link |
01:17:20.320
but I think they're more focused
link |
01:17:22.760
on every single mistake they make.
link |
01:17:25.000
I think they're more obsessed about not making a mistake
link |
01:17:27.920
and hating every time they make a mistake.
link |
01:17:30.480
That's probably like 99% of their mental energy.
link |
01:17:34.760
I think that's part of what makes them great, right?
link |
01:17:37.400
They don't look past the mistake and just let it,
link |
01:17:39.160
it's whatever.
link |
01:17:40.000
They're like, they want to correct it.
link |
01:17:41.800
And yeah, there's a tension, almost like a trade off.
link |
01:17:44.540
I wonder if that's always the case
link |
01:17:45.840
between sort of greatness and happiness.
link |
01:17:49.200
I remember Huck Seed, who, you know,
link |
01:17:51.680
when I was a kid growing up, he was like the poker idol.
link |
01:17:53.960
He won the world championship in 1996.
link |
01:17:55.920
And I was lucky enough to hang out with him a little bit.
link |
01:17:57.960
And he would go through these streaks
link |
01:17:59.160
where he had an A game and he had an F game.
link |
01:18:02.480
His A game was unparalleled.
link |
01:18:03.720
Nobody could beat him, right?
link |
01:18:05.080
But his F game was so terrible that he was just a fish.
link |
01:18:09.040
You know, he was playing terribly.
link |
01:18:10.240
And I remember him saying,
link |
01:18:11.280
and it was exactly what you're saying.
link |
01:18:13.320
He'd make like one little mistake, right?
link |
01:18:16.240
And then he would go off.
link |
01:18:17.720
And I was like, Huck, why do you do that?
link |
01:18:19.320
Like, you know, your B game would be just fine.
link |
01:18:20.720
He's like, well, if I'm gonna make a mistake,
link |
01:18:21.880
what's the point?
link |
01:18:23.580
What's the point, right?
link |
01:18:25.000
I'm trying.
link |
01:18:26.000
Like, if you can't play perfect,
link |
01:18:27.320
there's no point in playing at all.
link |
01:18:28.840
So he was extreme in that regard,
link |
01:18:30.720
in the way that he viewed it.
link |
01:18:32.040
And depending on the sport,
link |
01:18:33.760
those folks, like in chess, certainly the case,
link |
01:18:36.400
that kind of mindset can destroy you.
link |
01:18:38.520
Absolutely.
link |
01:18:39.360
No, I totally see that.
link |
01:18:40.200
Because of a sequence of mistakes.
link |
01:18:42.760
Like the kind of year you had
link |
01:18:44.680
with the well scissor poker
link |
01:18:45.760
can completely destroy a human being.
link |
01:18:48.400
If you're not able to see the bigger picture of it.
link |
01:18:51.080
Yeah.
link |
01:18:52.200
You said that Phil Ivey is the hardest,
link |
01:18:55.280
your toughest opponent,
link |
01:18:56.360
the toughest person to play against.
link |
01:18:57.800
Why is that?
link |
01:18:59.000
And how do you beat him?
link |
01:19:00.720
Because Phil Ivey's just,
link |
01:19:02.240
he's seeing things that nobody else has seen really.
link |
01:19:04.840
Like subtle things, where I'm putting my hands,
link |
01:19:06.780
where I'm looking, you know, my pulse,
link |
01:19:08.760
like stuff that I don't even know I'm giving off.
link |
01:19:10.680
He's so engaged and so focused
link |
01:19:13.000
and has such a, just a, he's fearless, right?
link |
01:19:17.600
A lot of people, you know,
link |
01:19:18.560
they'll play poker and be like,
link |
01:19:19.400
you know what?
link |
01:19:20.220
I don't think this guy has it.
link |
01:19:21.060
But do they have the guts?
link |
01:19:22.480
Do they have the cojones, if you will,
link |
01:19:24.360
to actually do anything about it?
link |
01:19:26.320
Right?
link |
01:19:27.160
And stand up to this person?
link |
01:19:27.980
He does.
link |
01:19:28.820
You know?
link |
01:19:29.660
I forgot the hand that you tweeted
link |
01:19:30.840
about the goat doing goat things.
link |
01:19:33.200
That wasn't even that big of a goat hand.
link |
01:19:34.960
But like, there's hands where like,
link |
01:19:37.280
there was a famous one in Australia
link |
01:19:39.980
where the flop was like jack, jack at nine
link |
01:19:43.240
and Phil check raised the flop with six, seven, nothing.
link |
01:19:46.640
Just absolutely nothing.
link |
01:19:47.840
And the guy re raised him, right?
link |
01:19:50.440
And Phil just knew.
link |
01:19:52.080
He went all in with nothing.
link |
01:19:53.800
If the guy calls, he's done, he's cooked.
link |
01:19:55.600
But he was so tuned in that this guy's not strong,
link |
01:19:59.240
that he just, you know, he did things like that.
link |
01:20:01.220
And it's tough to play against a guy like that.
link |
01:20:03.400
So he gets great reads and is able to execute on them,
link |
01:20:07.680
has the guts to execute on them.
link |
01:20:09.960
He's got experience, he's got work ethic.
link |
01:20:12.640
He also, I think one thing I'm underselling too,
link |
01:20:16.180
is his strategic mind, right?
link |
01:20:18.240
Like I believe that, you know, like I said,
link |
01:20:21.800
the new age player, they learn how to play
link |
01:20:23.460
through a very systematic approach.
link |
01:20:25.240
Okay, let's look at the data.
link |
01:20:27.040
Make up a game right now.
link |
01:20:29.080
Three cards, we each get three cards.
link |
01:20:31.100
Jacks are wild, sixes are, you know,
link |
01:20:34.040
six of hearts is wild, right?
link |
01:20:35.600
Just make up that game.
link |
01:20:36.840
Phil will figure it out intuitively,
link |
01:20:39.320
very, very quickly, right?
link |
01:20:41.100
Without having the answers for him, right?
link |
01:20:43.760
So that's like the difference
link |
01:20:45.000
between the players of my generation.
link |
01:20:46.740
We had to figure this stuff out on our own.
link |
01:20:48.880
Today, well, I wanna know the answer,
link |
01:20:50.880
I go ask the computer and the computer tells me.
link |
01:20:53.240
So I really believe like if you created a game from scratch
link |
01:20:55.720
that Phil Ivey would be my horse that I wanna play in it.
link |
01:20:59.140
So he's in some sense in tune with some deeper thing.
link |
01:21:03.520
He has what we used to call card sense.
link |
01:21:06.200
Card sense.
link |
01:21:07.720
Can you try to make the case for some others
link |
01:21:09.880
like Doyle Brunson, Phil Hellmuth, Daniel Negrano,
link |
01:21:13.960
and maybe one of the modern guys
link |
01:21:15.760
like Justin Bonomo or somebody like that?
link |
01:21:17.240
Sure, oh, so let's start with Doyle, okay?
link |
01:21:20.000
Like what Doyle has going for him above all,
link |
01:21:22.040
above and beyond is twofold, really.
link |
01:21:24.240
Longevity, I mean, he's in his late 80s.
link |
01:21:26.760
And last time I played with him, I was like,
link |
01:21:29.240
how is he getting better?
link |
01:21:30.480
Like I really felt like he was playing better
link |
01:21:32.080
than he had, you know, in the previous years.
link |
01:21:34.640
But also with Doyle, like Doyle had to figure,
link |
01:21:38.040
you know, we talked about my generation
link |
01:21:39.880
having to figure it on their own.
link |
01:21:40.920
I mean, they really had to figure it out on their own.
link |
01:21:43.040
Like they didn't have any computer simulation
link |
01:21:45.200
to tell you if Ace King was a favorite over pocket sixes.
link |
01:21:47.720
They didn't.
link |
01:21:48.560
So we know what he did.
link |
01:21:49.380
He would take a deck of cards and they would deal out,
link |
01:21:51.640
and they were with a notepad, right?
link |
01:21:53.060
Okay, Ace King won.
link |
01:21:54.360
And then they would do like a hundred of them
link |
01:21:55.640
and be like, all right, Ace King won like 53.
link |
01:21:57.680
So it must be a favorite.
link |
01:21:58.720
And he did it manually, you know?
link |
01:22:00.720
And he did it in a time when it was very, very difficult.
link |
01:22:03.200
And he's seen poker evolve and change throughout the years.
link |
01:22:06.140
Now, listen, is he gonna be able to compete
link |
01:22:08.240
against the top players in the world today?
link |
01:22:09.400
Absolutely not, you know?
link |
01:22:10.960
But how many people, he's the best 88 year old player
link |
01:22:14.680
in the world by a mile, okay?
link |
01:22:16.400
That's not even close.
link |
01:22:17.640
And Doyle, again, he's another guy who plays all the games.
link |
01:22:20.120
He's played high stakes cash, tournaments, you name it.
link |
01:22:22.840
He's iconic, you know, he's the godfather.
link |
01:22:24.520
So, but there's also an element to that.
link |
01:22:26.440
So the iconic element, like your personality in poker.
link |
01:22:30.500
I mean, not to romanticize this thing too much,
link |
01:22:33.360
but poker is also a game of personalities.
link |
01:22:38.220
I mean, it's part of the greatness
link |
01:22:39.920
is like the uniqueness of the human being.
link |
01:22:43.040
Yeah, I think also, yeah.
link |
01:22:44.200
I mean, if you'd like looking at it from that perspective
link |
01:22:46.080
in terms of like Goat,
link |
01:22:47.320
like Goat in terms of what you represent,
link |
01:22:49.320
like the cowboy, the godfather, you know,
link |
01:22:51.400
he's been around, you know,
link |
01:22:52.320
we played in the sixties and stuff like that.
link |
01:22:54.560
It's just something like incredibly cool.
link |
01:22:56.400
Like I often think about if I could go back in time
link |
01:22:59.360
and like visit, you know, an era,
link |
01:23:01.280
I'd love to go like to Vegas in the seventies
link |
01:23:04.200
and just like, I'm proud.
link |
01:23:05.280
I already, like, I can think of what it would smell like,
link |
01:23:07.080
probably not ideal, cigarettes and, you know,
link |
01:23:09.240
the leather jackets and just the vibe
link |
01:23:11.300
of what it must've been like with the mobsters
link |
01:23:13.200
and things like that.
link |
01:23:14.040
You know, he's lived through all that,
link |
01:23:15.160
all the cool movies we've seen.
link |
01:23:16.380
Like Doyle talks about some of those films.
link |
01:23:18.600
He's like, yeah, that guy,
link |
01:23:20.200
he said he was gonna stab me in my stomach.
link |
01:23:22.120
You know, he knows these people.
link |
01:23:23.880
It was, he's like a source of history, really.
link |
01:23:27.280
Yeah, when poker was a game for the mob
link |
01:23:31.720
and the degenerates and all that kind of stuff
link |
01:23:34.480
before it transitioned into professional sport.
link |
01:23:37.380
Yeah.
link |
01:23:38.220
Professional game.
link |
01:23:39.060
Yeah, so he was there through the whole thing.
link |
01:23:40.680
He's been there through the whole transition.
link |
01:23:42.840
He's seen it all, yeah.
link |
01:23:43.760
Yeah, and then to the online world.
link |
01:23:45.120
So what about,
link |
01:23:49.920
I can't even say without smiling, Phil Hellmuth.
link |
01:23:51.760
Okay, so Phil, here's the thing with Phil.
link |
01:23:53.720
He takes it very personal when I say this
link |
01:23:56.480
and he doesn't hear the compliment.
link |
01:23:58.040
He only hears the negativity.
link |
01:23:59.560
Because Phil wants to be considered
link |
01:24:00.720
the greatest of all time.
link |
01:24:01.560
Hashtag positive.
link |
01:24:02.520
He wants to be the greatest of all time.
link |
01:24:04.360
But I'm like, Phil, here's the facts.
link |
01:24:07.040
You have the best, absolute greatest resume
link |
01:24:10.120
at the World Series of Poker of anyone in the world.
link |
01:24:12.320
Is that not enough, right?
link |
01:24:13.960
That's what you have.
link |
01:24:14.860
You have that, right?
link |
01:24:16.200
Now, do I think you're the best
link |
01:24:17.680
no limit holding player in the world today?
link |
01:24:19.320
No.
link |
01:24:20.160
Do I think that, you know,
link |
01:24:21.240
you can play high stakes mixed games
link |
01:24:22.800
with the best players in the world today and win?
link |
01:24:24.400
No, right?
link |
01:24:25.320
So he wouldn't get as much flack on this topic
link |
01:24:28.360
if he wasn't so boastful and like, you know, demanding.
link |
01:24:31.480
Like you never hear Phil Ivey say,
link |
01:24:32.700
I'm the best in the world.
link |
01:24:33.920
Like his peers do, right?
link |
01:24:35.740
But Phil wants to make the claim.
link |
01:24:37.140
And I simply say, I beg to differ, right?
link |
01:24:40.760
I beg to differ.
link |
01:24:41.680
Like, I don't think you are the best player in the world.
link |
01:24:45.480
If we can linger on the compliment so he can hear it,
link |
01:24:49.220
what makes him so good?
link |
01:24:50.440
Because it seems like a lot of times
link |
01:24:52.800
his play is not optimal.
link |
01:24:54.680
Yeah, he definitely has his own brand and style of play,
link |
01:24:57.880
right?
link |
01:24:58.720
He does not adhere to,
link |
01:24:59.540
he's never used a solver in his life.
link |
01:25:00.760
He doesn't know, he's not in that world, right?
link |
01:25:03.160
Phil has a lot of faith and a lot of confidence
link |
01:25:05.520
in what he does and that it will be successful.
link |
01:25:07.520
And I think there's something to be said about that, right?
link |
01:25:09.840
He doesn't ever lack in belief that he can win
link |
01:25:13.640
and he finds a way to do it his way.
link |
01:25:15.880
And frankly, a lot of what he does
link |
01:25:18.120
is very effective against specific types of players
link |
01:25:21.600
who are intimidated by him,
link |
01:25:23.680
but whether it's his resume or his demeanor
link |
01:25:25.560
or his attitude sometimes, right?
link |
01:25:27.280
Like if you're an average player
link |
01:25:28.720
and then you beat Phil in a hand, you're gonna hear it.
link |
01:25:31.800
This idiot from Northern Europe and beat me in this pot.
link |
01:25:34.960
And for some people, they don't like that.
link |
01:25:37.160
So he can use that against them.
link |
01:25:39.800
But I also think too, like he cares so much, right?
link |
01:25:46.000
And that leads to trying really, really hard.
link |
01:25:48.440
Like he sees these moments and he doesn't phone them in.
link |
01:25:50.880
Like whatever brand of poker he plays,
link |
01:25:53.440
he tries his best at all times to succeed and to win.
link |
01:25:57.280
And there's some, even though like he's fundamentally flawed
link |
01:26:00.080
in a lot of things that he does
link |
01:26:01.040
compared to some of the bigger players,
link |
01:26:02.840
his effort and will and like his determination
link |
01:26:05.160
to stick around is, you know, is up there.
link |
01:26:08.480
And he is somebody who seems to really hate losing.
link |
01:26:12.240
Yes, yeah, he feels like he deserves to win, right?
link |
01:26:17.840
In all cases.
link |
01:26:18.680
And if he loses, it's, you know, it's not just.
link |
01:26:22.000
As you joked around that you and him
link |
01:26:23.840
might do an anger management course.
link |
01:26:26.040
Yeah, I did say that in one video.
link |
01:26:30.680
Now this is tough because you're a humble guy,
link |
01:26:33.640
but objectively speaking,
link |
01:26:35.400
can you say what your strengths are?
link |
01:26:37.880
You're often listed as one of,
link |
01:26:39.760
if not the greatest player of all time.
link |
01:26:41.360
So what are the things that make you stand out?
link |
01:26:44.080
So for me, when I grew up,
link |
01:26:46.320
I admired the big cash game players,
link |
01:26:48.240
because that's what I was.
link |
01:26:49.080
I love tournaments, but I wanted to be well rounded.
link |
01:26:51.280
Like in my day, you couldn't make the poker hall of fame
link |
01:26:53.760
if you just played one game.
link |
01:26:55.240
You had to jump in to the high stakes games
link |
01:26:57.720
in Bobby's room, as they say, right?
link |
01:26:59.800
And I was able to do that.
link |
01:27:00.880
When I was in my early, in my mid twenties,
link |
01:27:03.600
I was playing 4,000, 8,000 limits.
link |
01:27:06.000
You know, you could win or lose a million dollars in a day.
link |
01:27:08.080
So I grinded it out.
link |
01:27:09.200
Like a lot of people think, oh, you know, he's lucky.
link |
01:27:11.160
He's had sponsorship.
link |
01:27:12.520
Otherwise he'd be broke.
link |
01:27:13.360
It's like, I built multi million dollar bankrolls
link |
01:27:16.440
before any of that stuff existed.
link |
01:27:18.000
And I did it the good old fashioned way
link |
01:27:20.160
by sitting my butt on the table.
link |
01:27:21.720
I think probably one of my biggest strengths
link |
01:27:24.040
is self awareness.
link |
01:27:25.600
And in that regard, a level of humility
link |
01:27:29.080
that always allows me to say, okay, well, you know what?
link |
01:27:31.960
In this case with these players, they're better than me.
link |
01:27:34.440
So what am I going to learn from them, right?
link |
01:27:36.200
Rather than have this need to say,
link |
01:27:38.040
I'm the best because of history.
link |
01:27:40.040
I'm always looking to guys and go, wow,
link |
01:27:41.520
he does this really well.
link |
01:27:42.440
Whether it's the Adamos or the Ivies or whoever it may be.
link |
01:27:46.640
So my willingness to adapt, I think,
link |
01:27:49.000
and stay relevant by learning what the young guys are learning
link |
01:27:53.320
is something I've always done.
link |
01:27:54.760
And I also pride myself on, again, being well rounded,
link |
01:27:58.160
like playing all the games.
link |
01:27:59.240
Like I don't feel intimidated in any game,
link |
01:28:02.560
you know, whatever the format is.
link |
01:28:04.440
So always being a scholar of the game
link |
01:28:06.960
as the game evolves, as the different games evolve,
link |
01:28:09.720
the different players evolve, the culture evolves,
link |
01:28:12.160
always adjusting by being a scholar,
link |
01:28:13.920
having the humility to be a scholar.
link |
01:28:14.760
A healthy respect for, a healthy respect
link |
01:28:18.000
for the younger generation, how they learn,
link |
01:28:20.120
what they learn and what they can teach me,
link |
01:28:22.320
rather than poo poo it and say, oh, these kids today.
link |
01:28:25.600
Cause that's what a lot of people,
link |
01:28:26.760
like the Mike Matisos and the Phil Hellmuth, my generation,
link |
01:28:29.560
they just poo poo it because they don't understand it.
link |
01:28:32.040
On a level of one to 10,
link |
01:28:33.680
their level of understanding of this is like a one, maybe.
link |
01:28:36.720
If I'm being generous by calling it a one,
link |
01:28:38.560
they really don't understand it.
link |
01:28:39.840
So they poo poo it, right?
link |
01:28:41.760
It's easy to do that.
link |
01:28:42.720
Like, oh, that's not how I do it.
link |
01:28:44.040
So that's wrong or that's stupid or whatever.
link |
01:28:46.560
I don't take that approach.
link |
01:28:47.560
I go, well, let me learn.
link |
01:28:48.640
Let me see what there is to this.
link |
01:28:50.480
But that said, the crankiness that Matisos
link |
01:28:53.080
and Phil Hellmuth have is great to watch,
link |
01:28:55.160
especially when they're on a table with you.
link |
01:28:57.440
Oh, I love it.
link |
01:28:58.280
Yeah, it's a blast.
link |
01:29:00.480
You're masterful at being able to get under their skin.
link |
01:29:03.560
What about somebody from the new school,
link |
01:29:06.280
like Justin Bonomo, who's leading in terms of cash wins.
link |
01:29:11.600
Is there somebody like that,
link |
01:29:12.880
that stands out to you as a potential GOAT status person?
link |
01:29:17.520
Yeah, so there's two different ones, but one is very...
link |
01:29:20.520
So they're both just no limit, right?
link |
01:29:23.080
So again, when I think of poker,
link |
01:29:24.920
I think of a variety of games,
link |
01:29:26.920
but there's so many of the young guys that specialize.
link |
01:29:29.200
Michael Adamo is one that I've mentioned several times
link |
01:29:31.240
and I love the way that he approaches the game.
link |
01:29:32.680
Another one that's highly respected
link |
01:29:34.160
because of his online prowess and his...
link |
01:29:37.040
People have looked and how close he is to game theory
link |
01:29:39.480
and they say he's about as perfect as you get.
link |
01:29:41.280
And I got a kid named Linus.
link |
01:29:43.200
Linus love online, Linus Linger.
link |
01:29:46.360
So he just came second recently, I believe in the Triton,
link |
01:29:50.400
huge Triton event.
link |
01:29:51.240
So he's primarily an online player.
link |
01:29:52.600
Yeah, he's an online cash player for the most part,
link |
01:29:54.360
but he plays some live.
link |
01:29:55.360
And he's, again, and I respect the peers that I play with
link |
01:29:58.760
who say, yeah, he's tough as nails.
link |
01:30:00.680
There's another kid too, Russian kid named Timofey Kuznetsov
link |
01:30:06.160
and he plays all the games and he's well respected
link |
01:30:10.000
in that regard.
link |
01:30:10.840
And same with a guy like a Jungleman, Dan Cates,
link |
01:30:12.880
who's a unique personality.
link |
01:30:14.320
I mean, this guy showed up, won the poker players championship
link |
01:30:17.400
back to back years in a Randy Macho Man Savage costume.
link |
01:30:20.800
And he was doing Macho Man the entire time.
link |
01:30:23.200
Oh yeah, I'm gonna take all the chips like I did last year.
link |
01:30:27.480
Bust them all.
link |
01:30:28.320
And he was in character for the entirety of the tournament.
link |
01:30:30.480
This is great.
link |
01:30:31.320
Just unique.
link |
01:30:32.160
But yeah, I respect for a lot of those guys.
link |
01:30:35.040
Is it gonna take time to figure out
link |
01:30:36.920
who stands the test of time?
link |
01:30:40.160
That's the thing, right?
link |
01:30:41.440
So a lot of these kids,
link |
01:30:42.520
like there was a guy who beat me heads up
link |
01:30:44.920
in the million dollar one drop.
link |
01:30:46.560
I got 8.7, he won $15 million, kid named Dan Coleman.
link |
01:30:49.840
He was seen as like the next big thing in poker, right?
link |
01:30:53.400
He made his money, just wasn't for him.
link |
01:30:56.160
So he's moved on to doing what he's doing,
link |
01:30:58.160
skiing in the Alps, whatever.
link |
01:31:00.040
We have nobody seen him from like five, six years.
link |
01:31:02.320
So that can happen, right?
link |
01:31:04.640
Because there is a lot of burnout.
link |
01:31:06.000
I think it was actually a Gotham Chess
link |
01:31:09.200
who mentioned something about how difficult it is to like,
link |
01:31:12.280
I think it's true in poker.
link |
01:31:13.120
When you get really, really good at something,
link |
01:31:15.080
to get this much better takes so much work.
link |
01:31:18.920
And a lot of people don't necessarily wanna put in
link |
01:31:21.360
that kind of work in order to do that.
link |
01:31:23.440
That's just even staying at the same level
link |
01:31:25.560
takes a huge amount of work.
link |
01:31:27.160
Like, so if you wanna get better at chess,
link |
01:31:28.520
you're already like really, really good.
link |
01:31:29.600
And you're trying to get like one little bit better.
link |
01:31:31.560
You have to study like in a ridiculous amount, you know?
link |
01:31:34.800
And again, that's once you've already had,
link |
01:31:37.040
I think the toughest thing for anybody,
link |
01:31:38.480
once you've tasted success
link |
01:31:40.080
and you've already achieved it,
link |
01:31:41.800
staying hungry, staying on the top,
link |
01:31:43.800
reaching the top is much easier than it is to stay there.
link |
01:31:47.680
Yeah.
link |
01:31:49.000
Over years, what's your training regimen in poker
link |
01:31:53.320
in terms of how you keep improving?
link |
01:31:58.360
So you said you study games,
link |
01:31:59.760
but that's mostly leading up to a particular tournament.
link |
01:32:03.600
But is there kind of a behind the scenes daily activity
link |
01:32:07.800
you try to do that kind of over time keeps you sharp?
link |
01:32:11.560
So for me, now that I'm 47,
link |
01:32:12.960
and I feel like the predominant aspect of my poker game
link |
01:32:17.320
is going to be in terms of my success
link |
01:32:19.200
is gonna be my mental state, right?
link |
01:32:21.560
So I find it's really, really important for me now
link |
01:32:23.840
at this age to have balance.
link |
01:32:26.680
So when I'm not playing poker and I'm out of it,
link |
01:32:30.600
poker is not even on my radar.
link |
01:32:32.320
You're able to remove it from your mind.
link |
01:32:34.320
Doing my fantasy hockey, play a little chess,
link |
01:32:37.160
you know, play some golf, watch some hockey,
link |
01:32:40.000
whatever the case may be,
link |
01:32:41.400
outside of the game.
link |
01:32:42.680
And then I start to get the itch.
link |
01:32:43.800
Like after the World Series of Poker,
link |
01:32:46.760
the poker door was closed.
link |
01:32:47.960
Yeah, you took some time off.
link |
01:32:49.240
All of August, I didn't play any poker at all
link |
01:32:51.400
until just recently, you know.
link |
01:32:53.040
I started to get the itch again.
link |
01:32:54.440
Because that's what's important for me,
link |
01:32:55.800
is if I don't have the itch and I don't want to play poker,
link |
01:32:58.200
then I'm not gonna be at my best.
link |
01:32:59.680
Once I start getting the itch,
link |
01:33:01.400
that's when I start to say,
link |
01:33:02.480
okay, let's start watching some of these streams.
link |
01:33:04.600
Let's see what my opponents are up to lately.
link |
01:33:06.800
And, you know, let's look at some solvers
link |
01:33:09.280
and different things like that.
link |
01:33:10.920
And you're doing pretty good.
link |
01:33:12.360
You came back and doing pretty good.
link |
01:33:15.360
Yeah, so far.
link |
01:33:17.200
Do you like being in front of the camera
link |
01:33:18.560
through the hell of the World Series of Poker this year?
link |
01:33:21.600
You filmed every single day.
link |
01:33:23.160
You did a vlog.
link |
01:33:24.280
Does that energize you?
link |
01:33:25.360
Is that exhausting?
link |
01:33:26.200
Because it's really beneficial to a huge amount of people.
link |
01:33:28.360
It energizes the poker community.
link |
01:33:30.520
But do you see it as a service
link |
01:33:32.160
or do you purely just love it?
link |
01:33:34.640
I've been comfortable on camera since I was a kid.
link |
01:33:37.280
When I was a kid, I wanted to be an actor.
link |
01:33:39.120
Like really, really young.
link |
01:33:40.360
And I was always comfortable in that environment.
link |
01:33:42.960
I think like that gives me a little bit of an advantage
link |
01:33:45.720
sometimes too, with these film events.
link |
01:33:47.880
Cause I'm comfortable with the mic on
link |
01:33:49.240
and on camera with the lights.
link |
01:33:50.840
And I think a lot of people maybe aren't
link |
01:33:52.400
with the knowledge that other people
link |
01:33:53.880
are gonna see what they're doing every day.
link |
01:33:55.400
So it's been so comfortable and easy for me.
link |
01:33:57.080
As far as the World Series goes
link |
01:33:58.680
and the vlogs and all the shooting,
link |
01:34:00.680
it's kind of therapeutic for me.
link |
01:34:02.240
It is essentially my version of journaling, right?
link |
01:34:06.520
So there's a lot of value, I think,
link |
01:34:08.040
in like at the end of a day doing a brain dump
link |
01:34:10.120
where you just write out and journal.
link |
01:34:11.880
But doing it on camera has this similar effect.
link |
01:34:15.480
And it also, when you make a mistake on your own,
link |
01:34:19.600
you're held accountable to you.
link |
01:34:20.840
But when I have to explain it to others,
link |
01:34:23.280
like here's what I did.
link |
01:34:24.920
And this is the mistake I made
link |
01:34:26.240
or whatever the case may be.
link |
01:34:28.760
It actually, I think that helps me.
link |
01:34:31.000
Yeah, so you're held responsible by a larger audience.
link |
01:34:34.440
I think it's like, so like I said,
link |
01:34:35.640
listen, I'm 47, my life is good.
link |
01:34:38.400
I don't have to be in this tournament.
link |
01:34:39.560
If I'm over it, I can just dump my chips off and go home.
link |
01:34:42.920
But I can't when I'm doing the vlog,
link |
01:34:45.240
like I have to actually answer to that.
link |
01:34:49.120
And it keeps me in line.
link |
01:34:51.080
How hard is it to win the main event
link |
01:34:53.960
of the World Series of Poker?
link |
01:34:56.240
So the main event of the World Series of Poker
link |
01:34:57.600
is the hardest event to win
link |
01:34:59.320
simply because of the sheer size of it.
link |
01:35:01.640
You're talking seven, 8,000 players, right?
link |
01:35:04.320
And a lot of landmines.
link |
01:35:05.440
And frankly, there are so many players
link |
01:35:08.800
that you've not played with before too.
link |
01:35:10.840
You play these high roller events, like the super ones,
link |
01:35:12.880
you get 30, 40 people, you know everybody, right?
link |
01:35:15.360
So you have an idea.
link |
01:35:16.880
You sit at the main event, you don't have any idea.
link |
01:35:19.240
This guy wearing a Philadelphia Eagles jersey
link |
01:35:21.040
and sunglasses, and he just raised you big.
link |
01:35:23.200
I don't know this guy, I don't know what he's about.
link |
01:35:26.120
So there's a lot of like, it's grueling too.
link |
01:35:29.280
You're seven, eight days where you're in the blender
link |
01:35:32.720
as you might say, so.
link |
01:35:35.200
So what's the structure?
link |
01:35:36.120
So it's $10,000 buy in or something like that.
link |
01:35:38.640
And there's a bunch of tables and you just keep playing.
link |
01:35:41.960
Like when is it over for a single table?
link |
01:35:44.800
Does it go?
link |
01:35:45.640
So the way that it works is this.
link |
01:35:46.480
So there's, let's say 8,000 players.
link |
01:35:47.840
And the way the main event works, unique to others,
link |
01:35:50.180
is there's various day ones you can play, right?
link |
01:35:53.240
So a day one, you're gonna play from noon
link |
01:35:55.160
till like midnight, right?
link |
01:35:57.320
If you're still in, you bag up your chips
link |
01:36:00.040
and you'll come back for day two, okay?
link |
01:36:02.080
There's four different day ones, right?
link |
01:36:04.360
Now they'll all combine essentially to play on a day two.
link |
01:36:07.040
And at the end of the night, they redraw the tables.
link |
01:36:09.800
So you don't just win your table.
link |
01:36:11.140
If players get knocked out, tables break,
link |
01:36:13.680
they continue to be replaced.
link |
01:36:15.280
So you start with 8,000, then after day one,
link |
01:36:18.120
you've got 6,000, then you do the same.
link |
01:36:20.940
You play like a 12 hour day and you slowly whittle down.
link |
01:36:25.360
Day four, day three, day four, you're in the money.
link |
01:36:28.520
And then you continue to progress.
link |
01:36:29.840
And then what they do now with the final table is they,
link |
01:36:32.480
because they were trying to do this for TV,
link |
01:36:34.360
these final tables can take, you know, 12 hours to play.
link |
01:36:38.760
And what we were finding was, you know,
link |
01:36:41.080
you start the thing at 5 p.m. and it goes till 8 a.m.
link |
01:36:44.560
And like nobody's watching anymore.
link |
01:36:45.960
So they separate into three days now.
link |
01:36:49.320
And so you're talking now, it's like six, seven days
link |
01:36:52.160
to get to the final table and another three days to play it.
link |
01:36:54.620
So you're grinding for, you know, a week and a half.
link |
01:36:58.840
But most of the time you're playing against people
link |
01:37:01.880
you've never played against before.
link |
01:37:03.840
Especially early on, yeah.
link |
01:37:04.880
And then by the end, like, who knows?
link |
01:37:06.440
You know, rarely do you see, you see in the last hundred,
link |
01:37:09.580
you usually see some notable names.
link |
01:37:11.480
Then in the last 27, you might see one, maybe two.
link |
01:37:13.760
Final table, maybe one.
link |
01:37:15.460
But often it's gonna be, you know,
link |
01:37:17.600
some players you've never heard of before.
link |
01:37:20.040
Is there strategies that maximize your likelihood
link |
01:37:24.080
of having a chance?
link |
01:37:25.440
Yes, absolutely.
link |
01:37:26.400
Like I think the World Series of Poker main event
link |
01:37:28.000
is a unique animal in that, you know,
link |
01:37:30.280
like we talk about game theory and all that kind of stuff.
link |
01:37:32.360
If you're focused on that when you're playing,
link |
01:37:34.160
you're really not playing well, right?
link |
01:37:36.660
You need to just exploit
link |
01:37:38.280
because you're gonna have a lot of people
link |
01:37:39.600
who see this as a bucket list item.
link |
01:37:41.280
You know, they just wanna play
link |
01:37:42.120
the main event in the World Series.
link |
01:37:43.560
And they might be scared, they might be nervous or whatever.
link |
01:37:45.880
You don't have to worry about being balanced, right?
link |
01:37:48.760
Oh, you know, I have to make sure that I'm, no you don't.
link |
01:37:51.160
You might not, you're playing with this guy now
link |
01:37:52.640
for three hours, you might never see him again.
link |
01:37:54.720
So just make the play that makes sense for you, right?
link |
01:37:57.680
So yeah, you're gonna, I approach that event
link |
01:38:01.000
very differently than I would
link |
01:38:02.640
like playing against the high roller players
link |
01:38:04.760
that I play with today.
link |
01:38:05.600
Does that mean more aggressive essentially?
link |
01:38:07.200
Less actually.
link |
01:38:08.760
So when you play against really good players,
link |
01:38:11.880
you have to take small plus EV scenarios
link |
01:38:15.440
where you push the envelope
link |
01:38:17.000
and you're playing really aggressive.
link |
01:38:18.120
You're bluffing off your stack.
link |
01:38:19.440
You gotta do this.
link |
01:38:20.280
You gotta focus a little bit more on being balanced
link |
01:38:22.720
because otherwise, you know,
link |
01:38:23.760
you're not gonna beat these guys.
link |
01:38:25.460
Whereas if you're playing with amateurs
link |
01:38:27.120
and you're playing with regular players,
link |
01:38:28.800
for the most part, risking all your chips on a bluff,
link |
01:38:33.200
probably don't need to do that.
link |
01:38:34.720
You don't need to do that nearly as much.
link |
01:38:35.760
You can probably slowly but surely build your stack
link |
01:38:39.360
without taking, you know, those high risk,
link |
01:38:41.160
high variance situations
link |
01:38:42.000
because you'll find better situations.
link |
01:38:44.060
What mistakes do amateurs usually make
link |
01:38:47.240
in tournaments like that?
link |
01:38:48.720
Are they over bluffing?
link |
01:38:50.160
Well, I think amateurs generally,
link |
01:38:52.300
the biggest mistake they make is they think
link |
01:38:53.720
that pros are bluffing more than they are.
link |
01:38:56.240
So like a pro will bet all his chips on the end
link |
01:38:57.960
and they're like, ah, I don't know.
link |
01:38:58.960
Maybe, you know, it's Phil Ivey.
link |
01:39:00.440
Maybe he's doing some crazy stuff.
link |
01:39:01.480
He's like, probably not.
link |
01:39:02.960
He's probably just got it, you know?
link |
01:39:05.760
And then they lose all their money by calling
link |
01:39:08.020
or going all in as well.
link |
01:39:12.760
And so the right thing is to be more patient.
link |
01:39:15.040
So amateur is too impatient or just bad reads?
link |
01:39:19.080
So all the amateurs are built different.
link |
01:39:21.160
Some of the amateurs are just too weak and passive.
link |
01:39:23.400
They're just waiting for the nuts, you know?
link |
01:39:25.440
And then, you know, the pros, everyone notices that.
link |
01:39:27.360
And then when they make their big hand,
link |
01:39:29.200
they don't get paid anyway.
link |
01:39:30.640
So in order to win the main event,
link |
01:39:32.840
I mean, you have to have some components
link |
01:39:35.000
of your game that are aggressive.
link |
01:39:36.520
It's very unlikely to expect to just get the cards
link |
01:39:39.960
the whole way and just always have the best hand.
link |
01:39:42.440
You're gonna have to find ways to win pots
link |
01:39:44.560
that, you know, where you don't have the best hand.
link |
01:39:47.080
How do you win the final table?
link |
01:39:49.640
The final table is unique now,
link |
01:39:51.200
especially because you're talking about the way
link |
01:39:53.440
that poker works in tournaments is that
link |
01:39:55.520
if there's seven people left
link |
01:39:56.900
and you have just, you know, you're very short on chips.
link |
01:39:59.560
But if one other player goes out,
link |
01:40:01.520
you just make like $300,000 for folding,
link |
01:40:04.640
like just for sitting out, right?
link |
01:40:06.760
The term for that that, you know,
link |
01:40:08.800
show kids uses ICM, independent, you know, chip model,
link |
01:40:13.080
right, where it talks about the value of each chip.
link |
01:40:15.460
Where what happens, what we see now is,
link |
01:40:17.440
let's say one guy has a big chip lead
link |
01:40:19.600
and there's another guy who's second in chips
link |
01:40:21.340
and there's a couple that are short.
link |
01:40:22.760
These guys in the middle, they just play super tight
link |
01:40:25.960
and they wait for the little guys to go
link |
01:40:28.280
while the big stack is just pounding them
link |
01:40:31.600
because he can afford to, right?
link |
01:40:33.520
He knows that people are handcuffed.
link |
01:40:35.000
So let's say I had 10 million in chips
link |
01:40:36.840
and you have 9 million in chips.
link |
01:40:38.240
And these guys have little chips.
link |
01:40:39.160
If I go all in on you, are you gonna call me
link |
01:40:42.040
and risk like, you know, guaranteed pay jumps
link |
01:40:45.320
of like moving up a few spots?
link |
01:40:46.680
So really the question comes down to like,
link |
01:40:48.540
are you the type of guy who just wants to inch up
link |
01:40:51.440
or are you gonna go for it?
link |
01:40:52.920
And you're gonna go for the win.
link |
01:40:54.000
I think ultimately there's some value
link |
01:40:56.000
in being the guy who says,
link |
01:40:56.920
you know, I don't care if I come seventh.
link |
01:40:58.660
I'm not worried about going from seventh to fifth.
link |
01:41:01.440
I'm here to win.
link |
01:41:02.560
And so you're saying like the guys that win
link |
01:41:04.840
will often be the ones that call there.
link |
01:41:07.080
So like, they're not just bullying the small stacks, they're.
link |
01:41:10.800
Well, they're the ones,
link |
01:41:11.800
no, they're the ones that are willing to risk it, right?
link |
01:41:14.480
So there are some people who, you know,
link |
01:41:16.800
if there's five left, you know,
link |
01:41:19.800
and they're third in chips
link |
01:41:21.200
and there's two guys very short
link |
01:41:22.320
and you, you know, they'll have ace king
link |
01:41:24.280
and someone moves, they'll just fold.
link |
01:41:26.060
They fold the hand because they wanna wait
link |
01:41:28.760
for those two other players to get broke.
link |
01:41:30.620
And that way they let you know, they make actual money.
link |
01:41:32.280
So you, I guess the thought process
link |
01:41:33.640
between winning first place
link |
01:41:35.280
and winning the most amount of money are different.
link |
01:41:37.440
They're conflicting, right?
link |
01:41:39.240
Because in order to like win,
link |
01:41:41.360
if you're just, if your focus is only on winning
link |
01:41:43.180
the tournament, you will make mistakes financially
link |
01:41:45.040
where you had guaranteed income for just folding, right?
link |
01:41:47.680
Let's say a guy has one chip left, you know, one chip
link |
01:41:51.540
and me and you have good chips
link |
01:41:53.320
and I go all in with you and I lose.
link |
01:41:55.240
Now that guy, you know, got the guaranteed,
link |
01:41:57.680
you know, he got the pay jump that I wouldn't have got.
link |
01:41:59.460
So there's some extremely stupid mistakes
link |
01:42:00.840
you can make from a financial perspective,
link |
01:42:02.780
but it's often at odds with, you know,
link |
01:42:05.580
giving yourself the best chance to actually come first.
link |
01:42:08.720
And in a tournament, especially the main event,
link |
01:42:11.240
especially the final table, it's all about coming in first.
link |
01:42:15.080
Well, I know because most of the people who make it,
link |
01:42:17.520
so like, you know, when you play these high rollers,
link |
01:42:19.420
these guys are accustomed to playing for a hundred thousand,
link |
01:42:21.520
they're, they're accustomed to this kind of money.
link |
01:42:23.040
So they're going to play, right?
link |
01:42:24.240
For the most, but you're talking about guys
link |
01:42:25.760
who bought into a $10,000 tournament,
link |
01:42:27.240
maybe never had a hundred K cash in their life.
link |
01:42:29.600
And now they're sitting there and it's like 1 million
link |
01:42:32.500
for fifth and 2 million for fourth.
link |
01:42:35.480
So like, they don't want to be fifth,
link |
01:42:37.400
they're just going to sit there and go, ah, I don't want.
link |
01:42:39.640
So they'll, they'll be under more financial pressure
link |
01:42:41.760
because they're not like your typical high roller
link |
01:42:44.440
type player.
link |
01:42:45.260
Are you still able to find the guts to take big risks?
link |
01:42:48.920
Yeah, see, I'm trying to win.
link |
01:42:50.800
Like, I think that gives me an advantage, frankly,
link |
01:42:53.180
where I might make decisions that are financially suboptimal
link |
01:42:57.320
because I'm trying to win,
link |
01:42:58.880
but there's also an inherent advantage to that.
link |
01:43:01.040
Like that again, something I watched and learned
link |
01:43:04.040
from a guy like Michael Adamo,
link |
01:43:05.880
where he takes advantage of these people playing
link |
01:43:08.040
so passively in these spots where he's like,
link |
01:43:09.920
I don't, I'm not trying to come, I'm going to win.
link |
01:43:11.920
I'm just going to bull bulldoze you.
link |
01:43:14.120
Cause I'm not worried about, you know,
link |
01:43:16.160
the small financial mistake of, you know, a pay jump.
link |
01:43:21.520
What advice could you give to, to beginning poker players?
link |
01:43:25.560
Actually at every level, how to get better,
link |
01:43:27.760
how to improve, how to improve their game.
link |
01:43:30.240
Obviously, as you said,
link |
01:43:32.140
it's easiest to get better in the beginning,
link |
01:43:34.900
but what advice would you give how to get better?
link |
01:43:37.320
So one of the ways, I mean,
link |
01:43:38.320
I think way back to the how I started, right?
link |
01:43:40.200
And there's so many resources and tools available right now
link |
01:43:42.480
to analyze hands, but when you play, right?
link |
01:43:45.960
And you find yourself in a situation or a hand
link |
01:43:48.400
that you're not really sure about,
link |
01:43:49.320
not because you had aces and went all in and you lost,
link |
01:43:52.440
like that's not interesting,
link |
01:43:53.560
but an interesting situation where you're not sure
link |
01:43:55.200
what you did, jot the hand down, write it out.
link |
01:43:59.200
And then either A, you know, use some of the tools,
link |
01:44:02.000
whether it's the solvers, if you're advanced enough,
link |
01:44:04.800
or ask your group, you know,
link |
01:44:07.240
like have a couple of friends at your level
link |
01:44:09.080
and talk through the different decisions
link |
01:44:10.760
and start to learn that way, right?
link |
01:44:12.620
Cause those mistakes that you make
link |
01:44:13.860
or those tough, those tough hands,
link |
01:44:15.620
that's where the real learning comes from.
link |
01:44:17.280
Like, so that next, so basically if you're,
link |
01:44:19.720
cause you're gonna be in similar scenarios.
link |
01:44:21.480
In poker, you're rarely gonna have the identical situation,
link |
01:44:24.320
but you'll have situations that are similar.
link |
01:44:26.520
You know, you raise with ace king, someone three bet,
link |
01:44:28.600
another guy goes all in.
link |
01:44:29.760
Okay, well, what do I do in that spot?
link |
01:44:31.800
You know, it's, you're gonna have similar situations
link |
01:44:34.380
in the future as well.
link |
01:44:35.220
So figuring that out, the more you can do that,
link |
01:44:38.120
you chop away at, you know,
link |
01:44:40.680
different strategical mistakes, you know,
link |
01:44:42.640
you used to make that you no longer make.
link |
01:44:44.980
Are there resources like your masterclasses really is great?
link |
01:44:48.240
Are there books?
link |
01:44:49.980
So there was a guy named Michael Acevedo.
link |
01:44:51.840
This is my, again, for a little bit more advanced players,
link |
01:44:54.200
but it's a book called a modern poker theory,
link |
01:44:57.220
I think it's called,
link |
01:44:58.740
which sort of explains game theory, right?
link |
01:45:01.080
To the novice, right?
link |
01:45:02.840
So it's a little bit, I think if you're new to poker,
link |
01:45:05.320
it's probably above the rim for you.
link |
01:45:08.360
But once you start to get a little better
link |
01:45:09.960
and you wanna understand how to do it,
link |
01:45:11.580
it's probably a good resource for as far as books.
link |
01:45:13.360
And there's also like tons of people
link |
01:45:14.720
who stream poker, professional players.
link |
01:45:17.060
And then you can get in there and you get in on the chat
link |
01:45:19.040
and you start talking, you ask them,
link |
01:45:20.460
you see people, you know,
link |
01:45:21.680
explaining their thought process and things like that.
link |
01:45:23.880
There's so many free resources.
link |
01:45:25.360
And of course my masterclass,
link |
01:45:26.520
I think does a good job of sort of compartmentalizing,
link |
01:45:28.760
like, you know, how to attack it on a deeper level.
link |
01:45:32.440
And we, you know, we get it, I try to get into,
link |
01:45:34.600
what's funny when I did the masterclass,
link |
01:45:36.860
I asked them, I was like, well, you know,
link |
01:45:38.820
how high end do you want this in terms of poker?
link |
01:45:41.640
And they're like, we want really, really high end.
link |
01:45:42.960
And I was like, okay, sure.
link |
01:45:44.440
Then I started to explain really, really high end.
link |
01:45:46.040
I'm like, okay, well, maybe the one below that, right?
link |
01:45:50.400
So I try to explain really complex, you know,
link |
01:45:54.880
theory in a more palatable way, in English, if you will.
link |
01:45:58.800
Cause some of these kids, you hear them talk
link |
01:46:00.240
and you'd be like, huh?
link |
01:46:02.160
But you also, which is really nice, give example hands
link |
01:46:07.240
that really illustrate the point, which is really nice.
link |
01:46:10.440
You also wrote a book, I think 10 years ago,
link |
01:46:13.400
Power Holding Strategy.
link |
01:46:16.200
It's interesting to think how much of the stuff
link |
01:46:19.200
in that book still applies, how much doesn't.
link |
01:46:21.320
Listen, I still think the book holds up to a certain degree.
link |
01:46:23.720
Obviously like, you know, it isn't optimal
link |
01:46:26.400
because there's like a more advanced strategies.
link |
01:46:28.320
And if you played that way,
link |
01:46:29.280
people will figure out a way to exploit you.
link |
01:46:30.880
But if you're like an average player playing
link |
01:46:32.560
an average buy ins, like that's sort of what I coined,
link |
01:46:35.160
like small ball approach, absolutely will work.
link |
01:46:38.120
You know, at the highest level,
link |
01:46:39.800
you have to add much more, a lot more bluffing.
link |
01:46:42.340
But overall, I think it's still, you know,
link |
01:46:44.600
for the most part, there's a lot of really,
link |
01:46:45.760
especially with tournaments,
link |
01:46:46.640
there's a lot of really good principles in the book.
link |
01:46:48.920
What's the difference in the dynamics,
link |
01:46:50.680
if you could just comment on between a heads up poker
link |
01:46:53.920
and when multiple people are in one hand,
link |
01:46:56.520
what are interesting aspects to everything
link |
01:46:58.400
we've been talking about from game theory
link |
01:47:01.320
to exploitative strategies, all that kind of stuff.
link |
01:47:04.620
So the biggest difference when you play,
link |
01:47:06.040
let's say nine handed, you know,
link |
01:47:07.700
against eight other players and you know, heads up is,
link |
01:47:11.200
first of all, just the type of hands
link |
01:47:13.720
and the number of hands you're gonna have to play.
link |
01:47:15.160
So the way that it works is if there's nine people,
link |
01:47:18.120
two out of the nine hands, you have to put in money.
link |
01:47:20.300
And the other seven, you could just fold for nothing, okay?
link |
01:47:22.760
When you're heads up,
link |
01:47:23.800
you're forced to put money in every single hand, okay?
link |
01:47:27.440
And there's only one other hand in front of you,
link |
01:47:29.720
which means the ranges of hands that you play
link |
01:47:31.720
is way wider, right?
link |
01:47:33.480
So if you're nine handed, right?
link |
01:47:35.040
And you're in first position, you're like, all right,
link |
01:47:36.720
what do I need to play?
link |
01:47:37.880
Like a good pair, you know, two high cards suited,
link |
01:47:41.680
a big ace, you know, stuff like that, that's it, right?
link |
01:47:44.160
That's what you're gonna play, right?
link |
01:47:46.320
And you're gonna fold all the rest.
link |
01:47:47.600
When you're heads up, you look at a king and a two
link |
01:47:50.600
and you're like, well, I gotta play this.
link |
01:47:52.360
You know, you're gonna, you're gonna,
link |
01:47:53.540
you're forced to play a lot more hands
link |
01:47:55.720
in a lot more complex situations
link |
01:47:57.400
when you're playing heads up,
link |
01:47:59.860
because you're gonna be playing much far weaker hands.
link |
01:48:02.520
Queen five, Jack three, all these types of hands.
link |
01:48:05.480
And you're gonna see flops where you're,
link |
01:48:06.920
you're not gonna have the luxury of being like,
link |
01:48:08.600
I'm in there with a premium hand, queens, kings, aces.
link |
01:48:11.680
Those are easier to play, right?
link |
01:48:13.080
Very, very strong holdings.
link |
01:48:14.680
Heads up, you're forced to dance and fight a lot more.
link |
01:48:19.360
You know, you can't sit in the weeds and wait.
link |
01:48:21.520
What do you enjoy more?
link |
01:48:24.640
Heads up is very intense.
link |
01:48:25.700
I like heads up, but I think if you had to play heads up
link |
01:48:29.520
eight, 10 hours, it's so mentally draining
link |
01:48:31.960
because your face with so many constant decisions
link |
01:48:34.760
each and every spot.
link |
01:48:35.600
Like you play nine handed, you look at a nine and a three,
link |
01:48:37.980
you throw it away, you hang out for a bit, relax,
link |
01:48:40.720
you go, you get a little break and then play hand.
link |
01:48:42.240
Heads up, you're like, it's like, boom, boom.
link |
01:48:44.000
It's like you're in the ring, you know,
link |
01:48:45.200
you're in the octagon and you're facing like
link |
01:48:47.640
haymakers nonstop.
link |
01:48:50.680
Since we talked about online a bit,
link |
01:48:53.720
is it possible to cheat in poker, especially online?
link |
01:48:56.840
So we offline also talked about the cheating controversy
link |
01:49:00.320
that's going on in the chess world.
link |
01:49:02.120
Is it possible to use, what is it?
link |
01:49:06.660
Remotely connected anal beads to somehow cheat?
link |
01:49:10.980
No, is that a concern of cheating online?
link |
01:49:15.820
So here's the thing, it's kind of like romanticized
link |
01:49:19.140
from the old days, like, you know, in the Western stuff,
link |
01:49:21.280
like people trying to cheat.
link |
01:49:22.120
And have you ever killed a man because he cheated?
link |
01:49:24.140
No, I have not.
link |
01:49:25.100
But when I started out as a teenager,
link |
01:49:26.980
I played in a game with a bunch of Italians
link |
01:49:28.820
and I knew they cheated and I didn't care
link |
01:49:31.160
because they were so bad that I could win anyway.
link |
01:49:33.700
I was like, I knew they would cheat,
link |
01:49:34.780
but I knew how they were cheating.
link |
01:49:35.700
So I was like, all right, you guys suck.
link |
01:49:37.140
But so here's the thing,
link |
01:49:37.980
anytime you're talking about large sums of money,
link |
01:49:40.960
there will be people looking to take advantage,
link |
01:49:43.580
whether that's live or online, right?
link |
01:49:45.820
And so it's like the job essentially of the, you know,
link |
01:49:49.620
the online operators or the, you know, live event staff
link |
01:49:52.940
to police it the best they can.
link |
01:49:54.560
And the players themselves being on the lookout for it.
link |
01:49:56.620
You know, like a guy like Dole Brunson is a great resource
link |
01:49:58.940
because he's seen it all and he's seen all the tricks,
link |
01:50:01.500
you know, and so live, you know,
link |
01:50:02.900
he probably could spot a few things.
link |
01:50:04.460
But online, there's various ways people can try to cheat,
link |
01:50:07.500
but there's also really good security measures in place
link |
01:50:12.700
to catch them, you know?
link |
01:50:14.380
And we've caught, you know, like about two years ago,
link |
01:50:16.660
there was a huge undertaking of like 500 accounts
link |
01:50:20.420
that were banned for doing different things.
link |
01:50:22.700
And, you know, there's, and again, you can't go in,
link |
01:50:24.980
they can't go into detail in terms of how they're doing it.
link |
01:50:27.840
Cause otherwise, you know, then you're sort of giving
link |
01:50:29.940
the cheats the playbook in terms of how to take advantage.
link |
01:50:32.580
But it's always gonna be a concern for poker
link |
01:50:34.580
wherever you play, right?
link |
01:50:37.920
But it's not something I'm worried about personally.
link |
01:50:40.340
So at the highest in person, and by the way,
link |
01:50:42.460
online there's really interesting algorithms
link |
01:50:44.500
that do some of the work in an automated way
link |
01:50:46.660
to detect, to flag things that are weird.
link |
01:50:50.060
But in person, it's just not something at the highest level
link |
01:50:52.660
that you're super concerned about.
link |
01:50:54.220
So it's not, it didn't quite infiltrate the poker world
link |
01:50:58.100
to a degree where it's a huge concern.
link |
01:51:00.020
Yeah, like, so here's the thing.
link |
01:51:01.740
I don't play in private games and whatever, right?
link |
01:51:04.020
But in private games, theoretically, you know,
link |
01:51:06.200
you could be in, if you don't trust the people
link |
01:51:07.820
you're playing with, like I've heard stories of people
link |
01:51:09.900
where, you know, they have an earpiece in
link |
01:51:11.700
that you can't see, right?
link |
01:51:13.380
And they have, you know, like RFID on the cards
link |
01:51:17.140
or something like that, and they have a phone reading it.
link |
01:51:19.860
So they have somebody in a truck telling them,
link |
01:51:21.460
you're gonna win this hand, you're gonna lose this hand.
link |
01:51:23.060
Like that happened in a private game.
link |
01:51:24.860
You know, and the guy, what's often funny
link |
01:51:26.700
about some of these people who cheat is they're so greedy
link |
01:51:30.120
and blatantly obvious that they get caught.
link |
01:51:32.420
Where if they use this tool in a more subtle way,
link |
01:51:35.120
they could probably continue to get away with it.
link |
01:51:37.320
But again, that's not something I worry about
link |
01:51:39.620
in a casino environment, you know, in these tournaments
link |
01:51:42.740
and things like that.
link |
01:51:43.860
But if I was playing in private games,
link |
01:51:45.820
like if I came down to Texas and some guy,
link |
01:51:48.180
I got cheated in a game by a guy named Blackie Blackburn
link |
01:51:51.560
and Tex, I was at the Chimo Hotel, I was a teenager
link |
01:51:55.460
and they saw me playing, you know,
link |
01:51:56.740
I was making good money as a teenager.
link |
01:51:58.420
I had like a $13,000 bankroll, you know,
link |
01:52:00.820
and I went and played in this game with them
link |
01:52:02.060
in a private hotel room and found out later
link |
01:52:04.220
that the guy was a card mechanic, you know,
link |
01:52:06.620
he was dealing and he could, you know, deal you the hands
link |
01:52:08.860
and he knew what you had and stuff like that.
link |
01:52:10.700
So yeah, I remember, you know,
link |
01:52:12.140
I lost a big number in that game
link |
01:52:14.500
and it was a good learning lesson in terms of, you know,
link |
01:52:16.980
being wary of who you trust.
link |
01:52:18.380
Yeah, so if the dealer is in on it,
link |
01:52:22.120
that's one way you could cheat.
link |
01:52:23.840
It's fascinating.
link |
01:52:25.440
That's part of the reason that they cut.
link |
01:52:27.440
So like, you'll see like, there's a burn card
link |
01:52:30.800
because what would happen in, you know,
link |
01:52:32.120
maybe in the old days is like,
link |
01:52:33.680
if you're sitting in the one seat,
link |
01:52:34.700
I could lift the card and you could see it,
link |
01:52:36.440
the next card coming, right?
link |
01:52:38.080
So what they do is they have a card on top of it
link |
01:52:40.040
that you burn that isn't the card
link |
01:52:41.200
and then the next card is the one that comes face up.
link |
01:52:44.020
I just learned about the edge sorting thing
link |
01:52:48.640
that Phil Ivey and maybe others were involved with.
link |
01:52:52.040
I just, reading it at first was super interesting to me
link |
01:52:55.680
that you can exploit the imperfections
link |
01:52:59.520
in the printing of cards.
link |
01:53:01.560
That was almost cool to me.
link |
01:53:02.840
That's almost not cheating because it's like.
link |
01:53:05.840
That needs to be a movie.
link |
01:53:07.280
That needs to be a movie, yes.
link |
01:53:08.760
Yeah, what happened with Phil Ivey in that whole case
link |
01:53:10.760
is it's a catastrophe, really.
link |
01:53:12.900
It is such a horrible precedent.
link |
01:53:14.840
Cause here's what he did.
link |
01:53:15.780
Phil Ivey shows up at the casino says,
link |
01:53:17.300
I want to play this game.
link |
01:53:18.160
They say, okay, all right, I want to play with those decks.
link |
01:53:20.600
They say, okay, they agree to everything that he says.
link |
01:53:24.040
He never touches the cards.
link |
01:53:25.400
He doesn't do anything outside of the fact
link |
01:53:28.200
that your cards that you supplied
link |
01:53:30.360
have imperfections on them and he can see them.
link |
01:53:33.040
Okay, so that increases his chances of winning.
link |
01:53:35.680
He could still lose theoretically, right?
link |
01:53:38.040
Probably not, but he can lose.
link |
01:53:39.860
In theory, it just gives him a little bit of an edge
link |
01:53:41.800
and it's all stuff based on what you provided.
link |
01:53:44.200
Yeah.
link |
01:53:45.040
So the idea that you offered a game, I accepted, I beat you
link |
01:53:48.400
and now you want to free roll me?
link |
01:53:50.280
That's disgusting.
link |
01:53:51.680
So for people who don't know, maybe you can elaborate
link |
01:53:53.800
and it's just fascinating to me,
link |
01:53:55.160
but you're exploiting the imperfections
link |
01:53:57.280
in the card patterns on the back
link |
01:53:59.440
and then they look different if you rotate it.
link |
01:54:01.760
And the fascinating thing too, when you shuffle,
link |
01:54:04.840
usually you don't rotate the cards
link |
01:54:06.940
so that you can see the sort of
link |
01:54:11.440
detect which cards are the strong cards by marking them
link |
01:54:15.800
by through rotating them.
link |
01:54:17.800
And the way you know they're rotated
link |
01:54:19.240
is because of the pattern imperfections.
link |
01:54:21.480
Yeah, so some of the cards, like you said,
link |
01:54:23.280
like they had that pattern on it
link |
01:54:26.040
and some of them, this was faulty cards on there,
link |
01:54:28.400
were not cut properly.
link |
01:54:29.680
So like the eights and nines had the card cut differently
link |
01:54:33.860
and those are important cards in this game,
link |
01:54:35.600
the eights and nines or whatever.
link |
01:54:36.780
So you could essentially,
link |
01:54:37.620
from looking at the back of the card,
link |
01:54:39.280
discern what it's gonna be.
link |
01:54:41.800
You do nothing in terms of like cheating yourself.
link |
01:54:45.000
You're not rigging the game.
link |
01:54:45.840
All you're doing is taking advantage of the fact
link |
01:54:47.400
that you're playing, you've offered me cards
link |
01:54:49.600
that are faulty.
link |
01:54:51.280
Can I just say that, of course, it would be Phil Ivey,
link |
01:54:54.200
who's the goat at the normal game
link |
01:54:56.800
who will figure out this particular thing.
link |
01:54:58.840
I mean, that's what, if you're into soccer,
link |
01:55:00.600
this Diego Maradona has that famous hand of God
link |
01:55:03.840
in the World Cup where he scores a goal with his hand.
link |
01:55:07.200
And so, of course, the referee didn't see it.
link |
01:55:10.080
They thought it was a header.
link |
01:55:11.320
So, I mean, part of the magic of the genius
link |
01:55:14.340
of the people at the top of the game
link |
01:55:15.540
is they're able to exploit all the flaws that are there.
link |
01:55:20.560
That's a beautiful thing to see.
link |
01:55:21.400
Well, see, Phil had, in his heyday,
link |
01:55:24.200
he had, he exploited weaknesses in casinos,
link |
01:55:29.080
systems all over the country.
link |
01:55:31.000
Like in one night, I don't know if you know this story.
link |
01:55:33.000
In one night, he would take a plane, a private plane,
link |
01:55:35.600
and fly to 30 different casinos all over the country.
link |
01:55:38.720
Cause he would have these deals where they're like,
link |
01:55:40.160
all right, we've got this big rich sucker
link |
01:55:41.720
who's gonna come here and play craps
link |
01:55:43.080
and he's gonna lose all our money.
link |
01:55:44.200
So he'd have this deal with one of the casinos
link |
01:55:46.000
where they'd be like, all right,
link |
01:55:47.520
you get 20% back up to half a million, right?
link |
01:55:50.520
So if you lose half a million, we'll give you back 100K.
link |
01:55:53.480
So he'd go to one casino in Tunica,
link |
01:55:56.200
he'd play half a million, win, win or lose, he would leave.
link |
01:56:00.920
They think they're gonna get him to stay,
link |
01:56:02.400
they get him a big room or whatever.
link |
01:56:04.000
So let's say he goes to Tunica, he loses half a million.
link |
01:56:06.880
Now he goes, he flies to Atlantic city,
link |
01:56:08.760
he wins half a million.
link |
01:56:10.160
He lost half a million and won half a million,
link |
01:56:12.520
but he got 100,000 back.
link |
01:56:14.200
So he's actually plus 100,000.
link |
01:56:16.440
Do that at 10 casinos a night,
link |
01:56:17.920
you're making a million dollars in free equity.
link |
01:56:19.880
And they would give him promotional chips
link |
01:56:21.480
and all these kinds of things and free flights
link |
01:56:23.320
and stuff like that.
link |
01:56:24.200
So he took advantage of the image
link |
01:56:26.280
that they're trying to exploit.
link |
01:56:27.240
So this is why I don't have any empathy for these casinos.
link |
01:56:29.680
Cause they're giving you free drinks,
link |
01:56:31.480
they're giving you, why do you think they're doing that?
link |
01:56:33.400
The kindness of their heart.
link |
01:56:34.720
They're trying to exploit you.
link |
01:56:36.160
So guess what?
link |
01:56:37.080
You lost at your own game, pay the piper.
link |
01:56:39.640
And I think it was crazy.
link |
01:56:40.640
Cause the judges in his case said,
link |
01:56:43.120
he did not cheat, but yeah, it's probably not right.
link |
01:56:47.480
Hold on.
link |
01:56:48.360
You just said he didn't cheat.
link |
01:56:50.360
That should be the end of the case.
link |
01:56:52.520
And then the casinos do the funny thing.
link |
01:56:54.600
I mentioned to you, I was just at the UFC
link |
01:56:56.200
and Dana White is a huge gambler.
link |
01:56:59.960
She's a blackjack gambler.
link |
01:57:01.540
And there's that famous situation
link |
01:57:04.280
where you got kicked out of a casino
link |
01:57:05.800
and the casinos do that kind of thing
link |
01:57:07.040
when you win too much.
link |
01:57:08.520
So he won some ridiculous amount of money.
link |
01:57:10.920
He bets like, I mean, he plays like millions of dollars
link |
01:57:15.040
on hands of blackjack, it's insane.
link |
01:57:16.640
And so he won really big and he got kicked out.
link |
01:57:19.440
Was he counting?
link |
01:57:20.520
No, no, he wasn't counting.
link |
01:57:21.640
So counting in blackjack here in Las Vegas
link |
01:57:23.680
is like the only game where they actually
link |
01:57:25.460
can ask you not to play.
link |
01:57:26.860
So like basically if you're counting cards, right?
link |
01:57:28.880
You could potentially have an edge in blackjack
link |
01:57:30.400
and there are some professionals who do that,
link |
01:57:31.920
but they get caught pretty quickly.
link |
01:57:33.520
And then they say, you can play craps,
link |
01:57:34.720
you can play whatever you want,
link |
01:57:35.560
but you can't play blackjack here anymore.
link |
01:57:36.800
No, I think, I don't think Dana White is counting.
link |
01:57:38.960
I think he was winning a lot.
link |
01:57:40.240
I guess they can claim that they believe you're counting
link |
01:57:43.640
because how do you really know if you're counting?
link |
01:57:45.040
Well, they easily, they figure it out.
link |
01:57:47.120
So basically they have an eye in the sky
link |
01:57:48.280
and they can see, so if you're varying your bet size, right?
link |
01:57:51.000
So there are certain spots where based on the cards
link |
01:57:52.800
that are out, let's say for example,
link |
01:57:55.920
a lot of the twos, threes and fours and fives
link |
01:57:57.640
have been coming out.
link |
01:57:58.680
So the deck is rich in face cards.
link |
01:58:01.720
That's very good for the player, right?
link |
01:58:03.580
So imagine you were betting 500 bucks
link |
01:58:06.840
and then all of a sudden you up your bet to 2000 or 5,000
link |
01:58:09.980
when the deck is rich.
link |
01:58:11.080
They know when the deck is rich in high cards
link |
01:58:12.940
because they keep a counter themselves.
link |
01:58:14.720
So if they notice a player increasing their bet sizes
link |
01:58:17.280
when the deck is good for them, it's a telltale sign.
link |
01:58:20.240
Interesting, I don't think Dana White would be counting.
link |
01:58:22.640
And so casinos don't kick you out
link |
01:58:24.440
if you don't often kick you out.
link |
01:58:26.160
Do they ever kick you out if you make too much money?
link |
01:58:28.760
Because you're playing millions of dollars that they.
link |
01:58:30.640
Unless they, they would never kick you out
link |
01:58:32.280
for making too much money, unless they suspect cheating.
link |
01:58:34.360
Because why would they?
link |
01:58:35.280
They have an advantage, they want the money back.
link |
01:58:37.480
It's not like you go in there, win 10 million,
link |
01:58:38.640
you're like, oh no, that's enough for us.
link |
01:58:40.120
What about if he was talking shit the whole time?
link |
01:58:42.000
I wonder.
link |
01:58:42.840
I don't think that would matter.
link |
01:58:44.920
Because in the long run, they'll get the money back.
link |
01:58:48.100
Exactly.
link |
01:58:51.360
You tweeted, if you watched Jersey Shore,
link |
01:58:54.600
Family Vacation, we would probably get along really well.
link |
01:58:57.400
What is it about, because I lived in Jersey for a while,
link |
01:58:59.880
what is it about Jersey Shore characters that you love?
link |
01:59:03.360
I just love that they're sort of, I love the debauchery.
link |
01:59:06.560
I think Pauly D's a fun guy, you know,
link |
01:59:08.880
and just like, it's just something like,
link |
01:59:11.040
it's just, it's what do you call it?
link |
01:59:13.560
It's trash TV, it's a guilty pleasure.
link |
01:59:15.680
But you can just watch the Snooki get drunk
link |
01:59:17.520
and fallen all over herself or whatever.
link |
01:59:20.240
Is that part, do you love that part of Vegas as well?
link |
01:59:23.400
Not really, I don't go out and stuff,
link |
01:59:25.280
but I just like the characters.
link |
01:59:27.020
I like that they have unique personalities.
link |
01:59:30.080
And I think we live in a world now
link |
01:59:32.440
where people are more and more careful of what they say
link |
01:59:36.560
and afraid of backlash and all that stuff.
link |
01:59:38.440
And it's kind of like an old school version of just like,
link |
01:59:41.560
say what you feel, it's okay,
link |
01:59:43.240
as long as your intent is good.
link |
01:59:44.920
And they haven't been canceled, if you will, which is good,
link |
01:59:49.920
but I feel like their type of behavior slowly but surely,
link |
01:59:53.960
like, cause they got a lot of flack originally
link |
01:59:56.120
for misrepresenting like Italian Americans
link |
01:59:59.800
or something like that.
link |
02:00:00.640
Like there was a lot of backlash about this
link |
02:00:02.160
and how Italian Americans really are and blah, blah, blah.
link |
02:00:04.960
So they sort of were representing that group of people
link |
02:00:08.740
and, you know, they received some backlash back in the day.
link |
02:00:13.160
I'm a huge supporter of diversity
link |
02:00:15.800
in all the beautiful forms that the human species
link |
02:00:19.120
is able to generate.
link |
02:00:20.000
And that's certainly one dimension.
link |
02:00:22.020
What's the greatest Vegas movie, would you say?
link |
02:00:25.180
I don't know if that's a difficult question,
link |
02:00:26.500
but Fear of Loathing in Las Vegas,
link |
02:00:28.680
Leaving Las Vegas, Casino.
link |
02:00:30.520
I watch, cause anytime Casino's on randomly,
link |
02:00:32.540
I always watch it.
link |
02:00:33.720
Such a great movie.
link |
02:00:35.800
It could be one of the Sharon Stone.
link |
02:00:38.040
Sharon, frankly, Sharon Stone reminded me,
link |
02:00:41.320
every time I would watch the movie,
link |
02:00:42.160
it reminded me of my wife, Amanda, like totally.
link |
02:00:45.600
I would see like the character and I was like,
link |
02:00:47.340
I'm the Robert De Niro character in the film.
link |
02:00:49.440
It was, I used to watch it through that lens, you know.
link |
02:00:52.960
From like the depth of love that you have.
link |
02:00:57.320
Just kind of, she was, I remember that she was like,
link |
02:01:00.020
she was like, she lit up every room.
link |
02:01:01.900
She does light up every room.
link |
02:01:03.080
She goes there, everybody's attracted and drawn to her.
link |
02:01:05.600
And she was kind of, when she was younger,
link |
02:01:07.220
she was a little wild and crazy and whatnot.
link |
02:01:09.240
So she reminded me of the Sharon Stone character.
link |
02:01:11.680
And then the Robert De Niro character is trying to like
link |
02:01:13.920
have a stable life, you know, and be that.
link |
02:01:16.040
And that was me.
link |
02:01:17.400
Who was the Joe Pesci in your life?
link |
02:01:19.000
Well, there was a guy named,
link |
02:01:19.840
there was a James Woods for sure, who was the Lester.
link |
02:01:22.520
We called him, we actually called him Lester.
link |
02:01:24.800
A few of my friends call him Lester.
link |
02:01:27.640
The greasy guy who tried to get back in and all that.
link |
02:01:31.360
But yeah.
link |
02:01:32.200
Yeah, one of my favorite scenes
link |
02:01:33.040
is when they meet out in the desert
link |
02:01:35.240
and it's like a 50, 50 odds
link |
02:01:36.600
if you're gonna make it out alive in that.
link |
02:01:38.360
I mean, yeah, there's an epicness to that portrayal of Vegas.
link |
02:01:43.400
I love, I mean, it's just totally,
link |
02:01:45.400
I mean, it's obviously more corporate now
link |
02:01:46.760
and it's different, but I love those movies.
link |
02:01:49.440
I love all those movies, just seeing that life.
link |
02:01:51.440
And like I said, if there was a period in time
link |
02:01:53.080
that I could go back to and just experience it,
link |
02:01:55.360
it would be that, you know, right around then.
link |
02:01:56.760
There'll be that, playing with a mob and not.
link |
02:02:00.180
I think of like these crime shows today,
link |
02:02:01.960
like they're so unrealistic now
link |
02:02:04.000
because if they're in an era that is now,
link |
02:02:06.620
like none of this stuff can happen
link |
02:02:08.240
because there's cameras everywhere.
link |
02:02:09.660
You can't like get away with these,
link |
02:02:11.000
like killing somebody and jumping in a car
link |
02:02:13.640
and you're gonna get caught, you know?
link |
02:02:15.840
But in the 70s, you know, that stuff happened.
link |
02:02:18.200
Across the line, you die.
link |
02:02:19.600
Yeah, Lake Mead is recently like losing water
link |
02:02:22.800
and like every couple of days
link |
02:02:24.240
they're finding more and more bodies from that era.
link |
02:02:26.720
Oh no.
link |
02:02:27.560
They really are.
link |
02:02:29.280
You're close with your mom.
link |
02:02:30.840
What did you learn about life from your mom?
link |
02:02:33.280
My mother was very generous.
link |
02:02:35.000
My mother, she experienced joy through giving people food.
link |
02:02:39.920
For the most part, my dad would get them drinks
link |
02:02:42.080
and that was how she felt fulfilled, right?
link |
02:02:45.600
She felt good when she like would cook for you.
link |
02:02:47.440
And like, she'd be that person you'd come over
link |
02:02:49.400
and she'd be like, are you hungry?
link |
02:02:50.760
And you say, no, no, no, I'm okay.
link |
02:02:51.960
She's gonna put 15 things in front of you and you'll eat.
link |
02:02:54.760
You know, you're gonna eat.
link |
02:02:55.600
Cause everyone does that to be polite.
link |
02:02:56.840
No, no, I'm good.
link |
02:02:57.760
But you know, they will start to eat.
link |
02:02:59.520
And just her hospitality in that regard
link |
02:03:01.520
and just being generous and like being a good host
link |
02:03:04.440
to people and things like that, like.
link |
02:03:07.520
How did that define, like help define who you are
link |
02:03:10.560
as a person, that generosity?
link |
02:03:13.040
Did it rub off on you?
link |
02:03:14.520
It made me think about in my life
link |
02:03:17.440
when it comes to like any sort of business deals
link |
02:03:21.520
or things like that, I don't wanna get the best of it
link |
02:03:23.920
in such a way where I screw the other person.
link |
02:03:25.600
I genuinely don't.
link |
02:03:26.920
I'd much rather you owe me than me owe you.
link |
02:03:29.400
So if I hire people, they get paid more
link |
02:03:32.160
than they're supposed to.
link |
02:03:33.160
And I'd rather them do that and work towards it
link |
02:03:36.040
rather than feel underpaid.
link |
02:03:37.200
Cause if they're underpaid, they'll likely under deliver.
link |
02:03:39.480
Whereas if they feel overpaid,
link |
02:03:41.160
then if I need them to do something special,
link |
02:03:43.280
they're not gonna be like, hey, I don't get paid for that.
link |
02:03:45.240
Like, yeah, you do.
link |
02:03:46.720
You really do.
link |
02:03:47.560
So that's certainly like played out in my life
link |
02:03:49.840
where I set it up in such a way where I don't owe,
link |
02:03:53.080
you know, I'm owed, but that's okay.
link |
02:03:56.080
Cause I can handle taking the worst of it in spots.
link |
02:03:58.600
I don't like being the person to, you know,
link |
02:04:01.840
feel like I'm indebted to others.
link |
02:04:04.320
Yeah, in some way, the karma of that tends
link |
02:04:06.840
to pay dividends in the longterm.
link |
02:04:09.360
Somehow there's somebody up there
link |
02:04:15.080
that's keeping track in some kind of way.
link |
02:04:17.560
What advice would you give to young people today
link |
02:04:20.440
in high school and college?
link |
02:04:22.240
How to have a career they can be proud of
link |
02:04:25.200
or maybe how to have a life in general
link |
02:04:27.300
they can be proud of?
link |
02:04:28.900
I would say like your 20s is a good opportunity
link |
02:04:32.080
to set yourself up for the rest of your life, right?
link |
02:04:34.880
So while the 20s are a period where you wanna have fun
link |
02:04:38.140
and you wanna experience youth,
link |
02:04:40.440
it's also a good opportunity to start thinking about
link |
02:04:42.400
what do you want your life to look like
link |
02:04:44.840
in your 30s and your 40s, right?
link |
02:04:46.840
So I feel like it's the best time
link |
02:04:48.660
to really put yourself out there and take risks
link |
02:04:51.200
and try to hit it, you know, whatever,
link |
02:04:53.760
you know, like to work really, really hard
link |
02:04:55.380
to set yourself up.
link |
02:04:56.400
Because, and I said this at an event I was speaking at,
link |
02:04:59.880
when you're like with poker,
link |
02:05:01.040
when your bankroll is very, very small,
link |
02:05:02.480
it's replenishable, right?
link |
02:05:05.120
You don't need to protect it as much
link |
02:05:06.960
as you do once you've got something, right?
link |
02:05:09.360
Once you have a brand or you have money,
link |
02:05:11.200
you have something like that,
link |
02:05:12.560
that's when you wanna start protecting you.
link |
02:05:14.040
But in your 20s is an opportunity
link |
02:05:15.580
to just really sort of get, you know,
link |
02:05:18.120
to work really, really hard to set yourself up,
link |
02:05:21.260
you know, for the future.
link |
02:05:22.100
I am concerned a little bit,
link |
02:05:23.280
like every time I talk to kids today,
link |
02:05:24.600
I'm like, what do you wanna be?
link |
02:05:26.080
They all wanna be YouTubers or Instagram stars or rappers,
link |
02:05:30.160
right?
link |
02:05:31.000
Like, okay, I was like, that's cool,
link |
02:05:32.480
but like, there's only so many of those,
link |
02:05:33.880
you know, that there can be.
link |
02:05:35.360
So it might be worthwhile having
link |
02:05:36.520
a little bit of a backup plan.
link |
02:05:38.000
I think it's easier to be successful on Instagram
link |
02:05:40.600
and social media if you do something else.
link |
02:05:43.160
And I would say this too.
link |
02:05:44.680
One other thing I would say is,
link |
02:05:46.960
don't choose a profession or an idea
link |
02:05:50.640
because you think it'll make you rich, right?
link |
02:05:54.000
Pursue something that you actually love.
link |
02:05:56.560
Because if you love it,
link |
02:05:57.700
you're way more likely to become rich.
link |
02:05:59.560
If you don't, you do something that you don't actually enjoy.
link |
02:06:02.960
Now you're spending a lot of your life unhappy,
link |
02:06:05.440
doing something you don't want,
link |
02:06:06.680
and if you're not passionate about it,
link |
02:06:08.760
you're probably not,
link |
02:06:09.600
the chances of you being successful are much lower.
link |
02:06:12.240
And also becoming rich,
link |
02:06:14.000
and I've talked to a lot of rich people,
link |
02:06:15.760
hang out with a lot of rich people,
link |
02:06:17.400
is not going to be as fulfilling as you imagine.
link |
02:06:21.440
If you arrive there by not doing the thing
link |
02:06:23.600
that you love doing.
link |
02:06:24.720
That's true.
link |
02:06:25.560
Ultimately, the thing that you love doing is like,
link |
02:06:28.800
that's what makes life worth it.
link |
02:06:30.320
There's another quote, I can't remember who it was,
link |
02:06:32.240
otherwise I would quote them,
link |
02:06:33.080
but it says something to the effect of like,
link |
02:06:37.000
if we believe in the lie that more is always better,
link |
02:06:39.640
then we can never truly arrive.
link |
02:06:41.640
Because wherever we are, more is better, right?
link |
02:06:44.480
I've never understood,
link |
02:06:45.640
and I've been around rich people,
link |
02:06:46.680
like you said, you know, the bill,
link |
02:06:48.320
I never got, I can't, I don't get it.
link |
02:06:50.320
Like, if you have a billion dollars,
link |
02:06:51.920
why do you give a shit about money at all?
link |
02:06:54.680
Like, and they're still like, oh, we made this deal,
link |
02:06:56.680
and I'm like, you know, we picked up 300,
link |
02:06:58.720
who cares?
link |
02:06:59.560
Like, your life is set.
link |
02:07:00.440
Like, there is that bell curve, right?
link |
02:07:03.040
Where obviously being in poverty, you know,
link |
02:07:05.200
there's obviously a high rate of unhappiness,
link |
02:07:07.320
but there's a certain amount of money where you reach,
link |
02:07:09.600
you know, where you reach a level of happiness,
link |
02:07:10.960
and then too much, you find the people
link |
02:07:13.280
that are searching for money to fulfill these holes,
link |
02:07:15.400
it starts to go back down again.
link |
02:07:17.480
Well, the getting more money could become a game,
link |
02:07:21.520
like a sport, that's fun to play,
link |
02:07:23.520
as long as you directly or indirectly acknowledge
link |
02:07:27.320
that what you love is the game of it,
link |
02:07:29.520
versus the actual attainment of money.
link |
02:07:31.000
And I think that's what it is, right?
link |
02:07:32.600
For me, I've never cared about money that much.
link |
02:07:34.600
I just never did, otherwise I would have a lot more of it.
link |
02:07:37.280
But it's always, like, it's always been strange to me
link |
02:07:40.040
how people that have that kind of money,
link |
02:07:42.160
like, are cheap in any way, you know?
link |
02:07:45.760
Like, they wouldn't donate 5,000 to a worthwhile charity,
link |
02:07:48.880
because it's like, buddy, this,
link |
02:07:50.560
like, when it changes your life, not,
link |
02:07:52.720
I don't even like, like, small things, like taxes.
link |
02:07:55.440
Like, okay, you have $20 billion,
link |
02:07:57.400
and you're worried about paying 33%, 30% to 31.
link |
02:08:00.640
I get it, I get the point of it all,
link |
02:08:03.480
but like, it literally has no effect on your life whatsoever.
link |
02:08:06.880
Your life is unchanged, whether it's 31 or 33.
link |
02:08:10.200
Yeah, that's the negative of a lot of money,
link |
02:08:12.840
is if it corrupts the way you see the world,
link |
02:08:14.800
you start to be protective and so on.
link |
02:08:16.520
I mean, part of the challenge of when you get a lot of money
link |
02:08:19.240
is people start to treat you differently,
link |
02:08:21.200
and so navigating that correctly is very challenging.
link |
02:08:24.760
So don't change, remain the same person you always were,
link |
02:08:29.960
because if you change, you start to,
link |
02:08:32.000
I mean, that's why power corrupts,
link |
02:08:33.720
is you get a lot of power, you get a lot of fame,
link |
02:08:36.000
you get a lot of money, you start to distrust people,
link |
02:08:40.120
and you start to push away people
link |
02:08:41.840
that are actually really close to you with trusting.
link |
02:08:43.680
And you also, I think, you develop some biases
link |
02:08:45.400
where you think, like, you're just this,
link |
02:08:47.040
you know, you think, like, it was all you,
link |
02:08:49.360
and you're a genius, and you're so great,
link |
02:08:51.000
and all these other people who don't have,
link |
02:08:52.440
it's just because they don't have what you have,
link |
02:08:54.040
and then you start to view that group of people,
link |
02:08:57.080
whether they're impoverished or whatever is less than,
link |
02:09:00.280
and that you're some great guru
link |
02:09:01.640
where you could have just got lucky and bought Bitcoins
link |
02:09:04.080
that you could have done anything,
link |
02:09:05.520
and then you became super wealthy,
link |
02:09:07.520
and then you have this Dunning Kruger effect,
link |
02:09:10.160
where you think you know everything about everything.
link |
02:09:11.800
And a lot of poker people have that,
link |
02:09:13.000
and listen, I'm probably guilty in some ways too,
link |
02:09:16.080
thinking because you can figure out poker
link |
02:09:17.640
and be great at that, that you could figure out anything.
link |
02:09:20.200
So it's true, right?
link |
02:09:21.440
I mean, we sort of, we genuinely feel like
link |
02:09:24.160
people that reach the highest levels of poker
link |
02:09:25.640
feel like they are intelligent.
link |
02:09:27.200
So they will look at problem solving
link |
02:09:28.440
and think that they have answers.
link |
02:09:30.120
Well, you have to remind yourself that you're not.
link |
02:09:32.840
It's best to see the world as you did just get lucky,
link |
02:09:35.480
or at least from my perspective,
link |
02:09:37.080
that you're not better than anybody.
link |
02:09:38.400
I don't think there's anything wrong with, like,
link |
02:09:39.640
acknowledging that you worked hard to get where you were.
link |
02:09:42.000
Like, there isn't, but at the same time, like,
link |
02:09:44.320
it's not available to everybody in the same way.
link |
02:09:46.160
You know, right time, right place.
link |
02:09:47.440
Like, for me, my poker career
link |
02:09:48.600
could have gone very differently, you know?
link |
02:09:50.520
If things didn't work out, you know,
link |
02:09:52.320
if I had some bad luck in the wrong times,
link |
02:09:54.400
like, who knows where I'd be?
link |
02:09:56.080
So you said your brain crawl is pretty small in your 20s.
link |
02:09:59.840
I'm sure you've been around a lot of people
link |
02:10:01.840
you care a lot about who've lost everything in poker.
link |
02:10:04.720
What's that like?
link |
02:10:05.960
What's those low points of losing everything?
link |
02:10:09.280
I think because I've been there,
link |
02:10:12.040
I have more empathy than I probably should for those people.
link |
02:10:15.600
I really feel for them.
link |
02:10:16.480
Cause I remember being in Vegas and being totally broke
link |
02:10:18.960
and like a guy loaning me $400
link |
02:10:21.720
and me like turning that 400 into 20,000, 400 bucks.
link |
02:10:24.840
And it was like eternally grateful to that.
link |
02:10:27.360
So when I have friends who go through that,
link |
02:10:29.520
like I always try to consult them,
link |
02:10:31.000
obviously what they really need is money for the most part.
link |
02:10:34.680
But I remember saying no to one friend
link |
02:10:36.440
because he didn't have a plan.
link |
02:10:37.720
So I like to try to help them in that regard.
link |
02:10:39.800
Like my buddy's like, can you stake me in this game?
link |
02:10:42.240
And I was like, all right, well, how much do you,
link |
02:10:43.880
then I was like, let's break down the math, bro.
link |
02:10:45.720
You want me to stake you?
link |
02:10:46.560
So you get 50% of the profit, right?
link |
02:10:48.720
So I said, how much do you think you can make in this game?
link |
02:10:50.440
How much does the biggest winners make?
link |
02:10:52.200
It's like, well, I can probably, you know,
link |
02:10:53.640
I probably do like 20,000 a month in this game.
link |
02:10:56.280
So, okay.
link |
02:10:57.120
So you get half of that cause I get 10, right?
link |
02:10:58.960
What is your monthly nut?
link |
02:10:59.900
How much are you spending?
link |
02:11:00.740
It's like, well, I'm renting this thing for 8,000.
link |
02:11:03.400
You're spending 17,000 a month.
link |
02:11:05.920
So like, no matter what you're set up to fail.
link |
02:11:09.480
Like this isn't going to work.
link |
02:11:10.900
So I actually didn't give him the money.
link |
02:11:12.160
And I was like, what you need to do to earn more money
link |
02:11:13.940
is lower your monthly nut because it's too high.
link |
02:11:16.120
It just, you know, it just doesn't mathematically add up.
link |
02:11:19.160
So trying to set them right in that regard
link |
02:11:21.500
is something that like I feel obliged to do,
link |
02:11:24.680
especially if they're friends.
link |
02:11:25.520
But what about the mental aspect of the struggle
link |
02:11:27.600
they're going through, the struggle you were going through?
link |
02:11:30.040
Just, I mean, it's really rough to have no money.
link |
02:11:34.400
It's not for everybody.
link |
02:11:35.520
This really isn't.
link |
02:11:36.360
Like a lot of people might, you know, listen to this
link |
02:11:37.720
and think like, oh, I want to play poker.
link |
02:11:38.800
It's like, most people fail.
link |
02:11:41.520
Most people who want to play in the NFL,
link |
02:11:43.920
they spend their college years,
link |
02:11:46.320
like most of them are not going to make it.
link |
02:11:48.520
Most of you who try to play poker professionally
link |
02:11:50.440
are going to fail and you're going to experience despair.
link |
02:11:52.900
Okay?
link |
02:11:53.800
There are those like in anything that have the passion,
link |
02:11:56.160
have the knowhow, have the luck and all that sort of stuff.
link |
02:11:58.280
And it all pans out, but you know, they're the minority.
link |
02:12:03.200
And so for the low points, if you remember,
link |
02:12:06.440
what does it take to sort of overcome that,
link |
02:12:08.720
overcome the mental struggle?
link |
02:12:12.300
I mean, you're making it sound like certain people
link |
02:12:13.800
are just genetically able to in certain.
link |
02:12:15.520
I do think some people are more apt to being able to deal
link |
02:12:18.240
with like adversity and having resilience
link |
02:12:20.040
and some people just can't hack it.
link |
02:12:21.600
But like I generally, what I would advise,
link |
02:12:23.360
you know, people that are, let's say a guy's playing,
link |
02:12:24.760
you know, really high stakes or whatever,
link |
02:12:26.480
doing badly is step number one is take,
link |
02:12:29.140
take a little bit of a break here.
link |
02:12:30.520
Let's recalibrate and let's start small again.
link |
02:12:33.760
Let's, you know, let's restart
link |
02:12:35.040
and let's play smaller stakes
link |
02:12:36.140
and let's get our confidence back because in poker,
link |
02:12:39.120
without confidence, you cannot be successful.
link |
02:12:41.660
It is incredibly important to have almost an inflated level
link |
02:12:45.120
of confidence in yourself
link |
02:12:46.880
because you're up against it, right?
link |
02:12:48.800
As I said, the majority of people fail.
link |
02:12:50.460
So why are you special?
link |
02:12:51.520
Why are you different?
link |
02:12:52.560
You have to be pretty confident about your, you know,
link |
02:12:54.240
yourself to think that you are one of the chosen ones.
link |
02:12:57.560
And then don't resist the despair and take a nap.
link |
02:13:01.680
Definitely take a nap.
link |
02:13:03.800
Listen, it's okay to experience it.
link |
02:13:05.080
Like I said, yeah, you're going to experience despair.
link |
02:13:06.800
What else would you, what should you be feeling?
link |
02:13:09.280
You know, if things are going poorly
link |
02:13:10.440
and you've just lost all your money, excited?
link |
02:13:12.840
Maybe like, okay, have your moment of grief,
link |
02:13:15.880
allow yourself to experience it so that you can,
link |
02:13:18.360
you know, reassemble.
link |
02:13:20.560
There's a fundamental way
link |
02:13:21.800
in which you haven't really lived life
link |
02:13:23.720
if you haven't experienced periods of despair.
link |
02:13:27.200
You have a jaded view of the world, right?
link |
02:13:30.080
Weird thing about the human condition
link |
02:13:31.880
that both the highs and the lows are important.
link |
02:13:35.280
Yeah.
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02:13:36.120
What role does love play in the human condition,
link |
02:13:40.740
Daniel Negrano?
link |
02:13:42.220
That's a good one.
link |
02:13:43.660
What role has love played in your life?
link |
02:13:47.020
It's, yeah, that's, you know,
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02:13:48.700
you sort of talked about the ups and downs
link |
02:13:50.980
of the human condition and love has been that for me, right?
link |
02:13:58.500
Like I'm in a good place now,
link |
02:14:00.520
but you know, even with my now wife years ago,
link |
02:14:04.580
you know, she was young, she was, you know, new to poker
link |
02:14:07.900
and she wasn't ready to settle down.
link |
02:14:09.240
I was like, when I met her, I think I was 31, she was 21.
link |
02:14:12.460
And I was ready to like lock her up, if you will, you know,
link |
02:14:15.620
let's do this.
link |
02:14:16.460
And I bought a ring way back when she was like,
link |
02:14:18.420
not about that.
link |
02:14:19.260
She was living the Hollywood life.
link |
02:14:20.940
She was living, you know, partying in LA,
link |
02:14:22.300
doing that kind of stuff and wasn't ready.
link |
02:14:23.900
And we split and that one hit me hard.
link |
02:14:27.220
So I didn't realize how much of a hit
link |
02:14:31.120
that had on my confidence in my, in everything really,
link |
02:14:35.220
in poker, with other women.
link |
02:14:36.600
It had me a little jaded about women too, you know,
link |
02:14:39.660
resentful, you know, and it took a lot of like self,
link |
02:14:43.300
I did like a lot of personal growth work
link |
02:14:45.780
and workshops and things like that.
link |
02:14:47.700
And then didn't see her for years.
link |
02:14:49.860
And she came back to town, I was a much different person.
link |
02:14:51.780
It was just, you know, four years ago or something like that.
link |
02:14:54.140
And she was too, went to dinner.
link |
02:14:56.740
A few months later, we were married.
link |
02:14:58.740
It worked out so different because we both had to grow,
link |
02:15:01.460
you know, and become different people.
link |
02:15:03.700
And that love was still there somehow.
link |
02:15:05.500
Yeah, like she went through her relationships.
link |
02:15:07.540
I went through mine, you know, we experienced life
link |
02:15:09.940
and I was married once before too, you know,
link |
02:15:12.900
called my starter marriage, if you will,
link |
02:15:16.020
which yeah, you know, we just, you don't know.
link |
02:15:19.020
I think like until you do it, until you get married
link |
02:15:21.180
and you know, experience like the sacrifice,
link |
02:15:23.580
not necessarily the sacrifices, but your value systems,
link |
02:15:25.760
if they don't align identically,
link |
02:15:27.060
which they're not going to, someone like me,
link |
02:15:30.220
probably one of my strengths in poker,
link |
02:15:32.860
but my weaknesses in relationship is judgment, right?
link |
02:15:36.120
When I play poker, I need to judge you.
link |
02:15:37.940
That's essentially what I'm doing.
link |
02:15:39.340
I'm gauging who you are and what you're good at
link |
02:15:42.020
and what you're bad at.
link |
02:15:43.180
And that can have repercussions because it leads,
link |
02:15:45.180
that's how I view, that's the lens I look at everyone with
link |
02:15:48.620
based on how you live your life.
link |
02:15:49.680
I'm judging you, this guy's this, this guy's that,
link |
02:15:51.360
this guy's that, and that's not healthy.
link |
02:15:53.300
So you have to shut that off.
link |
02:15:54.780
You have to learn to like, and the thing,
link |
02:15:56.740
I finally realized what love is, frankly for me,
link |
02:15:59.500
with her is no judgment, right?
link |
02:16:02.260
She's so like, yeah, so I have my way of being, right?
link |
02:16:04.900
If she wants to have cereal for dinner,
link |
02:16:06.980
babe, that's the best decision for her.
link |
02:16:08.580
I was living in a framework of better and worse.
link |
02:16:11.260
The way that I do things is better and yours is worse,
link |
02:16:13.940
do things more like I do.
link |
02:16:15.580
That's a recipe for disaster.
link |
02:16:17.420
True acceptance and true love is accepting someone
link |
02:16:19.860
like exactly as they are.
link |
02:16:21.460
You know, if she wants to do something different,
link |
02:16:23.180
I'm going to support her, whatever it is.
link |
02:16:25.060
Even if I disagree with it personally,
link |
02:16:26.700
and like the way that I would do things,
link |
02:16:28.600
learning to just realize that she's had a different journey
link |
02:16:31.460
and a different walk towards where she's at than I have.
link |
02:16:34.340
So I can't pass my judgments on other people like that.
link |
02:16:37.540
I believe it is ethically wrong
link |
02:16:39.380
and probably illegal to eat cereal for dinner.
link |
02:16:43.540
Listen, if she wants it, she wants it.
link |
02:16:45.700
Acceptance.
link |
02:16:46.860
Like when she goes to bed, like all these little things,
link |
02:16:49.100
but my regimented life, she's not.
link |
02:16:50.860
Like our motto at our wedding was like,
link |
02:16:53.780
you keep me wild, I'll keep you safe, you keep me wild.
link |
02:16:56.700
I keep her safe, she keeps me wild.
link |
02:16:59.020
She's like not organized and anal and all those kind
link |
02:17:01.620
of things, I am.
link |
02:17:02.940
She helps me like let loose.
link |
02:17:06.160
You know, oh no, I'm eating this, this.
link |
02:17:07.580
She's like, have some popcorn.
link |
02:17:09.020
Like, all right, let's do it, you know?
link |
02:17:10.700
She keeps me freed.
link |
02:17:12.540
And accepting that, embracing that,
link |
02:17:14.780
the difference is the chaos of it.
link |
02:17:17.720
Yeah.
link |
02:17:18.560
That's what makes it.
link |
02:17:19.380
Like I literally do think about with her,
link |
02:17:21.100
how important it is and how much I try to like just come
link |
02:17:25.360
from neutral and like compassion and never judge.
link |
02:17:28.260
Cause she's got other things that she deals with, right?
link |
02:17:30.380
That I don't, she's bipolar, right?
link |
02:17:32.940
So with that, I've studied and I've learned a lot about,
link |
02:17:35.860
you know, sort of mental health and what that means
link |
02:17:37.860
and ways in which a lot of characteristics
link |
02:17:43.340
about somebody is completely out of their control
link |
02:17:45.740
when they're bipolar, right?
link |
02:17:47.380
And there's swings, like there's no cocktail
link |
02:17:51.260
for bipolar that solves the issue, right?
link |
02:17:53.820
So there's medications that work to, you know,
link |
02:17:55.740
level you out for periods of time,
link |
02:17:57.660
but then they start to fade and they don't work as well.
link |
02:17:59.540
So they constantly need readjustment.
link |
02:18:01.540
It's an unsolved mystery to a certain degree.
link |
02:18:04.020
So in some sense, you know,
link |
02:18:07.220
her diagnosis made our relationship easier
link |
02:18:11.180
because I don't take anything personal, right?
link |
02:18:13.540
I realized that sometimes she's gonna be in a mood.
link |
02:18:16.140
I mean, she's so good about communicating it though.
link |
02:18:19.740
She tells me some morning she'll be like bad mood
link |
02:18:22.020
trying to get out of it, babe.
link |
02:18:22.860
I'm like, okay, I leave her alone.
link |
02:18:24.780
Well, that's great.
link |
02:18:25.620
That means she's grown to be able to communicate,
link |
02:18:27.620
to understand, to self reflect, to understand where she is.
link |
02:18:29.940
I have people in my life who I love who are bipolar.
link |
02:18:32.900
It's a beautiful ride.
link |
02:18:34.060
It is, right?
link |
02:18:35.100
Yeah, it's, yeah, the highs and the lows are there.
link |
02:18:38.780
So, but yeah, like, because I feel like a protector.
link |
02:18:41.540
For me, I just want to be a rock, right?
link |
02:18:44.380
And that's part of the whole serial thing.
link |
02:18:45.900
If she wants to eat cereal,
link |
02:18:47.780
don't make a wrong for anything she wants to do.
link |
02:18:50.540
What have you learned from life
link |
02:18:52.100
from the song, The Gambler by Kenny Rogers?
link |
02:18:55.660
You got to know when to hold them,
link |
02:18:57.140
know when to fold them,
link |
02:18:58.700
know when to walk away, know when to run.
link |
02:19:01.540
You never count your money when you're sitting at the table.
link |
02:19:04.100
There'll be plenty of time for counting
link |
02:19:05.580
when the dealing's done.
link |
02:19:06.820
Is that, do you live by those words or?
link |
02:19:08.900
The first part of it for sure.
link |
02:19:10.820
What do they even mean?
link |
02:19:11.980
Cause.
link |
02:19:12.820
You got to know when to hold, know when.
link |
02:19:15.340
So basically it's like, all right, you know, in life,
link |
02:19:17.540
like, you know, let's say, let's use a, whatever,
link |
02:19:20.220
the market, for example, you bought a stock, right?
link |
02:19:23.100
Or you bought Bitcoin and you're like,
link |
02:19:24.260
it's going to go to the moon, right?
link |
02:19:26.340
It's like, okay, well, maybe things have changed.
link |
02:19:29.540
New scenario, new circumstances, new situation.
link |
02:19:32.460
Are you going down with the ship, right?
link |
02:19:34.780
Or are you going to lay the hand down?
link |
02:19:36.060
Are you going to fold it?
link |
02:19:37.060
Whether it's a relationship, you know,
link |
02:19:38.700
you're with this woman, you're like, all right,
link |
02:19:41.100
I think it's time to fold this one.
link |
02:19:43.020
I think, you know,
link |
02:19:44.060
I don't think that we're going to be able to make this,
link |
02:19:46.260
this hand work right now.
link |
02:19:47.700
When to fold them and when to run.
link |
02:19:49.700
Yeah.
link |
02:19:50.540
So maybe every gambler knows that the secret to surviving
link |
02:19:54.100
is knowing what to throw away and knowing what to keep
link |
02:19:56.780
because every hand's a winner and every hand's a loser.
link |
02:19:59.660
That's like a stoic philosophy.
link |
02:20:01.100
And the best that you can hope for is to die in your sleep.
link |
02:20:06.060
Every hand's a winner and every hand's a loser.
link |
02:20:09.220
What does that mean?
link |
02:20:10.340
I like that one.
link |
02:20:11.180
I like, for me, that's like the difference between victim
link |
02:20:13.500
and responsible, like the way that I think about it, right?
link |
02:20:16.100
You can be a victim to circumstance
link |
02:20:18.100
or you can be responsible for everything in your life, right?
link |
02:20:20.380
So when an event happens,
link |
02:20:22.020
the event itself is neither good or bad
link |
02:20:24.820
until you assign it value, right?
link |
02:20:27.380
So like an event happens and it can be traumatic,
link |
02:20:30.740
it can be, you know, painful,
link |
02:20:31.980
but you know, how you respond to it
link |
02:20:33.820
is ultimately going to be up to you.
link |
02:20:35.500
Like you actually do have a choice.
link |
02:20:36.740
And that's the thing you can control.
link |
02:20:38.940
The fact that you, Daniel Negrano took my commentary
link |
02:20:42.500
about The Gambler seriously shows once more
link |
02:20:44.860
that you're a beautiful human being.
link |
02:20:47.060
Thank you so much for being who you are,
link |
02:20:49.300
for inspiring millions of people about poker,
link |
02:20:51.740
about how to live life.
link |
02:20:53.020
And thank you for giving me your valuable time today.
link |
02:20:55.340
This is amazing.
link |
02:20:56.180
Thanks for talking.
link |
02:20:57.020
It was fun, man.
link |
02:20:57.860
It was great to have the conversation.
link |
02:20:59.740
Thanks for listening to this conversation
link |
02:21:01.220
with Daniel Negrano.
link |
02:21:02.420
To support this podcast,
link |
02:21:03.540
please check out our sponsors in the description.
link |
02:21:06.140
And now let me leave you with some words
link |
02:21:09.100
from Doyle Brunson.
link |
02:21:11.380
Poker is war.
link |
02:21:13.580
People pretend it is a game.
link |
02:21:15.540
Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.