Daniel Negreanu on High Stakes Poker, Family Dreams & Career Legacy

Speaker A: So this is the thing, right? The huge misconception people have, right? They think, like, oh, this guy's winning. He must be the best, right? This guy's losing. He must. So what? Adrian Mateo won everything last year. He didn't win anything. Tried. Is he bad now? Jason Kuhn, who won everything, he didn't win anything for a while. He won again recently. Like, is he just bad now? No. What people don't realize is luck plays a major role how you do in these spots where you're essentially flipping a coin that either a puts you in the dominant position or you're gone. Lose five of those in a row. That. That's not. That's just the card spitting in your face. There's literally nothing you can do about it then. So what you'll see is, let's say you took 40 balls and you put them in a bingo thing, right? And they're all equal. Let's say they're 40 pros. Let's say they were all equal. They're not. And you pick out three, right? And you do it 50 times. Oh, man, that four ball. That four ball is good. It's the four balls just running hot, you know what I mean? And, like, it all evens out for the most part in the end. But people put far too much emphasis on results. They see, oh, this guy won three, and he must be the best. But that's not how poker works. You know, you can be the best and lose for long.

Speaker B: Welcome to the Excellence Project. My name is Eric Worre, and today I have poker legend Daniel Negreanu. He is about to embark on a epic World Series of Poker journey, as he does every year. So we decided to sit down with him and talk about what he was going to do through his World Series of Poker. He, his journey in life, his goals, his aspirations, what's happening with his family, everything and anything. We had that great conversation. I think you're going to enjoy it whether you're a poker player or not. There's a lot of lessons in life inside of this conversation. So with no further ado, let's jump into my conversation with Daniel Negrano. Daniel, how are you?

Speaker A: I'm doing good, man. Just relaxing, chilling, getting ready for, you know, summer camp.

Speaker B: You're so tan. I am.

Speaker A: I've been golfing. Yeah. My wife, she's like. She put her arm next to mine and she's like, you're like, you know, we're different. We're not even the same human species or something. I can. Quick. Yeah.

Speaker B: So it's the, uh, the eve of the World Series of Poker, which has gone from this, you know, what did it start with? As far as not start, start, but 15 years ago, how many events were there?

Speaker A: Yeah, I'll even go back a further and say, like, it was really just like a gambler's conviction convention. I saw Jack Binion just the other day, was running it back in the 70s, and he said the idea was like, let's get all these gamblers in town and, you know, we'll play some games and stuff like that. And so it was like 10, 20 guys. And then it sort of continued to grow. And of course the money maker Effect, right around 2003, some random accountant beats the. Just like the coolest guy you've ever seen. You know, the suit with the open lapels. He's got the hair slick back like Elvis. He's got the cigarette dangling. His name is Sammy Farha. He's talking all this sort of stuff. And this kid moneymaker wins. And now like all of a sudden the numbers just blew up. Right? So now it's a totally different thing.

Speaker B: And what year was that?

Speaker A: That was 2003 that he won.

Speaker B: And about how many events were there in 2003, if you could guess?

Speaker A: So we were looking at. They didn't do like multiple events a day back then. It was one game, one day. So, you know, it's a Monday at noon and they didn't let people register late. If he was 1205, sorry, tournament started, you can't play, you know, which is a lot different than it is now, uh, today, you know, so what would there be maybe 20, maybe 25 to 30 events. And you know, today, now we do multiple. There's one at 10:00am, there's one at noon, there's one at two. Sometimes, you know, you have like three, four events in a day. Um, and it's. What's different about it too is like I was saying, it's morphed. It used to be just for like high stakes gamblers. When I started in the late 90s, I had like a 2,800. I couldn't play them because the cheapest one was 2,000. Now they've got like $300 ones. So it sort of caters to this much wider spectrum of, you know, your casual, uh, players. And there's still plenty of like, high roller stuff as you know.

Speaker B: The. There's something like 100 events now.

Speaker A: There's exactly 100. Yeah.

Speaker B: Wow. Wow.

Speaker A: So, and the funny thing is though, the way that it it sounds like a crazy amount, but really you're talking about catering. Totally different people. You got mixed game guys, right? So they get, you know, they're 25, 30 events. You got the low roller, you know, just trying to make a name, you know, weekend warrior guys. You got some. You got, you know, you got high rollers, you got PLO guys. So there's like, bunch of like, series within the series, and there's like, I said something for everybody.

Speaker B: So you try to play as many as possible?

Speaker A: Not quite, no. I used to. Yeah, Many years ago. I stopped doing that about a decade ago, I.

Speaker B: You started vlogging, how long ago?

Speaker A: Uh, I think it was 2017.

Speaker B: 2017. All right, so about eight years ago, you start vlogging and you're going to just like, take people inside the experience of the World Series of Poker.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So the decision to do that was what drove that decision.

Speaker A: Well, I'll tell you what, even before, you know, people were on Instagram doing stories, all this stuff. I did these things. We're going to look into the vault. There's a, ah, there was a site called Raw Vegas tv, and we used to do the Daniel Diaries, which was like essentially a vlog, where they would, you know, just have me on camera, talk about my experience. The World Series, very like, you know, minimal compared to what we have today. And I was like, you know, this is fun. I'm like, what if YouTube's a thing now? Let's just like, do a daily one throughout the day and have a, uh. What I like most about it is I think we live in a new world. It's not a world where you can like, play an event and then three weeks later release a video about that event. Because it's all old news already. New stuff has happened, you know, and so having that one day turnaround was super important. I mean, the question is, how do you do that? Right? I'm not editing. I can't do all that. My guy Christian, who I golf with, he handles everything. So when I'm asleep, you know, and I wake up, it's already posted. Everything's been edited. Um, we work with a group of editors in Korea, so when their day, it's their daytime. It's nighttime here, so it's like magic every morning, you know, same time it's up. And I have the peace of mind of not worrying about, you know, any of those details.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I. I loosely counted it up. It was like over 8 million views from last year.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's interesting. YouTube's just on YouTube. Yeah. YouTube's taking a different path. We was discussing it today. YouTube's gone a little wacky with some of their new rules. And the problem with YouTube, I find, is that it's very difficult to understand their algorithm and they won't tell you. For example, one of the most popular series we did was Modern Poker Theory, which was a me playing online poker and discussing hands. We did a five part series. Okay. Number one, two and five were, were age restricted. Number three and four wasn't. So we're like, they're the same content. So we asked them, we're like, hey, guys, what, what do we do? Like, you know, whatever. We want to abide by the rules. And the thing is, even when you do, sometimes they strike. So a lot of creators in poker are having some trouble with this new thing. So I don't know what it's going to look like this year, but I'm going to try to make sure that it's available, you know, on X, on, uh, Facebook or whatever. But it, you know, I don't know. I think that'll, it'll curb viewership this year, but we're hopeful that we can iron it out and fix it.

Speaker B: Have you, um, ever been connected with Mr. Beast, Jimmy Donaldson?

Speaker A: A little bit. You know, I mean, I, I've DMed with him a little bit. Yeah.

Speaker B: He'd be a good guy to, to figure out.

Speaker A: Yeah, to figure out.

Speaker B: He would know.

Speaker A: Yeah, he knows everything. Like, he's literally the guru when it comes to.

Speaker B: He'd be able to make a call and say, okay, what's going on? Yeah, with my friend over here.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's not just me. Like, I think, you know, there's the Brad Owens, there's a whole bunch of content creators who some of them said, I can't do it anymore because they don't make any money. So they meet, demonetize the videos if they decide to age Restricted. Right. Um, and the reasons they do it is it's hard to know, like talking poker strategies for any age. You know, promoting gambling, that's a different thing. I get that. You know, we don't do that. We just, um, you know, we do what we do.

Speaker B: So, so fascinating. So you're going to be putting out which platforms you're going to be putting it on.

Speaker A: So we go out on YouTube. Right. And that's a daily thing. Yep. And we also will post it probably direct on X, uh, and then on Facebook. That's easy to do. Instagram's a total different animal. Like they don't like. They don't. They're not easy. There's no real. There's no venue for that. They don't have, like, long form content, really.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: And then TikTok. I'm not on TikTok. I mean, my guy has a TikTok for me. I. I've never downloaded it. I'm. I'm not. I don't know. I don't. I can't have them all. I don't need them.

Speaker B: All right, well, all right. Um. I find it fascinating. I find the. The career path fascinating. I find the space fascinating. I. I like poker, um, and, and the ecosystem of it. So I want to spend a little time talking about the ecosystem, how this thing works. And, uh. And you told me there's nothing off limits.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So you can say no. Feel free to say no to anything that I'm asking. But the. I find the ecosystem fascinating from a entrepreneurial business point of view, because today I'm wondering where the farm team comes from, because where does a person start today without getting smashed? You know, if they got a moderate M bankroll and they're wanting to learn the game other than just playing, using software, uh, where do they go? Who do they play against? Yeah, because you go play a, uh, 510 game here in Las Vegas or a 1020 game. You know, 510 is probably the toughest game in town. You know, these guys are really, really know what they're doing.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So the farm team came from a bunch of amateurs playing with each other, and somebody came in with a little bit of an edge. They can make some money now. The edges are much thinner.

Speaker A: So you're going to be surprised by this answer. Much easier and much more opportunity today than there was when I started coming up. Okay. When I started coming up, there were no tools. There was no. You couldn't watch a pro stream for eight hours and learn everything without risking a penny. You talked about getting smacked. The only way to get better was to get smacked. Right. So you work at Subway or whatever you do, you try to make a couple hundred bucks, you blow it at the poker table, it was a little more Wild West. It was a little more, uh, chaotic, disorganized. So depending on your personality type, Right. If you're like, you know, like a lot of the young Germans who came into the game, they're very practical, logical, you know, straight thinkers. You give them like, you know, sort of a study, you know, platform. They will study it, they will do it. That doesn't necessarily mean they have creativity or Talent, but that's one way to win. Having said that, you still see the quote unquote, like swashbucklers of the old day. Today. Today. Look at Jesse Lonus, for example. This kid, he doesn't study. He won't look at any of this stuff because he says it might mess him up, right? You got Jeremy Becker, another one. Uh, you know, he's. He's a kid like this, and Jesse Lonus, you know, we sort of talked about this before. What I find really fascinating about him is he beats to the. The rhythm of his own drum, if you will. And all those guys that study, right, they have to look at him and say, he's just lucky, because if they don't, it sort of breaks. Everything that they're doing is like, you know, the, like sort of what you're saying. The only way to play is to. To use computers and software. I'm like, that's helpful. And it can be, you know, if you're one of the Germans that learn that way. But if you're Jesse and you have creativity and you have talent, you'll find yourself towards the winner. You know, not everybody can win. You know, intellect, intelligence matters, right? I can teach you to get better, you know, or just a random guy can teach you how to get better. I can't teach you to be great. That's. That's innate to some degree.

Speaker B: So with Jesse, he's also, um, if I recall, uh, a prolific sports better. Is that an accurate thing?

Speaker A: No, I don't know if he's this big sports better. No, but he's just loves poker. He's. He was the GPI Player of the Year last year. This year alone, I think he's won six events. He won the PLO series. He won two events over in Triton for, you know, 4 or 5 million. He won, uh, I don't know, he won like six different tournaments and ept, all sorts of stuff. So he's hot right now. Definitely, you know, a hot commodity out there. And I find it fascinating because, like, he's a guy, no joke, who was a construction worker, just a construction worker, had some kids. He's like, well, what am I, you know, what I'm gonna do now? Fell into poker and then just, you know, had a knack for it. And now he's, you know, doing really well. Like, his path was, you know, completely shifted once he found poker. And that's available to pretty much anybody. But again, like I said, if you put in the work, you have the intellect, you have the creativity, and you have what we call it card sense. And a lot of the young guys don't think card sense is a real thing, but it is just a feel, you know, you don't have to necessarily know what is. You know, the computer output is like, I don't know. I just feel like this spot. Um, I'm going to just check. I'm going to get out of the way, you know, and it's feel, it's repetition and all those things.

Speaker B: Yeah. It seems like every year or so there's one or two breakout people.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Like a Jerry Ma. Jeremy Osmos smashes last 24 months does very, very well. Um, Lonus, as you mentioned. Um, what was the.

Speaker A: Mateos. Adrian Mateo.

Speaker B: Adrian Mateos. What's the Australian guy?

Speaker A: Uh, Australian.

Speaker B: That was very.

Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Um, Amato.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker B: And, um. And. And then, like, uh. Fedor.

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker B: You know, so it just kind. Kind of like it cycles through. They go on this big run, hit everything. They have everybody off balance.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And does the run end or just do people figure them out?

Speaker A: So this is the thing, right? The huge misconception people have, right? They think like, oh, this guy's winning. He must be the best, right? This guy's losing. He must. So what? Adrian Matos won everything last year. He didn't win anything. Tried. Is he bad now? Jason K. Who won everything, he didn't win anything for a while. He won again recently. Like, is he just bad now? No. What people don't realize is luck plays a major role how you do in these spots where you're essentially flipping a coin that either a puts you in the dominant position or you're gone. Lose five of those in a row. That, uh, that's not. That's just the card spitting in your face. There's literally nothing you can do about it then. So what you'll see is, let's say you took 40 balls and you put them in a bingo thing, right? And they're all equal. Let's say they're 40 pros. Let's say they were all equal. They're not. And you pick out three, right? And you do it 50 times. Oh, man, that four ball. That four ball is good. It's a four balls just running hot. You know what I mean? And, like, it all evens out for the most part in the end. But people put far too much emphasis on results. They see, oh, this guy won three, and he must be the best. But that's not how poker works. You know, you can be the best and lose for long Another guy, Seth Davies. Right. He went through three years or some meeting with nothing. Now he's winning everything. Did he go from a dummy to all of a sudden smart? No, it's. People really underestimate, especially at the higher stakes with really good players. Variance is going to be the number one factor in how you do year to year.

Speaker B: Yeah. I talked with Jason Kuhn, who I consider one of the elite tournament players in the world. And, um, Seth is one of his good friends. And, and Seth, uh, a couple years back was my partner in one of the Triton, uh, businessman, pro things, you know, So I got a little bit of a chance to get into the mind of what's going on there. And, and Jason said you should. Because I was trying to say, you know, who should I go with? And Jason said, seth for sure. Not because he's my friend, but just let me, let me tell you, he's playing, he's doing all the things right. And when the things start to fall the right way, it's all going to fall the right way.

Speaker A: That's why this is really not cut out for everybody. Right. Because just what you said, do all, everything right. If you do that at your job, you make money every week, every month, you get a paycheck in poker, you do everything right for an entire six week series and you lose $3 million. And then you start to wonder, am I cursed? What the heck is going on here? You know, like, I've been very fortunate my whole career. I went through about a two year run that had you told me, I wouldn't have believed you. You know, and I experienced it myself. And so I have a much, much, uh, better, bigger appreciation for like variants playing a role. I remember, I think it was like two weeks straight in the vlog. I think two weeks straight I film, you know, film when I'm all in, lost everyone. And I'm like, I literally said to him, I can't win if I lose. Every time I put my money in, you know, it's one of those things. But you know, the tough guys, they, you know, that, that builds character and they fight through it.

Speaker B: I just saw recently, I don't know if you saw Jason's win.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: At the triumph, but I think he was like up against pocket kings with an uh, Ace 4 and a 2, 3 on the board. And he gets it all in. And there was a king, high board, king, king, three. He gets it all in and a five. Hits on the river and off he goes.

Speaker A: Right. And here's the thing, like, if You're a casual viewer. If he loses that right, what an idiot.

Speaker B: Right now he's a genius.

Speaker A: But if he didn't like, what a sick play. What do you mean what a sick play? Like you, it's like investing know, uh, if you invest in a stock or you invest in the market, right, you hit sometimes and sometimes you lose. It doesn't mean it was a bad investment. The result ended up being negative. But if you do it over a long period of time and you are a winner, you're going to have, you know, some wins and some losses. That doesn't mean they were the good, you know, the winning investments were good and these were bad. It, it, it's not that simple. It's not that black and white.

Speaker B: There's a lot of illusions that the public has from Hendon mob and from this person just won 5 million or this person has 20 million in career earnings, so they assume that their net worth is 20 million. Um, so what's the truth as far as the, the elite nosebleed super pro level as far as what kind of money is being made, um, how much is being paid out to backers, how much is being swapped with each other, how does this all work on a high level?

Speaker A: It's a good question. I sort of tweeted something out that rubbed some feathers um, not too long ago. It's a bit of a mirage in one sense. Like the Triton series is a very high stakes series, right? You, you go to one series, you put 2 million in, right? So I sort of counted up, talk to some people, if you played them all and there's maybe a hand, I, I probably was wrong in terms of how many people play the schedule. But there's maybe like 10 guys who put up $12 million in buy ins a year. So you look and you see their hand in mom, you're like, wow, this guy made 11 million this year. Actually he lost a million. And in addition to that, you know, he probably had pieces in this sort of thing. So uh, if you play a more modest schedule, let's say you play most of the trades, you only play the hold'. Ems, you don't play the other ones. You put like seven, eight million in, right? And then you cash for, for 8.7. Okay. So you, you know, you got one point something profit. But usually like you said, there's swaps and then there's maybe, you know, other people who have pieces in this because taxes, expenses, very few people have a bankroll that play these, that can afford the swings of Literally just saying, oh, I'm going to play all these year, if I win or lose 8 million, it's no big deal. Like most of these guys, um, they see it as a plus investment. It is. But for every, you know, the Adrian Materials, the Jason Coons, I'll show you a list of guys like Nick Petrangelo was talking about this in a podcast recently. He said he stuck like 6 million in these. Nick's a great player. He's a phenom. He's amazing. He's down $6 million, right? So you look at the bright side and you see the guys who won, but there's a whole group of guys who are losing because, um, you know, those especially, they're pretty fast. So by the final table, there's not a lot of skill left, right? So to simplify for people, if everybody had three chips, that's it, okay? It's gonna be pretty much luck which cards you play. You put your chips in, right? If each player had 3 million chips, now the skill is going to matter. You're going to be just check, raise and bet and this sort of thing. But at the end of these Tritons, it's kind of like all about the all in confrontations. So, um, so yeah, variants can play a large role in, in your yearly year to year.

Speaker B: And they're a little bit slower, even the Tritons, than some of the Turbos World Series events. The, for the high rollers like the

Speaker A: 100k and I don't know, I think they're pretty quick actually. Like if you look at the average stacks, the final tables, they're pretty fast. Um, we did have a year at the World Series. A couple of them were too fast, but I think this year they're, they're pretty dialed in. They're pretty good.

Speaker B: I know, uh, a businessman who's also an elite player, uh, that, that, you know, um, and I, I won't name his name just out of respect, but he backs three different players. This was two years ago we had this conversation. He backs three different players, um, elite players, 8 million each on average. So 24 million in buy ins for these three players. Plus he plays about 8 million.

Speaker A: I know who it is.

Speaker B: Yeah, so, so it's $32 million. I said, how do you do on the 32 million? He said, on average I make about 20%.

Speaker A: That's decent.

Speaker B: So I mean, but he's backing the elites, right? You know, the, he, he, he's not going to, you know, put it behind somebody who's, you Know, not a super pro, um, that over time is going to end up being a good investment and is a good person is not

Speaker A: going to like, yeah, there's no question there's profit to be made but like you said, you need to have enough, uh, you know, money, enough capital to fade it. Right? Because it isn't a guarantee. This isn't some like municipal bond or something. You just put the money away and you know, you make a little bit of money. This is like $32 million like you said. And he's going to make money, but sometimes he's might lose 20, lose 30 and go on these streaks. I've seen great players go on, you know, multi million dollar losing streaks all the time.

Speaker B: Is it sustainable what's going on right now? I mean with high, high, high level, uh, huge buy ins, everybody's addicted to million dooll pots.

Speaker A: And I think what keeps it afloat is two things. I think, you know how crypto is doing, plays a big role. A lot of these guys, it's for some reason in poker everyone's heavily invested in crypto. So when crypto's booming, oh baby. The tournaments are juicy. But ultimately all these things start with who are the recreational players, are the, if they continue to come out and the thing is is they can afford it. You know, you might see a buy in of like 500,000, 200,000, but the guy's playing that it's not. They, let's say they have 100 million or more like whatever, it's like a lot of money. But they're not struggling to pay rent. You know what I mean? Um, you know, let you have more of a question of sustainability at the $3,000 buying, $2,000 buying level where when the economy suffers, most people don't have that disposable income. But when you're talking about the rich and the wealthy can be sustainable. The rake is quite high there, right? But apparently the experience is, you know, super first class. They treat the players well. Um, and partly what I think is important about the structures being fast and we do this World Series too, is to give everybody a chance, right? Because if you played against like four of the best players in the world and it's really, really deep, you're dead. I mean you're not going to beat them. But if the average is 20 bigs, hey, you know, stick it to him, right? We had this guy Gandal, where they call him the Gandalf or whatever, this is like, did you see this, this Russian guy, he's got a really long beard.

Speaker B: I did.

Speaker A: You know, he's what, he's just going in there and screwing him up. And he won like 6 million. You know what I mean? It can be done in part because the structures are quick, which levels the playing field.

Speaker B: Right, Yeah, I, I've heard, um, Tom Mary, I think, told me at one point, he said that the, the difference is if a, uh, rec player is very, very good and they play 90 out of a hundred hands very well, and a, ah, pro plays 95 out of 100 very well, it's those five. Those five. And you just compound that over the course of three days or whatever. That's the edge. It's not like somebody's, ah, a 20 and somebody else is a 99.

Speaker A: Yeah, well, yeah, it's essentially, I think, like the edges. So let's say, you know, let's say the final table is a complete crapshoot, let's say just flipping coins for money. Right. Well, the good players are going to have an opportunity to flip those coins more often than a wreckage because they're going to be in the tournament. They're just going to be there for that. Right. Um, but I get it. Like, I obviously much prefer deep, slow structures, but I understand if you do that, it's not all that enticing, I think, to, you know, that's why the invitational thing they do is such a great idea. They have this format where you're a pro, you want to play this thing. Okay, great. Bring somebody who's not a pro. Okay. Or have them invite you. So what you end up with is, is a field which is half recreational player, half pro. And on day one, the recreationals play with themselves and the pros battle each other and then they converge. This gives the businessmen types a big advantage. And this is finally something they've like, negotiated for because they're smart businessmen. They didn't get all, you know, wealthy for nothing. They're like, hey, wait a minute, you guys need us. Okay, so how about this? Day one, we'll play amongst ourselves. One of us is going to have a big old stack and then we're going to bully you pros around who you, you know, you're trying to ladder up and make a few bucks.

Speaker B: I would love to see the World Series of Poker do something like that. I played one of those in Cyprus. It was the most fun. I mean, it may be my favorite tournament of my life because, because of the format. It was so interesting and interesting people, these business guys, um, you know, and, and then when it clashed you know, day one was all separated and then they, then they came together. It was like, who was going to get what Table draw and those different types of things. So all kinds of drama. I ended up min. Cashing. Thank God. At least I got myself out of there. Uh, and. And Seth. Seth Cash cashed as well. Uh, so it was a double.

Speaker A: Well, the World Series this year we're doing something that's not that, but it's still kind of a fun format that I really thought was kind of a neat little gimmick, if you will. It's called Battle of the Ages. Okay. So if you're over, if you're 50 plus, you play at 10am okay. And you're playing only 50 plus. And then at 2pm when, you know, the young kids wake up, right, they play, you know, the under 50. So now it's two separate events. They combine on day two. And now you play, you know, amongst yourself. So it's similar to that, except it's just based on age.

Speaker B: I like that. Yeah. You're gonna play the 50.

Speaker A: I'm gonna the 50 group 50 now. Oh, my. Uh, I got there. I'm ready. I actually, I played a seniors event. My first seniors, but it was golf. I played a scene.

Speaker B: And how'd it go?

Speaker A: Oh, boy. I was. I was. I was like in my heat. I was, uh, actually in first or second. Go into the last hole. I don't have my caddy guy there. And, uh, I hit a good drive, but I was aimed wrong, so I went in the junk. Then I did it again and then I hit another one. So I made an 11, like on the last hole. Just. It went from, from like one or two to like, almost the bottom of the list.

Speaker B: So kid poker is a senior.

Speaker A: That's crazy.

Speaker B: Yeah, it is crazy.

Speaker A: You know, I was talking to Josh about it. Like, how did this happen? How did we get here? But the truth is, I think, like, I look at my other friends who are 50.

Speaker B: Hm.

Speaker A: That I grew up with or what, and they look old man. Not to say, you know, they're. But they've, like, lived a life that's very different. You know, wake up, go to work, take care of the kids, sit in an office, all that sort of stuff. Feels like it ages you. I'm always around younger people. You know, I live a young lifestyle. It's pretty free, pretty open, and I just. I don't feel 50. I know I'm 50. It's fine. But I don't know, just a number.

Speaker B: 60. 60 will mess you up a little bit.

Speaker A: You hit 60?

Speaker B: Yeah, man.

Speaker A: Well, good for you.

Speaker B: 61. Like what the heck? How did this happen?

Speaker A: Well, this is like annoying 60s, the new 40.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: This should be a super, super senior or something. Um, let's get into World Series. Okay, so you're going to go play approximately how many events based upon what happens? Yeah.

Speaker A: So it's rough. I usually play, I, I don't know, it's probably in the neighborhood of about 45 or so because, you know, I schedule out the events that I want to play and I'm usually, I'm prioritizing higher buy ins and mix games. So those are, that's going to be the run of my schedule. I will sprinkle in some smaller stuff here and there, but it depends on how I'm doing. Right. So if I'm in an event and I'm on day three, that means I've missed a couple events that were on my list. So if I played more than 45 events, it's a bad summer usually because, you know, that means I didn't make any deep runs or final tables.

Speaker B: And you were firing.

Speaker A: Yeah. And I don't do the thing like Texas Mike will do or Sean D. Where they just play like five tournaments at the same time. I don't do that. I did that many years ago. Me and Phil Ivey had bracelet bets, but I don't do that anymore.

Speaker B: So approximately what will be your buy in for the World series of poker? 20, 25.

Speaker A: So the way we looked at it, the, the cap essentially would be we won't spend this much, but it could be up to about 2.1. I sell a package on poker stake for people who want a piece just for fun, you know, markup. So we, we put a rough guesstimate of 2 million. So you're buying a piece of the 2 million. And the way we do it is if I spend less, you get a refund. So if you put up a hundred bucks, right, and let's say I lose, uh, you know, whatever it is, I don't know, I can't do the math right now, but you know what I mean? So you'll get a refund almost for sure. Like you're never, you're never, you're almost never going to lose the whole hundred. You get something back. And if I lost a little bit, you know, you'll lose a little bit too. And if we win, we both win together.

Speaker B: How much? What piece do you sell? Do you offer for people?

Speaker A: 25%.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And we do it in increments, like, want as many people as possible, uh, to have a chance to do it. So I capped the number because if I just said, you know, buy for somebody would just buy it all up.

Speaker B: Sure.

Speaker A: And that's not fun. So we usually have a $500 or a $1,000 cap. This year I reserve 5% back for the Vlog Watchers. So 20% has been sold. I'm going to wait till the vlog comes out to give those last people because they always go, oh, man, I missed out. And I'm on Twitter, I'm not on this stuff. So we'll give them one last ditch effort to. Because I think the fun part of the vlog, and this is sort of how I put the two things together, is I thought of like, you know, when you bet on a horse or you bet on a sporting event, you put up your money, but you want to watch it. So now you bet on me all summer. Every day in your, in, you know, in your YouTube channel, there's a 20 minute video. You can watch your money, you know, each day and you can, you can play it along with me. And it's like, I think it's a Jack Binion actually said this, um, uh, Brian was talking about, he said sports betting is the best entertainment value you can ever make. Think about it. He's like, say you bet 200, right? You pay 20 juice, you're gonna win half the time. So it really costs you $10. For $10, you get to watch something for three to four hours and be entertained and have the juice. Right? Much better than like a lot of the casino games and stuff like that.

Speaker B: So somebody's sitting at home and they enjoy poker. They play with their friends. They got a weekly poker game at the house or something. Uh, maybe there's a local casino and they, they play, you know, a 200 tournament once a week. Um, and they've dreamed of coming to the World Series of Poker. What, give them a commercial of what they could expect if they're going to fly into Vegas to walk into the World Series of Poker for the very first time. What, what is that experience going to be like?

Speaker A: I think when you walk into the World Series, you start to really get a feel for, like, how big it's become come and how massive of an event it is and how there's just tons of people and they're playing all different sorts of things. And wherever you are, bankroll wise, there'll be something for you. I think this year too, I think with the Automation. We got the WSOP plus app, so it's going to make it a lot easier. Instead of having to wait in lines, you just boop on your phone. I mean it's 2025, right? We got to get there. And you know, you go right to your seat and stuff like that. But uh, I think like what it's grown into, like I said, is you'll look at that schedule and you'll find something, you know, that you want to play and you'll get to rub elbows with some of the guys that you've seen on TV and stuff like that. Especially if you play, you know, the high stakes ones. Um, but yeah, I think like a lot of people, they typically don't map out like okay, I'm coming for a week, this is, you know, this is my plan. Or they might do that. But then by day three they're a mess. You know, there's six drinks in and they're like ah, you're rebuy like this, ah, Vegas can do that to you.

Speaker B: Yeah. So they're here, they got it figured out. It's an ocean of people. They walk in, they see how big it is. Um, let's talk about, you know, take a uh, thousand dollar buy in, no limit event. Okay. It's going to have a lot of people. What would you. If you, and you're going to coach somebody as far as okay, get good sleep.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: Get there early, meet your people at your table. Early stage, mid stage, late stage, bubble, what you know, walk through kind of stage by stage. What how you would coach somebody if they were your horse?

Speaker A: Well, if I were for the first question I would have for him is like, what is, what is your goal here? What is your intention? Do you want to just have fun? Uh, are you just like trying to make day two? Do you want to min cash? Are you really trying to win? You know, do you care if you're out quickly? You got to get an idea of where they're at and also their skill level and stuff like that. But for no matter what the skill level, really the, the best approach, especially early on and you're new, right? Is that first hour I think is like research, it's data collection. So I would probably advise in the first hour not to do anything outside the bounds. Right. Just play. You know, you set up a table image where you're kind of solid, you're not doing anything but pay attention to what's happening. Right. So now almost map it out where you're like, you know, in a jungle if you will. And you start to see, okay, there's a. There's a line over there. He's coming at it, you know, and there's like a little possum. Don't worry about him. And once you start having this idea, then you can create strategy specifically for the players. You're like, okay, this guy's bluffed like four times in a row. You know, this one, this guy hasn't played a hand all day and stuff like that. And now you formulate a strategy against them. And in the meantime, because you've been playing solid, if you've got pros paying attention, right, then if they notice that they're going to see that later on, you know, more in the mid stage, you can take advantage of that. So you playing with a pro early on, they're like, that pro has you pegged is like, you're what we call a knit. You just, you always have the nuts. Later in a big pot, you run a big bluff at him, he's never going to see it coming. Right then, typically around the bubble, you don't want to be a sheep. It's just not profitable. Again, like I said, that's where I have to ask, what are your goals? If you just want a cash, fine, you know, you just fold away. You squeak into the money. Good for you. Bravo. You doubled your money, right? If you really want to be a tiger and a lion, that's where you want to have the big stack. So you can take advantage of all those people who do just want to make the money, right? So you're sitting around the table with like eight people. Six of them are short. You're the boss. You get, you get to hammer them. Bam, bam, bam, bam. And you play the anvil. So I advise, for the most part up to that stage, take some risks to get the big stack. Okay, so, so instead of this idea of like, oh, you know, I don't want to go broke, I don't want to go. Who cares if you go broke? You're going to go broke almost every time. 96,7% you're going to go broke at some point. What does it matter if it happens in level one, you know, or, or like, you know, near the money or something like that. So set yourself up by taking some chances so that you do have a big sack at the crucial bubble.

Speaker B: When I played that, um, the, the Triton businessman combo thing, that exact situation, uh, on the bubble, two tables left, and they ended up kind of reordering the tables, and we ended up with six people with 15 or less big blinds and one person with 80.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Who was a super pro. Yeah, it was Fedor and he just smashed. Because we're literally on the bubble and it's one hundred and eighty, three hundred and eighty thousand dollar min cash, you know, So I mean, what are you gonna do? I mean, uh, you know, what, what, what do you even want to play with at all? Like nothing. And at the other table, there's people with three and four big blinds and you're sweating them out, waiting for them to go. But if you got chips in a situation like that, and I've been in the other, other side of that situation, it's the best feeling ever.

Speaker A: I, I had it recently. I won a dealer's choice event at the, at the studio this year where uh, early on in the final table I ran hot. Now I got all the chips and I'm just. Now the thing I, there was a point. We're five handed. Nobody had two bets other than me. They were all sitting there waiting because what people don't understand sometimes folding, just not playing, you make money by doing so, right? If like fifth pays 54,000 and fourth is 84,000, you, somebody else goes broke, you just made 30,000 bucks. So if you're sitting there with a little nub, but that guy's a little shorter than you, I'm going to wait for you. It's a little bit of a game of chicken, right? The term that you know is most used for that is icm. So being ICM aware, um, what that means is the big stack gets to really take advantage, especially of the pros who are going to understand they need to play super tight from a financial perspective to make them, because they're there to make money, right? And part of what making money sometimes means is understanding when you don't have the leverage, you are not the king of the table. You don't have the, you know, especially the middling stacks. They're the most handcuffed, right? If I'm sitting there with 80 big blinds, right, you know, and you're a pro and you've got 15, but there's a four, a three, a, ah, two, a one, I can treat you very badly. I can do some really bad things and you got to look at and go, uh, this is this really. Or you can say, you know what, screw it, I don't care about icm. I'm here to win the tournament. And if you're, I think sometimes I wonder when the models will catch up with this because I Believe that if you actually model out future game, right. Those that don't care about the little min caches are the deadliest ones that end up in. Because what. Let's imagine you're, you know, you're the big chip leader, right? I know you're playing every pot. Okay. You're playing garbage. Right. So what if I get a decent hand? Okay. I'll take it up against you. I, uh, know I'm supposed to fall because I see him, but I want to. I want to be the. I want to be in your shoes. I want to be the big guy. And the only way to do it is to, you know, take advantage of the fact that you're playing garbage cards because most people are going to fold. Um, and that makes you actually tough to play against too, because now you as the big stack, you look at me and you're like, well, I know he's. This idiot's supposed to fold, but he just doesn't care. So it. It, you know, it can handcuff you as well.

Speaker B: Yeah. It's so fascinating. I. Some people come and they just want to get the most entertainment dollar out of their tournament, you know, so you can tell, like, anything. I don't want to bust because I only have so much of a bankroll. Yes. And, and, and beware what you tell a pro because it will kick you in the ass so bad. The Super High Roller Bowl. I think you won the Super High Roller Bowl. Yeah. Um, the unofficial final table. I had been chatting with Petrangelo. Oops.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Earlier about just strategy. And what do you think about this? What do you think about that position? What do you think about the. This position? And I casually mention, you know, I just noticed that with the pros on the river, a big bet against an amateur, they just have it. True. And so we're at that table and he three barrels me with a com for. For, uh, effectively a million dollar difference. The real dollars and three, uh, barrel bluff me. And I mean, that's a haunting.

Speaker A: See, that's. That's like leveling. Because I can't imagine. I can imagine what your point. What part of your thought process had to be. At some point you're like. But wait a minute. I just told.

Speaker B: No, no, it was. It was a ways away from that. It was probably a month before.

Speaker A: Oh, I. So it wasn't like that recent, but he put that in his little memory bank.

Speaker B: That. That's my assumption.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: That's my assumption.

Speaker A: Yeah. It very well could be right.

Speaker B: I just got a hand that he must have stuck in my head how he.

Speaker A: I mean. Yeah, you're just. You're revealing how you perceive a pro to a pro.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And they're going, okay, unless he's playing shyster. Like, that would be a sick move if you set him up for it. Right? Like, I'm gonna tell him this now, and then in about a month, uh, uh, when he tries to get me,

Speaker B: I'll be like, I'm gonna stuff it right back.

Speaker A: Remember what I said. You guys always have it. I saw that twinkle in your eye. Yeah, Yeah. I call.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's, uh, super fascinating. Just. Just be careful. Be careful what you say to a pro. Or if you just get. You're really good at this. Of. Of. And. And I don't think you're manipulating anybody in the situation, but I think you're like the Hoover of information, just sucking in as much information as possible so you'll be chatty friendly. What do you think he had? You know, that.

Speaker A: I'll tell you, it goes even beyond that, because what I do generally when I'm chatting is, uh, I'm asking questions that have nothing to do with poker. So they're disarming. They're not like, well, what does this have to do with poker? Right. But a ton. What do you do for a living? You know, how do you. How do you see this? You know, like, what are their political leanings? Everything that you learn about somebody and how they approach life or how they think about things. You know, even, uh, oh, you golf. He's like, yeah, you know, play. But I was laying up because I don't want to take the risk of, like, going at the hole, and then what if I make a 7 or 8? I'm like, okay, so he plays golf conservatively. He's a little bit worried about. That could translate to here. So the idea is, um, you know, not ask direct questions, typically about poker, but just collecting information about who this person is, how they think, um, and how they perceive me is super important, too.

Speaker B: Yeah. And if. If they don't, they just start talking about, well, what'd you think about this? Oh, that was a bad move. He shouldn't have done that. He should have done this. And, uh, they just start commenting on the game, like, whispering. Whispering to the pro.

Speaker A: I'll give you one. How about a guy? You talk to him, and he's the biggest narcissist you've ever seen, Just bragging about how much money he has and how great he is and how he's this and that. Right. How would you, how would you perceive that he plays poker?

Speaker B: Not to be embarrassed.

Speaker A: Boom, you're good. That's exactly right. He cares so much about how he's perceived. Right. So in these spots, like this is a guy you can actually bluff.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: Right. Because he doesn't want to look stupid, especially if it's on tv. There's one that I have in mind that I won't name, but that's. And it's not Phil Homely. No, but yeah, that's. See that's again, that's, that's where you're categorizing a player not based on poker, just based on how they're acting and how they're being. And underneath that thinking, okay, well what kind of. What matters to this guy? Right? Well, he wants to look good. He's clearly wants to look good. Well, what does that mean? I don't want to make some stupid call and then have to show it and look like a dummy. He'd rather just, you know, get away from it.

Speaker B: And um, you'll see a pro in a, in a situation that makes a bad move, that makes a mistake and they bust out. We go, wasn't my day. You know, and chalk it up or, or rebuy if they'll let them. And, and it doesn't affect them at all. They don't turn red. They don't get embarrassed.

Speaker A: That much I don't know about. It doesn't affect them. They might not get embarrassed. But I think like, if you're hard on yourself and you're a killer and you're a champion, what you learn is you can handle. Listen, I did everything right. Cool. What eats at you is when you made a mistake and you know better. You're like, you know what? I should have, I should have checked the turn. This is. I just check. And then I bet and I knew better. And those ones eat at you because when it's. The idea is like when it's just luck that's doing that, you know, that'll even itself out, it'll be fine. But when it's you that made the mistake. That's why I think more frustrating.

Speaker B: And uh, I think that I'm just saying in the moment.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: They're not like emotional that emotional about it. Maybe later though. Like I know for themselves over.

Speaker A: I know for me before bed some. This has happened too many times. Play a tournament, I bust out in a hand, whatever. Then I'm as. I'm going to sleep and, And I thought it was fine, like, whatever. You know, just cooler. And I. Before, before, before to sleep, I'm like, wait a minute. He, he couldn't have had it because of this. And it's like, boom. It, you know, at 2am I get it. It's like a little too late. But, um, I see you do that

Speaker B: in your vlog the next day.

Speaker A: I thought, you know, about that. Yeah, I could have done this. I didn't even see this play. I wasn't thinking about it. Yeah.

Speaker B: What are the biggest mistakes that you see people make? Just list the errors that people make. The big blunders that people make when they come to the World Series.

Speaker A: I'd say outside of pros, I think, uh, people have this mentality of giving up too early. Where I hear these people say, I'm short. So I'm so short, I'm short stack. Because they're looking at the average. And the average is 50 big blinds. And like, and they have 30. Like, oh man, I'm so short, I guess. And they just like put. I'm like, you have plenty of chips. You know, there's plenty of tournaments where 30 big blinds might be the chip leader. Right. But people, uh, are too quick to just, you know, pull the uh, panic button or press the panic button and like, just do something stupid because they feel, because they, they have this artificial idea that they need to be at this average. Don't worry about the average. Just worry about, you know, where are you? You're doing fine. You know, the average is what the average. Just focus on what you're doing. And a lot of amateurs mess that up.

Speaker B: Yeah. I think the average is a little bit of a mind game.

Speaker A: It is.

Speaker B: Looking at that chip, people ask, what's the chip average? What's the chip, how much you got?

Speaker A: It's a nice thing to know, but ultimately it's like, okay, you're in a tournament, you got 30 bigs. That's fine, right? What's the difference? You got 30 bigs. So what if the average is 200? You've got 30. You know how to play 30. Just play 30, you know, and don't worry, you worry about it at the end, you know, like just, it's, it's, it's like a, you know, nice place to know, you know, to note. But like, don't put too much stock in the average stack. It's not that relevant.

Speaker B: What are other ways that people can tilt, uh, in, in a, ah, in a poker game or a tournament setting? Yeah.

Speaker A: There's two ways of tilting, by the way. There's regular, uh, tilt, which is, you know, you're losing and then you start to play poorly and then you start chasing and then you maybe even play stakes you're not supposed to and all those kind of things. And that's, that's the tilt that, you know, is the most common. The other form of tilt is actually unique and, and rarely spotted. And it's winter's tilt. So winter still, because you've been winning everything, so now you're, uh, like, man, whatever, you know, I got it like this. So you're sloppy because, you know, it's, it's easy, it's too easy for you, so you don't have that hunger. Generally speaking, when you're losing is when you dig in deep and you're like, man, I gotta grind this out. I gotta play great. But when you're winning everything and you win all flips, that's where complacency can come in too. So tilt can take on multiple forms, but again, the most common one is when you let your emotions, like, like bad luck affect the decisions you're making. Right. So a lot of people might misconstrue. What I do sometimes is tilt, like after I lose an all in, or I'm just unbelievable, I never win this hand, right. It's not going to affect what I'm going to do next. I'm just pissed off. Like, you know, but tilt, when, when, when tilt happens, it not only pisses you off, but then it affects you significantly at the poker table where you're not, you're not the same, you, you're playing bad. And of course that happens to me too.

Speaker B: But the venting isn't it, it's not the emotion really. It's the emotion allowing the emotion to affect your play.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's like going, yeah, it's going from, you know, you're losing and this guy just moved in on the turn. You know, you're not getting the right price to hit this flush, but you're sick of it. And you feel, do like, I mean, I just feel like I'm supposed to hit something. And then you play, you take 3 to 1 odds when it's 4 to 1 and you're like, ah, what, I missed another one. And then, you know, now you feel even dumber by doing it. But if you win, you know, hey, all is good in the world again.

Speaker B: Well, and it's not even sometimes losing, uh, that I, that I see and I experience myself. It's just getting an emotional idea in your head and not letting it Go. Like somebody just keeps three betting you

Speaker A: the same person, too.

Speaker B: Over and over.

Speaker A: Getting.

Speaker B: Yeah. Getting personal. This is like this person just. Boom. Or they're smug while they're three betting you and. And chuckling while they're pulling in your chips. And it just keeps happening and happening and happening. And you. Enough. I've had that. I've had it. I'm putting an end to this.

Speaker A: Well, you know, like, there's.

Speaker B: And they almost always have it.

Speaker A: Yeah. I got an example with two different players of. On both ends of it. Okay. Every time I'm in a pot with Dylan Lindy, this poor guy gets so cooler. Like, play plo. I got aces, he's got aces. We get it all in for heaps. I somehow win, you know, just, oh, we're all in. I win flips. But I have a guy, and it was comical. Brock Wilson, who. He started to laugh. He's like, I can't believe it. You know, I'd. I'd. I'd limp in with tens. He'd move in with deuces, snap. And it was like. And all these huge spots. Right? So we've had all these happen. Okay. And now a flop come. He raises. I flat tens on the button comes king, ten, deuce. I have three tens. What do you think? He's.

Speaker B: That, uh, two exact cards.

Speaker A: So he does have the three kings. Luckily, the board ran out where he. He, uh, He. Check. Raised all in on the river. And I folded, but I laughed my butt off. I was like. I just started laughing and clapping and going, good job. Because I know he's not bluffing here. He's just like. And then he showed it because it's like this. He's like, it's so crazy. And then it's weird because he almost feels bad for you. You have to make sure that when that's happening, though, you still fight. Like, you don't just go, man, this guy has my number. What do you mean he? Does that mean exactly? He's won a bunch of hands against you. So what does that mean? You just stay out of his Way too many people get sucked into that. The superstition of it as well. Or like you said, the alternative is some guy's just three betting all time. You're like, screw this guy. All in. I'm like, what? You just do. He went on with Queen 8 of hearts. Why? Yeah, because he's annoying you.

Speaker B: He's. He's hitting your big blind. He's on the button, hitting your big blind every time with.

Speaker A: Sometimes people can Take you off your game, by the way, that the game is playing. I had, um, a, a PLO table. It happened a couple times where I, I really like the game Potlam and Omaha. It's a game of control where it was five crazy maniacs and everyone thinks like, oh, that's perfect. Right? You want that? But it was annoying because what it, what it changed the game to is instead of me being able to play like a skill based game where I can maneuver, I'm playing sort of lottery against these guys. I'm like, got to play these big pots. Then I got to hit the flop and I got to have something and if I don't know, I start to d. Dribble away. So it can be frustrating. Uh, and sometimes like, you have to remind yourself, you're like, all right, well this is what you're dealing with. Don't let it, like, don't get, don't get too far out of line now. You know, just, you know, because you might want, you might be like enticed to say, you know, you've got a big stack. But these guys are, uh, it's just chaos, right? And there's a lot of players who play a style that creates chaos and there's not much you can do about it. I went a different route and created a different type of chaos. Chaos, which was when I was limping. I just started the call because the idea for me was throwing a wrench into the computers of my opponent's minds. Like, they have an idea of how the game works pre flop. They've got it all figured out. Right? What about limping? Oh, well, they didn't really study this as much because now it's five people in a pod. How do you, how do you study these spots? So, um, I got a wide variety of tricks. I got some new ones too that I've been using that I really, really like. Um, but you always, you know, you adapt and I think like, you know, you sort of touched on this earlier. The game will always have room for creativity and people who think outside the box and figure it out.

Speaker B: I think it so much has to do with ego, um, and, and emotional control even. Let's say you haven't played in a while and you, you, you're going to go to the World Series and you're going to play, you know, a form of tilt that I see and I experience when I, I'm working, doing a whole bunch of things I'm going to go play is boredom. Tilt.

Speaker A: Oh, that's another one.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So it's just. You're folding for two hours. You came to play.

Speaker A: Yeah. Come on.

Speaker B: So. So you start opening Queen 10 off in early position.

Speaker A: Uh, the bad hands start to look a little bit better to you.

Speaker B: I got to do something. I got to come. I got to make something happen.

Speaker A: One of the biggest struggles that a lot of kids who came from online poker to live had is exactly that. So they play online. They play 20 tables at a time. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. There's. There's always action going on. Then they sit at a live game with nine people. They look at, you know, 93 offsuit on their. And then, like, for, you know. And then all of a sudden, they pick up queen 8 of diamonds and think it's aces, and they like, oh, man, I get to play. But then there's a raise and a re. Like, ah, uh, I'm gonna play anyway. You know that. But you're right. Like, the. The game of poker especially hold them can be, like, hours of sheer boredom with moments of, like, absolute exhilaration. You just have to fight through the boredom sometimes.

Speaker B: I just wanted to break in for a quick second and ask, what if success in network marketing was just one habit away. The reason most people fail isn't because they aren't capable. It's because they aren't taking the right daily actions. That's where GoPro Insider comes in. It's an average of just seven minutes a day, but it's every day you'll get practical coaching from, um, me to help you stop overthinking and start winning, all for as low as $9 a month. Just 30 cents a day. Your next breakthrough is waiting. Go to goproinsider.com and make it happen. Okay, now back to the conversation. So there's boredom tilt for me like that when you talk about the average stack. If I'm above average, especially early, oh, this is a time for me to build chips. So I'm just. I start pushing.

Speaker A: Right?

Speaker B: So I got like, just play your cards. You don't need to, like, go crazy at this stage. You're not going to win the tournament on day one.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So just, just, Just chill, you know, you don't, uh. I'm gonna. That person has double. Who's the chip leader? I wonder if I, uh, can. If I'm the chip leader, It's a good.

Speaker A: I remember one guy years ago said, you know, John Danda, he said, you know, he said, has a very different view of this. He's like, a big stack is something that's powerful. So protect it, right? So that you hold those chips, don't slough them off. So that when the bubble comes and those times come, you still have, you know, you're still in that position. You don't have to, like you said, your second or third and chips in the whole tournament. What's the big deal? Doesn't, you don't have to out chip the. Oh, I got that guy. What's, what's the difference? You know, um, protect those big sacks. A lot of people feel like, you know, you're supposed to go after every shorty when you're big. No.

Speaker B: You know, yeah, like I've seen it happen. I've, I've experienced it myself. Is early your first, first day of a tournament, you know, a three day tournament. Let's say somebody's got four big blinds, five big blinds, six big lines. You have 100, you have to double them up, right? So. And they push. Well, I got to be police because I'm the big stack, you know. Well, that's later. That's, that's on the bubble or something.

Speaker A: And actually you don't want that, right? Because like ideally, say for example, in the bubble, this is what another people think people might be surprised about is let's say you've got a situation where you've got 100 big blinds and everyone's like 4, 3, 6, 7, 8. You want this to go on as long as possible, right? So this guy goes all in for four big lines and you have a hand you could call with and knock him out. But why do you want him out? Right. Everybody else wants him out. But that doesn't benefit you. What benefits you is containing that pressure, that tension on everyone else. And you do that sometimes by letting them live. That's part of what people are doing now with this one chip idea. Okay? Mhm. So you'll see. Now if you watch poker, you know, there'll be like, people like, what's going on? There's like a million chips out there and a guy has like a 1k chip backage and he didn't bet his one last 1k chip and you're like, what the heck they doing? What's this chip? Well, sometimes it's a case where it benefits both people, right. If you have that one chip, you might get to fold a couple hands. Somebody else goes broke, you make a little bit more money, right? So what, uh, why does the other guy want to do that? Well, the other guy wants to let you keep the one chip because now there's A guy with one chip. What are you guys going to do with 10 and 15 big blinds? You can't play. You have to wait until he goes broke. So those three, four hands, I get to continue to steal and take those chips. So it's, uh, not collusion, right? But it's about, again, it's a. It is a situation where it benefits both people by doing that. But it's all about, you know, for one guy, creating the tension and for other guy, like, the whole chip in a chair thing, and.

Speaker B: And who knows, that two stacks, medium stacks, might wake up with aces.

Speaker A: It happens all the time. You'd see, like, I remember, you know, like, I saw Stephen Chidwick do it. He bluffed off his chips. You know, it was like a million chips. He left one back. Okay? He bet a million and he had five. Just left it. You know, the guy called, he lost, but he said, this won the chip, right? So now, you know, he folded the button. He folded. Another guy went broke. He made an extra $60,000 because he kept that one chip, right? It's. There's value in that one chip. A lot more value in that one chip in his, you know, on the table than he could have earned by, you know, getting called if he had it right.

Speaker B: So winners, tilt. Boredom, tilt. Losers, tilt. Distraction, tilt.

Speaker A: Somebody really loud. I think the ego tilt was a good one.

Speaker B: You mentioned ego tilt, for sure. Managing, uh, your ego. You know, it's like, well, I can't let him see that. That I'm. I'm bluffing here. So I. I got a barrel.

Speaker A: Just. That guy's annoying.

Speaker B: Yeah, this guy. This guy keeps pushing on me. I'm gonna be the alpha dog. Yeah. Uh, I can't. I can't let him be the, you know, table captain the whole time.

Speaker A: I kind of enjoy being at a table sometimes where two guys are going at it and it's so obvious that they're. One of them's going home. Like, you know what I mean? They're both in a good situation. I'm like, okay, these two.

Speaker B: One of the. One of the first World Series, uh, events I played. I'm. I. I'm playing at the table with Scott Sieber, who I didn't know at the time, had no idea he was raising every. Every pot. Raise, raise, raise, raise, raise. Three bet four. Bet three. Bet four, bet. Everybody's folding, folding. And. And I kind of mutter under my breath, enough. This is enough. I'm going to put a stop to this.

Speaker A: And he had aces, didn't he?

Speaker B: No.

Speaker A: No, no, no.

Speaker B: He just chuckled uncontrollably at, uh, like he was like, to his friend, like, look at this guy. He's like, he's going to put a stop to this. Like, watch their. See how this plays out. Yeah. So, yeah, I bust out shortly. Shortly thereafter. But, uh, yeah, it's. It's.

Speaker A: Well, that's the thing. It's difficult, right? Because, I mean, like, in any game, you know, when you play sports, if you're playing basketball and you're in the NBA, like guys, you know, nudging you a little bit, you know, you know, and then you start pushing them back and now you take a foul because, you know, you know, you're. You've lost your cool. Right. Same sort of things happen at the poker table. Whether it's luck. A guy's been super lucky against you. Like, what the. The hell, man?

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Uh, you know, what do you keep. You know, or this. Or a guy just seems to be picking on you. A lot of the times you. You fool yourself into thinking this guy's picking on you, when in reality he just had really good hands. You don't know. You know, it might. But again, it's about how it feels in the moment. And a lot of times, you know, we are, you know, humans are creatures of like, you know, we go to war, we fight. And if you keep trying to stab me, I'm gonna punch back, you know,

Speaker B: Know another form of tilt, uh, for me, I don't know if it's happened for you. I'm sure it has. Is people who tank forever, repeatedly. And then it starts to become a habit at your table that everybody's doing it.

Speaker A: Essentially an extension of boredom. Tilt to a certain degree, because it's like, so annoying and it's obnoxious to some degree. And there are certain players that just, like, are excessive with it. And then what ends up happening. The danger is now you're actively rooting for that player to go broke. I do that. Okay. Like this. It would just be better for me. Not because they're good or bad. Right. I mean, obviously, you know, often they are good and benefits me anyway, but just because it's too annoying, you know, to see, like, especially if there's two or three of them. And sometimes a pot takes 10 minutes. You know, it, you know, but, you know, that's part of the game. That's in. In.

Speaker B: And you're reasonably short. Blinds are getting ready to go up.

Speaker A: Uh, the good news is the big stuff, now that I. We have shot clock. Yeah. So it's still annoying when a guy, you get 30 seconds, takes the full 30 to just check.

Speaker B: Yeah, I've seen, I've seen you at uh, tables just announce. I'm just letting you know, anybody goes over two minutes, I'm calling the clock.

Speaker A: Yeah, because I don't play, frankly, I don't play the smaller buy ins that don't, uh, have shot clocks. Almost every event I play that's no limit is gonna have a shot clock. But the main event doesn't. So that's one of the places I do it. I say, you know, okay guys, everyone gets one free, two minutes. You know, you get a tank after that. I'm clocking, you know, at 2 and I give people. But here's what I do. I pay attention. Okay? If you're a guy, right, you, you're folding, you're not wasting any. You're not taking 45 seconds every time. And now you're on the river, you. And you need four. I'm not going to call a clock on you because you're showing respect. You're not wasting everybody's time. But if it's a guy, if it's, uh, he has a short leash. If it's a guy who just automatically. In spots where, you know. So there's certain things in poker where we just know. For example, use a poker hand. Let's say it's king, king, three. I check, you bet, I call. Now the turn is a deuce. I'm never betting. What am I waiting for? Check. This is a spot. It's like there's certain things that are just automatic. What's the point of me going. It's stupid. You know, it's irrelevant. But these guys, a lot of them, they want to balance, you know, you

Speaker B: know, in spot and it's ego again with the, you know, they got, and the sunglasses, they got the hoodie. So they got.

Speaker A: They're entitled to do that. Yeah, uh, they're entitled to do that. But I'm also entitled to call the clock. You know, in, you know, in situations where I can. And it's. I'm also entitled to decide who deserves more time than other and who doesn't. And it's usually going to be the people who don't waste 40 seconds to fold pre and don't stall. Uh, I give them a lot of leeway.

Speaker B: Who is the really obnoxious guy. A couple of years back, was it a Martin?

Speaker A: Martin Cabrill knew I was going to say it was Martin.

Speaker B: Yeah, that, that was kind of famously getting under everybody's skin.

Speaker A: That's his shtick. So he's the perfect example of a guy. When you talked about like, you know, ego being annoying, whatever, like, he drives people nuts and that's his whole thing. And he also wants to create the illusion that he's cheating, by the way, right? He, he started, he does this thing where he's just. So if you've seen Martin Kabil, you know, stand over the cards, he stands, he, he looks at your car cards, he's like staring to see something and then he's. When he's looks squeezing his own cards, he's going like this. And he's got these really long nails, you know, like this, this to like make it. Everyone think he's marking the cards. Because what does this do now for him psychologically, Right? Let's say he's not cheating at all, right? Which there's no evidence that he actually. If you're in the big blind and he's the button and he's raised and you're thinking about three betting him light, you're like, but what if he saw my. What if he knows one of my cards? Like, if that thought crosses your mind. And it has, it has. I know a couple high limit players said, I'm uncomfortable playing with them because like, you know, they cover their cards. They don't know. And it's like, it's, it makes them more hesitant to do crazy things against him. But that's his shtick. That's his whole deal. So what do you do? What do you do about it? You know, you, you just have to learn to like, like if you're at

Speaker B: his table and he was holding court,

Speaker A: it never shuts up when I'm at his table and he tries to get

Speaker B: him, um, he likes it, right?

Speaker A: He's. Oh, Daniel, Daniel, nice play. Nice, nice play. Then you're playing great. You're playing great. It's a great call. Yeah, it's a great call with king jack for, for 20 big blinds. You're playing great. You're playing play poker. Hey, you know, good thing you have a job. Good thing you. And he just won't. He does. It's, it's incessant. He does the same thing to hell new.

Speaker B: Do you think it's a net winner for him?

Speaker A: I think it probably is, yeah. Because listen, that's his comfort zone. That's. He's, he's obviously comfortable doing what it was. And if I don't think people play better, typically when they're annoyed or bothered, right? So he doesn't really get to me. He is annoying, but I don't.

Speaker B: You're not gonna.

Speaker A: I'm not gonna fall into the trap of playing his game, you know? Like, I've. I've been around the block, you know, and that's part of, like, uh, people like to get you playing on their terrain, you know, like, there's famous gamblers who get you on the golf course, and they'll be like, oh, I don't. You know, I don't play 500 wall. And then all of a sudden, by 18, you're betting $20,000. They just get your. We call it getting their nose open, you know? Well, Phil Ivey's famous for that.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: He's like, I don't play 500. Okay. All right. 20,000. Double or nothing. Up and down on 18. Okay.

Speaker B: So speaking of speech play, who are some of the legendary speech play people? I have a few in mind. Uh, but who do you think? I think you do it well. Uh, you can. You can. You can cause certain people to do things that you want them to do. Uh, and probably don't talk about many of them, you know, in. In certain spots. But I. I think you're excellent because I think you're in your comfort zone. When you're chatty talking with people. You. You get way more than you give.

Speaker A: I think there's one that's probably underrated. I don't know if he's on your list, but the one that comes to mind is Scott Seaver 100.

Speaker B: That was number one on my list.

Speaker A: He did this one move where he. He, uh, was on the river, and he checked, and the guy bet, and he goes, just remember, you did this to yourself.

Speaker B: I saw it.

Speaker A: And he. Check. Raised, like, big. And then the guy, like, thought about. And he folded. And Josh Scott showed absolutely nothing. He said. He told him. He said, just remember, you did this to yourself. It's just a great line. Um, but he's very comfortable chatting, too. You know, that's his comfort zone. So I think part of it is, you know, the people that are good at speech play, um, they don't. They're. You're giving stuff away, right? Especially those receptive. But you're in your comfort zone. There's something psychological about that, too, where it's like, this is my domain. This is my table. I'm talking. I'm chatty. I'm comfortable, but you're not. So you're in my. You know, you're in my. In my house. And I think, you know, Scott in That regard. He, you know, he plays, like you said, an alpha. He's like, yeah, this guy's gonna put a stop to it. Come get it. Yeah, he'll go to war. He's not afraid of you, and he's letting you know that. Yeah.

Speaker B: So give me an example of what you want your opponent to fold. How would you use speech play in order to be able to create that outcome?

Speaker A: Well, you can't go to the same trick too many times, and you have to mix it up. And it's player dependent. But there was one that I. I sort of used.

Speaker B: It's.

Speaker A: I finally got caught on it because one guy's perceptive. There's been enough of mine on tv. There's a couple hands where I was bluffing, but I told the guy what he had. I was pretty sure. I was like, you got, what, aces or kings, right? For sure. And I just had a pair of nines, but it was a board that I could represent. He bet small. It was, like, pretty obvious where his hand is. I don't think he can handle a lot of heat. So I raise him and I tell him. I was like, you got aces or kings, right? For sure. So I've done that, like, I did that like four or five times. And then once just recently at the studio playing Martin Zamani, who's always baked and super stoned, and like, I don't know, he was in the tank for almost two minutes, and he's like, what do you think I have? And I was like, what do you have? Ace, queen. And then he called me. Uh, I was bluffing. He called me and he's like, I've seen you do. I was gonna fall, but I've seen you do that on TV so many times and you always bluffing. So that's the thing about. I have to be aware of, you know, a lot of the tricks that I've used is like, does he know? Has he seen it? Right.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Um, but I usually. It's player dependent. Like, really, you just have to understand the mind of the person. Um, and. Yeah. And like, really just kind of. I. It's hard to give away too much more than I did. Fair, but.

Speaker B: Yeah, fair. So you talk about Zamani. What is it about poker and pot? I. The. The. The cloud that comes in after every break, especially the high rollers. I mean, it's just this cloud comes in. It's like, whoa. Okay. Hi, guys. Um, does it calm them down? What is your. What is your opinion?

Speaker A: So I think, like, when you think of drugs, Just wide spectrum of them. Right. Has different effects on different people. Like, I've smoked pot before. I didn't like it. It just made me fall asleep. Didn't do anything for me. I don't know. I've never played poker and done it, I've only done it like three, four times in my life, just not for me. I'm all for it. Legalize, do your thing. Um, a lot of the poker players, I think they just feel like they're in a flow state and they're Zen, you know, um, and it might be true, you know, maybe they just feel super comfortable. I have the same feeling with alcohol when I drink. Just like there was a famous guy named Bill Smith. He won the World series poker in 1985. And people used to say when he was sober, he was the tightest, weakest, easy player to beat. When he was drunk, he was a sloppy mess and just giving his chips away. But when he was a little drunk, he was the best player in the world because it loosens your inhibitions, it makes you feel comfortable. Um, and when I drink, I, I, I just crush people often. And I'm probably going to have some wine this summer here and there. Just, you know, to feel that fl. But the thing with drugs, ah, is when it becomes a dependence. We talked about this, I was talking about this with Mike Matiso, actually, who in his documentary talked about crystal meth. There was a time where a lot of guys started using crystal method. Okay, so what do they, what does that do for you? Well, they can play for four straight days, super locked in, super focused, until it stops working. So now you've been doing crystal meth for six months playing poker. Okay. Now the effect is gone because it's, you know, it's not, it's not giving you that focus, but you can't play without it either. So now you're a crystal meth addict who doesn't benefit from it. So there's this up there. It was a, a bell. It was just constant like this. You see this upswing for these people. And then same with Adderall. Like, a lot of guys were doing Adderall, but when you become dependent upon it, you know, that's problematic. I don't know that pot or alcohol are in that same vein, if you will. But it's a dangerous, uh, thing to make. I mean, a lot of people, my wife always finds these products, like, chew this gum. It's got, you know, theanine and B12 and B6 and all those guys. And I'm Sure. There's a lot of like, um, nootropics or whatever that can help the mind. Um, a lot of the. Actually recently I saw some people are using nicotine.

Speaker B: That too.

Speaker A: Nicotine supposedly helps with focus. So. Yeah, I don't know. What, I don't know. I'm open to everything. I. I don't, I don't judge. Like I said, I try to just do what I do. But I will say that there's just this. When I'm just had a few drinks, there's just in a sense that I have that I do not have otherwise. Or it's this a little bit of like loosened inhibition where sometimes you're in a spot, you're like, you know what, I should check, raise, bluff this guy right here. But then you go, I don't, I don't need to do this. Right. And when you're drinking, you know, it's the right move. You just do it like he's going to fall all in. There's no fear, right. For a lot of people. So I think for those people that say, like not saying I'm this person, but if you have a fear of bluffing, a drink or two might loosen you up or you feel you can get a little more flow. The danger is when do you stop, you know?

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Because now all of a sudden you were doing good and now you're like, uh, you know, you don't know what's going on.

Speaker B: I just find it interesting. Adderall on one side and pot on the other.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Two completely different outcomes.

Speaker A: Sure.

Speaker B: Both in the same community.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: For elite players.

Speaker A: I think the Adderall helps for, specifically for like, uh, say cash game players, whatever. For long, long, long term, long games. So some of these guys play for two, three stays straight. We'll try doing that sober. When a bunch of guys are on Adderall, they're all hopped up, they're full energy, they don't even need food. They're go, go, go. Right. We're in a tournament, you know, it's slower, like you said, there's hours of boredom and whatnot. Maybe these guys, they just like zone out. They feel relaxed and that, that could be beneficial where maybe it helps them get through those boring stages where they don't feel that pressure or that need to do anything crazy. They're just, you know. And then you have Martin Zamani, who's just so baked, he laughs at literally everything. He's fun to play. He's so funny to me. He like, he just laughs at everything. I do.

Speaker B: How many you play a bit of chess?

Speaker A: Yes, I play every day. I play chess every day.

Speaker B: Uh, I'm, I'm terrible at chess, but I find you're terrible would be my, um, amazing.

Speaker A: No, we're probably not that far apart,

Speaker B: but, um, with chess there's, there's m. A lot of levels and in poker there's a lot of levels, levels. So there's playing your cards, which is one level. That's all you're playing is your cards, and then your cards versus their cards, and then it's your ranges versus their ranges, and then it's what's the trend been? And are they tilted? Are they not tilted? Are they in a good mood? Did they just have an argument with their girlfriend? Are they starting their phone? All these different things. Um, you know that, that, that you're gathering in chess, you're planning three, four, five moves ahead if you're good. Right. Two or three, whatever. At least more than one.

Speaker A: Yeah, you're thinking of a plan.

Speaker B: Yeah, you're thinking of a plan. Is that, does, is that something that you do in poker as well? You're thinking of a plan or is that a subconscious thing?

Speaker A: I think there's similarities to where you're going with this too, in the terms of like, here's the thing, you have a plan, but then they do something different. So that plan has to change, right? So you have a plan to develop your pieces. You want to do this, but then this guy, oh, wait a minute, he just blundered his bishop. So you take it that wasn't part of your plan because you didn't know he was going to make that mistake. But you do it just on that note of chess, you know, and you're saying you're not very good. I had a guy come to the house, you know, whatever, and, uh, I, I, he says, you know, you play a little chess. I said, yeah, but I'm not good. I'm not really not good at all because I'm thinking of like, guys that I know are there. And he said, oh, I'm really good. I'm pretty good. I was better than him by a wide margin. But again, it's all relative. I'm comparing myself to like, really, really, really, you know, high end players. But I love the. I actually, this is weird, but I use chess to relax. Like after a long day playing poker, you'd think the last thing you want to do is engage, but it's almost meditative. Like, I think people, um, have this kind of like, uh, I Don't know, hippie like view of what meditation really is, but meditation ultimately is, it's just essentially like focusing on just one thing. Like playing video games can have that meditative feel because you're not thinking about your daily, you're just playing the game, you know, you just, you're zoned in.

Speaker B: You know what poker is for me?

Speaker A: Yeah, that, yeah, you're just playing poker, not just thinking about business.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, because I, I'll go grind, grind, grind, travel the world, do, do all the different things and to just go sit and you know, sit with the guys and play, play some cards.

Speaker A: Oh, uh, yeah.

Speaker B: Oh, uh, it's, it's like a completely different feeling. My brain can just release. It's like it's all totally locked up and then just releases.

Speaker A: Just. Yeah, I found that actually not that I've ever, I've probably been, I've never really been depressed. I maybe one month of my life, maybe like hardly ever, I'm a pretty happy guy. But anytime I was feeling down whether it was poker, whatever, best thing for me to do is just put in a Nintendo, put in Mario and just play, play games, just play video games all day, you know, because now you're like, you know, you know, time heals and you just sort of, you know, get through it that way. And I think like to some degree video games actually get a bad rap. More studies are showing that, you know, we talk about, oh, you're wasting your life. It's actually not a bad thing.

Speaker B: Not today. I mean, here's the thing. Today the, the video game players are operating the drones for the military around the world.

Speaker A: There's, there's a skill set there, but

Speaker B: social learning, uh, the, the networking effect,

Speaker A: especially if you look. What is the alternative? Yeah, being on social media, posting a picture, then hearing all these people call you fat, ugly, then be depressed and then being sad and then going, oh, I don't have enough followers. It's like when you compare the two, you know, one is pretty productive and the other one can be, you know, really destructive.

Speaker B: Yeah, the uh. Let me talk to you about economics for a second. Mhm. And answer whatever you're comfortable answering. Seems like you have unlimited money. Seems m. Like you have unlimited money. Um, which is not the feel I get from most players, even in the elite in the poker world. So a million dollar buy in half. Million dollar buy in. Two bullets of 250.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: C' est la vie. Let's go. Uh, next. Next. Next. You know, and it's been a couple, you know, suboptimal World Series compared to your, to your lifetime record. How do you make your money?

Speaker A: Okay, so that's a good question. I'll tell you. I'll answer two ways. First of all, I've always had an insanely abundant mindset. Truly. As a teenager I did, you know, I, as a teenager I would, you know, know, go to the restaurant. I would like pay for something that's seven bucks. I leave it 20, like 200% tips. I had $400. It felt like an, an enormous amount of money that I could never lose. Then I had a TH000, then it was 10,000. You know, I've always had this idea that I'll be fine and I'll be okay. Um, I think probably the, the most difficult thing about any sort of downstream is like getting cash, you know, because you know, I have investments, you know, you've done. I've done pretty well, you know, throughout the years with associations outside of poker because I'm not just a poker player. Player, right. I play poker. But um, I don't need to play poker. And part of that is, you know, I'm also with like with Gigi poker. Right. And you know I have other, I've had other endorsement deals here and there where I've done, you know, quite well with that. So uh, I don't. Yeah. And the thing is, you know, with those I don't go. I don't even play the Tritons. So. The Tritons. If I were to travel the Tritons, which I don't really travel no more now you're looking at like, like age 10 million or something like that. Now all of a sudden I'd be like wait a minute, I don't know, you know, do I really want to be like firing all this on my own? Maybe I'll sell a piece here and there like that. When I do that at the World Series, that's just for fun. Like I don't need the, whatever it is, couple hundred K you know, to play the events. Um, but uh, but yeah, I mean listen, I'm not even playing super high stuff. I play a 500k if it's there, a 250.

Speaker B: Like I'm not going to miss one drop or something.

Speaker A: Yeah, I'm not going to miss these events. But these aren't like my regular buy ins, you know, Like I'm not putting up a million every day. You know, I did that sort of life when I was in my 20s where I'm like the whole bankroll's on the table. We, let's go. You know, because you're trying to build, but then you learn once you've built money, you want to hold on to it. So I don't need to take these risks. People say, why don't you go play cash on the streams, all these, uh. I don't care. I truly don't like. It's not that fun for me, you know, I don't need the grind. I don't need to. Especially the politics of private games, because I could get into all these private games. I don't want to kiss anyone's ass at all, you know, and schmooze and all that sort of thing to let the pro in, uh, and finagle my way. I don't care, you know, Like, I've done well on my own the way that I did it. But, yeah, for the, uh, for the most part, my money works for my. For itself now. You know, I don't have to. I don't. I don't really even have to, like, make money in poker, you know.

Speaker B: Really?

Speaker A: Yeah. If I break even in poker throughout the year, I'm still making money.

Speaker B: So. Yeah. And good enough. And what I've noticed is you have a nice lifestyle, but it's not crazy.

Speaker A: No.

Speaker B: You know, no, you don't have a private plane.

Speaker A: You're no driving a Rolls Royce.

Speaker B: But, you know, and. And for me, I have a very high risk tolerance. And, um, I'm always kind of doing things way before I should do them. You know, it's like putting your whole bankroll.

Speaker A: That's the abundant mindset.

Speaker B: Yeah. I just always, like, it'll work out. How? We don't know. It's a mystery. It's like, I don't know. I don't quite know how. How it's going to work out, but I just know it's going to.

Speaker A: The fact is there's like, an inner confidence there, too, in you.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Being able to become successful. You have earning power, and you're like, well, why would. Why wouldn't I. Why would I think that I'm no longer going to be able to do that? You know, And I'm the same with poker. Like, even though I had, like you said, a couple World Series in a row where I didn't make any money, um, I'm not worried about it. I'm not phased. I'm like, it's going to come, you know, I'm going to have a big year or whatever. And like I said, you know, not going to change My lifestyle much one way or the other. If I make $4 million playing poker this year, like, if nothing's going to change, what is it? What's going to change? I'm not a watch. This is an apple watch. It's 200 bucks. I'm not. I like it. I could afford a better one of them fancy watches. Doesn't m. Do anything for me. This thing I can text on. I'm happy, you know, so. So, yeah, like. And I got my wife. You know, we're. We're going down the path of, you know, potentially starting a family and.

Speaker B: Yeah. Talk about that, would you?

Speaker A: Yeah. So that's been something that, you, uh, know, we, we both wanted. She has some health problems of her own. Endometriosis. She's also bipolar, so she's on medications for that. Um, and, uh, with the endometriosis, it's difficult. So what we, what we decided to do was go the IVF route and do the surrogate route. And we were able to get a couple embryos. We implanted them in, uh, surrogate and we got her pregnant and we got to the heartbeat stage and there was no heartbeat. So that was really tough on her. Right. Because she was just talking about like, getting baby clothes and all that sort of.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So we'd read, you know, we did it again. It's tough on her. It's tough. I don't know if us guys, like, you know, they've done this where they took those, like, period cramp things. Right. And you think you're tough, right? Yeah. You don't know what they go through, man. Like, I've seen these videos of these guys that are real big. Oh, uh, take it off, take it off. We're like, Amanda goes through that a lot.

Speaker B: Lot.

Speaker A: And going through the IVF and putting her body through that was really, really difficult. But we're trying again. We've got two different paths. We're going to try again with the same surrogate. It wasn't her fault. Just, you know, happens. And then we have another one here in Vegas. And so we're going to try, hopefully to have two, you know, maybe cool with that. Months apart. Yeah. So that could happen within, you know, like a year.

Speaker B: Wow, that'd be exciting.

Speaker A: Yeah, for sure.

Speaker B: So. And, ah, if you've done the math, you're like, if it happens in a year when they going to graduate, how, uh, how old am I going to be?

Speaker A: That's funny because we're, you know, men and women are different. She's worried about you. Know, you got to. You got to be like, take your shirt off when you hold the baby. I'm like, I'm not. I'm worried about their golf swing when they're four, right? Like, you know, how are we gonna get. Like. I'm already thinking. She's like, but you're not thinking about the first year. I'm like, that's a normal thing. Women generally think about the nurturing in the first year more. And the. And the men think about, like, when they can take them out fishing or whatever the case may be. And I'm sort of thinking about setting the kid up. So that's just where my mind's at a lot. And she. But she thinks you don't care about. I don't care. But it's more, you know, like a baby can't do nothing. Baby's just a cute little lump of something.

Speaker B: Would you want. Would you want your child in, uh,

Speaker A: the poker world if they wanted to, you know.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Uh, I'm. I'm open. I feel like it would be really kind of just awkwardly hypocritical for me to say, if this is your life passion, but, no, don't do it. Ultimately, whatever the kid wants to do, and that's their life passion, I'm going to guide them best I can, you know, with advice. I'll give them the truth. Going to take a lot of hard work. Not going to be easy. This isn't just like, you know, walk in and, like, with anything, you know. Um, I would say, though, that if I could choose, I wouldn't choose it. I would choose something else. But the question is, what in the future? Because 15, 20 years from now, what exactly are the jobs of the future

Speaker B: five years from now?

Speaker A: Five, yeah, we're almost three years from now. Well, I mean, you're not going to work in a factory unless you build robots. You know, robots are going to be doing jobs. Like, I think.

Speaker B: I think about what would. What would happen to. Well, what's going to happen to poker when people have perfect play implanted in their brains or they have. They have some sort of device, I

Speaker A: think would probably have to get to a place where like. So here's the thing is a cat and mouse game with cheating or anything like. Like that, right? So you have people that are always going to try to, you know, game the system, and then you're just going to have to increase, like, the policing of it. Same with, like, deepfakes and all this stuff. Like, we're getting in a place now where we're doing a podcast right now. Right M. Somebody could easily take what we're doing right now and change every single word we've said. And it looks as real as, like as you think. I've watched some today. Indistinguishable. Right. Well, we're going to have to have software AI that actually is on the other side on the, on the cop side to figure that up. And I think maybe like, I don't know, like, you what poker tournaments, you're gonna have to do a brain scan or something. I don't know. But we're uh, we're entering like a really scary but exciting time.

Speaker B: It's interesting for, uh, our youngest is in college and he's like the first of our kids that can do all of his homework using chat gbt. But then he's got to go do a test. Uh, so the homework's flawless and he knows nothing. Right. So. And he's really smart.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: It's like, yeah. You know, because that's how they answer every question. If somebody says how many free throws did that person ever hit and what's their percentage? Well, just a second, I'll tell you. Uh, then they're really fast at ah, doing things like that. So they do it. Everybody's doing it with their homework. Uh, and there's stuff that you, you can write papers and everybody's accepted that,

Speaker A: that papers are why I really believe, like, if you think of like advancements in all the sort of technology things like if you think of school in 1870, it's the same 150 years later. It's just, you know, the same format. Right. Where I think like, we have to evolve with a lot of the stuff that kids learn. Like, does it really matter? Do you really need to know when Christopher Columbus crossed the sea? Like is that relevant to your life at all when you can just chat dbt it or whatever. So how about instead taking these kids, putting them in groups and have them problem solve?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Say, okay, here's a bunch of blocks. You need to make a raft out of that. And you need to have a leader and you need to do this. Just have them work and do things that's going to actually be practical, have them be creative and think outside the box. Because a lot of this sort of formulaic, especially with what these kids have access to now in terms of distractions, school has to be the most boring thing ever. Sitting there listening to a per a teacher teach when it's 90 of it is completely irrelevant to what they're going to be doing in life and also, you know, having school be more, um, you know, tailored to the, to the child. Like this kid, he's going to be a welder. He's going to be. What do you teach? What do you, what do you need to know about, you know, like French philosophy? He doesn't care about this. Doesn't have any relevance. If he wants to learn it, he can go online. You know, setting the kids up for success. I think.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: That's a side topic, but we're, we're hitting a stage now where a of it's pointless. Yeah.

Speaker B: I think where we get to is he or she who uses the tools best wins.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: It's not like, oh, using the tools is cheating.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: It's like in my business, if I copy what somebody else is doing, I'm not cheating. Um, I, I put my own. And no, I'm not stealing their words and their stuff, but I'm taking the idea that's already a winner.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: I apply it to my business and I make money.

Speaker A: Yeah. You know, so, yeah, that's no different than me watching guy play poker, seeing a move that he makes. Like, I like that.

Speaker B: That's a good one.

Speaker A: That's a, that's a. Yeah, I like this bluff here. I'm gonna use that.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: I like the sizing.

Speaker B: Ooh. You know, or you start seeing people playing the king three suiteds a little bit more. Because that showed up in the song. Yeah.

Speaker A: You start to notice things.

Speaker B: Oh, that guy's really studying.

Speaker A: Nothing wrong with that.

Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. So paying attention. But we're going to get to the place really quick that the person who uses the tools best. You know, when I was growing up, they just came out with calculators and it was a big debate. Should you allow them in school? Yeah. Uh, and we're like, yeah, just let them use it. What the heck? Why do we have to draw it out with a pencil in order to be able to. Let's, let's put that thing behind us. We, we could flip on the light switch. We don't have to know what's behind the light switch necessarily. Necessarily. We just need light right now.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Um, so solving problems. All right, let's talk about maybe last topic or last theme. There's this big movement in poker right now.

Speaker A: Um,

Speaker B: and part of it is the world. There's been a lot of money printed cryptos way up there. Um, people in the nosebleed. They're either bookies or they're super high business players or they're crypto multi, uh, multi multis or there's some sort of savant. Um, but there's what I would say what looks to be degenerate poker, the televised poker. The bigger, the better cash games. The Hustler Live, the Venetian, the, you know, the, the, all the, the, the Triton cash games that are enormous.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Enormous. 1000, 2000 blinds, uh, playing, you know, million dollar buy ins and all this stuff. And it's all about who can pull off the most degenerate move in order to be able to get the most improbable two million dollar pot shipped in their direction. Uh, it seems to be, and there's that, that's on one side. The other side is the, the tournament world seems to just be getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. And you're seeing here in town ten million dollar guarantees and five million dollar guarantees. Huge tournament that bring people in from all over the place. Um, and I heard, and then there's just, you know, how many people will show up at the World Series of Poker this year? This year 10,000, probably more. More than 10,000, uh, will come to town to, to you know, have, have fun. Mhm. And play. For me, it feels like the story of, of poker needs to tell more stories and less about outrageousness. You won't believe this bluff or you won't believe this sick call, or you won't believe how he soul read this guy. Um, but more about the lives of the people who are doing this stuff. I just don't see. It seems to be everything's sensationalized and I, I wonder if there's storytelling available in the space.

Speaker A: There is. And it's funny you say that because there's a guy recently, Dustin Ianoti, who's artisan on fire. He uh, Dustin Brock, he actually did a documentary that's going to be released. Things will be very, very good. Along this vein you look at other sports, whether it's chess or whether it's F1 racing, the drive for success and all this sort of stuff, Full swing golf, where they've humanized the people. Part of how I became successful in poker was when ESPN was shooting the World Series of Poker. They did it in such a way where they said, okay, these were documentary filmmakers. They're like, what's the story? What's the beginning of the story, what happens in the story and what's the ending on each episode? We've gotten way away from that, but part of it is financing. Back then, you know, there was a lot of money Being thrown into this stuff now there's far too much. I couldn't agree with you more. Cookie cutter. Put six guys on a table, have them play poker. Little bit of banter, some commentary. The end. Bored. You know, I think like what we shot with uh, with Dustin, hopefully it airs. It was uh, all surrounding around the World Series Poker, Bahama, Bahamas. Uh, they followed myself, Kristen and Alex Foxen, uh, the young kid Wolfgang, you know, they followed uh, Faraz Jaka and his crew of people. And it's essentially like, you know, it's not a, it's not um, about the hands. You know, it's a story about the people.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: The lifestyle. Like I think the Alex and Kristen Fox and his story's really fascinating for people. You know, they're a couple and you know she's a woman, you know, that's interesting people. Um, and then they got me in there as well. And so hopefully, you know, the storytelling aspect helps create. But I already think frankly, even with what we're doing, poker's booming because it's so much more accessible. It used to be in or if you want to put on a poker show, what do you got to do? Get a. It's not a network exec to okay, it put on the game show network. You just put on YouTube now for free. Right. And people can watch it. So so many more eyeballs are on poker and it's different kinds of poker. It's people streaming in their bad basement. It's you know, like you said, the crazy DJ high stakes games that are happening. It's the tournaments, it's the Tritons, it's you know, the poker go. There's like, it's just everywhere and I think uh, it's you know, it's global. There's no, there's no like with the Internet is global. So I think that's really helped it grow. But I do agree that like it would be a um, it could be a huge moment for the number of people that play poker. Like it being more mainstream comes from exactly that which is story storytelling.

Speaker B: Yeah. Well, Chris Moneymaker was the story. Jamie Gold.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Was the story. Some of these people, when they found somebody early in the, in the tournament.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: They're able to follow their journey because

Speaker A: the bottom line is it's just like anything when you're rooting for somebody at a sport or whatever, you need them to root for the person because you want Aunt Betty, who doesn't really know much about poker. I like that guy, his mother cooks for him and she brings him food. I hope he wins. He's nice. He laughs a lot.

Speaker B: A lot.

Speaker A: Oh, this guy. You know, they. People that they can relate to or. Because once they see the documentary and they know these people, like, it's happened for a lot of people I know with golf, but they don't really watch golf, but they're like, oh, I saw that guy on the thing. I like him. I hope he wins. You know, that's how you create rooting interest. And I think, like, he's on the right track with it. Um, hopefully, you know, it airs and does well because I think I, I couldn't agree with you more. Storytelling is where it's at.

Speaker B: And the drive to survive, uh, the Formula one the first season. What I found fascinating is Hamilton won every race, but they didn't even talk about him. No, he was just like, Mercedes was winning everything. They were talking about the people just trying to make their little point or the, the last place team trying to move up to 50 qualifying or, you know, the, the fight that this guy was in and this guy had a feud with that guy.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And all that stuff, that, that's what made it kind of interesting. And like, oh, I like this guy. I don't like that.

Speaker A: If you think about the moments in the World Series book that people remember was, you know, anti gate, Jeff Lisandro and Rod Freeman almost punching each other. Shan Chan getting a penalty with Mike Matiso. Those are the moments that are water cooler moments where people talk about the. Did you see that last night? It's rarely king, queen against two tens. Did you see in the flop was a ten? It's not what does it.

Speaker B: Yeah. Part of what's. I think making the boom happen is it seems like online poker's figured out a way to come back. Uh, and there's, you know, turf wars between the, the different various gambling sites.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Uh, how have you navigated that? And you know, you're affiliated with Gigi. How have you navigated that with all the other stuff going on and everybody's trying to pick camps and everybody's trying to wear the different patches and promote the different stuff.

Speaker A: Yeah, I'm a one trick pony when it comes to this. Like, I'm, I'm GG Poker all the way. I'm World Series of Poker all the way. Thankfully, GG Poker, my bought my favorite brand, which is the World Series of Poker. Now they've teamed up, so we have the live component. We've also got, you know, the largest poker site in the world, which is GG Poker. The one thing that's frustrating, I'd say for everyone is the fact that, you know, you can't play all over the United States of America. Like you think of the land and the free. Like you can play in Afghanistan, man, they're free. I mean, they don't have a lot of freedoms, but they got, they can play online poker. You know, we can't hear like that's

Speaker B: something that we want Sheldon to uh, to, to think for that.

Speaker A: Exactly. And Bill Frist was a guy many

Speaker B: years ago, but because, uh, you know, look at all the sports betting. They let that happen everywhere and not.

Speaker A: There's no really good argument against it. It's just a, a hassle. And like you said, Sheldon Adelson was very influential, but he's no longer with us. It's still very difficult to get these people to understand and often it's not a priority for them, um, unless you go right to the top maybe and have 20 minutes with them and just be like, bro. He's like, okay, I like it. Done. You know, we'll bring jobs. Cool, let's go. Um, it feels like that's how it would have to happen. But that's probably one of the more frustrating things in terms of growth for the online industry because US is a huge market. Right. And you know, opening that up, I mean there's unregulated sites and things like that that I do not recommend, you know.

Speaker B: Sure.

Speaker A: But uh, and you know, GG is regulated, so they're not here. But, um, you know, I hope to see that change at some point. Like that would probably be the next step because. Because I think too what you miss, where people in the poker will miss is like once you have an online poker opportunity in the U.S. they're going to put a lot more money into marketing, which means potentially guarantees, which they already do, and other things and promotions that benefit. But bringing in more people. Right. I think that's where. Sort of a side topic. It's where a lot of the younger generation kind of comes from this ev. This is where 10 cents. I'm taking this 10 cents with. Without any regard for what it does to the game or anything else. Right. I come from a generation where we were like, we got to grow the game, we got to bring new people in, you know, and sometimes that means, you know, blowing a few bucks here and there and not being so nitty and you know, like you're in a nine handed game and the uh, the, the, the fish walks off. You don't just all quit and let him know, you know, like, show some respect, have a little bit of chutzpah to you, you know, um, and that's a little bit lost because frankly too, like the edges are smaller. These guys have to nickel and dime a little more. And I understand that they're trying to make money, um, and the opportunities that existed during the previous boom for sponsorship isn't there anymore. Like a lot of these before you make a name for yourself. Well, you know, maybe a company will sponsor you. That would come back too, if, you know, we open up the United States.

Speaker B: And how would the sponsorships work? Do they, did they help people with buy ins or what do they do?

Speaker A: Sponsorships are all different. They all, they take on different forms for different people. For some it's, you know, a straight salary, so we're a patch and to do whatever, you know, they do, whether it's vlogging or, um, who knows what streaming. For others, you know, they might get a buy in deal. Some don't like. It really depends on how you negotiate it. I've had one of my trusted friends now for almost 30 years now. Brian Ballsbaugh, poker royalty. That's branched out. He's the agency here for the, you know, the hockey guys, the football guys. Um, I entrust him to, to. I don't do any of my own deals, you know, and I learned that very young thanks to him really, that I remember. I was, I was asked to do this like, uh, I was like a chip set or a board game. They were going to give me 75,000 bucks. It was years ago. And they wanted me to do like 12 appearances, okay, all over the place for one year. And to me I'm like, I don't know. Sounds okay, I guess. But so Brian, who gets his cut, by the time this deal look is done, it's 250,003 appearances only here in Las Vegas. So I was going from 12 appearances all over the world, right? And also, you know, four times the money because of him. So people say, well, is it. Then you got to give him a cut. A cut of what, though? A much bigger pie. He earned his cut. I would, you know what I'm saying? I made more money too. And that's what. And it also, I think the most important thing is there's a buffer, right? You work with a company, you don't. It's like arbitration, you see, you know, sports guys do it all the time, right? And like now you got to say all the things that you, that you're you suck at. You know what I mean? You're like, the owners have to say, well, he doesn't. He doesn't hit. He doesn't. It's, you know, it's uncomfortable.

Speaker B: I don't negotiate my stuff either. I have somebody else do it because I like to have somebody in between.

Speaker A: So. And the truth is, I think that I, uh, I'm. I'm pretty very easy going when it comes to money and all this sort of stuff. The people who work for me, they're all overpaid. I'm going to say that flatly, and I know it. But I'm okay with that because I, uh, you know, I want them to be happy, right. And I'm not a nickel and dimer. And one thing that I've realized, too, is I typically undersell myself, like, because, you know, you. There's. There's like. I don't know where those insecurities come from, but it's like, really, I'm worth that much money for them to do that, but, like, the results are there. The proof's in the pudding. You know what I mean? It's just like. But I don't. And I'm not big on tooting my own horn. He can do that. He can say, listen, look at the numbers. You went from here to here to here when he signed the other company, went from here to here to here when he was no longer with them. So do the math, you know, and, um, he can do that, and I don't have to love it.

Speaker B: So do you have any other big goals when it comes to. I mean, because what I found in success is there's this kind of achievement phase of your life. Uh, and then for me, if you just keep chasing the achievements, it gets pretty empty pretty fast. For me, it flipped into contribution. And that's where I get happy. If I'm contributing in some way, some form to people that, you know, I like or I want to help, that is fulfilling for me. Are there any other things that you want to accomplish because you're, you know, financially comfortable? You're doing. You're having fun, you're playing golf, you're playing. Playing poker. You're an ambassador of sorts for the. The sport that you love. Um, what's next?

Speaker A: It's funny you say that, because I used to release a blog. This is when people read. Nobody reads anymore. Every. The start of the year, and I would list, like eight clear goals that I had.

Speaker B: I remember.

Speaker A: And I would. Every year I want to do this, this, this, this, and I don't know, a few years ago, I just stopped doing it because more, like you said, part of it. That way, it's not complacency, it's just that I'm comfortable. You know what I mean? Like, I don't need that push. I get enough push during the World Series. I don't want to feel sort of attached to it either. Like. Like it's a ball and chain around my neck, if you will. And as far as, like, next step, next phase, I'm sort of entered that stage of my life. I've been golf, golfing with these guys that are all in their 70s. I'm the young kid out there, you know, having fun, living, like, lake life. I got my golf cart, you know, my golf cart's got a lot of miles on it. Now I just drive around, enjoy myself. And then, you know, with my wife, who was sharp enough to get us this home there, you know, if we can start a family, you know, that's next phage. And the contribution would be to, like, you know, you know, raise a family. And I think that's a, like a big job.

Speaker B: You know what's funny? Um. Um, I've. I've taught goals, and I had goals, and I'm in a world that is all about, you know, achieving the next level and next level, and there's always a nuts next level. And I chased that for a while. And starting about 10 years ago, I didn't have any. I really didn't. And I watched your stuff where you were listing that. You know what? Maybe I should. Because it looks like he's really got it put together, but I don't that way. I don't have a specific number. I'm not trying to hit a specific thing. I'm just trying to contribute a little bit more. I'm trying to, you know, kind of like in a poker game, you're reacting to. However the, The. The environment that you're in. I'm reacting to whatever environment I'm in. If a different, uh, the Democrats get in, then I'll react to that. If Republicans, you know, are in, then I'll react to that.

Speaker A: Yeah, but I think, you know, the reason you got to that is because you did have that base.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Like, I really think, like, for me, for. I would highly recommend for people that are, like, on the up and coming for sure. Just, man, get. Get clear on what you want. Yeah, right. But you got what you want.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So now you get the freedom of saying, all right, uh, I get to play the World Series. I'LL still. I'm still want to win player of the year. I have all these. But I'm not like, it's not a stated goal. I'm not going crazy for it. I'm going to have balance. I'm going to enjoy my life because I did make it, you know.

Speaker B: Yep.

Speaker A: There's winning a bracelet's always the goal, you know, winning as many as possible. Like, I want. I'd say as far as a goal goes, I want to put on an epic World Series. I feel like it's been a while since I had one where it's just like, whoa, I want to break the record, which is like three and three in a year. Somebody's three people. Four people have done that. I want to win four. I know it's crazy, but it could happen, you know, there's no reason. I've made like seven, eight final tables before. Hey, we get hot, we're there. And I just. That's fun for me, you know, And I just. But I. But you're right. I sort of prioritize now. More experiences.

Speaker B: Yep.

Speaker A: Enjoyment.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Which is why. Partly. Listen, I like to have a glass of wine or two.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: You know, I'm not going to be so strict and. Oh no, you know, you gotta.

Speaker B: I'm gonna.

Speaker A: I'm hanging out with my friends. Yeah, whatever. I'm good.

Speaker B: Well, God bless on the family front. Um, and I hope that goes smoothly and I hope all your dreams come true down that road for both of you. Um, people can follow your podcast that you do with your wife. It's the Mania podcast.

Speaker A: Yeah. Mhm. Yeah. We're gonna pause with the Mania podcast during the World Series.

Speaker B: Obviously I don't have to time, but still go subscribe. It is delightful. Go, go watch the back. The. The back episodes. The dynamic between the two of you.

Speaker A: I can see most of the content is evergreen. There's some stuff that's, you know, it's still interesting.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And we sort of go all over the place with it. It's a lot of it. It's almost like a, uh, it's. In some ways it's almost like a fun therapy session we have with each other where everybody else gets to listen in. Sometimes it gets heated. She. She's like. One time she's like, I'll walk off. I'm like, okay, okay. What I say relax.

Speaker B: You know that. And then follow your World series experience on YouTube if you can. M. Uh, on X. Yep.

Speaker A: At Real Kid Poker.

Speaker B: At Real Kid Poker. And follow you everywhere.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Anything else that they can buy.

Speaker A: I'm most. I'm most. If you're.

Speaker B: If you're a poker player around the world and you can play on GG, go play on GG.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think you know the. The YouTube channel.

Speaker B: Can you give them a coupon code that'll give them some sort of bonus or something?

Speaker A: I don't have anything out of my head.

Speaker B: Gosh, if you have a bonus, then we'll give it to everybody. Yeah.

Speaker A: Yeah. Um, Gavon, you might get strikes. Who knows? I don't know. I don't know the.

Speaker B: I don't either.

Speaker A: I don't either.

Speaker B: But, uh, but we'll be watching during this World Series, and maybe we can do a recap after you've won your four.

Speaker A: Four bracelets at the end, we're calling it here. And then, you know, we'll follow up, and I'll bring all four.

Speaker B: Four or better.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, whatever.

Speaker B: Four better.

Speaker A: I'm not thinking about seven, but, you know, four is pretty epic, right? Yeah.

Speaker B: That legendary year would be fun to watch.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Well, Daniel, I appreciate you coming by.

Speaker A: Anytime.

Speaker B: All right, so that's our conversation with Daniel Negranu. Make sure you follow him at Real Kid Poker wherever you consume your social media content. Um, we'll be checking in with him at the end of the World Series. We'll give you an update of. Of what's going on with that, but hopefully you're following along on his journey. Hope you got value. If you did, send this to a friend, give us a review. Uh, it means the world to us, helps us reach more people. Okay, Have a good day, and we'll see you next time.