Speaker 1: Two braces in a week. What is going on here?
Speaker 1: And that being said, the high right now is higher
Speaker 1: than it was then.
Speaker 2: Hey, this is Remco. Thanks for clicking on the video.
Speaker 2: This is my brand new podcast called Face the Ace,
Speaker 2: in which I talked to the most interesting people in
Speaker 2: poker and go a little deeper into the topics you
Speaker 2: most care about. Enjoy all right, this is Remco. This
Speaker 2: is faced as I'm joined by Greg Mueller, arguably one
Speaker 2: of the biggest aces of poker right now, making the
Speaker 2: final table of the WSP main event. I feel as though, Greg,
Speaker 2: you and I go so far back that to me,
Speaker 2: it's almost like an old friend making the final table.
Speaker 2: It's so glad. This is so good to see you
Speaker 2: make the final table. And the first thing I want
Speaker 2: to just start off with, what was the experience like
Speaker 2: in the days after making the final table? What sort
Speaker 2: of came at you? What was the experience like? And
Speaker 2: were you able to perhaps unwind at all at any point?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Great question. It's been a world And then the
Speaker 1: best thing I ever did was to get my ass
Speaker 1: on a flight and come home. As much as there's
Speaker 1: still been a lot of you know, media and incoming
Speaker 1: support and love and all that I've been able to
Speaker 1: sleep in my own bed. I have such a healthy
Speaker 1: team of supporters, Like, like I said the first thing,
Speaker 1: I said, my trainer, she's been cooking me the healthy meals,
Speaker 1: training me at least once a day, sometimes twice a day,
Speaker 1: having support of friends that are training with me kind
Speaker 1: of to encourage me, and and just being in my
Speaker 1: bed and eating healthy and sleeping and just kind of
Speaker 1: regrouping before the final table has been it's been amazing.
Speaker 1: And yeah, because you don't realize how sleep deprived you
Speaker 1: are for eight days and how poorly you're eating, and
Speaker 1: how a lack of vitamin D and a lack of exercise,
Speaker 1: and you know, it's not not just so much on
Speaker 1: the looks at all. Actually, it's just how you feel inside.
Speaker 1: Like I haven't had one toms since I've been home,
Speaker 1: and I was crushing them before, you know, and so
Speaker 1: so yeah, it's it's been amazing, But I also know
Speaker 1: there's I have a lot of work to do.
Speaker 2: So it's so crazy to see the contrast between sort
Speaker 2: of the the Greg Mueller before the main event, I
Speaker 2: read your story with Lance Bradley. You and I spoke
Speaker 2: multiple times during the main event, so so the Greg
Speaker 2: Muller before the main, during the main and now sort
Speaker 2: of in this in between phase. And I'm sure there
Speaker 2: will be another version of yourself uncovered once this whole
Speaker 2: main event story completes in a little over a week.
Speaker 2: But allow me to go back to before the WSOP,
Speaker 2: because right now you're living in this state of preparation,
Speaker 2: you're living in the state of focus, You're paying this
Speaker 2: to your diet, you're exercising a lot. I'll just ask
Speaker 2: you straight up, why weren't you doing those things before
Speaker 2: the WSLP.
Speaker 1: Well, I actually am very active in exercise a lot.
Speaker 1: I tend to be an all or nothing guy at times,
Speaker 1: and even though I'm training hard, I'm eating good, I'm
Speaker 1: doing the right things, and I feel a gazillion times better.
Speaker 1: The bottom line is I still have a deeper target
Speaker 1: to hit as far as how I like my physical
Speaker 1: fitness to be. I have very high standards, and sometimes
Speaker 1: when I realize, oh, it's already April, I'm never going
Speaker 1: to get to my ultimate goal by May twenty fifth,
Speaker 1: when I have to leave, Eh, I'll deal with it
Speaker 1: when I get home kind of and versus thinking, well,
Speaker 1: a month of going hard and dropping seven LB's and
Speaker 1: feeling better will be better than not, right, I tend
Speaker 1: to say, well, if I can't get to my ex
Speaker 1: weight anyways, no matter what. When I'm at home, I'm
Speaker 1: very active. I'm always on the ice, I'm walking the
Speaker 1: golf course, I'm training a few times a week. It's
Speaker 1: my diet. Let's say I never diet, but I'm saying
Speaker 1: it's what my food intake makes all the difference, you know,
Speaker 1: if I'm crushing bags of chips while I'm watching sports
Speaker 1: or if I'm not. And you know that's I'm always
Speaker 1: very very active at home, not so much in Vegas.
Speaker 1: And so when you ask me, I guess the question
Speaker 1: is why not? Before I was very active, but I
Speaker 1: knew that the tunnel was too far to get to
Speaker 1: an ultimate goal. That I was like, Okay, I'll worry
Speaker 1: about that when I get home for the summer. And
Speaker 1: in the beginning of the World Series, first two weeks,
Speaker 1: I was at the gym every day. The next two weeks,
Speaker 1: I went for one and a half to two hour
Speaker 1: walks every morning. It just started. As the time moved on,
Speaker 1: and you know, you kind of have that I'll start Monday,
Speaker 1: I'll start at the end of the month. I'll start
Speaker 1: when I get home kind of attitude. And well, this
Speaker 1: time it was a little more urgency with being home
Speaker 1: for two and a half weeks before the final table.
Speaker 2: So with that athlete blood that's running through your veins
Speaker 2: and your history playing hockey at a high level, is
Speaker 2: there also some some sort of switch that gets flipped
Speaker 2: once that moment's moment arrives because I knew that's the
Speaker 2: first thing you said, like you got I'm gonna go home,
Speaker 2: I'm going to lose some weight, I'm gonna get locked in.
Speaker 2: Is that sort of a sort of a sort of
Speaker 2: mode that you possess, that you can sort of reach
Speaker 2: back to from the past.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. It's like muscle memory a little bit,
Speaker 1: I would say, And I'm very fortunate that I did
Speaker 1: play professional hockey and have that ability to kind of say, okay,
Speaker 1: that's it. Three weeks still training camp. I have to go,
Speaker 1: I have to go balls to the wall, whereas a
Speaker 1: lot of people they don't really know how to do that,
Speaker 1: and so for me, it's just easy. I just kept
Speaker 1: the junk food cabinet, which is quite the legendary cabinet
Speaker 1: clear of chips and chocolates and sours, and just made
Speaker 1: it a point to get eight hours a night and exercise,
Speaker 1: eat clean, and just you know, it's not just the appearance,
Speaker 1: it's how I feel. And right now I feel relaxed,
Speaker 1: I feel energized, and you just feel so much better.
Speaker 1: And yes, I guess the answer to your question is,
Speaker 1: I'm very fortunate that I have that ability to kind
Speaker 1: of on a die make that adjustment.
Speaker 2: The narrative of your main event run is sort of
Speaker 2: interesting because there was a few things that could have
Speaker 2: gone differently and you wouldn't even have played the main event.
Speaker 2: You and Sean my Cannon, your close friend you know
Speaker 2: we're talking about or you. I guess you were saying,
Speaker 2: I don't even want to be here, and you didn't
Speaker 2: have the drive and the motivation. Take us through how
Speaker 2: that moment was, how you experience that, and then how
Speaker 2: things started the change as you went deeper into the main.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not that I was not going to
Speaker 1: play the main because I play it every year. It's
Speaker 1: just that it's something I've been battling with for a while.
Speaker 1: You know, when you get to the I don't want
Speaker 1: to say, the top of the food chain. But when
Speaker 1: you've had some successes, you kind of I did, I
Speaker 1: could speak for myself. Lost the drive to compete and
Speaker 1: and and be involved in the in the poker as
Speaker 1: much like I just lost the zest. I don't know
Speaker 1: if it's I'm getting older and realizing that times of
Speaker 1: the essence and I don't want to sit at the
Speaker 1: poker table my whole life anymore, or what it is.
Speaker 1: But I just kind of found myself going through the motions.
Speaker 1: And you know, like I said, it was probably about
Speaker 1: a week before the main Bucky and I had gotten
Speaker 1: into it, and and you know, it got a little
Speaker 1: bit testing, not in a way like him and I
Speaker 1: always have love for each other, but in a way
Speaker 1: where he was giving me some tough love and I
Speaker 1: was actually telling him, I'm okay, i'll tell you what.
Speaker 1: I'll side bet me versus this guy against you. And
Speaker 1: he goes, oh, I can find you endless action for that.
Speaker 1: I said, no, I don't want endless action. I want
Speaker 1: you to crossbook me versus him. You think I can't
Speaker 1: play anymore, whatever I win, you pay me out of
Speaker 1: your pocket, and whatever he wins, I'll pay you out
Speaker 1: of my pocket. And he said, I don't not have
Speaker 1: faith and you'll side bet me and you versus anybody,
Speaker 1: but it just seems like you're in the moment drawn dead.
Speaker 1: And I said, okay, so then me versus this particular
Speaker 1: guy relevant who it is. I just randomly pulled up
Speaker 1: a good no limit player and said me versus him,
Speaker 1: but me against you and and he said that's nonsense.
Speaker 1: And I said, well, no, we'll go up to two
Speaker 1: hundred thousand max pains so we don't, you know, really
Speaker 1: hurt each other. And and and after the test, astrone
Speaker 1: or the ego kind of calmed down a bit, you know.
Speaker 1: I went went and played night golf at Shadow Creek
Speaker 1: and had a few cocktails, and then the next night
Speaker 1: had some more cocktails. And it was, you know, two
Speaker 1: three days before the main. Then I slept all day,
Speaker 1: did a lot of thinking and said, okay, you know what,
Speaker 1: he's right, I am going completely through the motions. It's
Speaker 1: tough to see for a guy that loves and cares
Speaker 1: for you. And okay, I told him I'm going to
Speaker 1: give it my own I told him before it started,
Speaker 1: and I mean more to myself, but also verbalized it. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm going to give it my own in this main event,
Speaker 1: and if I lose or bluff it off or whatever,
Speaker 1: that's just part of poker. But I'm not going to
Speaker 1: do it because I don't want to be here or
Speaker 1: because I'd rather do something else. And he said, right on,
Speaker 1: that's the fight that I want to see. And my
Speaker 1: other good buddy said to me after day one, I had,
Speaker 1: you know, one hundred thousand. After day one, you start
Speaker 1: with sixty. And he said, tomorrow is going to be
Speaker 1: the toughest day for you. If you get by tomorrow,
Speaker 1: I think you're going to make a deep run. My buddy, Triple,
Speaker 1: I said, And I was like, why do you say that?
Speaker 1: And he says, because day two is still so early.
Speaker 1: It's still a big grind day. It's grinding hasn't been
Speaker 1: in your nature for a while. But if you can
Speaker 1: get to through that day without it being serious yet,
Speaker 1: you're going to make it run. And so I grinded
Speaker 1: through that day and had one hundred and seventy five,
Speaker 1: which again slightly above averager, you know, right around there.
Speaker 1: And then and then he said to me again the
Speaker 1: same bat, Triple I said, if you can get through
Speaker 1: day four because it's still in the money, but sort
Speaker 1: of early I think you're going to make it run.
Speaker 1: And I and once we got to day five, people said, oh,
Speaker 1: this is the day, you know, and I said, no,
Speaker 1: we're going We're going deeper. And I remember seeing you
Speaker 1: on day four, I think right before the money bubble.
Speaker 2: Oh, I was on the bubble, on the bubble.
Speaker 1: Yes, it was on the bubble, and yeah, I knew
Speaker 1: I was. I don't know, it was really weird. I
Speaker 1: knew I would win the coin flip. I knew my
Speaker 1: eighty twenty would hold up with the jacks against the nines.
Speaker 1: And I just, I don't know, It's one of those things, right,
Speaker 1: I just I felt kind of so weird.
Speaker 2: It was cool to see because the energy I saw
Speaker 2: from you on the bubble when we spoke, that energy
Speaker 2: was sort of the classic FBT energy. You know, you're
Speaker 2: always high spirits, you're always full of positivity. So when
Speaker 2: you said that to me in the moment, I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm kind of surprised to hear that. You know, you
Speaker 2: had to go through a few things to find sort
Speaker 2: of the zest again and the fire to go make
Speaker 2: that run and obviously you know you did, and now
Speaker 2: we're here, which is awesome, But I want to sort
Speaker 2: of hear, like, what is it truly like for someone
Speaker 2: who's been in this game for so long. You've had
Speaker 2: so much success, You've won multiple bracelets, you've got millions
Speaker 2: of dollars on the old hend and mob, what is
Speaker 2: it really like to finally experience a Day seven and
Speaker 2: a Day eight in the main Because every single year
Speaker 2: that you come to Vegas, you see a group of characters,
Speaker 2: some you might know, most you might not have that experience,
Speaker 2: and you hear them say how amazing it is. You
Speaker 2: hear them talk about how crazy it is to make
Speaker 2: your main event final table, but then you were in
Speaker 2: it this year. Described that to me, Well.
Speaker 1: It's it's something that's like every poker player buys in
Speaker 1: wanting to win the meme, but it's almost so unrealistic
Speaker 1: that whenever you bust, it hurts. Whenever you bust the
Speaker 1: main event, it's like the toughest day of the year
Speaker 1: for a poker player, let's say, right, because you find
Speaker 1: yourself just like, ah, I'm out, you know, but you
Speaker 1: you almost expect when is it going to happen? Because
Speaker 1: nobody makes the final table, right, Like it's it's just
Speaker 1: it's so even if you're good or you're bad or
Speaker 1: you're lucky, at some point they get you. And so
Speaker 1: it's almost it's it's it's almost unrealistic, right and until
Speaker 1: it is realistic, and all of a sudden, oh my god.
Speaker 1: Like I have average stack with you know, five hundred left,
Speaker 1: slight years away, but all of a sudden, there's one
Speaker 1: hundred left, and then there's sick left, and then there's
Speaker 1: twenty one left. And you know, I will say Day eight,
Speaker 1: heading into DA eight, I was having my doubts a
Speaker 1: little bit. I was nineteenth out of twenty one in chips,
Speaker 1: and I remember Bucky going, dude, oh, what a spot
Speaker 1: you're in. I'm going, what a spot? What do you mean?
Speaker 1: He goes, you're you're twenty one people left in the main?
Speaker 1: I go, yeah, a look at my stack. He goes, dude,
Speaker 1: you got a heaps of chips? What do you mean?
Speaker 1: And I'm like, do you really believe that? He goes,
Speaker 1: Oh my god, you know, And that was that was
Speaker 1: kind of the first day where I thought I was
Speaker 1: short with my you know, twenty blinds or whatever. I
Speaker 1: did was that I had and and you know, his
Speaker 1: constant pounding it into my head that this is not
Speaker 1: level five of a tournament with twenty blinds, This is
Speaker 1: not a small buy in, this is the main twenty
Speaker 1: blinds is heaps of chips, and he just kept drilling
Speaker 1: it into my head until all of a sudden, Oh
Speaker 1: my god, we're down to like twelve here, what is
Speaker 1: going on? And you know, and all of a sudden, wow,
Speaker 1: you know, there it is, and it's yeah, it's uh.
Speaker 1: I can't say to start the tournament, that was my goal.
Speaker 1: My goal was just to play well. And because it's
Speaker 1: who makes the final table, you know, so yeah, it
Speaker 1: was no expectation other than for myself to give it
Speaker 1: my all kind of thing.
Speaker 2: And then you've played quite a few just insane equity
Speaker 2: spots in that final lead up to get to the
Speaker 2: final nine. You know that you got to win the flips,
Speaker 2: you got to you got to have your aces hold
Speaker 2: up versus kings, and then all of a sudden, you
Speaker 2: know you're there. And and for the people watching, you know,
Speaker 2: not to go through the whole final table, but you
Speaker 2: got thirty two bigs coming into the final table. Uh,
Speaker 2: Lucas Jumalan has a monster ship lead, which also means
Speaker 2: that you know, in a way, the fight for who
Speaker 2: gets the play heads up against him is wide open,
Speaker 2: just to you know, throw out a scenario and you
Speaker 2: know you're right in the fight, which is which is
Speaker 2: of course great to see, much better than coming into
Speaker 2: the final table with like eleven bigs. So how do
Speaker 2: you look at the situation at hand, how do you
Speaker 2: look at the challenge of this final table.
Speaker 1: Well, first of all, it's to go back on Day eight.
Speaker 1: I mean I was in very fortunate. I was in
Speaker 1: some very good spots and day you know, on the
Speaker 1: right side of a couple of coolers and won that
Speaker 1: key flip. I do have to say heading into day eight,
Speaker 1: I was only all in for my tournament life before
Speaker 1: day eight. One time I had two kings and my
Speaker 1: opponent had Ace Queen. I got lucky on some hands
Speaker 1: along the way, but I was never all in. So
Speaker 1: heading into day the only time I was ever all
Speaker 1: in was I had two kings against Ace Queen and Health.
Speaker 1: And then on day eight, like you said, I found
Speaker 1: myself into all these kinds of spots because the game
Speaker 1: changes a little bit, you know, along the way, you're
Speaker 1: one hundred big blind's deep, two hundred big blinds deep.
Speaker 1: You know, every hand isn't as crucial. You can play
Speaker 1: post flop, you can check raise on the turns. There's
Speaker 1: there's a lot more river bluffing. There's a lot more
Speaker 1: that you can kind of do. Whereas now it's such
Speaker 1: a range has become so tight and and the stacks
Speaker 1: have become so much smaller that there's a lot more
Speaker 1: pre flop action which dictates things right and so so yeah,
Speaker 1: and then on day eight, I mean, I blessed to be,
Speaker 1: like I said, on the right side of two coolers
Speaker 1: if you may, and to win a race, and you
Speaker 1: know those are that has to happen in this event.
Speaker 1: I've always said, you have to play really good, you
Speaker 1: have to be lucky, and you can't be unlucky, which
Speaker 1: is even the most of it, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Like it's it's one thing to put it in with
Speaker 1: aces versus Kingsby. You can't afford for him to hit
Speaker 1: the king right. And so now coming into the main
Speaker 1: the final table again, yeah, the early perception and odds
Speaker 1: are Jumelin versus who and he's a great player, a
Speaker 1: really nice kid. I really like him. His rail's fun.
Speaker 1: I always saw it. How would be epic if it
Speaker 1: was my hockey rail versus his rail, loud and fun
Speaker 1: and in good spirits, the young versus the old. You know,
Speaker 1: it would be an amazing heads up du like if
Speaker 1: I could, you know, draw it up, that would be
Speaker 1: that would be what I would envision, you know. But
Speaker 1: the thing that I've learned is that nobody's out, nobody's
Speaker 1: a guarantee, and chips move and it might be two
Speaker 1: people that are predicted and it might not be And
Speaker 1: I can't really have a I can have a game
Speaker 1: plan for now my stack nine handed, but when things change,
Speaker 1: when chips move, when people bust, when position changes, so
Speaker 1: does the strategy. And so you know, I've heard people saying,
Speaker 1: I think Kneeler's going to do this or he's going
Speaker 1: to do that. You can really it's cliche, but you
Speaker 1: can really only go hand by hand like you really can.
Speaker 2: So what we have heard in the past, and with
Speaker 2: November nine this was a bit more relevant because there
Speaker 2: was so much time to prepare, so you could really,
Speaker 2: you know, put hundreds of hours into studying the specific scenarios.
Speaker 2: But there's always something to be said for you know,
Speaker 2: playing a few simulation final tables. You know, you play
Speaker 2: your stacks. You got aid buddies that might play the
Speaker 2: other stacks. Have you done anything like that to prepare?
Speaker 2: And then you know, I know you're good friends with
Speaker 2: with Sean Buchanan, and this guy also knows what's up
Speaker 2: when it comes to tournament play. What has the poker
Speaker 2: prep been.
Speaker 1: Like, Yeah, no, I'll tell you we haven't done that.
Speaker 1: I haven't. A couple buddies suggest that, hey, if you
Speaker 1: need eight gummies so to say, that are or stand
Speaker 1: ins you know, to I'll be gags and I'll be
Speaker 1: Jumalan and like that, and and and I don't think
Speaker 1: that's a realistic scenario at all. So I didn't do that.
Speaker 1: I don't really want to deep dive too much into
Speaker 1: the prep that I'm doing for the tournament, but I
Speaker 1: think it's most the most prep I can say that
Speaker 1: I'm doing. You know, obviously I'm I'm I'm doing something,
Speaker 1: But for the most part, I think it's just to
Speaker 1: keep the body and the mind and the mental and
Speaker 1: physical aspect sharp. I think that's the most important thing
Speaker 1: for me.
Speaker 2: The game has changed so much throughout your career in poker,
Speaker 2: and when you were first coming onto the scene, there
Speaker 2: was still a lot to the fact that if you
Speaker 2: were just talking to the right people, you could gain
Speaker 2: a lot from that and get ahead the field. Well, nowadays,
Speaker 2: you know, the kids, as we like to call them,
Speaker 2: they are just studying with solvers. They're they're basically figuring
Speaker 2: out and and almost like turning some of these things
Speaker 2: into like a math test, you know, memorizing how to
Speaker 2: do certain things, how to play certain ways. I know
Speaker 2: that you're also someone who is a really good at
Speaker 2: reading body language, understanding you know, the sort of the
Speaker 2: what the air in the room smells like. But how
Speaker 2: do you marry it to how do you find a
Speaker 2: common middle ground? And this is not even specifically a
Speaker 2: question about the final table prep, but just you as
Speaker 2: a player in the current dair landscape.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean the game it's it's like you said,
Speaker 1: it's not necessarily in this spot, but I often find
Speaker 1: myself at a table with eight robots and and it's Jesus,
Speaker 1: game has changed a lot, you know. And and I
Speaker 1: know this because I know people through people that they
Speaker 1: study eight hours a day. I don't this last two
Speaker 1: weeks a bit different. But ten and a half months
Speaker 1: and I'm not in Vegas. I don't look or study
Speaker 1: at a single poker hand. You know, I am or
Speaker 1: was as far gto removed as it gets, and just
Speaker 1: always got by with my instincts and my ability to
Speaker 1: you know, with deception in a hand and tell the
Speaker 1: story of my hand, and you know, versus the solvers
Speaker 1: that that you know, I'll go into the tank. I'm
Speaker 1: in the cuta off, Jesus, is this a good spot
Speaker 1: to go? All in? Does he fold a lot? Whereas
Speaker 1: they just okay, I have twelve bigs, it says Queen
Speaker 1: Ate suited and above as a jam. They it's it's really,
Speaker 1: it's really just easy flow. Whereas for me, I do
Speaker 1: more of the human element. And now, obviously I'd be
Speaker 1: foolish to say if I didn't learn a little bit
Speaker 1: along the way and realize that all these sayings of
Speaker 1: ICM and solvers and stuff. You know, I've realized along
Speaker 1: the way how important they are and what they mean.
Speaker 1: You have to because yeah, the game has it's it's
Speaker 1: quite insane, how like you said, from ten to fifteen
Speaker 1: years ago, how it's changed and That's the beautiful thing
Speaker 1: about the main event is that not everyone's a solver
Speaker 1: or a robot. Yet you know, everybody's better. Like the
Speaker 1: real weak players from years ago are now let's say
Speaker 1: they were D or eer F players, they're now C
Speaker 1: plus c B plus players. The days of just somebody doesn't,
Speaker 1: you know, jamming all in with middle pair top kicker
Speaker 1: unless he's trying to bluff, It just doesn't happen anymore.
Speaker 1: You know, everybody's everybody's read and studied to a degree.
Speaker 1: But how drastically the game has changed is I mean,
Speaker 1: it's insane, it really is.
Speaker 2: The longevity of your career to me, tells me one
Speaker 2: very specific thing is that you have a really strong
Speaker 2: talent for the game and a strong talent for reading
Speaker 2: people because especially when you got into the game, the
Speaker 2: tools weren't available and you were having success as well.
Speaker 2: Allow yourself to go back in time to when you
Speaker 2: first played WSOP or when you first, maybe back in Canada,
Speaker 2: started playing in games where you figured out that hey,
Speaker 2: I am the best player or I am one of
Speaker 2: the guys who can make money at this. When was
Speaker 2: that and what was that realization like that you were
Speaker 2: trying to figure you were figuring things out other people weren't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was a human solver without realizing what I've
Speaker 1: solved kind of, you know. And and when Nolan was
Speaker 1: first made its comeback from limit, it was amazing, you know,
Speaker 1: the amount of pressure I could put on. I'd tell
Speaker 1: a buddy that was sitting behind me, I'm not even
Speaker 1: going to look at this hand. You can look, but
Speaker 1: I already know how with my sizing and how much
Speaker 1: pressure to put on where they're just going to fold.
Speaker 1: I don't need to look at my hand for an hour.
Speaker 1: And I can just win pots in cash games by
Speaker 1: putting pressure on, you know. And obviously have to polish
Speaker 1: the way you do it. You can't just you know.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I always I thought that through my experience,
Speaker 1: my ability to read people, my ability to make people
Speaker 1: think I'm on tilt when I'm not, make them think
Speaker 1: I'm playing tight when I'm not. You know, the kind
Speaker 1: of what does he think of my game? I'm going
Speaker 1: to counteract whatever it is. So if he thinks I'm
Speaker 1: really tight, while I'm gonna rob him. And if he
Speaker 1: thinks I'm really loose, I'm gonna wait for the hand
Speaker 1: and over bet it and get him to make a
Speaker 1: frustration call, you know. I mean there were so many
Speaker 1: times when you know, I play the two five games
Speaker 1: and I'd be in every hand so it looked like
Speaker 1: but when I put the money in, you know, he'd
Speaker 1: be like, I'm calling nobody else but you I'm calling.
Speaker 1: And he'd put in like twenty five hundred big lines
Speaker 1: with Jack's pre flop and I had the ass, and
Speaker 1: he'd be like, man, this one time, you have it
Speaker 1: because I gave the image of a maniac even though
Speaker 1: I wasn't right. And these were the things that you
Speaker 1: you could hone your skills in the live games, and
Speaker 1: people couldn't get that experience without putting in the hours. Now,
Speaker 1: unfortunately or over the past you know years, somebody can
Speaker 1: never have played one minute of live poker. But he's,
Speaker 1: you know, paying for coaching from all these coaching wizards
Speaker 1: and takes the tools and sits at home and plays
Speaker 1: twenty seven tables at once, and all of a sudden
Speaker 1: he makes his first cash or a tournament entry. And
Speaker 1: this guy's more polished than me because of all the
Speaker 1: help that he's had along the way, right, And that's
Speaker 1: kind of where it's like anything right now that's going
Speaker 1: on with the modern technology and the AI. It's racing.
Speaker 1: It's racing, right, and if you don't kind of keep up,
Speaker 1: you're going to be lost along the way. Right.
Speaker 2: So, when your hockey career was sort of ending, and
Speaker 2: then when I look at your hand and when you
Speaker 2: started cashing tournaments, there's quite a gap between those years.
Speaker 2: Was there a moment in time of like figuring out
Speaker 2: what do I want to do next? Were you already
Speaker 2: playing cards back in the hockey days, thinking of, like
Speaker 2: this could be something I can do in the future.
Speaker 2: How did you How did you go through life in
Speaker 2: that sort of in between.
Speaker 1: Well, I quit hockey prematurely. My mom passed of cancer
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety nine, and I kind of lost the
Speaker 1: passion and the drive to train every day and go away,
Speaker 1: and so I kind of just suddenly retired. I could
Speaker 1: have played easily, like I was nowhere near the end
Speaker 1: of my career from a skill or physical standpoint, I
Speaker 1: just you know, lost the was like okay, and I
Speaker 1: loved poker, and yes, we played on the back of
Speaker 1: the buses and you had long bus trips or even
Speaker 1: if we're flying, we play on the like we loved
Speaker 1: to play. You know, wasn't always Texas hold them, might
Speaker 1: have been in Chicago or what you name it, right,
Speaker 1: it's the high speed in the hole. We just we
Speaker 1: love to play. And then so in the summertimes, I'd
Speaker 1: always drive down with my buddy and play one to
Speaker 1: five stud and and and then literally when I retired,
Speaker 1: I was like, well, what am I going to do here?
Speaker 1: And I started on ground zero, I mean literally playing
Speaker 1: five to five limit hold them, five, ten limit, hold them, ten,
Speaker 1: twenty limit, hold them. Gavin Smith used to see me
Speaker 1: in Vegas. I'd play twenty forty, real comfortable, and he'd
Speaker 1: be like, hey, hockey pot, when do you step up
Speaker 1: to the to the big leagues here and play little
Speaker 1: thirty sixty forty eighty. I'm MG, no, no, no, I'm good,
Speaker 1: and I can't always have the discipline and the money management.
Speaker 1: He'd be like, what are you scared to play with us?
Speaker 1: And sure enough he'd get me up there and I'd
Speaker 1: get whacked, and you know, back to the twenty forty
Speaker 1: and then okay, could beat to thirty sixty. Now take
Speaker 1: a shot in the one hundred two hundred limit and
Speaker 1: get whacked, and you know, go home, regroup and you know,
Speaker 1: run up and then switch over to no limit go
Speaker 1: into the tournaments. And so yeah, by the time I
Speaker 1: got into tournament poker, I mean it was I had
Speaker 1: been playing a long time cash games, but it took
Speaker 1: a minute from from my first hand in mob let's say,
Speaker 1: between you know, the days of hockey and the end
Speaker 1: in model. And also I loved it. It didn't matter what
Speaker 1: I was playing, you know, whe there was no limit
Speaker 1: limit tournaments, I just sometimes would check in at the
Speaker 1: Commerce hotel on a Friday and I wouldn't have my
Speaker 1: bags unpacked until a Monday, because you know, I'd need
Speaker 1: a new underwear every day and a new shirt every day.
Speaker 1: And I didn't care what was in my suitcase or
Speaker 1: hung up. I just couldn't wait to play. And it's
Speaker 1: quite the opposite now where you know, I guess I
Speaker 1: got to go sign up for this. I get a
Speaker 1: phone call, Hey, you want to go golf. Yeah.
Speaker 2: It is cool to see that you've made sort of
Speaker 2: that grind work from the ground up, and especially doing
Speaker 2: it in live games playing much lower volume, having to
Speaker 2: basically be there, you know, be present the whole time.
Speaker 2: Playing one table is definitely something that not many people
Speaker 2: can say that they've made it work, starting from there
Speaker 2: and then making it making it even to play tournaments
Speaker 2: on the regular, which of course those buyings are massive.
Speaker 2: When you add up the tally of one summer, it's
Speaker 2: so much money that's at stake. But then you start
Speaker 2: having some success in tournaments, and then specifically you have
Speaker 2: a run at the WSOP in O seven where you
Speaker 2: finished second and the five a mixed limit no limit,
Speaker 2: and I find it really funny because you are like
Speaker 2: the mixed limit no limit guy, you know, like limit
Speaker 2: hold them is ultimately what became those bracelets in the
Speaker 2: in the in the years after, and then your first
Speaker 2: heads up is limit no limit Mix. How much do
Speaker 2: you remember from that run and how perhaps uh disappointed
Speaker 2: or proud were you of that run?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I was, I remember, mister smokey, I believe won
Speaker 1: that one. Steve bill a Rack is very tough player.
Speaker 1: And I remember because on breaks I was running to
Speaker 1: the Mandalay Bay because Sean Buchanan was heads up in
Speaker 1: the WPT when we had a dinner break and I
Speaker 1: was going back and forth and he ended up we
Speaker 1: were rooming together and he ended up winning the ten
Speaker 1: k mandle a ba WPT and I came second. And
Speaker 1: I remember, like you'd think two roomies just came first
Speaker 1: and second. I mean it was going to be a party.
Speaker 1: You'd think that, you know, certain establishments, the money would
Speaker 1: be flying around at and I I remember talking to
Speaker 1: my dad and I was in quite a melancholy mood,
Speaker 1: if you can believe it. He didn't understand it. I
Speaker 1: think I won three hundred and fifty thousand for second place,
Speaker 1: and you know he can't. My dad worked so hard,
Speaker 1: my parents, you know, in the restaurant and they to
Speaker 1: hit a score like that and to not be ecstatic,
Speaker 1: like he didn't really understand. And what the truth was.
Speaker 1: I came in second. I wanted that bracelet so bad.
Speaker 1: And instead of Bucky and I going all was celebrating.
Speaker 1: We went home at dinner and like we crashed kind of,
Speaker 1: you know, there was no I mean, he was excited
Speaker 1: to play another tournament the next day at the series,
Speaker 1: and that's kind of what we did. But it second
Speaker 1: place wasn't Yes, three days a week, whatever days go
Speaker 1: by and you realize, hey, that's quite the financial score
Speaker 1: that I just made. But in the moment being a competitor.
Speaker 1: I wasn't excited about a second place finish. I was
Speaker 1: quite upset to not went in. And I was up
Speaker 1: against the killer at the time too. I think it
Speaker 1: was he was the young to ever win a race
Speaker 1: at at the time, but he was a very tough player.
Speaker 1: And you know, obviously I realized how like like that
Speaker 1: it was a great accomplishment afterwards, but in that moment,
Speaker 1: the bitterness of not winning was too much.
Speaker 2: I mean, you're also competitor at heart, so it would
Speaker 2: almost be weird for you to be satisfied by being
Speaker 2: the first loser, which is kind of what that second
Speaker 2: place could mean, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I tell everybody, I say, the crazy thing is,
Speaker 1: no matter how deep your run is in this main,
Speaker 1: there's only one guy that's going to be happy. Like,
Speaker 1: give it two weeks, and you know, second place will
Speaker 1: be like I just made six million, Third place will
Speaker 1: be I just made four million. Ye, you'll be happy,
Speaker 1: You'll be okay, You're gonna have no sympathy and no
Speaker 1: pity parties. But in the moment, there's only gonna be
Speaker 1: one one happy guy in the moment out of ninety
Speaker 1: two and eight. And I stand by that even now
Speaker 1: that we're down to nine and it's been an amazing
Speaker 1: accomplishment and to get there and the fun I've had
Speaker 1: along the way, the support, I mean, that's the part
Speaker 1: that is the biggest win of all, just to realize,
Speaker 1: oh my goodness, geez, I'm really lucky. I have so
Speaker 1: much friends and family genuinely wholehearted rooting for me, whether
Speaker 1: they're in the poker world, not in the poker world,
Speaker 1: you know, hockey world, high school buddies, like it's been
Speaker 1: like that in itself is the biggest win of all,
Speaker 1: you know, if you really step and think about it,
Speaker 1: you know, and which has been so humbling and so
Speaker 1: like emotionally gratifying and stuff, but not being said. Once
Speaker 1: I'm in combat anything except winning, it is going to
Speaker 1: be at some point a letdown, you know, and just
Speaker 1: the way it goes when you're in a competition, unfortunately.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think it's also the reason why you've
Speaker 2: had a long career is because you strive to win,
Speaker 2: which in poker is one of the key components because
Speaker 2: once you don't care about winning anymore, as you mentioned earlier,
Speaker 2: once once that sort of zest leaves the room, then
Speaker 2: it's hard to gear up for, you know, as you mentioned,
Speaker 2: you know, laid regging with ten bigs and just tossing
Speaker 2: it in there because you didn't care anymore.
Speaker 1: And I don't. And I think it's and I think
Speaker 1: that's true for all professions, or all hobbies or all
Speaker 1: anything that you do. If you don't enjoy it, your
Speaker 1: your your work is going to be subpar and of story.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then you get one more second place before
Speaker 2: you win your first place. At in eight you finished
Speaker 2: second in a shootout, and then in nine, which by
Speaker 2: the way, was my first World Series. I was twenty
Speaker 2: one in nine, and I'll never forget this because I
Speaker 2: was there when you won. I was there when you
Speaker 2: won your first, and I was there when you won
Speaker 2: your second. I think, if I recall correctly, at the time,
Speaker 2: there was a lot of buzz like, oh, Greg Mueller,
Speaker 2: he's one of those guys, one of the top players
Speaker 2: who doesn't have a bracelet. And you had two second
Speaker 2: places and that was sort of going around and you
Speaker 2: like you had to close it out, and then you
Speaker 2: win the first one, and then you almost immediately win
Speaker 2: the second one right after beating the Dutch player Mark
Speaker 2: Nolden heads up, who was also known as a limit player.
Speaker 2: Dead must must have been the rush of a lifetime
Speaker 2: that week.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean the ten K that I won.
Speaker 1: I mean, when I look back on it, the amount
Speaker 1: of killers that were at that table. You know, Mark
Speaker 1: Haas tv F was his online name. I don't even
Speaker 1: remember his.
Speaker 2: Name, Carolina Carolina, and.
Speaker 1: Matt Glantz I believe was at the final table, Pat Pesan,
Speaker 1: Chad Brown, Chad Brown the Love Chad Brown, and uh
Speaker 1: maybe Mark Kleekan might have been at that one or
Speaker 1: was he a different one?
Speaker 2: And it was it was It was a mad glance
Speaker 2: glance Brumblehouse, the Dutch.
Speaker 1: Guy, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, And and I mean it
Speaker 1: was a it was it was. It was a who's
Speaker 1: who of the limit killers, right, so yeah, it was
Speaker 1: very special, and like you said, to win the to
Speaker 1: win the next one right after confidence, it's a funny thing.
Speaker 1: You know, you're feeling the high and you're just zigging
Speaker 1: when you're supposed to be and you're zagging when you're
Speaker 1: supposed to be and like, you know, two races in
Speaker 1: a week, it was just like what is going on here?
Speaker 1: You know? And that being said, the high right now
Speaker 1: is higher than it was then. I mean, it was
Speaker 1: so long ago, it's hard to it's hard to say
Speaker 1: for sure, but I still think that the accomplishment or
Speaker 1: the rush or the you know, to make the final
Speaker 1: nine of this is I just I think it's tougher.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's pretty close, but it's it's certainly more recent.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to go with.
Speaker 2: That that that's really that's really awesome to hear that
Speaker 2: you have this experience now that's already trumping what happens
Speaker 2: fifteen years ago, and in a way it is only
Speaker 2: just begun because making the final table the main to me,
Speaker 2: almost feels like you've won, you've won the satellite and
Speaker 2: now you get invited back to play the tournament.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, true, that's very true. No, And I tell
Speaker 1: people like like final table ESPN people flying out, it's great,
Speaker 1: million bucks. I mean it's great, it's amazing, it's it's
Speaker 1: more than amazing. But ten million and being the champ
Speaker 1: quite a difference. You know, it's financially, it's not like
Speaker 1: it's one versus one point five or it's nine versus ten.
Speaker 1: One in ten million, that's in the real world and
Speaker 1: absolute incredible, insane difference. So as as well as I
Speaker 1: have done in this event this year, I do still
Speaker 1: have so much work to do, which is sounds insane,
Speaker 1: but it's you know, it's true.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And the finances of the life as a poker
Speaker 2: pro always fascinated me because we see the cases, and
Speaker 2: we see the winnings and we see the winner photos,
Speaker 2: but we don't see the lows. We don't see the
Speaker 2: long walk to the parking lot. We don't see this like,
Speaker 2: you know, the slumped shoulders in the in the elevator
Speaker 2: after a losing cash session. What has that been like
Speaker 2: for you over the years, What have the ups and
Speaker 2: downs been like? And how does how much does this
Speaker 2: contrast against you know, your career or perhaps recent years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's very very good question. I mean, the
Speaker 1: glamorous successes of reaching a final table or winning a
Speaker 1: bracelet or I mean, there is no high or high
Speaker 1: in the in the pocal world, but the lows of
Speaker 1: running bad, thinking you're running bad, and playing bad, actually
Speaker 1: running bad, actually playing bad, regardless of how you're playing.
Speaker 1: Just constantly find yourself talking to yourself. You find yourself.
Speaker 1: You know, you've quit Kings against Queens with one card
Speaker 1: to come, and you just know the Queen's coming. It's
Speaker 1: just like and there it is, and it's just another jolt,
Speaker 1: and you just you know the equity you just got
Speaker 1: robbed of. As you're walking yourself and talking to yourself
Speaker 1: and it's like anybody that will listen, you just have
Speaker 1: the need to tell them. Nobody cares. They all got
Speaker 1: their own things going on, and and yeah, it's h
Speaker 1: you know, I've heard a lot of good players. I
Speaker 1: mean I heard Scott Seaver had no cashes through forty
Speaker 1: events or one cash or something. I mean, look at
Speaker 1: the guys. The hell of a player. You know, he's
Speaker 1: one of the game's greatest. And it just shows you
Speaker 1: how brutal variance can be. And when you're on the
Speaker 1: wrong side. That's why the thing is, you can never
Speaker 1: be too arrogant or cocky when you're riding the wave
Speaker 1: because you can snap so fast. And being on the
Speaker 1: other side just sucks so much in this industry and
Speaker 1: the financial disasters, the the confidence being gone, the pain
Speaker 1: that you're in as you continue to lose, whether you're
Speaker 1: on a ten percent favorite, a ninety percent favorite, a
Speaker 1: coin flip. When you're on the wrong side, of variants
Speaker 1: and there there's just no stopping. It's just not like
Speaker 1: you know, you see a Roulett wheel. I have buddies
Speaker 1: that aren't gamblers and they they see a relet, they
Speaker 1: go to Vegas. They tell me, oh, I saw like
Speaker 1: fourteen reds in a row, so I met black. The
Speaker 1: rolette doesn't have a brain, and it's not supposed to
Speaker 1: become black because it went fourteen reds and it's it
Speaker 1: could be fifty reds. It's just, you know, variance is
Speaker 1: a is a funny thing. And when you're on the
Speaker 1: you never want to kick someone that's struggling, and you
Speaker 1: never want to act too good when you're rolling, because
Speaker 1: being on the right side of aarons there's no better feeling,
Speaker 1: and being on the wrong side of it is the worst.
Speaker 1: When you're talking about being involved in poker, you know.
Speaker 2: So when you when you were telling me these stories,
Speaker 2: there must be things flashing through your mind of moments
Speaker 2: where things weren't going your way, or perhaps years or
Speaker 2: stretches or summers where you know you were sort of
Speaker 2: banging your head against the wall. Are there specific moments
Speaker 2: that come to mind where you maybe weren't sure that
Speaker 2: you know you could keep doing this or even wanting
Speaker 2: to do this.
Speaker 1: Oh. I was first time I had got an airbnb
Speaker 1: with another poker buddy and it was three summers ago.
Speaker 1: It didn't matter what I played. It didn't matter what
Speaker 1: I played. I couldn't win. And I truly thought, I
Speaker 1: like to look myself in the mirror first instead of
Speaker 1: just blaming the bad luck. And I was. I was like,
Speaker 1: I think the game's passed me by, Like I just
Speaker 1: I can't. I mean, you know, i'd ask other players
Speaker 1: played it greats just he just ran bad. I'm like,
Speaker 1: but can I can I always play great and run
Speaker 1: bad and or play it right and run bad. It
Speaker 1: just didn't matter. I lost that summer. I lost, you know,
Speaker 1: at every variation of poker that you could be like,
Speaker 1: we're doing flips. I'm losing. Let's play OFC Chinese poker.
Speaker 1: I'm losing tournaments. Screw it, I'm going to play a tournament.
Speaker 1: I'd lose. Play a cash game, I'd lose. And it
Speaker 1: didn't matter whether it was a bad beat or it wasn't.
Speaker 1: It just I found myself taking days off sitting at
Speaker 1: the pool like it was. It's very challenging on the
Speaker 1: brain to where I was like, what, like that was
Speaker 1: the time I actually really was wanting to leave early
Speaker 1: because it was like, there's just no point. And a
Speaker 1: part of me was, you know, did the game just
Speaker 1: pass me? You know, I try to be realistic and
Speaker 1: I know that I ran really poorly, but a part
Speaker 1: of me was like that the game passing by, and
Speaker 1: you know, and and a poker buddy, Adam Freedman, you know,
Speaker 1: he told me like, I don't mean to be disrespectful,
Speaker 1: but you've ran bad. And you know he witnessed it.
Speaker 1: You've ran really bad all summer. That's two months of
Speaker 1: condensed poker condensed, right, So two months at the series
Speaker 1: is more like almost like a year because you're playing
Speaker 1: so many hours and so intense. Right, he goes, your
Speaker 1: streak is not that long, and it could go for
Speaker 1: two more summers, you know, And that's the brutal reality
Speaker 1: is that it can. But on the flip side, you
Speaker 1: win two bracelets in a week, well, you're obviously running
Speaker 1: quite well to do that. You're not just you don't
Speaker 1: go from genius to you know, more on like it's
Speaker 1: and that's the thing that if you can play within
Speaker 1: your means, if you can play within a bank roll.
Speaker 1: If you can grasp the highs and lows and not
Speaker 1: be married to poker where that's the only thing that's
Speaker 1: going to give you validation in life, then you'll get
Speaker 1: through it, you know, whether it's nieces and nephews, friends, families, hobbies,
Speaker 1: other successes, other things. The more you got going out,
Speaker 1: the more you have going on outside the table, off
Speaker 1: the felt, the more you can handle the downswings. I believe.
Speaker 2: It's a testament to I guess, persistence and discipline and
Speaker 2: perhaps being you know, hardheaded enough to keep on pushing
Speaker 2: forward for you to now be in this spot. So
Speaker 2: year round when you're none of the wsop, do you
Speaker 2: still go out there and play? Do you make trips
Speaker 2: to go play cash like? How do you? How do
Speaker 2: you perhaps you know, stay on the stay is stay
Speaker 2: like keep the rust off, or perhaps you know, just
Speaker 2: just a flexial poker muscle a little bit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's I mean, you know, every second December I'll
Speaker 1: head out to the wind for a week. It's the
Speaker 1: vibe in Vegas is always really good before Christmas. It's
Speaker 1: kind of like everyone one gets away from the family
Speaker 1: to be a DJN for one more week before gambling
Speaker 1: gets shut off for four days and it's you know,
Speaker 1: strictly family and presents and dinners and you know everyone.
Speaker 1: The vibe has always been amazing. They used to have that.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it was the Festa logo or
Speaker 1: if it was the There was a tournament at the
Speaker 1: Bolagio right before Christmas.
Speaker 2: I finally diamond part of me, five diamond.
Speaker 1: Five dimies. Yeah, that's the one. And everyone was always
Speaker 1: in a you know, Jack ran that ran some good tournament.
Speaker 1: Sarah McClellan, rest in Peace, Jack and he had the
Speaker 1: twelve o'clock start till like eight forty five, no dinner breaks,
Speaker 1: just you know, five levels and you're not done too
Speaker 1: late and go for dinner, and you're not starting too early.
Speaker 1: You go for some drinks. And the vibe in December
Speaker 1: was always amazing. And so sometimes now I found myself
Speaker 1: going to the Win every second year and playing little cash,
Speaker 1: going to I went to YouTube the one year at
Speaker 1: the Severere and go to a football game, a couple
Speaker 1: of hockey games, play a bit of poker, you know.
Speaker 1: But other than trips like that, and again we're talking
Speaker 1: years years before I would go to the commerce, and
Speaker 1: you know, be in the commerce all of January and
Speaker 1: February and then in Vegas March and eight or like,
Speaker 1: things are way different. You know. I'm literally not touching
Speaker 1: a hand. I play like some I like to play
Speaker 1: a little bit of OFC online, a Chinese poker while
Speaker 1: I'm having my breakfast or whatever. But other than that,
Speaker 1: I find myself not playing a hand for ten and
Speaker 1: a half months. And I'm golfing, I'm playing hockey, I'm
Speaker 1: working out, I'm in my hot tub, I'm seeing I'm
Speaker 1: going for walks, seeing my family, seeing my friends, and
Speaker 1: going to sporting events. I love doing that, you know,
Speaker 1: And that's that's what I do. So when you said,
Speaker 1: you know, how do I stay? I feel like if
Speaker 1: I have a good headspace, excuse me, that's enough to
Speaker 1: for me to show up and not be behind the
Speaker 1: eight ball, like or not rusty.
Speaker 2: It sounds like you're literally living living every man's dream.
Speaker 2: You go to Vegas, Vegas once a year to gamble
Speaker 2: and play some cards, You go to sporting events, play
Speaker 2: some golf. This really sounds like you you have life
Speaker 2: figured out. I mean this, too many people is like
Speaker 2: the recipe for for how how how to live to
Speaker 2: be an old man.
Speaker 1: Yeah that's uh yeah, I mean I don't disagree. And
Speaker 1: and I was even getting sick of the month and
Speaker 1: a half that I was in Vegas because of the
Speaker 1: you know, the grind, the taxing on the body, the
Speaker 1: lack of sleep. You know, It's funny. People will will
Speaker 1: know how I'm doing in the cash games, not based
Speaker 1: on my chips, not based on my demeanor, because my
Speaker 1: demeanor is usually pretty good, but based on what I'm eating.
Speaker 1: And and if they see me there the walk up
Speaker 1: FP oh oh, I'll let you be FBT. I'm like, no, no,
Speaker 1: it's all good. I know you're struggling today. You got
Speaker 1: a giant bowl of ice cream whipped cream cookies going on,
Speaker 1: so they know, you know, I'm in one and that's
Speaker 1: my my coping mechanism. Or they'll see me they'll be
Speaker 1: like crushing it today. I'll be like, what do you mean?
Speaker 1: I don't even have many chips on the table. They're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're eating grilled chicken and breast with you know, broccoli
Speaker 1: and and and they're not wrong. You know, when you're
Speaker 1: when you're winning and everything's good, the chips are nicely
Speaker 1: in order and yes, I'll get the steam broccoli and
Speaker 1: the chicken breast. And you know, four am, I can't
Speaker 1: win a single hand. Bring the ice cream, bring extra
Speaker 1: whipped cream, and you know, and anyway, so it's it's
Speaker 1: taxing on the body mentally, physically and even you know,
Speaker 1: even and that's the thing, like like you said, me
Speaker 1: not having an alarm clock at home, me me getting
Speaker 1: I'm very fortunate, I know, the like the I'm dialed
Speaker 1: into the golf course that I play at and I
Speaker 1: get the prime tea times which are like eleven or
Speaker 1: noon tea off, so I can wake up, have breakfast,
Speaker 1: have a hot tub, stretch, head to the golf course.
Speaker 1: You know, we gamble it up a bit out there,
Speaker 1: walk at the exercise, go up top for the nineteenth
Speaker 1: tole have a glass of wine or two, come back
Speaker 1: and you know, the next day it's hockey on the agenda.
Speaker 1: And you know, so so having that, like you said
Speaker 1: that Cushy figured out lifestyle. Now to go and sit
Speaker 1: in the trenches for a month and a half of
Speaker 1: no sleep and getting buried and losing you know, bet
Speaker 1: in sports and doing all the rest of it, it's
Speaker 1: mentally taxing it's physically taxing. And so that's why I
Speaker 1: was starting to have the you know, the doubts of why,
Speaker 1: you know, especially if I'm losing. You know, it's one thing,
Speaker 1: it's one thing, and people people think that poker happiness
Speaker 1: is all based on winning and losing, and it is
Speaker 1: for a lot of people. And of course, if I'm
Speaker 1: winning every single day, it's going to be a lot
Speaker 1: easier than if you're losing every day. I mean obviously,
Speaker 1: but it's not even so much that it's just it's
Speaker 1: just not really into the grind of you know. Now
Speaker 1: now it's my current state of mind, it's probably a
Speaker 1: little bit different, you know, you know right now. Yeah poker,
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, poker like it's the best. You know. But
Speaker 1: that's that's the the uh oxymoron or the the ying
Speaker 1: and the yang about it is that, you know, it
Speaker 1: can be the high of all highs and the low
Speaker 1: of all lows. And that's what makes these tournaments so
Speaker 1: amazing as you can have any gender, any race, any
Speaker 1: age come in and believe they can win, and they can.
Speaker 1: You know, that's the you know, a running race. If
Speaker 1: I'm going to go do a sprint with somebody that's faster.
Speaker 1: We can go one hundred times. Unless he rolls his ankle,
Speaker 1: he's gonna beat me a hundred times. But if we
Speaker 1: play little heads up poker games, anybody can win, right,
Speaker 1: So that's the that's the beauty of poker.
Speaker 2: I'm really worried though, that whatever place you land on
Speaker 2: at the final table, we will never see you again.
Speaker 2: You are going to be like, I've done it now,
Speaker 2: I've made the final table of the Main. However, many
Speaker 2: millions you go home with is enough to buy infinite
Speaker 2: rounds of golf and lots of ice cream, and we'll
Speaker 2: never see Greg again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm I mean, it's not It's not the most
Speaker 1: unrealistic thought for sure, But I think, you know, especially
Speaker 1: if I won the Main, I would I would come in,
Speaker 1: especially for some bigger events. You know, I might. I might.
Speaker 1: I might take a shot in the real big cash game,
Speaker 1: you know three three K, six K for fun, or
Speaker 1: you know, I'd come in and play the PPC. I
Speaker 1: always enjoy playing that one. I did not play it
Speaker 1: this year, just wasn't feeling it, but that I would
Speaker 1: always come in and play that one, and you know
Speaker 1: I'd come back and play the main and probably the
Speaker 1: ten k Nolan a single draw like I love that one.
Speaker 1: Didn't play it again this year, so I didn't play
Speaker 1: this one or the PBC this year. And you know
Speaker 1: last year, I think I came in seventh or eight.
Speaker 1: Nick Shulman busted me and it ultimately ended up winning.
Speaker 1: That's a Those are fun events for me because when
Speaker 1: you're sitting at the table, you know everybody, you're doing
Speaker 1: almost prop bets on the side, you're chatting. It's not
Speaker 1: this stiff energy of course WIETNSS tanking for forty seconds,
Speaker 1: picking your hand out and dropping the chips. In these tournaments,
Speaker 1: everybody knows each other, so you're it's just like a
Speaker 1: bunch of guys sitting together bullshitting. And so those events
Speaker 1: are fun for me, you know, versus walking into a
Speaker 1: room with ten thousand people. Everybody's got their earbuds in,
Speaker 1: nobody's talking, everybody's tanking, polarizing their calls and folds, and
Speaker 1: you know, so I think win or lose, I think,
Speaker 1: you know, those types of events, especially if I win more,
Speaker 1: you know, to fly in and enter the fifty k,
Speaker 1: you know the way Blesnik does, just comes in and
Speaker 1: has a jolly good old time. Whether he wins or loses.
Speaker 1: That would I can see myself doing that, But I
Speaker 1: certainly wouldn't if I won the main event, I would
Speaker 1: not be there for two months grinding the cash games
Speaker 1: and the fifteen hundreds. No, that would not happen.
Speaker 2: I got a few more small ones before I let
Speaker 2: you go. It's already been super fun and insightful to
Speaker 2: hear hear your perspective on all these things. What kind
Speaker 2: of experience do you want to take away from the
Speaker 2: final table itself? What are you looking for as far
Speaker 2: as you know, soaking it all in or perhaps purely
Speaker 2: focused and driven on performance or one thing I've heard
Speaker 2: you talk about is you know you've got tons of friends,
Speaker 2: hockey buddies, whoever else coming to town, and you know,
Speaker 2: experiencing this with friends and family. How do you how
Speaker 2: do you look at that?
Speaker 1: Crazy enough? I see like, I know it's me playing,
Speaker 1: but I almost see it like a team atmosphere, and
Speaker 1: I don't want to let the team down kind of,
Speaker 1: you know, like in hockey, like I've mentioned many times,
Speaker 1: if a guy gives you a cheap shot, you want
Speaker 1: to just punch him in the face or take a
Speaker 1: stick to me, you can't do that because you take
Speaker 1: a penalty, right, and then you're you're hurting your team. Well,
Speaker 1: I get that this is not a team game and
Speaker 1: it's an individual game, and I know this, but it's
Speaker 1: kind of been like a ride with you know, the
Speaker 1: local poker league. Is there's a group chat that I'm
Speaker 1: in even though I'm not part of their league, and
Speaker 1: they're all behind me, and then there's the hockey buddies
Speaker 1: behind me, and then there's poker. But and I just
Speaker 1: kind of feel like, you know, like I I want
Speaker 1: to I want I want the team to win kind of,
Speaker 1: you know, And so I don't I don't know if
Speaker 1: I have the expectations. I don't know if I know
Speaker 1: what I'm going to expect. I mean, I'm sure I'll
Speaker 1: have all the nerves of excitement, of competitive juices flowing,
Speaker 1: probably some nerves, you know. It's it's it's an unbelievable opportunity.
Speaker 1: The experience will be amazing. I hope I run really
Speaker 1: good and and and play well and give myself a
Speaker 1: chance to win.
Speaker 2: And I mean, I that's all I can do, really,
Speaker 2: I mean, I couldn't think of a better response to
Speaker 2: to close this one out with Greg. Thank you so
Speaker 2: much for your time. It's been great hearing from you.
Speaker 2: I'll see, I'll see in a couple of days, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna bring out a scale to make sure you lost
Speaker 2: those twenty LB's.
Speaker 1: It won't be twenty, but it'll be over ten and
Speaker 1: feeling a lot better and I can leave the tombs
Speaker 1: at home.
Speaker 2: Good see there we go. Yeah, we've got the We'll
Speaker 2: got the steam, broccoli and chicken waiting waiting for you
Speaker 2: to stay locked in for a couple of days. Once again, Greg,
Speaker 2: thank you so much for people watching at home. This
Speaker 2: was face DA's leave a comment like the video and
Speaker 2: the hat was not an homage to some Safari. This
Speaker 2: one was really bright here in the office that I'm
Speaker 2: recording in. Thank you guys all so much. We have
Speaker 2: more episodes coming every week of face Das. If you
Speaker 2: scrapped to the channel, you'll see all those hitting your feet.
Speaker 2: For now, let's let's rulee Greg on at the final table.
Speaker 2: I believe action kicks off on Monday and then three days, Greg,
Speaker 2: that's all it is, three days to win ten million bucks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's going to be three hard days
Speaker 1: and uh yeah, I'm really looking forward to it, and
Speaker 1: uh yeah, thanks thanks for Uncle always. Like you said,
Speaker 1: we go back a long time. And I've never seen
Speaker 1: you and not smiled no matter what my state, my
Speaker 1: mental state is in in that moment, whenever I see you,
Speaker 1: whether it's twice a summer, once a summer, twenty times
Speaker 1: a summer, I see you, it's always, uh, fantastic energy
Speaker 1: that you exude, and then it's easy to smile around you,
Speaker 1: so