Usually when you watch the sport, you never think that you could play with like an elite athlete and let alone be at that level, and poker offers you that chance. Hey, this is remco. Thanks for clicking on a video. This is my brand new podcast called Face the Ace, in which I talked to the most interesting people in poker and go a little deeper into the topics you most care about. Enjoy. Welcome to a new episode of Face Das. My name is Rem Krienkama, joined today by Philip Sternheimer, one of my favorites to root for a very compelling story, will dive very deep into it. I don't think you need an introduction anymore, but I'll just give the brief rundown for those who've been living under red rock. We got a bracelet winner in our midst someone with a long career in private equity, a father, two daughters, and a dog. Many got to mention the dog and a drive that, in my opinion, is hard to find for someone with that level of success in the business world that I don't also try to translate that into the poker table. So first off, welcome to the show. Second off, how's the summer been so far. Well, first of all, thank you excited to be here? Am I the as are you the ace? At the end of the show, we'll decide, well, we'll do the big reveal. Summer is going below expectations, I would say, but you know, still have a bunch of events left, and you know, I'm I'm at peace if it's not the summer that I hoped it would be. And I have a lot of events left where I can compete, so every event can be the next big one. So I know that the emotions that you felt when you won your bracelet, that is something that winning a second, third, or fourth might never match again. But is that still the drive to win more bracelets or are you just here to make money, have fun, test yourself, Like, what's the motivation? Yeah, I would say the main motivation is to play as consistently as possible at my best level, and you know, hope that that translates into good outcomes, deep runs, final tables, ultimately bracelets. I did actually really had to think at the beginning of the summer. You know, I just come from competing a triton. I came second there. I realized, oh, I kind of really want to win a tritent title, and I'm like, do I want this as badly as I did last year? And the answer is yes. And you know, it's always a tricky balance between how much do you want to attach yourself to outcomes or just things that you can control and sort of I try to focus more on the latter, but you know, you want to have the outcomes ultimately correlate with that. But you got to give it some time. With the long career in business that you've had and poker coming in while you were already having success in that world, what was it about poker that made you motivate it to also reach the top? I mean the answer is, given the amount of sort of effort and time that I devoted to it, it's not just one thing. I Mean, what I like about poker is that it touches on so many things that I that I enjoy. You know, it's constant problems and puzzles that you need to sort of solve. It's social and that you have this kind of frontal competition against people that are sitting at you table, some of whom you might be very good friends with, some of them you kind of like. Some of them have met before. I also think that you know, in business, it's a fairly homogeneous group of people. Sort of a lot of them have gone through similar you know, university experience, work experiences. They're all sort of you know, certain types of people, I would say, which is amazing. But I think in poker you have the chance to get exposed to more heterogeneous kind of group of people. It can be you know, age from really young to really old, it can be from you very very different socio economic backgrounds. It's very international, and so that I kind of enjoy as well. And then maybe most importantly kind of I think what a lot of people just appreciate. You know, I'm in my late forties now, I played sports when I was young. You know, that train is sort of left station. If I could go back in life, I maybe would try to see if I had a shot to become a professional athlete. But it allows me to compete at something at an elite level. And it's ultimately probably as much as you're competing against other people, you're really competing against yourself, and it's the battle against yourself and your own weaknesses and fallacies and how to learn to overcome those. And I just think it's very gratifying. When you make decisions in the private equity world where you've worked your way up to become a partner, you've since decided that you know, you had to step away from that. We can get into that also, But when you're in that highly competitive world making decisions that you know can have an effect on revenue and we're talking probably six seven eight figures when things go well or when things go bad in either direction, how does that compare to this decision making in poker where there's still a part of it that is unknown. When you invest as a private equity firm in a new company, yes, you might believe that this is the right decision, but the fact that the outcome is still unknown has some similarities with poker. So how do you how do you how do you look at that parallel and how how are there perhaps still big differences? Yeah, yeah, I would say that there are a lot of similarities between investing in poker, and there are some pretty big differences. I would say the similarities are that you do sort of have a deluge of information and you kind of got to decide what is relevant, and there is also a lot of incomplete information. So you never really know for sure what the decision that you made. I mean, there's some trivial decisions that are obvious, which is you'll have a poker as well, But most of the important decisions are actually quite difficult and against the backdrop of uncertainty and incomplete information, and you sort of triangulate to make the best decision, knowing that decisions and outcomes also aren't always the same. You can make a good decision has a bad outcome, and vice and versa, and so you need to have the humility to recognize that. So sometimes like we might have passed on a deal which we thought for the right decisions at the time, and it turns out to be you know, a home run doesn't necessarily mean we made right the wrong decision, and vice and versa. Sometimes you might have bought a business and it turns out to being good investment. But maybe actually we made the right decision. We just got lucky in some ways. But it's always sort of against the scenario or a range of outcomes that you're aware of, and you do a lot of work to understand, you know, how how might does look like and how why does the range of outcomes and whatnot. And that's kind of similar to just thinking about you up against the range of hands and pokers, So that's actually quite similar. I think what's different is, you know, poker is a very solitary sport. In the end, it's you alone who's making the decision private equity. As a team sport, you have small, small teams that make decisions. Before you make an investment decision, you just us it with a lot of other partners, and so you know, there is less attribution to you know, what exactly you thought or did at the time because it's made as a small team. But I would say the biggest difference is that you know, in poker, over and over again, you make decisions of consequence, you know, for chips money that are irreversible, and you do that over and over again, sometimes at lower stakes, but higher stakes. So you're sort of presented with this constant decision making that you really can can take back. And that creates a certain set of requirements that you really got to be sharpened the moment, which is like a lot of the way a lot of professional sports works. You know, when Akara shows up on a tennis court, you know he's got to hit that ball. The point he's lost is lost forever. He's got to be you're going to be able to perform in that window when he's able to showing up on a court until the game is over. And private equity, when you make very very significant kind of let's say, investment decisions or even do you hire someone or not, or do you raise your prices iterative like, you usually do a lot of analysis and teams and then there's questions that come up and you go back and forth and they do some more analysis, and before you make the decisions, you might have had seven eight meetings over a couple of days, weeks or even months. And even when you make the decisions, sometimes you could technically go back and say, oh, I changed my mind, you know, and I reverse it. So that is just a very different kind of backdrop in terms of how you end up making decisions, which I think is actually a really fundamental difference in terms of their stings. Therefore that I needed to get good at when it comes to poker that were sort of quasi irrelevant in the business world. Way you paint this picture and how you see the parallels and how you see the differences, was that something you noticed right away the first time you tried poker, was that something that drew you to the game. I think what drew me to the game was, you know, some combination of just I really just like problem solving, and you know, I had a new competitive outlet. I also you know, for me, it was I watched rounders. Like we all have sort of our own you know, framework or value system of things that we attribute value to. So for me, it was like, this was this world that I just thought was everyone has played poker as a child that I just thought was fascinating. That's what got me. For other people might have been online poker or moneymaker. And then it's so funny in poker where you know, I now play with my sort of in a way set of childhood heroes, and it's it's almost you know, I was just playing two days ago with Ivy. You know, you're friendly with them, you compete with them, some of them you realize you're better than them, and it's kind of crazy. Like usually when you watch the sport, you never think that you could play with like an elite athlete and let alone be at that level, And poker offers you that that chance and some of it is the just the intrinsics of the game that some of it is just that age kind of is a little bit irrelevant. And now you have tools where you can get better very very quickly if you devote yourself to it. And so it's that combination of factors that over time you sort of realize, hey, wait a minute, like, actually, if I really care about being really good at this day, there actually is a path. And it's not that you wish you'd done this when you were seven year old. But then what I find fun from your sort of career arc, if I can put it that way in poker, is that you took sort of a route that forced you to really work on your game even more because you were trying to be competitive at high stakes, no limit hold them. And then especially in the tournament scene, you know lots of cases on the EPT and you play some of the higher stakes there. And I think it's safe to say that you wanted to jump into the type of game that probably had the most competition. Was that an active thought? Was that just where you saw the action, was that something that you were specifically drawn to? Yeah, no observation, I have a very sort of elitist kind of mindset or expectation of myself when when I when I try to do something, I aspire to be the best. And the path that I chose, which everyone goes about a different way, is that like, if you want to be the best, you compete at the highest level that is accessible to you that doesn't sort of create financial ruin. Where so, like I played in games where I was probably a dog, and my goal was to say can I actually beat that game or sort of be break even and through that process actually learning, learn and get better. You know, I had the financial flexibility that I could play a game if I was wrong, it wouldn't be sort of you know, financial ruin for me. But I put myself over and over situations where you know, I was probably dog and I had to sort of somehow find a way to survive, and through that, you know, I got you know better. That was kind of my my my pro which has sort of worked out for me. But you know, as I said, everyone goes about it in a different way. So then when I look at that early tournament resume, which is the best record we have in poker, because you know, we don't have a cash game handed mob, so we can you know, pivot into that at some point as well. But if I just pick out random results, you know, it's guys like Ola Chmion, most of Neat that you were battling with in sort of the earliest Thomas Mulocker, guys that were all sort of crushers at that stake. Was there a person or were there people that you were influenced by or that helped you along that journey to improve yourself, or maybe there was a specific instance where you realized, if I keep going to do this, I need to make X, Y and Z changes because these guys do things that I am not fully grasping yet. Yeah. What's always been an edge of mine in any kind of you know sense, has been that like when I sit at the table, I think I am about as dollon as anyone at the table. I'm mentally prepared when I when I sit down, and like the I think that the discipline and the focus that you learn kind of in private equity when you have to work like several hundred hours a week you deal with really really the problems at at very very high stakes with difficult personalities. Like that's a toolkit that you can activate in poker, and that's been that's been a huge source of value for me that many other people, I would say, fail to appreciate. I would say, So, the other asset you have is I think for a long time in my career, maybe even still today, I'm underestimated. And I think that's a gift in poker. Whenever you're underestimated, it's it's always an advantage if you if you know how to sort of use it. So that's always been been there for me. There was a second part. Part was when I started playing poker at higher stakes, when I started working with Elliott Rowe, where I had sort of a couple of aha moments in terms of this whole difference between business and poker, in terms of this sort of like athletes based performance on demand mindset, sort of what do I need to do to be at my best when I show up? And that includes you know, sleep, exercise, nutrition, you know, working your mindset and meditation that when I when I show up, I'm even better, able, better able to perform when those big decisions come up. And I would say, and then the third was learning how to actually get better through studying. And I would say there's a common variety of people that you know, I talked to that I try to copy from. But if I name one, like, I know how some of the elite guys are sort of studying, and I actually think that very few have the level of I would say, sort of discipline and consistency that I demand of myself. And so that's been an AHA moment when I realized that I'm probably studying as much as anyone, you know, and how I study is as an intense form of study that allows me to get better. And that's sort of been maybe sort of the third dimension that I didn't really have a chance to sort of use before I really had had sort of the time, meaning before I sort of quit my job. Poker is the zero sum game, and it can be very predatory, you know, in the current climate. When you look at cash games, for example, it's all about who gets the invite who doesn't get the invite, and games are private or semi private. But the tournaments is just you know, show up, buy in, and you can just play. So in a way, it's like the equalizer. Everybody can show up, everybody can play at the same time. When you play tournaments at a high stake. There needs to be more personal awareness if you care about performance, as to how do I evaluate my play, how do I evaluate my opponent? And given the small sample size that you deal with, how am I able to discern that the path that I'm on or things that I'm doing are actually progressing me to where I want to be? How did you approach that? Yeah, look, you don't really know. I mean, I would say you can even with a bigger sample set. There's still ambiguity in terms of how much people are really winning, how good there really are. And I think that's the beauty of the game and that there's so much ambiguity that you'll never really know. I mean, we can all sort of there's a list of people depending on the type of competition that you mentioned, mixed games and no limit PLO, and it will come up, you know, and you would think that because they come up over and over again, it's more likely that they're winning. But there's a lot of ambiguity. There's a lot of ambiguity as to you know, if I'm playing a Triton, am I actually winning or not? Like, look, I don't even know if it matters, Like if I show up at a tournament that I play. Let's say I'm playing a hunter KPLO. Whether I'm slightly ev positive slightly ev negative depends, first of all, is unknown. Second, it depends on factors that are beyond my control. You know, do a couple of bad players or really good players show up or not so obviously and so, but I kind of think it's besides the point. What matters to me is that, like, I know what it takes to become elite at any kind of form of poker, and I will focus on the things that I can control to keep kind of going up that hill and get like a little bit better every time. Like when I study, like I feel at the end of the day I've learned something I didn't know before, or I have a conversation with an elite player about mindset or you know, you name it, like any ingredient to success that I feel I can get a little bit better at. That's what matters to me, and the rest will be, you know, sort of decided over over time, and I don't spend too much time worrying about it. I'm probably I think a lot of players that I know are maybe ever so slightly delusional or naive about the true level of skill. And I think that's okay because it gives you that level of confidence that you need to execute when it matters. And are you really delusional if you think you're delusional? I don't actually know, but like I do think that's that's not an atypical kind of ingredient when you're competing, that you think I can actually really win this and I'm one of the best players. Does it matter to you how the people that you see as elite view you as a player. I would say definitely yes, but I'm not sure if the answer it goes to both ways. Of course, you enjoyed the respect of your peers. I have a player who I put in my top two top three who wanted to draft me for the fantasy draft, and he said, you know, this guy is much better in most thing and he tries really hard. I think he's really good, he's improve the blah blah blah. Of course that means something to me, right as it would in any kind of sport and endeavor. But then I'm also aware that there's other people that underestimate me, and I I know that benefits me a lot, and I can think of very specific hands where I think I know what they think about my game, and you know, I can use that to my advantage. So it sort of goes both both ways. I think you like the respect of your peers, but you know a lot of people are just going to always classify me as sort of the rich businessman who tries hard, and that's that's that's a good thing. So then the rich businessman who tries hard was that tough to sell at home and to friends and family outside at poker, Because the pivot from what people see as perhaps one of the more esteemed careers working for a major firm to then be you know, for lack of a better term, slumming it out at the rio is kind of a big pivot, like how is that being received? You know, it goes in phases. I think I didn't quit my job to play poker. Sure, I quit my job primarily to spend more time with my family. You know, I was working maybe on average eighty hours a week. Most importantly, I was traveling three four days a week. So at some point I felt like I just wasn't around when life happened for my family, and I didn't think there was a way to perform the job at the level that I that I think it deserved and required if I had traveled less. And so I use a somewhat morbid sort of regret minimization kind of framework, kind of once or twice a year when I think about if I died tomorrow and I was in my deathbed, like would I have regrets? And it just became like overwhelming and clear for me at some point that like what am I doing? Like I'm missing how my how my daughters are growing up. And it was reinforced that you know, my older daughter, when she was you know, young, like one, two three, I was traveling a ton. Then we had COVID, Suddenly I was at home a lot. And then we had a second daughter, and then I started traveling again after COVID, and it felt like deja vu. It's like I'm doing the same thing over again. So I'm like stop. And then the second reason was that, you know, I've been doing that for eighteen years. I'm in my mid forties. Is this really all lying on my deathbed? Like all I've done with my sort of professional career, is this one thing which has arguably been a fantastic career in so many ways, but I also have many other interests and interests, and so that was kind of what made me decide, Okay, I'm going to jump off that like train, you know, which took me sort of like ten years to decide at the point, sometimes but definitely a while. I definitely had a lot of I think for more than ten years, I had thoughts about should I be quitting now or later? And I'm super happy with the timing that I chose for variety of reasons, but I'd been thinking about it for a long time. Then I didn't pick up the phone, I would say, for anything, for about, you know, almost two years. So that was my sort of time to decompress. I did play a lot of poker, but I would say like I didn't really I studied a little bit, I took it very seriously, but I would say I sort of play poker as a way to decompress, finally have the freedom to come here to play. And then I sort of said to myself, look, I probably should be I'm not sure. I'm still not sure if I can play poker, you know, in any series form and have the mental space and time to do something else. So I sort of said, Okay, it's gonna be my last World Series last year. We all know how to work out, but I'm going to actually now start start treating this like a job and study kind of like five days a week across all the games, and you know, sort of feel like, Okay, I'm going out treating this like very seriously. And then to my surprise, I would say, you know, the results have obviously been great in terms of winning a bracelet and winning a lot of money and doing well and very very competitive. It feels like when you when the thing was when you when you play you know, when when you when you play a Triton or a super high Roll or No Limit or PLO event, you're playing against people that only play no Limit or PLO or maybe two. And so I try to do that and then also compete like in all the mixed games. So you know, I'm aware that what I'm it's it's like it's a pretty crazy challenge. But one was the results were good. The second was I actually just really enjoy the grind. I just really enjoy studying and learning, which most I think a lot of people that's sort of a necessary evil, And I actually really enjoy it. But then to interrupt you here the slow moving away from the business life to being quote unquote a poker player in your business world and also maybe among friends and family outside of poker, that might seem absolutely insane. How how was that conversation or how was that perceived that you were I guess slowly pivoting, yeah, to operating in this world and universe that is so far removed from where you were. Yeah, So the reaction wasn't I would say for them, of course, the like if you take my mom, she's like, you're gambling, You're going to dine a ditch. She has this image that I'm going to die in a ditch at the fucking rio. Excuse my French. You know, I'm like, literally she can picture me, like lying next to got her way to water is slowly dripping over my face, and I'm just broke and begging. You know, they're living in the tunnels exactly. And now she's like sends me an article of you know, the German tabloid that her friends have sent her that like, her son just won two and a half million of tritent, and she watches on YouTube and she's excited, and so that changes it for her, you know, I would say for the family, it's been and you know, my wife is less outcome oriented than my mom, but but more so than me. So she understands that there's a lot of luck in the game. But she'll be like, you know, why are you going there if you're not winning money? But she understood. Look, she the family now sees more of a They see the causality between daddy sitting and studying and working hard and trying really hard, and you know, and he has such a success so which I think is also really important to me that you know, when when my daughters are saying, you're going a holiday, I'm like, no, I'm actually going to work. Like you see when I'm sitting in front of my computer all the time and doing this and this, like this is work for daddy, and so that's important. So it's become a lot more acceptable, I would say within the family. The business world, I'm not sure, you know, I think a lot of them are. It's definitely seen as an amazing level of accomplishment that you have success in two unrelated fields. I think there's also a lot of them that secretly are wishing that they could quit or would have quit, and they don't doing it because the money is so good, and maybe there are some of them that are doing that are thinking what the fuck is he doing? Because I think the practical challenge is that you know, I've taken I've turned down all opportunities that were presented to me. I was very very close to take one about like at the end of last year, which I ended up turning down to be essentially like number two guy in a very big company with the path that becomes COO. And I think there is a risk that you atrophy both in substance and in perception that like okay, Phil used to be really experienced and really smart and whatnot, but he hasn't been around for the last six years and like Kenny actually come back right. So that that's just the risk that I need to keep in mind as I decide kind of what I might want to do next. And then so then in the field of private equity, to me, as an outsider, it doesn't get much more competitive than that. You know, people that go to fancy business schools aspire to be in that environment. Why was it that you were able to reach that level and why were you approached even years later. You know, the thing you mentioned about at the end of last year, to be number two at a big firm, can you actually sort of quantify it into maybe a few small specifics or some details to give some color to the fact that you know you were the guy or you or you are seen as someone who can still be the guy. Because clearly there's thousands of smart people out there that would love to have those opportunities to try and prove themselves. So what are some detail details or intricacies that set you apart. I think you probably want to get someone else in a podcast answer that private equity is kind of a very multi faceted kind of role that you have and that you know, it's it's very in terms of the skills, it's it's very analytical, especially as you're younger and you build complex financial models and you know you need to sort of find a way to translate kind of business insights into sort of financial outputs. That sort of the first kind of job that you have, you know, as you I would say, get older and become you know, a partner. I think that at the heart is you need to have investment judgment, which is you know, being able to distill a investment decision into the three or four things that really really matter that will decide whether or not this will be a good investment or not. And then on those you need to ask the right questions and you need to be able to make the right judgment again in a face of a lot of ambiguity and and and on certainty. I'm not sure how much of that can be taught versus how much of that is there's probably it's probably fifty to fifty in terms of like how much of that you can learn versus like do you have it or not? Do you just have that kind of judgment? I would say, you're. Not running solvers on on business decisions. Well, it's similar in that, like you know, like there's always a financial model in the background that translates kind of a question into into an outcome, like this is, you know what the profitability of the businesses this year. This is the return on the investment given certain given it's all always given certain assumptions, right, So in some ways it's similar to solvers, and that we never really get to trend some of the outputs, and solvers we can do ourselves. Some of them we might be aware of. But I think poker players are quite lazy relative to you know, people in business, because we sort of have this kind of model that spits out the answer. Like in business we always joke like every model shows a twenty percent return because that's sort of the threshold return. And it's sort of like it's a joke because I can show you a twenty with certain assumptions, and right, it's not about actually what the model says. It's about being aware of the knobs that matter and what happens when you turn them. And so that's really the way I think you got to approach it. And that's also the way the elite players kind of study. They look at a certain situation, not like I played this hand and did I make the right decision or not? Is that what happens if you change certain assumptions. The second thing is that in private equity, what happens is you become the control share all the typically of a company, but you don't run a company, which means one of the biggest drivers of success is finding the right people to run the business. Like you would say the best people, but the best people is actually the right people, because there is no such thing as one executive who's going to be successful in every business. It's in my mind horses for courses. So another big factor is for of course, finding the right people, which takes a lot of judgment. It's like you can't just like they can't just say, oh we hire like Tim Cook or you know it's it's usually and I'm sure actually put Tim Cook in some situation or take Elon Musk in a situation where whatever, he doesn't have control over everything, and he'll probably be a fucking disaster. So it's all about making that judgment. And then it's about finding a way to influence people right, finding ways to get them to maybe direct them in a certain way, but why they still feel empowered that they're they're running to show and so it's a lot of soft skills that matter that it might also be influencing, like do you want to sell your business to me? So there's a certain amount of salesmanship. So those are sort of the two qualities that it takes to be successful once you're more senior. But then just and the abstract you know, poker, Private equity similar to poker, is a game where you have to have extremely frustration tolerance, and be extremely disciplined. Like you look at literally twenty or thirty investments, some of them for several months, and you might do one of them, and that one needs to be like in your life as an investor, you might make like just like I think I worked on I did eight or nine deals over a career of twenty years. And so those there's eras of omission to the ones you don't do, which no one ever talks about. But the eras of co mission like those, you got to get down to a very low number or zero. Like we had this thing in our job, which is just be right. You make a decision, you fire your bullet, want to be whatever, five or ten bullets, you better be right in order to get there. You know you're going to kiss a lot of frogs, and so that there's a lot of you know, intrinsic qualities that like that, that frustration tolerance that you need to have in order to be successful at the job. Take me to the single biggest decision you made in business, and please, you know, be as detailed as you want to be. But I'm curious if you say you only fired so few bullets over such a big career. The decision making point where you know the bullet was fired into something that became huge and successful. Do you recall that moment and the specifics of it and what did that turn into. The two investments that I spent the most time on and that were felt very difficult at the time seven and twelve year journeys for me, so and it turned out to be very successful, like more than ten times money. The most difficult decision was do we make the investment or not? And you have to think about in private equity like you spend you spent months diligencing in business, and then you're at the end, you're in a competitive auction and it's literally who pays the highest price at the end, plus who who's over management more maybe, but at the end, it's really about who pays the highest price. And so it feels a lot like dog catches car. You know what that means. Yeah, It's like. The dog runs after the car that they never and suddenly the dog catches the car. What happens now, like, are we mock that paid the most for the business or did we see something that the others did not? And then once you own a business, do you find a way to do something with the business, so that when we made the investment decision, it felt very uncomfortable. It was, you know, lots of adversity. European debt crist at the time sort of a sector that we weren't in love with, but we sort of just saw a lot of things that we liked about the fundamentals of the of the industry and what this business could do. And yeah, that was a that always feels like I could effectively sort of putting your career on the line. But that felt very unnerving. And then there were a lot of menagerial decisions, like who do we make the CEO? Or there were two founders and they were they didn't like each other, but they felt essential to the business. And then we ended up firing one and keeping the other, which was a big one. And then who do we make CEO was a big decision. Then we were we did it with a with another firm together and we had made three times of money four years in which was great. We were f to fifty. They wanted to sell and then we just said, why don't we buy them out and keep going? Like that felt really unnerving. That wasn't my idea and I was against it at the time, but then I came around, but that was my that was a partner of mine. Then the business actually really took off afterwards, So that was a huge kind of decision. So those are sort of the types of decisions that you know that you sort of make along the way, and then you make a lot of sort of business decisions like should we take down prices, what do we do to get down churn? Should we launch this new product, should we make this acquisitions, should we open this new country? You know, like all of these type of type of things that that sort of come. Up where we sort of left off the book conversation is you progressing through the ranks, finding a sort of new motivation and a competitive drive in a field where you hadn't proven yourself yet or hadn't hadn't had a level of success that you had seen in business, and then to pivot again within that niche. Going from hold Them to mixed games to me almost feels like is he just constantly looking for a new challenge because he gets bored? Because mixed games is the niche within the niche where if you I mean I think it. Take me for example, I love mixed games. I play all the games. I play them to a degree that i'm sort of you know, I'm okay at all the mixedgams. You and I could have a good conversation about mixed game strategy. However, if I were to have ambitions within mixed games, my ceiling probably lies at like a ten twenty twenty forty game, and the next game that I can play is eight hundred and sixteen hundred or two K four K. There is no there's no ladder unless you play Wilster's book tournaments. So for you to have the capital to try and say, I'm confident enough to try this out. However, if I want to get better at this, and if I want to play, the price tag is really really high. Why did you feel the need to venture into Bobby's room, table one, whatever wherever those games were. Because in the hold them realm there is much more game selection possible. And if you sit down in these mixed games, you see all the guys that you mentioned earlier that you probably were a fan of back in the day. Yeah, and that's the only way to compete. Yeah, there's a couple of reasons. I mean, how I ended up playing mixed games, some of them are just idiosyncratic. I literally I played a no limit event. I busted. I was devastated. I wanted to jump in the next tournament. And the next tournament that was going was a ten game. I came third and sort of got the bug. I would say, you know, I didn't know two or three of the games even at the time I had never played played before, but just got lucky and you know, got the bug. But then the other thing is that just for my we sort of talked a little bit about like we all have our little sort of value system, things that matter to us and whatnot. And somehow maybe it was through the lore about the Bobby's Room games and you know, guys like Nick Ground and whatnot would play like I felt to me like, if you want to really be good at poker for me, as like you got to play all the games. That that was just something that I sort of always that was sort of that was sort of my has been my value system really since I started taking poker like more and more more seriously. I then also came to believe that because there was virtually no kind of solvers for most of the games at the time, that you know, the playing field for me would be not having the time to study would be a bit flatter, and that some of these other qualities that I mentioned therefore on a relative basis, are more relevant here and allow me allow me to compete. But since I would say, I also realized that look one is that there's a lot more on all games available now mixed games are still there's the amount of resources that are available for mixed games relative to Nolment and PLO is it's a fraction, And I kind of realized that it's actually really awesome if you have the time to just arguably no Liment and PLO are some of the games that have the most i would say strategic depth, and there's just a deluge of information that's available that allows you to get better. And they are also just more tournaments to be played. Right, if you want to play mixed games, you effect in tournaments you have two outlets. Effectively, there's the PGT Mixed series and there's the World Series. You know for Nolan, with PLO you have a lot more. And so that's why sort of about sort of two years ago, I said I really want to be able to compete in all these great kind of noliment and plo events, and you know, they're sort of a path for me to get there given the amount of resources that are available. I'd say the last thing I would say is that, you know, poker has just really changed since I started playing that it used to be that all the best players were playing cash games like that, do you want to find the best players in the world that used to be in cash games? And you know, tournaments would sort of little be sort of the tournament people were sort of poo pooed on and they're sort of fish nowadays with the advent of private games, effectively all the best players have migrated to tournaments, and cash games have become at the high stakes level really sort of private and built around a couple of weakers players, and like, those are probably not the guys that would win against the best in the world anymore. But there's been always one exception in mixed games, which is the Bobby's Room game has always stayed the game which has been essentially public and still had the best players. And so that for me always felt like the beacon, the shining beacon on the hill is that like, if you can be competitive in that game, like that's that's available. It's there, and you're always going to play against the best. Were you're not worried that the fact that there was a seat for you meant that they were very happy to see you. Yeah, I mean, I mean it's changed ever since this year. It's now sort of semi private, but up until this year, it's always been public and the person the person gets to see to whoever's there on time. It doesn't matter who you are, and so, but yeah, they were probably happy to see me. And as I said before, you know, I think I started in a game being negative ev you know, finding a way to actually I would say win small, break even, but learning a lot, you know, And you know nowadays I don't know. I don't know if I'm positive v I hope so bit. You're still allowed to sit down, You're still allowed to sit down. We're still allowed to sit down. Well, effectively the game is still run that anyone's allowed to sit down, but it's no longer there are certain people that in that game where people just won't really want it to be playing a game. So, for example, I think two or three years ago, first we played at the beginning of summer and the game starts at ten, okay, and then we sort of say, do you want to play again tomorrow? Okay, tomorrow, We'll play again at ten, but nine thirty the game is full. Okay, yeah, yeah, And like this ended like on like a week later. The game was full at six forty five in the morning, which is kind of it's like mutual. It's like self assured mutual destruction. And you know, now you can sort of say, okay, you guys, have a seat. The game starts at a normal time, you know, like whatever. Someone had a big losing session to get to play. Someone is in talent for only a couple of days they get to play, you know. So by making the game private, you're allowed, you're able to make some adult decisions. Like so, is there is there literally a a Bobby's Room group chat? Yeah? I mean that to me is really funny. Yeah, because we're talking about a group chat with some of the most interesting personalities in poker as well, some of the most successful people and perhaps also some of the richest people in poker, all trying to figure out how can we play our game. There's some interesting characters in that group and in that chat, and so it wasn't necessary. It's more transactional, okay, And a lot of times actually you don't use it because the people that end the game the night before agree when to play again the next day, and it might even be an incentive to not let everyone know, even though when the game was public, everyone could sit down, like if you had got a good game going and like a game that's full and they all agree to show again next morning, there's no incentive to message to the group chats, so someone else suddenly jumps in. So it wasn't necessarily a chat that. I think there were some summers where it was used more than others, and there have been various iterations where some people were dropped off that were the first group chat, you know, had people that never never really played anymore, and then you have new chats and whatnot. So but yeah, there's there's there, there's there have been some chats. Yes, if those chats were sort of public, it might be like a good movie, your documentary in that realm. And I think Bobby's Room is endlessly fascinating because of the lore, because of the setting, because of the people that are immediately associated with it. When you think back of when you first sat down there, What stakes do you guys play, what games were which, which people were in the game, and what memories do you have of those early days. Well, my first experience was not the official Bobby'soom game. I was here for a day and I played Mixed, and I think I messaged Scott, who I knew from Burning Man, and I was, you know, I'm here, I like to play mixed, happy to play high, and he then messaged the Bobby's Room chat, does anyone want to play? And I think we played like five hundred one thousand or six hundred twelve hundred, So not the official Bobby'soom game. I think it was like Angry John Hat my Cat, maybe Keith Gibson and a couple of guys and ended up ended up winning a lot after being down a lot, and I'm like, okay, show up the next summer. There's a game that Hanks ran six twelve hundred or eight sixteen and ended up winning a lot there And suddenly I had enough for one buying in a two four K game. And in that game, where. Was it was? The buying for the two K four game? I mean the minimum at the time was I think maybe even only like forty K, but I think I kind of don't want to sit down with less than two hundred, Like I think I bought in for one hundred and then one hundred behind. And in the game where Aaron Katz, Joizo, Doyle, Keith Gibson again at the time my cat angry Gordo, guys like that Jason Mercier old Jason Mercer at one point zero with overweight and the long beauty frustration, and I just end up have an amazing summer. I won like a twenty five K mixed at Aria and I won a lot in that game, And so that sort of got me. I mean, I think I was like maybe ten times worse than now, so I must have gotten very lucky. You're probably not winning now that you're better, works. Right, Okay, But yeah, that sort of got That got me started. The aura of someone like Ivy, And there's hardly anyone like that, but that that Bobby's Room game has seen probably the biggest auras that that poker has ever seen, and probably like before your time, you know, someone like Chip Reese. But then also you know, you still got a chance to play with Doyle. You play with Ivy and you saw ivy in various states. What can you tell me, given your life experience and all the roads you traveled to get to that game, what can you tell me about what those guys possess, what they have that makes them sort of successful at the highest level, especially coming from an era where you couldn't just learn as if you were going to University of poker. It was basically life was the university of poker, and they were the few that reached the top. What did you see in them that made them so special? The composition of the Bobby's Room game has changed a lot, even I think I've now maybe played for eight years. Even over that reasonably short period, it's changed a lot. And so I know a lot of players that are no longer playing in Bobby's because they got torched. Maybe not in the beginning, but you know, maybe stuff worked out with them for them for a while until it didn't. Right. So if you look at the people that actually have had the staying power at that that's not a very big group, right. I think one of the biggest factors in that game is not necessarily poker talent. It is actually mental fortitude and resilience and it's you know, you're playing with a very small player pools actually finding ways to sort of adjust to the various kind of playing styles kind of successfully. And so that in my mind, you know, drives longevity in that game. And I don't think there's a lot of people that have it. You know, Ivy, Jason, you know, also Patrick, those are some of the guys that have really stuck around. You know, Dahl is interesting in that I'm not sure if he was winning by a time sort of in his final years in the game, or let's let's say had positive ev but it was really was inspirational. Is that, you know, as a as a life lesson in a way, is that the guy was arguably sharp until the very last day that he played. And I just think it's so interesting. I was just chatting with a fantasy draft team member of mine who says, you know, his fifties, doesn't know how many years you have left, Like you might have forty years left if you if you keep on challenge yourself mentally every day, I think, you know, I look like Buffett, I look at Doyle, and to me, it's a very inspirational example that you can compete mentally at the highest level if you just don't stop. You know. The other thing Daryl had is that he had that he had that dog, I would say, and that he really wanted to win and he would get really grumpy and a very in a very humane and funny way when he would be losing. And so that I really miss and I think some of that, some of that kind of atmosphere has gotten lost a little bit because you had these big personalities like him that would just want to win really badly. They will get really grumpy when they lose. Same with Gus was great. You know, he also doesn't play the game much anymore, and so that's some of that jovial, gambly, kind of folksy nature of the game. Like make Meno's no mistakes. There are huge sums changing hand, like that's a little bit gone, someone's coming back. Because you have guys like you know, Alberts and Wass and you know, there are sort of also great personalities. But that was quite special playing with Doyle. Yeah, just to stay on Doyle for just one more question here. He passed in twenty twenty three, so you had a few years where you probably played with him quite frequently. They have memories or examples of like you know, some like a Doyle moment from those final years that sort of stand out in your memory. He really wanted to play tournaments. But what you did notice with Doyle is that even like just in a cash game, he would get tired, and he was aware of that, and of course that makes playing tournaments very, very difficult for him, and that's why he played so much cash because he could. He could start and end whenever he wanted to. I think that the best moments that I can remember would be when someone would get unlucky, you know, on him, lucky on him like in draw or in raz or. He would kind of mutter, sort of under his breath, like motherfucker, or you're gonna be a big star, and he would make these just various sarcastic comments, or when he would play props. My favorite story is actually not one where I was there for myself, but as my friend Gordo, who was I'm probably gonna butcher it, but I think this is just the most hilarious story. I think they're playing like four handed or so it's like him, Gordo, Doyle, Keith Lear and a couple of other guys and Keith, Gordo and Doyle are playing props like the normal props, reasonable level, you know, probably a couple of thousands of point, you know, and most of the games. And at some point Gordo suggests, like, why don't we do a prop. They're just about to start the Bedougie round, and why don't we do a prop for a pat wheel? Do you play boogie? How many times in your life have you gotten a pat wheel? Never? Okay, I little I think one time and they're like, sure, whatever, how much? And I think Gordo throws out like a huge number, like one hundred, because it never happens, and then they say that's too much, and I think they agree on still some substantial number, like like forty thousand. Apparently, like one or two hands later, Gordo wins a huge hand and shows the pet wheel, and so Keith's just like, how the hell does this happen? You know this and that we just agreed, you know, I've never gotten a pet wheel and just throws in the money. Doyle does not pay, and it goes on. You know, they still keep playing. There's this tension in a room, you know, Doyle just has the forty thousand next to the stack for like a long time until finally, and Gordo is smart enough not to say anything until finally he's like, I'm gonna pay you, and I promise I'm not going to do anything to you. I just want to know how did you do it? Tell me how you did it? Obviously know that Doyle has been through a lot of things in his life where I'm sure it has been some funny business on both sides. But the way I can I'm not doing justice to the story the way Gordo tells it. Also since I wasn't there, but I can very well imagine sort of girl's kind of reaction to that. It just makes me laugh. That's a fantastic story. Now that you've become I would say, a feared player in mixed games, and you have results both terms in cash across all games, what is left and poker that satisfies you? Like? Do you feel like you have something to prove? Do you look at things like winning a lot of bracelets? Is there something that is now this new drive and motivation as we've seen you pivot quite a few times already even within this game. Yeah, I'm struggling a little bit kind of with myself in terms of how many specific goals like that I want to set for myself. I would definitely like to win another bracelet. I mean, if I would kind of win the PPC one day, that would be amazing. That would probably be the one would be the one I would like to win the most. You know, I'd love to win a trite entitle. But I also realize that a lot of that, if you're being honest with yourself, it just depends on how much volume you could you can put him. I mean, sure, I can show up in two years only for you know, a one week trip play the PPC and win it. But you know, volume is obviously gonna gonna be a big kind of factor here. I mean, I might wake up next year and say, look, I'm going to go back to just playing whenever I feel without studying a lot, and just that obviously will change my goals. But I'd just like to just keep on getting better and feel like I can be competitive at the elite level whether I'm feared or not, or you know, whether I win, embrace it or not, and you know, try to accept that, you know the outcomes will ultimately follow, or I might not. I think one of my my issues my leaks is and you have had this debate you said the summer is not going the way I was hoping it would go, is that you know, I'm very very competitive, and I think i'm two results in outcome oriented, and you know, I think some of that is good, but too much of it is not. And so I'm trying to be a bit more focused on the things that I can that I can control, And so in my mind, I don't go in and say I have to win a couple more braces I have to win. This is just I want to just keep on getting better and try to play at the level that I think I'm capable of as often as I can, and you know that's most important to me, and hopefully good outcomes will be associated with that. Final question, is poker harder when you're so financially successful that you can decide when to show up because you play against people where the result week to week, month a month will decide you know how their lifestyle evolves or what their future looks like, and for you, you don't have that us So in a way it's almost irrelevant whether you win. I think for me, it's probably neutral or an advantage. Everyone's different. I know people that play really best when it backs against the wall. I know people that play better when they've sold a lot of action and the financial stakes for a given tournament are much lower. I don't think I've gotten to the point where, like I messaged my wife yesterday, I played in a cash game, and you know, I won what you might think as a trivial number from my net worth. But I also know how much money that is, and so I don't think i've lost sort of the sense of how much is a dollar worth. I wouldn't be playing if I was losing money. But I'm not playing to make money, if that makes sense. So that's not my primary motivation. And I think anyone who devotes most of their time to tournament poker, as I am right now, I mean I've played four cash sessions the entire summer so far, I'm here to play a tournament poker. Like, if your objective is to make money, you're not going to play tournaments unless you're never getting to any good private games. But and so I think tournament poker is an extraordinarily difficult way to make money, uh in anything, and and and and and in poker, and so that's I'm lucky enough that that's not my primary motivation. I think it's, if anything, helpful if you're sitting in a in a big spot and you're making, you know, a play that is, you know, maybe high variance, but you think has higher expectation but could as more likely to lead to to bust out in a high sticks tournament. I think it's kind of helpful that you don't have to necessarily worry about your immediate p and L. But again, everyone's different. But for me, I think it's neutral or helpful. I think it's pretty obvious who the ace is here at the table. Philip Sturneimer, thank you so much for being on the show. Really appreciated you guys. Thanks for listening and watching. Please make sure to like the video subscribe to the channel. 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