Speaker 1: Usually when you watch the sport, you never think that
Speaker 1: you could play with like an elite athlete and let
Speaker 1: alone be at that level, and poker offers you that chance.
Speaker 2: Hey, this is remco. Thanks for clicking on a 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.
Speaker 1: Enjoy.
Speaker 2: Welcome to a new episode of Face Das. My name
Speaker 2: is Rem Krienkama, joined today by Philip Sternheimer, one of
Speaker 2: my favorites to root for a very compelling story, will
Speaker 2: dive very deep into it. I don't think you need
Speaker 2: an introduction anymore, but I'll just give the brief rundown
Speaker 2: for those who've been living under red rock. We got
Speaker 2: a bracelet winner in our midst someone with a long
Speaker 2: career in private equity, a father, two daughters, and a dog.
Speaker 2: Many got to mention the dog and a drive that,
Speaker 2: in my opinion, is hard to find for someone with
Speaker 2: that level of success in the business world that I
Speaker 2: don't also try to translate that into the poker table.
Speaker 2: So first off, welcome to the show. Second off, how's
Speaker 2: the summer been so far.
Speaker 1: Well, first of all, thank you excited to be here?
Speaker 1: Am I the as are you the ace?
Speaker 2: At the end of the show, we'll decide, well, we'll
Speaker 2: do the big reveal.
Speaker 1: Summer is going below expectations, I would say, but you know,
Speaker 1: still have a bunch of events left, and you know,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm at peace if it's not the summer that
Speaker 1: I hoped it would be. And I have a lot
Speaker 1: of events left where I can compete, so every event
Speaker 1: can be the next big one.
Speaker 2: So I know that the emotions that you felt when
Speaker 2: you won your bracelet, that is something that winning a second, third,
Speaker 2: or fourth might never match again. But is that still
Speaker 2: the drive to win more bracelets or are you just
Speaker 2: here to make money, have fun, test yourself, Like, what's
Speaker 2: the motivation?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would say the main motivation is to play
Speaker 1: as consistently as possible at my best level, and you know,
Speaker 1: hope that that translates into good outcomes, deep runs, final tables,
Speaker 1: ultimately bracelets. I did actually really had to think at
Speaker 1: the beginning of the summer. You know, I just come
Speaker 1: from competing a triton. I came second there. I realized, oh,
Speaker 1: I kind of really want to win a tritent title,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, do I want this as badly as
Speaker 1: I did last year? And the answer is yes. And
Speaker 1: you know, it's always a tricky balance between how much
Speaker 1: do you want to attach yourself to outcomes or just
Speaker 1: things that you can control and sort of I try
Speaker 1: to focus more on the latter, but you know, you
Speaker 1: want to have the outcomes ultimately correlate with that. But
Speaker 1: you got to give it some time.
Speaker 2: With the long career in business that you've had and
Speaker 2: poker coming in while you were already having success in
Speaker 2: that world, what was it about poker that made you
Speaker 2: motivate it to also reach the top?
Speaker 1: I mean the answer is, given the amount of sort
Speaker 1: of effort and time that I devoted to it, it's
Speaker 1: not just one thing. I Mean, what I like about
Speaker 1: poker is that it touches on so many things that
Speaker 1: I that I enjoy. You know, it's constant problems and
Speaker 1: puzzles that you need to sort of solve. It's social
Speaker 1: and that you have this kind of frontal competition against
Speaker 1: people that are sitting at you table, some of whom
Speaker 1: you might be very good friends with, some of them
Speaker 1: you kind of like. Some of them have met before.
Speaker 1: I also think that you know, in business, it's a
Speaker 1: fairly homogeneous group of people. Sort of a lot of
Speaker 1: them have gone through similar you know, university experience, work experiences.
Speaker 1: They're all sort of you know, certain types of people,
Speaker 1: I would say, which is amazing. But I think in
Speaker 1: poker you have the chance to get exposed to more
Speaker 1: heterogeneous kind of group of people. It can be you know,
Speaker 1: age from really young to really old, it can be
Speaker 1: from you very very different socio economic backgrounds. It's very international,
Speaker 1: and so that I kind of enjoy as well. And
Speaker 1: then maybe most importantly kind of I think what a
Speaker 1: lot of people just appreciate. You know, I'm in my
Speaker 1: late forties now, I played sports when I was young.
Speaker 1: You know, that train is sort of left station. If
Speaker 1: I could go back in life, I maybe would try
Speaker 1: to see if I had a shot to become a
Speaker 1: professional athlete. But it allows me to compete at something
Speaker 1: at an elite level. And it's ultimately probably as much
Speaker 1: as you're competing against other people, you're really competing against yourself,
Speaker 1: and it's the battle against yourself and your own weaknesses
Speaker 1: and fallacies and how to learn to overcome those. And
Speaker 1: I just think it's very gratifying.
Speaker 2: When you make decisions in the private equity world where
Speaker 2: you've worked your way up to become a partner, you've
Speaker 2: since decided that you know, you had to step away
Speaker 2: from that. We can get into that also, But when
Speaker 2: you're in that highly competitive world making decisions that you
Speaker 2: know can have an effect on revenue and we're talking
Speaker 2: probably six seven eight figures when things go well or
Speaker 2: when things go bad in either direction, how does that
Speaker 2: compare to this decision making in poker where there's still
Speaker 2: a part of it that is unknown. When you invest
Speaker 2: as a private equity firm in a new company, yes,
Speaker 2: you might believe that this is the right decision, but
Speaker 2: the fact that the outcome is still unknown has some
Speaker 2: similarities with poker. So how do you how do you
Speaker 2: how do you look at that parallel and how how
Speaker 2: are there perhaps still big differences?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I would say that there are a lot
Speaker 1: of similarities between investing in poker, and there are some
Speaker 1: pretty big differences. I would say the similarities are that
Speaker 1: you do sort of have a deluge of information and
Speaker 1: you kind of got to decide what is relevant, and
Speaker 1: there is also a lot of incomplete information. So you
Speaker 1: never really know for sure what the decision that you made.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's some trivial decisions that are obvious, which
Speaker 1: is you'll have a poker as well, But most of
Speaker 1: the important decisions are actually quite difficult and against the
Speaker 1: backdrop of uncertainty and incomplete information, and you sort of
Speaker 1: triangulate to make the best decision, knowing that decisions and
Speaker 1: outcomes also aren't always the same. You can make a
Speaker 1: good decision has a bad outcome, and vice and versa,
Speaker 1: and so you need to have the humility to recognize that.
Speaker 1: So sometimes like we might have passed on a deal
Speaker 1: which we thought for the right decisions at the time,
Speaker 1: and it turns out to be you know, a home
Speaker 1: run doesn't necessarily mean we made right the wrong decision,
Speaker 1: and vice and versa. Sometimes you might have bought a
Speaker 1: business and it turns out to being good investment. But
Speaker 1: maybe actually we made the right decision. We just got
Speaker 1: lucky in some ways. But it's always sort of against
Speaker 1: the scenario or a range of outcomes that you're aware of,
Speaker 1: and you do a lot of work to understand, you know,
Speaker 1: how how might does look like and how why does
Speaker 1: the range of outcomes and whatnot. And that's kind of
Speaker 1: similar to just thinking about you up against the range
Speaker 1: of hands and pokers, So that's actually quite similar. I
Speaker 1: think what's different is, you know, poker is a very
Speaker 1: solitary sport. In the end, it's you alone who's making
Speaker 1: the decision private equity. As a team sport, you have small,
Speaker 1: small teams that make decisions. Before you make an investment decision,
Speaker 1: you just us it with a lot of other partners,
Speaker 1: and so you know, there is less attribution to you know,
Speaker 1: what exactly you thought or did at the time because
Speaker 1: it's made as a small team. But I would say
Speaker 1: the biggest difference is that you know, in poker, over
Speaker 1: and over again, you make decisions of consequence, you know,
Speaker 1: for chips money that are irreversible, and you do that
Speaker 1: over and over again, sometimes at lower stakes, but higher stakes.
Speaker 1: So you're sort of presented with this constant decision making
Speaker 1: that you really can can take back. And that creates
Speaker 1: a certain set of requirements that you really got to
Speaker 1: be sharpened the moment, which is like a lot of
Speaker 1: the way a lot of professional sports works. You know,
Speaker 1: when Akara shows up on a tennis court, you know
Speaker 1: he's got to hit that ball. The point he's lost
Speaker 1: is lost forever. He's got to be you're going to
Speaker 1: be able to perform in that window when he's able
Speaker 1: to showing up on a court until the game is over.
Speaker 1: And private equity, when you make very very significant kind
Speaker 1: of let's say, investment decisions or even do you hire
Speaker 1: someone or not, or do you raise your prices iterative like,
Speaker 1: you usually do a lot of analysis and teams and
Speaker 1: then there's questions that come up and you go back
Speaker 1: and forth and they do some more analysis, and before
Speaker 1: you make the decisions, you might have had seven eight
Speaker 1: meetings over a couple of days, weeks or even months.
Speaker 1: And even when you make the decisions, sometimes you could
Speaker 1: technically go back and say, oh, I changed my mind,
Speaker 1: you know, and I reverse it. So that is just
Speaker 1: a very different kind of backdrop in terms of how
Speaker 1: you end up making decisions, which I think is actually
Speaker 1: a really fundamental difference in terms of their stings. Therefore
Speaker 1: that I needed to get good at when it comes
Speaker 1: to poker that were sort of quasi irrelevant in the
Speaker 1: business world.
Speaker 2: Way you paint this picture and how you see the
Speaker 2: parallels and how you see the differences, was that something
Speaker 2: you noticed right away the first time you tried poker,
Speaker 2: was that something that drew you to the game.
Speaker 1: I think what drew me to the game was, you know,
Speaker 1: some combination of just I really just like problem solving,
Speaker 1: and you know, I had a new competitive outlet. I
Speaker 1: also you know, for me, it was I watched rounders.
Speaker 1: Like we all have sort of our own you know,
Speaker 1: framework or value system of things that we attribute value to.
Speaker 1: So for me, it was like, this was this world
Speaker 1: that I just thought was everyone has played poker as
Speaker 1: a child that I just thought was fascinating. That's what
Speaker 1: got me. For other people might have been online poker
Speaker 1: or moneymaker. And then it's so funny in poker where
Speaker 1: you know, I now play with my sort of in
Speaker 1: a way set of childhood heroes, and it's it's almost
Speaker 1: you know, I was just playing two days ago with Ivy.
Speaker 1: You know, you're friendly with them, you compete with them,
Speaker 1: some of them you realize you're better than them, and
Speaker 1: it's kind of crazy. Like usually when you watch the sport,
Speaker 1: you never think that you could play with like an
Speaker 1: elite athlete and let alone be at that level, And
Speaker 1: poker offers you that that chance and some of it
Speaker 1: is the just the intrinsics of the game that some
Speaker 1: of it is just that age kind of is a
Speaker 1: little bit irrelevant. And now you have tools where you
Speaker 1: can get better very very quickly if you devote yourself
Speaker 1: to it. And so it's that combination of factors that
Speaker 1: over time you sort of realize, hey, wait a minute, like, actually,
Speaker 1: if I really care about being really good at this day,
Speaker 1: there actually is a path. And it's not that you
Speaker 1: wish you'd done this when you were seven year old.
Speaker 2: But then what I find fun from your sort of
Speaker 2: career arc, if I can put it that way in poker,
Speaker 2: is that you took sort of a route that forced
Speaker 2: you to really work on your game even more because
Speaker 2: you were trying to be competitive at high stakes, no
Speaker 2: limit hold them. And then especially in the tournament scene,
Speaker 2: you know lots of cases on the EPT and you
Speaker 2: play some of the higher stakes there. And I think
Speaker 2: it's safe to say that you wanted to jump into
Speaker 2: the type of game that probably had the most competition.
Speaker 2: Was that an active thought? Was that just where you
Speaker 2: saw the action, was that something that you were specifically
Speaker 2: drawn to?
Speaker 1: Yeah, no observation, I have a very sort of elitist
Speaker 1: kind of mindset or expectation of myself when when I
Speaker 1: when I try to do something, I aspire to be
Speaker 1: the best. And the path that I chose, which everyone
Speaker 1: goes about a different way, is that like, if you
Speaker 1: want to be the best, you compete at the highest
Speaker 1: level that is accessible to you that doesn't sort of
Speaker 1: create financial ruin. Where so, like I played in games
Speaker 1: where I was probably a dog, and my goal was
Speaker 1: to say can I actually beat that game or sort
Speaker 1: of be break even and through that process actually learning,
Speaker 1: learn and get better. You know, I had the financial
Speaker 1: flexibility that I could play a game if I was wrong,
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be sort of you know, financial ruin for me.
Speaker 1: But I put myself over and over situations where you know,
Speaker 1: I was probably dog and I had to sort of
Speaker 1: somehow find a way to survive, and through that, you know,
Speaker 1: I got you know better. That was kind of my
Speaker 1: my my pro which has sort of worked out for me.
Speaker 1: But you know, as I said, everyone goes about it
Speaker 1: in a different way.
Speaker 2: So then when I look at that early tournament resume,
Speaker 2: which is the best record we have in poker, because
Speaker 2: you know, we don't have a cash game handed mob,
Speaker 2: so we can you know, pivot into that at some
Speaker 2: point as well. But if I just pick out random results,
Speaker 2: you know, it's guys like Ola Chmion, most of Neat
Speaker 2: that you were battling with in sort of the earliest
Speaker 2: Thomas Mulocker, guys that were all sort of crushers at
Speaker 2: that stake. Was there a person or were there people
Speaker 2: that you were influenced by or that helped you along
Speaker 2: that journey to improve yourself, or maybe there was a
Speaker 2: specific instance where you realized, if I keep going to
Speaker 2: do this, I need to make X, Y and Z
Speaker 2: changes because these guys do things that I am not
Speaker 2: fully grasping yet.
Speaker 1: Yeah. What's always been an edge of mine in any
Speaker 1: kind of you know sense, has been that like when
Speaker 1: I sit at the table, I think I am about
Speaker 1: as dollon as anyone at the table. I'm mentally prepared
Speaker 1: when I when I sit down, and like the I
Speaker 1: think that the discipline and the focus that you learn
Speaker 1: kind of in private equity when you have to work
Speaker 1: like several hundred hours a week you deal with really
Speaker 1: really the problems at at very very high stakes with
Speaker 1: difficult personalities. Like that's a toolkit that you can activate
Speaker 1: in poker, and that's been that's been a huge source
Speaker 1: of value for me that many other people, I would say,
Speaker 1: fail to appreciate. I would say, So, the other asset
Speaker 1: you have is I think for a long time in
Speaker 1: my career, maybe even still today, I'm underestimated. And I
Speaker 1: think that's a gift in poker. Whenever you're underestimated, it's
Speaker 1: it's always an advantage if you if you know how
Speaker 1: to sort of use it. So that's always been been
Speaker 1: there for me. There was a second part. Part was
Speaker 1: when I started playing poker at higher stakes, when I
Speaker 1: started working with Elliott Rowe, where I had sort of
Speaker 1: a couple of aha moments in terms of this whole
Speaker 1: difference between business and poker, in terms of this sort
Speaker 1: of like athletes based performance on demand mindset, sort of
Speaker 1: what do I need to do to be at my
Speaker 1: best when I show up? And that includes you know, sleep, exercise, nutrition,
Speaker 1: you know, working your mindset and meditation that when I
Speaker 1: when I show up, I'm even better, able, better able
Speaker 1: to perform when those big decisions come up. And I
Speaker 1: would say, and then the third was learning how to
Speaker 1: actually get better through studying. And I would say there's
Speaker 1: a common variety of people that you know, I talked
Speaker 1: to that I try to copy from. But if I
Speaker 1: name one, like, I know how some of the elite
Speaker 1: guys are sort of studying, and I actually think that
Speaker 1: very few have the level of I would say, sort
Speaker 1: of discipline and consistency that I demand of myself. And
Speaker 1: so that's been an AHA moment when I realized that
Speaker 1: I'm probably studying as much as anyone, you know, and
Speaker 1: how I study is as an intense form of study
Speaker 1: that allows me to get better. And that's sort of
Speaker 1: been maybe sort of the third dimension that I didn't
Speaker 1: really have a chance to sort of use before I
Speaker 1: really had had sort of the time, meaning before I
Speaker 1: sort of quit my job.
Speaker 2: Poker is the zero sum game, and it can be
Speaker 2: very predatory, you know, in the current climate. When you
Speaker 2: look at cash games, for example, it's all about who
Speaker 2: gets the invite who doesn't get the invite, and games
Speaker 2: are private or semi private. But the tournaments is just
Speaker 2: you know, show up, buy in, and you can just play.
Speaker 2: So in a way, it's like the equalizer. Everybody can
Speaker 2: show up, everybody can play at the same time. When
Speaker 2: you play tournaments at a high stake. There needs to
Speaker 2: be more personal awareness if you care about performance, as
Speaker 2: to how do I evaluate my play, how do I
Speaker 2: evaluate my opponent? And given the small sample size that
Speaker 2: you deal with, how am I able to discern that
Speaker 2: the path that I'm on or things that I'm doing
Speaker 2: are actually progressing me to where I want to be?
Speaker 2: How did you approach that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, look, you don't really know. I mean, I would
Speaker 1: say you can even with a bigger sample set. There's
Speaker 1: still ambiguity in terms of how much people are really winning,
Speaker 1: how good there really are. And I think that's the
Speaker 1: beauty of the game and that there's so much ambiguity
Speaker 1: that you'll never really know. I mean, we can all
Speaker 1: sort of there's a list of people depending on the
Speaker 1: type of competition that you mentioned, mixed games and no
Speaker 1: limit PLO, and it will come up, you know, and
Speaker 1: you would think that because they come up over and
Speaker 1: over again, it's more likely that they're winning. But there's
Speaker 1: a lot of ambiguity. There's a lot of ambiguity as
Speaker 1: to you know, if I'm playing a Triton, am I
Speaker 1: actually winning or not? Like, look, I don't even know
Speaker 1: if it matters, Like if I show up at a
Speaker 1: tournament that I play. Let's say I'm playing a hunter KPLO.
Speaker 1: Whether I'm slightly ev positive slightly ev negative depends, first
Speaker 1: of all, is unknown. Second, it depends on factors that
Speaker 1: are beyond my control. You know, do a couple of
Speaker 1: bad players or really good players show up or not
Speaker 1: so obviously and so, but I kind of think it's
Speaker 1: besides the point. What matters to me is that, like,
Speaker 1: I know what it takes to become elite at any
Speaker 1: kind of form of poker, and I will focus on
Speaker 1: the things that I can control to keep kind of
Speaker 1: going up that hill and get like a little bit
Speaker 1: better every time. Like when I study, like I feel
Speaker 1: at the end of the day I've learned something I
Speaker 1: didn't know before, or I have a conversation with an
Speaker 1: elite player about mindset or you know, you name it,
Speaker 1: like any ingredient to success that I feel I can
Speaker 1: get a little bit better at. That's what matters to me,
Speaker 1: and the rest will be, you know, sort of decided
Speaker 1: over over time, and I don't spend too much time
Speaker 1: worrying about it. I'm probably I think a lot of
Speaker 1: players that I know are maybe ever so slightly delusional
Speaker 1: or naive about the true level of skill. And I
Speaker 1: think that's okay because it gives you that level of
Speaker 1: confidence that you need to execute when it matters. And
Speaker 1: are you really delusional if you think you're delusional? I
Speaker 1: don't actually know, but like I do think that's that's
Speaker 1: not an atypical kind of ingredient when you're competing, that
Speaker 1: you think I can actually really win this and I'm
Speaker 1: one of the best players.
Speaker 2: Does it matter to you how the people that you
Speaker 2: see as elite view you as a player.
Speaker 1: I would say definitely yes, but I'm not sure if
Speaker 1: the answer it goes to both ways. Of course, you
Speaker 1: enjoyed the respect of your peers. I have a player
Speaker 1: who I put in my top two top three who
Speaker 1: wanted to draft me for the fantasy draft, and he said,
Speaker 1: you know, this guy is much better in most thing
Speaker 1: and he tries really hard. I think he's really good,
Speaker 1: he's improve the blah blah blah. Of course that means
Speaker 1: something to me, right as it would in any kind
Speaker 1: of sport and endeavor. But then I'm also aware that
Speaker 1: there's other people that underestimate me, and I I know
Speaker 1: that benefits me a lot, and I can think of
Speaker 1: very specific hands where I think I know what they
Speaker 1: think about my game, and you know, I can use
Speaker 1: that to my advantage. So it sort of goes both
Speaker 1: both ways. I think you like the respect of your peers,
Speaker 1: but you know a lot of people are just going
Speaker 1: to always classify me as sort of the rich businessman
Speaker 1: who tries hard, and that's that's that's a good thing.
Speaker 2: So then the rich businessman who tries hard was that
Speaker 2: tough to sell at home and to friends and family
Speaker 2: outside at poker, Because the pivot from what people see
Speaker 2: as perhaps one of the more esteemed careers working for
Speaker 2: a major firm to then be you know, for lack
Speaker 2: of a better term, slumming it out at the rio
Speaker 2: is kind of a big pivot, like how is that
Speaker 2: being received?
Speaker 1: You know, it goes in phases. I think I didn't
Speaker 1: quit my job to play poker. Sure, I quit my
Speaker 1: job primarily to spend more time with my family. You know,
Speaker 1: I was working maybe on average eighty hours a week.
Speaker 1: Most importantly, I was traveling three four days a week.
Speaker 1: So at some point I felt like I just wasn't
Speaker 1: around when life happened for my family, and I didn't
Speaker 1: think there was a way to perform the job at
Speaker 1: the level that I that I think it deserved and
Speaker 1: required if I had traveled less. And so I use
Speaker 1: a somewhat morbid sort of regret minimization kind of framework,
Speaker 1: kind of once or twice a year when I think
Speaker 1: about if I died tomorrow and I was in my deathbed,
Speaker 1: like would I have regrets? And it just became like
Speaker 1: overwhelming and clear for me at some point that like
Speaker 1: what am I doing? Like I'm missing how my how
Speaker 1: my daughters are growing up. And it was reinforced that
Speaker 1: you know, my older daughter, when she was you know, young,
Speaker 1: like one, two three, I was traveling a ton. Then
Speaker 1: we had COVID, Suddenly I was at home a lot.
Speaker 1: And then we had a second daughter, and then I
Speaker 1: started traveling again after COVID, and it felt like deja vu.
Speaker 1: It's like I'm doing the same thing over again. So
Speaker 1: I'm like stop. And then the second reason was that,
Speaker 1: you know, I've been doing that for eighteen years. I'm
Speaker 1: in my mid forties. Is this really all lying on
Speaker 1: my deathbed? Like all I've done with my sort of
Speaker 1: professional career, is this one thing which has arguably been
Speaker 1: a fantastic career in so many ways, but I also
Speaker 1: have many other interests and interests, and so that was
Speaker 1: kind of what made me decide, Okay, I'm going to
Speaker 1: jump off that like train, you know, which took me
Speaker 1: sort of like ten years to decide at the point,
Speaker 1: sometimes but definitely a while. I definitely had a lot
Speaker 1: of I think for more than ten years, I had
Speaker 1: thoughts about should I be quitting now or later? And
Speaker 1: I'm super happy with the timing that I chose for
Speaker 1: variety of reasons, but I'd been thinking about it for
Speaker 1: a long time. Then I didn't pick up the phone,
Speaker 1: I would say, for anything, for about, you know, almost
Speaker 1: two years. So that was my sort of time to decompress.
Speaker 1: I did play a lot of poker, but I would
Speaker 1: say like I didn't really I studied a little bit,
Speaker 1: I took it very seriously, but I would say I
Speaker 1: sort of play poker as a way to decompress, finally
Speaker 1: have the freedom to come here to play. And then
Speaker 1: I sort of said to myself, look, I probably should
Speaker 1: be I'm not sure. I'm still not sure if I
Speaker 1: can play poker, you know, in any series form and
Speaker 1: have the mental space and time to do something else.
Speaker 1: So I sort of said, Okay, it's gonna be my
Speaker 1: last World Series last year. We all know how to
Speaker 1: work out, but I'm going to actually now start start
Speaker 1: treating this like a job and study kind of like
Speaker 1: five days a week across all the games, and you know,
Speaker 1: sort of feel like, Okay, I'm going out treating this
Speaker 1: like very seriously. And then to my surprise, I would say,
Speaker 1: you know, the results have obviously been great in terms
Speaker 1: of winning a bracelet and winning a lot of money
Speaker 1: and doing well and very very competitive. It feels like
Speaker 1: when you when the thing was when you when you
Speaker 1: play you know, when when you when you play a
Speaker 1: Triton or a super high Roll or No Limit or
Speaker 1: PLO event, you're playing against people that only play no
Speaker 1: Limit or PLO or maybe two. And so I try
Speaker 1: to do that and then also compete like in all
Speaker 1: the mixed games. So you know, I'm aware that what
Speaker 1: I'm it's it's like it's a pretty crazy challenge. But
Speaker 1: one was the results were good. The second was I
Speaker 1: actually just really enjoy the grind. I just really enjoy
Speaker 1: studying and learning, which most I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people that's sort of a necessary evil, And I actually
Speaker 1: really enjoy it.
Speaker 2: But then to interrupt you here the slow moving away
Speaker 2: from the business life to being quote unquote a poker
Speaker 2: player in your business world and also maybe among friends
Speaker 2: and family outside of poker, that might seem absolutely insane.
Speaker 2: How how was that conversation or how was that perceived
Speaker 2: that you were I guess slowly pivoting, yeah, to operating
Speaker 2: in this world and universe that is so far removed
Speaker 2: from where you were.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So the reaction wasn't I would say for them,
Speaker 1: of course, the like if you take my mom, she's like,
Speaker 1: you're gambling, You're going to dine a ditch. She has
Speaker 1: this image that I'm going to die in a ditch
Speaker 1: at the fucking rio. Excuse my French. You know, I'm like,
Speaker 1: literally she can picture me, like lying next to got
Speaker 1: her way to water is slowly dripping over my face,
Speaker 1: and I'm just broke and begging. You know, they're living
Speaker 1: in the tunnels exactly. And now she's like sends me
Speaker 1: an article of you know, the German tabloid that her
Speaker 1: friends have sent her that like, her son just won
Speaker 1: two and a half million of tritent, and she watches
Speaker 1: on YouTube and she's excited, and so that changes it
Speaker 1: for her, you know, I would say for the family,
Speaker 1: it's been and you know, my wife is less outcome
Speaker 1: oriented than my mom, but but more so than me.
Speaker 1: So she understands that there's a lot of luck in
Speaker 1: the game. But she'll be like, you know, why are
Speaker 1: you going there if you're not winning money? But she understood. Look,
Speaker 1: she the family now sees more of a They see
Speaker 1: the causality between daddy sitting and studying and working hard
Speaker 1: and trying really hard, and you know, and he has
Speaker 1: such a success so which I think is also really
Speaker 1: important to me that you know, when when my daughters
Speaker 1: are saying, you're going a holiday, I'm like, no, I'm
Speaker 1: actually going to work. Like you see when I'm sitting
Speaker 1: in front of my computer all the time and doing
Speaker 1: this and this, like this is work for daddy, and
Speaker 1: so that's important. So it's become a lot more acceptable,
Speaker 1: I would say within the family. The business world, I'm
Speaker 1: not sure, you know, I think a lot of them are.
Speaker 1: It's definitely seen as an amazing level of accomplishment that
Speaker 1: you have success in two unrelated fields. I think there's
Speaker 1: also a lot of them that secretly are wishing that
Speaker 1: they could quit or would have quit, and they don't
Speaker 1: doing it because the money is so good, and maybe
Speaker 1: there are some of them that are doing that are
Speaker 1: thinking what the fuck is he doing? Because I think
Speaker 1: the practical challenge is that you know, I've taken I've
Speaker 1: turned down all opportunities that were presented to me. I
Speaker 1: was very very close to take one about like at
Speaker 1: the end of last year, which I ended up turning
Speaker 1: down to be essentially like number two guy in a
Speaker 1: very big company with the path that becomes COO. And
Speaker 1: I think there is a risk that you atrophy both
Speaker 1: in substance and in perception that like okay, Phil used
Speaker 1: to be really experienced and really smart and whatnot, but
Speaker 1: he hasn't been around for the last six years and
Speaker 1: like Kenny actually come back right. So that that's just
Speaker 1: the risk that I need to keep in mind as
Speaker 1: I decide kind of what I might want to do next.
Speaker 2: And then so then in the field of private equity,
Speaker 2: to me, as an outsider, it doesn't get much more
Speaker 2: competitive than that. You know, people that go to fancy
Speaker 2: business schools aspire to be in that environment. Why was
Speaker 2: it that you were able to reach that level and
Speaker 2: why were you approached even years later. You know, the
Speaker 2: thing you mentioned about at the end of last year,
Speaker 2: to be number two at a big firm, can you
Speaker 2: actually sort of quantify it into maybe a few small
Speaker 2: specifics or some details to give some color to the
Speaker 2: fact that you know you were the guy or you
Speaker 2: or you are seen as someone who can still be
Speaker 2: the guy. Because clearly there's thousands of smart people out
Speaker 2: there that would love to have those opportunities to try
Speaker 2: and prove themselves. So what are some detail details or
Speaker 2: intricacies that set you apart.
Speaker 1: I think you probably want to get someone else in
Speaker 1: a podcast answer that private equity is kind of a
Speaker 1: very multi faceted kind of role that you have and
Speaker 1: that you know, it's it's very in terms of the skills,
Speaker 1: it's it's very analytical, especially as you're younger and you
Speaker 1: build complex financial models and you know you need to
Speaker 1: sort of find a way to translate kind of business
Speaker 1: insights into sort of financial outputs. That sort of the
Speaker 1: first kind of job that you have, you know, as
Speaker 1: you I would say, get older and become you know,
Speaker 1: a partner. I think that at the heart is you
Speaker 1: need to have investment judgment, which is you know, being
Speaker 1: able to distill a investment decision into the three or
Speaker 1: four things that really really matter that will decide whether
Speaker 1: or not this will be a good investment or not.
Speaker 1: And then on those you need to ask the right
Speaker 1: questions and you need to be able to make the
Speaker 1: right judgment again in a face of a lot of
Speaker 1: ambiguity and and and on certainty. I'm not sure how
Speaker 1: much of that can be taught versus how much of
Speaker 1: that is there's probably it's probably fifty to fifty in
Speaker 1: terms of like how much of that you can learn
Speaker 1: versus like do you have it or not? Do you
Speaker 1: just have that kind of judgment? I would say, you're.
Speaker 2: Not running solvers on on business decisions.
Speaker 1: Well, it's similar in that, like you know, like there's
Speaker 1: always a financial model in the background that translates kind
Speaker 1: of a question into into an outcome, like this is,
Speaker 1: you know what the profitability of the businesses this year.
Speaker 1: This is the return on the investment given certain given
Speaker 1: it's all always given certain assumptions, right, So in some
Speaker 1: ways it's similar to solvers, and that we never really
Speaker 1: get to trend some of the outputs, and solvers we
Speaker 1: can do ourselves. Some of them we might be aware of.
Speaker 1: But I think poker players are quite lazy relative to
Speaker 1: you know, people in business, because we sort of have
Speaker 1: this kind of model that spits out the answer. Like
Speaker 1: in business we always joke like every model shows a
Speaker 1: twenty percent return because that's sort of the threshold return.
Speaker 1: And it's sort of like it's a joke because I
Speaker 1: can show you a twenty with certain assumptions, and right,
Speaker 1: it's not about actually what the model says. It's about
Speaker 1: being aware of the knobs that matter and what happens
Speaker 1: when you turn them. And so that's really the way
Speaker 1: I think you got to approach it. And that's also
Speaker 1: the way the elite players kind of study. They look
Speaker 1: at a certain situation, not like I played this hand
Speaker 1: and did I make the right decision or not? Is
Speaker 1: that what happens if you change certain assumptions. The second
Speaker 1: thing is that in private equity, what happens is you
Speaker 1: become the control share all the typically of a company,
Speaker 1: but you don't run a company, which means one of
Speaker 1: the biggest drivers of success is finding the right people
Speaker 1: to run the business. Like you would say the best people,
Speaker 1: but the best people is actually the right people, because
Speaker 1: there is no such thing as one executive who's going
Speaker 1: to be successful in every business. It's in my mind
Speaker 1: horses for courses. So another big factor is for of course,
Speaker 1: finding the right people, which takes a lot of judgment.
Speaker 1: It's like you can't just like they can't just say,
Speaker 1: oh we hire like Tim Cook or you know it's
Speaker 1: it's usually and I'm sure actually put Tim Cook in
Speaker 1: some situation or take Elon Musk in a situation where whatever,
Speaker 1: he doesn't have control over everything, and he'll probably be
Speaker 1: a fucking disaster. So it's all about making that judgment.
Speaker 1: And then it's about finding a way to influence people right,
Speaker 1: finding ways to get them to maybe direct them in
Speaker 1: a certain way, but why they still feel empowered that
Speaker 1: they're they're running to show and so it's a lot
Speaker 1: of soft skills that matter that it might also be influencing,
Speaker 1: like do you want to sell your business to me?
Speaker 1: So there's a certain amount of salesmanship. So those are
Speaker 1: sort of the two qualities that it takes to be
Speaker 1: successful once you're more senior. But then just and the
Speaker 1: abstract you know, poker, Private equity similar to poker, is
Speaker 1: a game where you have to have extremely frustration tolerance,
Speaker 1: and be extremely disciplined. Like you look at literally twenty
Speaker 1: or thirty investments, some of them for several months, and
Speaker 1: you might do one of them, and that one needs
Speaker 1: to be like in your life as an investor, you
Speaker 1: might make like just like I think I worked on
Speaker 1: I did eight or nine deals over a career of
Speaker 1: twenty years. And so those there's eras of omission to
Speaker 1: the ones you don't do, which no one ever talks about.
Speaker 1: But the eras of co mission like those, you got
Speaker 1: to get down to a very low number or zero.
Speaker 1: Like we had this thing in our job, which is
Speaker 1: just be right. You make a decision, you fire your bullet,
Speaker 1: want to be whatever, five or ten bullets, you better
Speaker 1: be right in order to get there. You know you're
Speaker 1: going to kiss a lot of frogs, and so that
Speaker 1: there's a lot of you know, intrinsic qualities that like that,
Speaker 1: that frustration tolerance that you need to have in order
Speaker 1: to be successful at the job.
Speaker 2: Take me to the single biggest decision you made in business,
Speaker 2: and please, you know, be as detailed as you want
Speaker 2: to be. But I'm curious if you say you only
Speaker 2: fired so few bullets over such a big career. The
Speaker 2: decision making point where you know the bullet was fired
Speaker 2: into something that became huge and successful. Do you recall
Speaker 2: that moment and the specifics of it and what did
Speaker 2: that turn into.
Speaker 1: The two investments that I spent the most time on
Speaker 1: and that were felt very difficult at the time seven
Speaker 1: and twelve year journeys for me, so and it turned
Speaker 1: out to be very successful, like more than ten times money.
Speaker 1: The most difficult decision was do we make the investment
Speaker 1: or not? And you have to think about in private
Speaker 1: equity like you spend you spent months diligencing in business,
Speaker 1: and then you're at the end, you're in a competitive
Speaker 1: auction and it's literally who pays the highest price at
Speaker 1: the end, plus who who's over management more maybe, but
Speaker 1: at the end, it's really about who pays the highest price.
Speaker 1: And so it feels a lot like dog catches car.
Speaker 1: You know what that means.
Speaker 2: Yeah, It's like.
Speaker 1: The dog runs after the car that they never and
Speaker 1: suddenly the dog catches the car. What happens now, like,
Speaker 1: are we mock that paid the most for the business
Speaker 1: or did we see something that the others did not?
Speaker 1: And then once you own a business, do you find
Speaker 1: a way to do something with the business, so that
Speaker 1: when we made the investment decision, it felt very uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: It was, you know, lots of adversity. European debt crist
Speaker 1: at the time sort of a sector that we weren't
Speaker 1: in love with, but we sort of just saw a
Speaker 1: lot of things that we liked about the fundamentals of
Speaker 1: the of the industry and what this business could do.
Speaker 1: And yeah, that was a that always feels like I
Speaker 1: could effectively sort of putting your career on the line.
Speaker 1: But that felt very unnerving. And then there were a
Speaker 1: lot of menagerial decisions, like who do we make the CEO?
Speaker 1: Or there were two founders and they were they didn't
Speaker 1: like each other, but they felt essential to the business.
Speaker 1: And then we ended up firing one and keeping the other,
Speaker 1: which was a big one. And then who do we
Speaker 1: make CEO was a big decision. Then we were we
Speaker 1: did it with a with another firm together and we
Speaker 1: had made three times of money four years in which
Speaker 1: was great. We were f to fifty. They wanted to
Speaker 1: sell and then we just said, why don't we buy
Speaker 1: them out and keep going? Like that felt really unnerving.
Speaker 1: That wasn't my idea and I was against it at
Speaker 1: the time, but then I came around, but that was
Speaker 1: my that was a partner of mine. Then the business
Speaker 1: actually really took off afterwards, So that was a huge
Speaker 1: kind of decision. So those are sort of the types
Speaker 1: of decisions that you know that you sort of make
Speaker 1: along the way, and then you make a lot of
Speaker 1: sort of business decisions like should we take down prices,
Speaker 1: what do we do to get down churn? Should we
Speaker 1: launch this new product, should we make this acquisitions, should
Speaker 1: we open this new country? You know, like all of
Speaker 1: these type of type of things that that sort of come.
Speaker 2: Up where we sort of left off the book conversation
Speaker 2: is you progressing through the ranks, finding a sort of
Speaker 2: new motivation and a competitive drive in a field where
Speaker 2: you hadn't proven yourself yet or hadn't hadn't had a
Speaker 2: level of success that you had seen in business, and
Speaker 2: then to pivot again within that niche. Going from hold
Speaker 2: Them to mixed games to me almost feels like is
Speaker 2: he just constantly looking for a new challenge because he
Speaker 2: gets bored? Because mixed games is the niche within the
Speaker 2: niche where if you I mean I think it. Take
Speaker 2: me for example, I love mixed games. I play all
Speaker 2: the games. I play them to a degree that i'm
Speaker 2: sort of you know, I'm okay at all the mixedgams.
Speaker 2: You and I could have a good conversation about mixed
Speaker 2: game strategy. However, if I were to have ambitions within
Speaker 2: mixed games, my ceiling probably lies at like a ten
Speaker 2: twenty twenty forty game, and the next game that I
Speaker 2: can play is eight hundred and sixteen hundred or two
Speaker 2: K four K. There is no there's no ladder unless
Speaker 2: you play Wilster's book tournaments. So for you to have
Speaker 2: the capital to try and say, I'm confident enough to
Speaker 2: try this out. However, if I want to get better
Speaker 2: at this, and if I want to play, the price
Speaker 2: tag is really really high. Why did you feel the
Speaker 2: need to venture into Bobby's room, table one, whatever wherever
Speaker 2: those games were. Because in the hold them realm there
Speaker 2: is much more game selection possible. And if you sit
Speaker 2: down in these mixed games, you see all the guys
Speaker 2: that you mentioned earlier that you probably were a fan
Speaker 2: of back in the day. Yeah, and that's the only
Speaker 2: way to compete.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a couple of reasons. I mean, how I
Speaker 1: ended up playing mixed games, some of them are just idiosyncratic.
Speaker 1: I literally I played a no limit event. I busted.
Speaker 1: I was devastated. I wanted to jump in the next tournament.
Speaker 1: And the next tournament that was going was a ten game.
Speaker 1: I came third and sort of got the bug. I
Speaker 1: would say, you know, I didn't know two or three
Speaker 1: of the games even at the time I had never
Speaker 1: played played before, but just got lucky and you know,
Speaker 1: got the bug. But then the other thing is that
Speaker 1: just for my we sort of talked a little bit
Speaker 1: about like we all have our little sort of value system,
Speaker 1: things that matter to us and whatnot. And somehow maybe
Speaker 1: it was through the lore about the Bobby's Room games
Speaker 1: and you know, guys like Nick Ground and whatnot would
Speaker 1: play like I felt to me like, if you want
Speaker 1: to really be good at poker for me, as like
Speaker 1: you got to play all the games. That that was
Speaker 1: just something that I sort of always that was sort
Speaker 1: of that was sort of my has been my value
Speaker 1: system really since I started taking poker like more and
Speaker 1: more more seriously. I then also came to believe that
Speaker 1: because there was virtually no kind of solvers for most
Speaker 1: of the games at the time, that you know, the
Speaker 1: playing field for me would be not having the time
Speaker 1: to study would be a bit flatter, and that some
Speaker 1: of these other qualities that I mentioned therefore on a
Speaker 1: relative basis, are more relevant here and allow me allow
Speaker 1: me to compete. But since I would say, I also
Speaker 1: realized that look one is that there's a lot more
Speaker 1: on all games available now mixed games are still there's
Speaker 1: the amount of resources that are available for mixed games
Speaker 1: relative to Nolment and PLO is it's a fraction, And
Speaker 1: I kind of realized that it's actually really awesome if
Speaker 1: you have the time to just arguably no Liment and
Speaker 1: PLO are some of the games that have the most
Speaker 1: i would say strategic depth, and there's just a deluge
Speaker 1: of information that's available that allows you to get better.
Speaker 1: And they are also just more tournaments to be played. Right,
Speaker 1: if you want to play mixed games, you effect in
Speaker 1: tournaments you have two outlets. Effectively, there's the PGT Mixed
Speaker 1: series and there's the World Series. You know for Nolan,
Speaker 1: with PLO you have a lot more. And so that's
Speaker 1: why sort of about sort of two years ago, I
Speaker 1: said I really want to be able to compete in
Speaker 1: all these great kind of noliment and plo events, and
Speaker 1: you know, they're sort of a path for me to
Speaker 1: get there given the amount of resources that are available.
Speaker 1: I'd say the last thing I would say is that,
Speaker 1: you know, poker has just really changed since I started
Speaker 1: playing that it used to be that all the best
Speaker 1: players were playing cash games like that, do you want
Speaker 1: to find the best players in the world that used
Speaker 1: to be in cash games? And you know, tournaments would
Speaker 1: sort of little be sort of the tournament people were
Speaker 1: sort of poo pooed on and they're sort of fish
Speaker 1: nowadays with the advent of private games, effectively all the
Speaker 1: best players have migrated to tournaments, and cash games have
Speaker 1: become at the high stakes level really sort of private
Speaker 1: and built around a couple of weakers players, and like,
Speaker 1: those are probably not the guys that would win against
Speaker 1: the best in the world anymore. But there's been always
Speaker 1: one exception in mixed games, which is the Bobby's Room
Speaker 1: game has always stayed the game which has been essentially
Speaker 1: public and still had the best players. And so that
Speaker 1: for me always felt like the beacon, the shining beacon
Speaker 1: on the hill is that like, if you can be
Speaker 1: competitive in that game, like that's that's available. It's there,
Speaker 1: and you're always going to play against the best.
Speaker 2: Were you're not worried that the fact that there was
Speaker 2: a seat for you meant that they were very happy
Speaker 2: to see you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I mean it's changed ever since this year.
Speaker 1: It's now sort of semi private, but up until this year,
Speaker 1: it's always been public and the person the person gets
Speaker 1: to see to whoever's there on time. It doesn't matter
Speaker 1: who you are, and so, but yeah, they were probably
Speaker 1: happy to see me. And as I said before, you know,
Speaker 1: I think I started in a game being negative ev
Speaker 1: you know, finding a way to actually I would say
Speaker 1: win small, break even, but learning a lot, you know,
Speaker 1: And you know nowadays I don't know. I don't know
Speaker 1: if I'm positive v I hope so bit.
Speaker 2: You're still allowed to sit down, You're still allowed to
Speaker 2: sit down.
Speaker 1: We're still allowed to sit down. Well, effectively the game
Speaker 1: is still run that anyone's allowed to sit down, but
Speaker 1: it's no longer there are certain people that in that
Speaker 1: game where people just won't really want it to be
Speaker 1: playing a game. So, for example, I think two or
Speaker 1: three years ago, first we played at the beginning of
Speaker 1: summer and the game starts at ten, okay, and then
Speaker 1: we sort of say, do you want to play again tomorrow? Okay, tomorrow,
Speaker 1: We'll play again at ten, but nine thirty the game
Speaker 1: is full. Okay, yeah, yeah, And like this ended like
Speaker 1: on like a week later. The game was full at
Speaker 1: six forty five in the morning, which is kind of
Speaker 1: it's like mutual. It's like self assured mutual destruction. And
Speaker 1: you know, now you can sort of say, okay, you guys,
Speaker 1: have a seat. The game starts at a normal time,
Speaker 1: you know, like whatever. Someone had a big losing session
Speaker 1: to get to play. Someone is in talent for only
Speaker 1: a couple of days they get to play, you know.
Speaker 1: So by making the game private, you're allowed, you're able
Speaker 1: to make some adult decisions.
Speaker 2: Like so, is there is there literally a a Bobby's
Speaker 2: Room group chat?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I mean that to me is really funny. Yeah, because
Speaker 2: we're talking about a group chat with some of the
Speaker 2: most interesting personalities in poker as well, some of the
Speaker 2: most successful people and perhaps also some of the richest
Speaker 2: people in poker, all trying to figure out how can
Speaker 2: we play our game.
Speaker 1: There's some interesting characters in that group and in that chat,
Speaker 1: and so it wasn't necessary. It's more transactional, okay, And
Speaker 1: a lot of times actually you don't use it because
Speaker 1: the people that end the game the night before agree
Speaker 1: when to play again the next day, and it might
Speaker 1: even be an incentive to not let everyone know, even
Speaker 1: though when the game was public, everyone could sit down,
Speaker 1: like if you had got a good game going and
Speaker 1: like a game that's full and they all agree to
Speaker 1: show again next morning, there's no incentive to message to the
Speaker 1: group chats, so someone else suddenly jumps in. So it
Speaker 1: wasn't necessarily a chat that. I think there were some
Speaker 1: summers where it was used more than others, and there
Speaker 1: have been various iterations where some people were dropped off
Speaker 1: that were the first group chat, you know, had people
Speaker 1: that never never really played anymore, and then you have
Speaker 1: new chats and whatnot. So but yeah, there's there's there,
Speaker 1: there's there have been some chats.
Speaker 2: Yes, if those chats were sort of public, it might
Speaker 2: be like a good movie, your documentary in that realm.
Speaker 2: And I think Bobby's Room is endlessly fascinating because of
Speaker 2: the lore, because of the setting, because of the people
Speaker 2: that are immediately associated with it. When you think back
Speaker 2: of when you first sat down there, What stakes do
Speaker 2: you guys play, what games were which, which people were
Speaker 2: in the game, and what memories do you have of
Speaker 2: those early days.
Speaker 1: Well, my first experience was not the official Bobby'soom game.
Speaker 1: I was here for a day and I played Mixed,
Speaker 1: and I think I messaged Scott, who I knew from
Speaker 1: Burning Man, and I was, you know, I'm here, I
Speaker 1: like to play mixed, happy to play high, and he
Speaker 1: then messaged the Bobby's Room chat, does anyone want to play?
Speaker 1: And I think we played like five hundred one thousand
Speaker 1: or six hundred twelve hundred, So not the official Bobby'soom game.
Speaker 1: I think it was like Angry John Hat my Cat,
Speaker 1: maybe Keith Gibson and a couple of guys and ended
Speaker 1: up ended up winning a lot after being down a lot,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, okay, show up the next summer. There's
Speaker 1: a game that Hanks ran six twelve hundred or eight
Speaker 1: sixteen and ended up winning a lot there And suddenly
Speaker 1: I had enough for one buying in a two four
Speaker 1: K game. And in that game, where.
Speaker 2: Was it was? The buying for the two K four game?
Speaker 1: I mean the minimum at the time was I think
Speaker 1: maybe even only like forty K, but I think I
Speaker 1: kind of don't want to sit down with less than
Speaker 1: two hundred, Like I think I bought in for one
Speaker 1: hundred and then one hundred behind. And in the game
Speaker 1: where Aaron Katz, Joizo, Doyle, Keith Gibson again at the
Speaker 1: time my cat angry Gordo, guys like that Jason Mercier
Speaker 1: old Jason Mercer at one point zero with overweight and
Speaker 1: the long beauty frustration, and I just end up have
Speaker 1: an amazing summer. I won like a twenty five K
Speaker 1: mixed at Aria and I won a lot in that game,
Speaker 1: And so that sort of got me. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think I was like maybe ten times worse than now,
Speaker 1: so I must have gotten very lucky.
Speaker 2: You're probably not winning now that you're better, works.
Speaker 1: Right, Okay, But yeah, that sort of got That got
Speaker 1: me started.
Speaker 2: The aura of someone like Ivy, And there's hardly anyone
Speaker 2: like that, but that that Bobby's Room game has seen
Speaker 2: probably the biggest auras that that poker has ever seen,
Speaker 2: and probably like before your time, you know, someone like
Speaker 2: Chip Reese. But then also you know, you still got
Speaker 2: a chance to play with Doyle. You play with Ivy
Speaker 2: and you saw ivy in various states. What can you
Speaker 2: tell me, given your life experience and all the roads
Speaker 2: you traveled to get to that game, what can you
Speaker 2: tell me about what those guys possess, what they have
Speaker 2: that makes them sort of successful at the highest level,
Speaker 2: especially coming from an era where you couldn't just learn
Speaker 2: as if you were going to University of poker. It
Speaker 2: was basically life was the university of poker, and they
Speaker 2: were the few that reached the top. What did you
Speaker 2: see in them that made them so special?
Speaker 1: The composition of the Bobby's Room game has changed a lot,
Speaker 1: even I think I've now maybe played for eight years.
Speaker 1: Even over that reasonably short period, it's changed a lot.
Speaker 1: And so I know a lot of players that are
Speaker 1: no longer playing in Bobby's because they got torched. Maybe
Speaker 1: not in the beginning, but you know, maybe stuff worked
Speaker 1: out with them for them for a while until it didn't. Right.
Speaker 1: So if you look at the people that actually have
Speaker 1: had the staying power at that that's not a very
Speaker 1: big group, right. I think one of the biggest factors
Speaker 1: in that game is not necessarily poker talent. It is
Speaker 1: actually mental fortitude and resilience and it's you know, you're
Speaker 1: playing with a very small player pools actually finding ways
Speaker 1: to sort of adjust to the various kind of playing
Speaker 1: styles kind of successfully. And so that in my mind,
Speaker 1: you know, drives longevity in that game. And I don't
Speaker 1: think there's a lot of people that have it. You know, Ivy, Jason,
Speaker 1: you know, also Patrick, those are some of the guys
Speaker 1: that have really stuck around. You know, Dahl is interesting
Speaker 1: in that I'm not sure if he was winning by
Speaker 1: a time sort of in his final years in the game,
Speaker 1: or let's let's say had positive ev but it was
Speaker 1: really was inspirational. Is that, you know, as a as
Speaker 1: a life lesson in a way, is that the guy
Speaker 1: was arguably sharp until the very last day that he played.
Speaker 1: And I just think it's so interesting. I was just
Speaker 1: chatting with a fantasy draft team member of mine who says,
Speaker 1: you know, his fifties, doesn't know how many years you
Speaker 1: have left, Like you might have forty years left if
Speaker 1: you if you keep on challenge yourself mentally every day,
Speaker 1: I think, you know, I look like Buffett, I look
Speaker 1: at Doyle, and to me, it's a very inspirational example
Speaker 1: that you can compete mentally at the highest level if
Speaker 1: you just don't stop. You know. The other thing Daryl
Speaker 1: had is that he had that he had that dog,
Speaker 1: I would say, and that he really wanted to win
Speaker 1: and he would get really grumpy and a very in
Speaker 1: a very humane and funny way when he would be losing.
Speaker 1: And so that I really miss and I think some
Speaker 1: of that, some of that kind of atmosphere has gotten
Speaker 1: lost a little bit because you had these big personalities
Speaker 1: like him that would just want to win really badly.
Speaker 1: They will get really grumpy when they lose. Same with
Speaker 1: Gus was great. You know, he also doesn't play the
Speaker 1: game much anymore, and so that's some of that jovial, gambly,
Speaker 1: kind of folksy nature of the game. Like make Meno's
Speaker 1: no mistakes. There are huge sums changing hand, like that's
Speaker 1: a little bit gone, someone's coming back. Because you have
Speaker 1: guys like you know, Alberts and Wass and you know,
Speaker 1: there are sort of also great personalities. But that was
Speaker 1: quite special playing with Doyle.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just to stay on Doyle for just one more
Speaker 2: question here. He passed in twenty twenty three, so you
Speaker 2: had a few years where you probably played with him
Speaker 2: quite frequently. They have memories or examples of like you know,
Speaker 2: some like a Doyle moment from those final years that
Speaker 2: sort of stand out in your memory.
Speaker 1: He really wanted to play tournaments. But what you did
Speaker 1: notice with Doyle is that even like just in a
Speaker 1: cash game, he would get tired, and he was aware
Speaker 1: of that, and of course that makes playing tournaments very,
Speaker 1: very difficult for him, and that's why he played so
Speaker 1: much cash because he could. He could start and end
Speaker 1: whenever he wanted to. I think that the best moments
Speaker 1: that I can remember would be when someone would get unlucky,
Speaker 1: you know, on him, lucky on him like in draw
Speaker 1: or in raz or. He would kind of mutter, sort
Speaker 1: of under his breath, like motherfucker, or you're gonna be
Speaker 1: a big star, and he would make these just various
Speaker 1: sarcastic comments, or when he would play props. My favorite
Speaker 1: story is actually not one where I was there for myself,
Speaker 1: but as my friend Gordo, who was I'm probably gonna
Speaker 1: butcher it, but I think this is just the most
Speaker 1: hilarious story. I think they're playing like four handed or
Speaker 1: so it's like him, Gordo, Doyle, Keith Lear and a
Speaker 1: couple of other guys and Keith, Gordo and Doyle are
Speaker 1: playing props like the normal props, reasonable level, you know,
Speaker 1: probably a couple of thousands of point, you know, and
Speaker 1: most of the games. And at some point Gordo suggests, like,
Speaker 1: why don't we do a prop. They're just about to
Speaker 1: start the Bedougie round, and why don't we do a
Speaker 1: prop for a pat wheel? Do you play boogie? How
Speaker 1: many times in your life have you gotten a pat wheel? Never? Okay,
Speaker 1: I little I think one time and they're like, sure, whatever,
Speaker 1: how much? And I think Gordo throws out like a
Speaker 1: huge number, like one hundred, because it never happens, and
Speaker 1: then they say that's too much, and I think they
Speaker 1: agree on still some substantial number, like like forty thousand. Apparently,
Speaker 1: like one or two hands later, Gordo wins a huge
Speaker 1: hand and shows the pet wheel, and so Keith's just like,
Speaker 1: how the hell does this happen? You know this and
Speaker 1: that we just agreed, you know, I've never gotten a
Speaker 1: pet wheel and just throws in the money. Doyle does
Speaker 1: not pay, and it goes on. You know, they still
Speaker 1: keep playing. There's this tension in a room, you know,
Speaker 1: Doyle just has the forty thousand next to the stack
Speaker 1: for like a long time until finally, and Gordo is
Speaker 1: smart enough not to say anything until finally he's like,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna pay you, and I promise I'm not going
Speaker 1: to do anything to you. I just want to know
Speaker 1: how did you do it? Tell me how you did it?
Speaker 1: Obviously know that Doyle has been through a lot of
Speaker 1: things in his life where I'm sure it has been
Speaker 1: some funny business on both sides. But the way I
Speaker 1: can I'm not doing justice to the story the way
Speaker 1: Gordo tells it. Also since I wasn't there, but I
Speaker 1: can very well imagine sort of girl's kind of reaction
Speaker 1: to that. It just makes me laugh.
Speaker 2: That's a fantastic story. Now that you've become I would say,
Speaker 2: a feared player in mixed games, and you have results
Speaker 2: both terms in cash across all games, what is left
Speaker 2: and poker that satisfies you?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: Do you feel like you have something to prove? Do
Speaker 2: you look at things like winning a lot of bracelets?
Speaker 2: Is there something that is now this new drive and
Speaker 2: motivation as we've seen you pivot quite a few times
Speaker 2: already even within this game.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm struggling a little bit kind of with myself
Speaker 1: in terms of how many specific goals like that I
Speaker 1: want to set for myself. I would definitely like to
Speaker 1: win another bracelet. I mean, if I would kind of
Speaker 1: win the PPC one day, that would be amazing. That
Speaker 1: would probably be the one would be the one I
Speaker 1: would like to win the most. You know, I'd love
Speaker 1: to win a trite entitle. But I also realize that
Speaker 1: a lot of that, if you're being honest with yourself,
Speaker 1: it just depends on how much volume you could you
Speaker 1: can put him. I mean, sure, I can show up
Speaker 1: in two years only for you know, a one week
Speaker 1: trip play the PPC and win it. But you know,
Speaker 1: volume is obviously gonna gonna be a big kind of
Speaker 1: factor here. I mean, I might wake up next year
Speaker 1: and say, look, I'm going to go back to just
Speaker 1: playing whenever I feel without studying a lot, and just
Speaker 1: that obviously will change my goals. But I'd just like
Speaker 1: to just keep on getting better and feel like I
Speaker 1: can be competitive at the elite level whether I'm feared
Speaker 1: or not, or you know, whether I win, embrace it
Speaker 1: or not, and you know, try to accept that, you
Speaker 1: know the outcomes will ultimately follow, or I might not.
Speaker 1: I think one of my my issues my leaks is
Speaker 1: and you have had this debate you said the summer
Speaker 1: is not going the way I was hoping it would go,
Speaker 1: is that you know, I'm very very competitive, and I
Speaker 1: think i'm two results in outcome oriented, and you know,
Speaker 1: I think some of that is good, but too much
Speaker 1: of it is not. And so I'm trying to be
Speaker 1: a bit more focused on the things that I can
Speaker 1: that I can control, And so in my mind, I
Speaker 1: don't go in and say I have to win a
Speaker 1: couple more braces I have to win. This is just
Speaker 1: I want to just keep on getting better and try
Speaker 1: to play at the level that I think I'm capable
Speaker 1: of as often as I can, and you know that's
Speaker 1: most important to me, and hopefully good outcomes will be
Speaker 1: associated with that.
Speaker 2: Final question, is poker harder when you're so financially successful
Speaker 2: that you can decide when to show up because you
Speaker 2: play against people where the result week to week, month
Speaker 2: a month will decide you know how their lifestyle evolves
Speaker 2: or what their future looks like, and for you, you
Speaker 2: don't have that us So in a way it's almost
Speaker 2: irrelevant whether you win.
Speaker 1: I think for me, it's probably neutral or an advantage.
Speaker 1: Everyone's different. I know people that play really best when
Speaker 1: it backs against the wall. I know people that play
Speaker 1: better when they've sold a lot of action and the
Speaker 1: financial stakes for a given tournament are much lower. I
Speaker 1: don't think I've gotten to the point where, like I
Speaker 1: messaged my wife yesterday, I played in a cash game,
Speaker 1: and you know, I won what you might think as
Speaker 1: a trivial number from my net worth. But I also
Speaker 1: know how much money that is, and so I don't
Speaker 1: think i've lost sort of the sense of how much
Speaker 1: is a dollar worth. I wouldn't be playing if I
Speaker 1: was losing money. But I'm not playing to make money,
Speaker 1: if that makes sense. So that's not my primary motivation.
Speaker 1: And I think anyone who devotes most of their time
Speaker 1: to tournament poker, as I am right now, I mean
Speaker 1: I've played four cash sessions the entire summer so far,
Speaker 1: I'm here to play a tournament poker. Like, if your
Speaker 1: objective is to make money, you're not going to play
Speaker 1: tournaments unless you're never getting to any good private games.
Speaker 1: But and so I think tournament poker is an extraordinarily
Speaker 1: difficult way to make money, uh in anything, and and
Speaker 1: and and and in poker, and so that's I'm lucky
Speaker 1: enough that that's not my primary motivation. I think it's,
Speaker 1: if anything, helpful if you're sitting in a in a
Speaker 1: big spot and you're making, you know, a play that is,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe high variance, but you think has higher
Speaker 1: expectation but could as more likely to lead to to
Speaker 1: bust out in a high sticks tournament. I think it's
Speaker 1: kind of helpful that you don't have to necessarily worry
Speaker 1: about your immediate p and L. But again, everyone's different.
Speaker 1: But for me, I think it's neutral or helpful.
Speaker 2: I think it's pretty obvious who the ace is here
Speaker 2: at the table. Philip Sturneimer, thank you so much for
Speaker 2: being on the show. Really appreciated you guys. Thanks for
Speaker 2: listening and watching. Please make sure to like the video
Speaker 2: subscribe to the channel. If you listening to this on
Speaker 2: the podcast feed, please subscribe to that and we'll catch
Speaker 2: you next week on the next one. Thanks for watching.