Speaker 1: So I had this like existential crisis. I guess I
Speaker 1: just sort of came to terms with who I was
Speaker 1: in that moment and I decided to stay in.
Speaker 2: Hey, this is Remco. Thanks for clicking on the video.
Speaker 2: This is my brand new podcast called facey As, in
Speaker 2: which I talked to the most interesting people in poker
Speaker 2: and go a little deeper into the topics you most
Speaker 2: care about. Enjoy Welcome to face the ace to podcast.
Speaker 2: Today I'm joined by Alex Livingston, two time Braceles winner
Speaker 2: Main Event Final Table under his belts has another deep
Speaker 2: run as well, with lots of stories to get into today.
Speaker 2: Please if you like the show, like the video, subscribe
Speaker 2: to a channel, leave a comment, and make some suggestions
Speaker 2: for guests. Alex, we're in the middle of the main
Speaker 2: as we're recording this. Yeah, this event, of course, you know,
Speaker 2: I don't even have to go over it, but has
Speaker 2: so much special meaning to you, especially as your career
Speaker 2: is sort of defined by two deep runs every year.
Speaker 2: You walk back into the main event and you see
Speaker 2: the room, you see the players. What are some of
Speaker 2: the first things that come back to mind?
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, obviously I'm a little biased by the
Speaker 1: fact that I've had those deep runs. But to me,
Speaker 1: the Main Event has always just been a very very
Speaker 1: special tournament. There's just a different buzz in the room,
Speaker 1: you know, it's everything about the Main really. I always
Speaker 1: like tournaments that have deeper, slower structures. I like having
Speaker 1: lots of big blinds and room to maneuver. But I mean,
Speaker 1: of course, the Main it just attracts all the top
Speaker 1: pros for the most part. And then you know everyone
Speaker 1: around the world who just has this dream of winning
Speaker 1: the biggest tournament poker, and you have all these like leagues,
Speaker 1: you know, they'll they'll have thirty guys and they'll send
Speaker 1: one player to the Main every year. I played with
Speaker 1: a guy who was coming from one of those leagues
Speaker 1: at my table yesterday, and so it's just this amazing
Speaker 1: collection of players, and there's everyone's just truly, truly happy
Speaker 1: to be there.
Speaker 2: Is it an advantage having gone deep twice for those
Speaker 2: living under a rock? Third in twenty nineteen for four million,
Speaker 2: and then thirteenth back in I Got to get This
Speaker 2: right twenty thirteen for four and fifty k Is it
Speaker 2: an advantage having done that twice? Or is it perhaps
Speaker 2: also mentally becoming a big hurdle because you know how
Speaker 2: insane it is to go on those runs.
Speaker 1: Definitely just purely an advantage. I would say both because
Speaker 1: I'm comfortable with you know. So the first time I
Speaker 1: went deep, I kind of struggled to sleep and eat
Speaker 1: properly on the last few days. And then the second time,
Speaker 1: because I'd done it once, I think I was much
Speaker 1: more comfortable. So for me just being at the table,
Speaker 1: I'm more relaxed and comfortable. I don't feel any extra burden,
Speaker 1: you know. Of course, I think I will go deep
Speaker 1: again at some point. I hope to win at some point.
Speaker 1: I mean, I know it seems unrealistic, but that's if
Speaker 1: you don't think you can win and want to win,
Speaker 1: then why play. But I don't feel any extra pressure
Speaker 1: to have another result like that. I just I just
Speaker 1: want to And then you know, now with the app,
Speaker 1: players can look up who's at their table, so people
Speaker 1: will look me up and they'll see the two runs,
Speaker 1: and I think that, you know, for a casual player,
Speaker 1: there's a little extra intimidation. So my big thing in
Speaker 1: the main is, you know, one of the best ways
Speaker 1: to pick up chips is just raised and still blinds
Speaker 1: and if people are just folding their big blind a
Speaker 1: little bit more to you, or just not three bidding
Speaker 1: you quite as much out of the small blind. You
Speaker 1: know that goes a long way.
Speaker 2: Do you try to figure out who's aware of you
Speaker 2: and your resume? Do you try to sort of get
Speaker 2: those early reads, perhaps through conversation, because there's definitely an
Speaker 2: advantage to be had there. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, I always like to talk to people at the table.
Speaker 1: It's not like I talk every single time, you know,
Speaker 1: minute I'm playing, but I do. I'm pretty social at
Speaker 1: the table, and I'm certainly not going to ask someone
Speaker 1: do you know who I am? But like sometimes people
Speaker 1: will just say something to me, or they'll ask me
Speaker 1: about my run, So then that I register that. I've
Speaker 1: always looked at poker as talk to people, get to
Speaker 1: know who they are as a person, and then figure
Speaker 1: out who they're going to be as a player based
Speaker 1: on who they are as a person. So I actually
Speaker 1: try to sort of solve the strategy that they're going
Speaker 1: to employ without looking at the poker decisions. That's that's
Speaker 1: just always been my thought process.
Speaker 2: Can you give an example of that or how that
Speaker 2: comes into practice? Sometimes?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean even just the way. You know, there's
Speaker 1: all these things you can you've read about maybe in
Speaker 1: older books, like the way people still their chips like
Speaker 1: a tighter players are going to stack them much more
Speaker 1: like organized and then you know, looser players they'll be
Speaker 1: a little more splashy. But you know, you just get
Speaker 1: to learn. Maybe you get an idea of the type
Speaker 1: of upbringing somebody had and how they're going to You know,
Speaker 1: maybe they are more of a disciplined person, so you
Speaker 1: just expect less light three bets. Maybe they have a
Speaker 1: bit of an ego and they want to show off
Speaker 1: to people, so you expect that they're willing to show
Speaker 1: up with a big bluff and a huge spot, and
Speaker 1: you can you can make that read because you know
Speaker 1: they want a table the bluff in your face. There's
Speaker 1: some people who you three bet them twice in a row.
Speaker 1: They're going to take it very personally and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: And I just find by talking to people, you get
Speaker 1: an idea of people's tendencies, and then you can always
Speaker 1: adjust once you see a showdown. You know, you can
Speaker 1: always say, okay, well maybe I was wrong, but I
Speaker 1: would rather start with coming from a place of assuming
Speaker 1: everyone's going to play the way I think they will
Speaker 1: and then be willing to amit when I'm wrong.
Speaker 2: When you had your first run, you had six total
Speaker 2: live cashes when you cast for four hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: one thousand, which is kind of crazy to look back.
Speaker 1: On or false O WSP cashes maybe.
Speaker 2: No total cashes I'm seeing here on your hand in
Speaker 2: MOB Yeah, I'm looking at it. Wow. Yeah it was nine,
Speaker 2: you had one, In eleven you had three, and then
Speaker 2: twenty thirteen you had two just prior to the w
Speaker 2: CP in Barcelona.
Speaker 1: So I guess I wasn't much of a tournament player. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've always been. I guess when I would say it
Speaker 1: started to become more of a tournament player was after COVID. Actually,
Speaker 1: so even in my run in twenty nineteen, I wasn't
Speaker 1: much of a tournament player. But yeah, I guess in
Speaker 1: twenty thirteen I was even even raw that I thought.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so my statement I wanted to make true or
Speaker 2: false that result had a bigger impact on your poker
Speaker 2: career than the third place finish.
Speaker 1: I think that's fair. Yeah, I think that's fair. Although
Speaker 1: when I had the third place finish, I was kind
Speaker 1: of down swinging prior, and so it was it was
Speaker 1: massive as well, but in terms of maybe building my confidence,
Speaker 1: that one in twenty thirteen was really important and led
Speaker 1: me to play more tournaments certainly, But you know, it
Speaker 1: really wasn't until I guess twenty twenty two that I
Speaker 1: would say I kind of became a full time tournament
Speaker 1: player for a few years. And now I'm pivoting back
Speaker 1: to a bit of a mix.
Speaker 2: So take us back prior to the score in twenty thirteen,
Speaker 2: where were you at mentally, where were you at stakes wise?
Speaker 2: And how did that score fit into your poker career
Speaker 2: at that point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, twenty thirteen was a pretty cool year because, like,
Speaker 1: just from a personal level, I went to Africa for
Speaker 1: the first time with my mom. She's incredible. She volunteers
Speaker 1: in Rwanda and works with the antissiologists there and she's
Speaker 1: done a lot of amazing things and she had been
Speaker 1: going every year. So I finally went with her and
Speaker 1: volunteered in orphanage for a month, and then I went
Speaker 1: and climbed Mount Kilmanjarro, and then I went and lived
Speaker 1: in Barcelona for three months, played poker every day. So
Speaker 1: it was a really cool, immersive kind of year I
Speaker 1: was having, but I certainly wasn't super established poker wise.
Speaker 1: I was playing two four no limit in Barcelona and
Speaker 1: I was doing reasonably well, but you know, I didn't
Speaker 1: have a big bang roll by any means. Now, I
Speaker 1: sold a bunch for that twenty thirteen man, so you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't pocket the whole four fifty by any means.
Speaker 1: But it was the first time that I now had
Speaker 1: a six figure bankroll. I think maybe I had briefly
Speaker 1: had right around six figures before that, but this was
Speaker 1: like definitely a huge moment.
Speaker 2: At that point in time twenty thirteen, which I you know,
Speaker 2: vivibly remember because that was also when poker still seemed
Speaker 2: like a real opportunity for people. As now it comes
Speaker 2: with so many more caveats because of how much stuff
Speaker 2: for the game has gotten an online. It's just so
Speaker 2: different from what it was back then. Did you have
Speaker 2: a sense or an outlook back then on what poker
Speaker 2: would mean in the compts of your life? What was it,
Speaker 2: you know, just a train station along the way, or
Speaker 2: was it perhaps the final destination? How did you look
Speaker 2: at it?
Speaker 1: Well, it's funny because there was times when I thought
Speaker 1: to myself well, by the time I turned twenty eight,
Speaker 1: I'll be doing something else. By the time I turned thirty,
Speaker 1: I'll be doing something And then I've kind of stopped
Speaker 1: thinking that at this point. Like I think, at that
Speaker 1: point it was unclear if poker was what I want
Speaker 1: to do for the rest of my life. But I'd
Speaker 1: been doing it for five or six years and you know,
Speaker 1: getting by, so I certainly enjoyed it, but I wasn't
Speaker 1: sure it was going to be necessarily a full time career.
Speaker 2: So then we'd go one step further back to two
Speaker 2: thousand and nine. The story that I'd love for you
Speaker 2: to share with us, and what you remember of it
Speaker 2: is the misflight in Amsterdam, and then how that became
Speaker 2: sort of pivotal to perhaps a moment of reflection and
Speaker 2: perhaps some introspection on what you wanted to do. Yeah,
Speaker 2: take us back to that trip.
Speaker 1: That was a good one. So two thousand and nine,
Speaker 1: I have just taken a year off of college. I
Speaker 1: had completed three years at this point, so I was
Speaker 1: supposed to go back for my fourth year. But because
Speaker 1: I took the year off, like all the guys in
Speaker 1: my class had already graduated, so I was going to
Speaker 1: be socially. It was give me a little bit different
Speaker 1: and so on. Right before I was supposed to go
Speaker 1: back to school, I was playing poker at Foxwoods and
Speaker 1: I just got this idea and I just messaged my
Speaker 1: friend and I said we were talking about doing a
Speaker 1: trip together. And I was like, why don't we go
Speaker 1: to Europe? And he was like, okay, I'm in. How
Speaker 1: old were you at this point? I was twenty one? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was yeah, so he was in. You know. We
Speaker 1: was impulsive, obviously, and our idea was to do Paris.
Speaker 1: I think we went to Switzerland for a couple of days,
Speaker 1: and then Amsterdam was the final stop.
Speaker 2: And Rome.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Rom, Sorry, wasn't Switzerland. Okay, we flew into room.
Speaker 1: You know better than me this, This is really embarrassing. Okay,
Speaker 1: so no, we flew into Rome. This is what happened.
Speaker 1: We went to Rome, We went to room for a
Speaker 1: couple of days. Then we made our way over to
Speaker 1: Paris and we were having so much fun that we
Speaker 1: decided to fly our friend into Paris to meet us.
Speaker 1: We booked him his ticket. We didn't tell him about it.
Speaker 1: We just booked him a ticket. We sent him an
Speaker 1: email that just said travel light and had his itinerary
Speaker 1: and he met us there and we had these like signs,
Speaker 1: you know, the signs like the drivers get at the airport.
Speaker 1: We made signs for him. We had like sunglasses, and
Speaker 1: we like wore suits and stuff, and we picked them
Speaker 1: upt the airport and went to Paris for a couple
Speaker 1: of days, and then with him we went to Amsterdam.
Speaker 1: Amsdam is obviously amazing city. When you're twenty two, it's
Speaker 1: like super fun. And the last night we went to
Speaker 1: a place called Supper Club, which is like kind of
Speaker 1: a dining slash show experience type thing. The three of
Speaker 1: us went and we got pretty drunk, quite drunk. I
Speaker 1: think I was maybe throwing rocks outside or something like that.
Speaker 1: There's some It was not like a great night. But
Speaker 1: by the end of it we go to hotel room
Speaker 1: and I'm supposed to fly back to Boston the next
Speaker 1: morning to complete my last year of college. And obviously
Speaker 1: I slept through this flight. I mean, this was probably
Speaker 1: top five drunk this night of my life. I don't
Speaker 1: know how I ever thought I was going to make
Speaker 1: a nine am flight wake up and then I have
Speaker 1: It's like now it's ten am. I've missed a flight.
Speaker 1: I have this panic attack and I'm like, okay, guys,
Speaker 1: I missed my flight. What am I going to do?
Speaker 1: And they're like they're hungover. They're like, look, I think
Speaker 1: we're going to stay here, like at least a few
Speaker 1: more days, and you can either stay with us or
Speaker 1: you can go home. So I had this like existential crisis,
Speaker 1: but I wasn't really that motivated to go back to
Speaker 1: school anyway. It was like one of those things where
Speaker 1: I was spending more time on the golf course or
Speaker 1: watching high stakes poker poker after dark than I was
Speaker 1: like devoting any time to school. So I guess I
Speaker 1: just sort of came to terms with who I was
Speaker 1: in that moment, and I decided to stay. And then
Speaker 1: we ended up staying for three months, and we had
Speaker 1: we were short on cash, so we had like money,
Speaker 1: but you know, we was in our bank accounts and
Speaker 1: it was hard to access it while we were there.
Speaker 1: We were short on physical euros, and no one would
Speaker 1: rent a place to us for three months without us
Speaker 1: paying all the rent upfront because we're just a bunch
Speaker 1: of twenty two year old kids and we're from another country,
Speaker 1: and they didn't, so so we ended up having to
Speaker 1: go to the casino with the three of us and
Speaker 1: like try to spin it up the first couple of
Speaker 1: days just so we could get the place. And you know,
Speaker 1: one of our friends ended up playing in the PLO game.
Speaker 1: And I wish I was courageous enough to try the
Speaker 1: PILO game back then, because there was a two four
Speaker 1: NoHo limit that went every day, and then a five
Speaker 1: to ten PLO and the five ten PLO looked incredible,
Speaker 1: but I didn't know PLO at all. But he want
Speaker 1: a bunch of money in the PLO that got us
Speaker 1: enough to pay the rent. We had a little bit
Speaker 1: left over to grind with and we made it work.
Speaker 2: That's such an incredible story. Yeah, And it's such a
Speaker 2: such a great memory of like an inflection point into
Speaker 2: where poker became a huge part of your life.
Speaker 1: I think they had that. If I had to say
Speaker 1: when did I turn pro, it would be that morning,
Speaker 1: because that was when I decided, because I had this
Speaker 1: whole backup plan. I was going to go back to school.
Speaker 1: I had a job line up. I had met a
Speaker 1: guy on a cruise ship who were playing blackjack on
Speaker 1: the cruise ship and He just saw the way I
Speaker 1: was working the chips and the decisions, and he saw
Speaker 1: that my brain was good with this stuff, and he said,
Speaker 1: what do you do for a living? I said, I
Speaker 1: play poker, but I'm in school and he said, well,
Speaker 1: how would you like to be a day trader? So
Speaker 1: I guess it was just a couple months before Amsterdam.
Speaker 1: I had gone and done a five to seven days
Speaker 1: something like that internship in New York, and they had
Speaker 1: basically said, look, if you go back to school, you
Speaker 1: get better grades and you quit poker, we have a
Speaker 1: job for you. And it was a pretty cool opportunity.
Speaker 1: It was like they said, like the top guy in
Speaker 1: the firm was making three million a year, but maybe
Speaker 1: the tenth guy was only making fifty k year. So
Speaker 1: it was one of those things where if you were
Speaker 1: good at it and you worked hard, there was a
Speaker 1: huge upside. But that morning, when I didn't end up
Speaker 1: going back to college, it was pretty clear I was
Speaker 1: not going down that route. So I'd say, that's like
Speaker 1: when I became a pro.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know you're really tight with your mom and
Speaker 2: you already alluded it to it, like traveling to Africa
Speaker 2: when a sun is in a good university and has
Speaker 2: prospects of a career where the upside is clearly very
Speaker 2: very high, and you're a smart guy. How does the
Speaker 2: conversation go saying like no, no, no, I just you know,
Speaker 2: we spun it up at hold them and we're paying
Speaker 2: three months rent up front. Yeah, I'm now a poker player.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, so I had I've an aunt and uncle
Speaker 1: i'm really close with as well, and I have my mom,
Speaker 1: and I had to tell all three of them that
Speaker 1: that I was not going back to school, and it
Speaker 1: was definitely a difficult conversation at the time. But I
Speaker 1: think as I've come to have success, like everyone's kind
Speaker 1: of recognized that it's it's been a good move. I
Speaker 1: think my you know, my mom at this point is
Speaker 1: kind of come to terms with it. But I always
Speaker 1: thought that I would be a good teacher, that I
Speaker 1: could excel in some other jobs. And of course now
Speaker 1: I do some other things too, with commentating and coaching,
Speaker 1: So it's kind of good to to have a little
Speaker 1: bit of diversity to what I do rather than just
Speaker 1: be a full time poker player forever.
Speaker 2: When someone works on that nine to five there there
Speaker 2: is very sort of basic conversation with with parents and
Speaker 2: friends because you know, everyone has a job. Yeah, but
Speaker 2: then when you take a career outside of that, that's
Speaker 2: very non traditional. There's a lot of hand hand holding
Speaker 2: when it comes to you know, explaining people stuff or
Speaker 2: not explaining them things, or maybe giving them more insights
Speaker 2: or less insights. How did you balance that as you
Speaker 2: sort of progressed and then you know, culminating with them
Speaker 2: maybe the deep run in the main where you can
Speaker 2: maybe sort of show off in a different way that like,
Speaker 2: I think I made the right decision. Did you have
Speaker 2: to sort of work that out and figure that.
Speaker 1: Out just in terms of like how, I well, how
Speaker 1: you had.
Speaker 2: You know, your mom and your aunt and uncle come
Speaker 2: to terms with the fact that you know, this is
Speaker 2: something that they did not expect.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think the tournament results helped, right, So, like
Speaker 1: when they could see the tournament result in twenty thirteen,
Speaker 1: because it's funny you can win consistently in cash games
Speaker 1: but they can't really see it, and seeing that was like, wow, Okay,
Speaker 1: he can actually make some real money here. And I
Speaker 1: think just time as well helped everyone kind of understand
Speaker 1: that it was what was making me happy and was
Speaker 1: working for me and that it's not a lot of
Speaker 1: people just think of it as gambling and they have
Speaker 1: certain connotations in their head. I mean, we've all anyone
Speaker 1: who works in the gambling world in any capacity, I'm
Speaker 1: sure has has had judgment from some people. But yeah,
Speaker 1: just kind of time and consistency.
Speaker 2: So then you put in the time and you are
Speaker 2: consistent and you work really hard. The score that you
Speaker 2: had and you didn't have all of yourself, how did
Speaker 2: that change things? Was there certain stakes in order to
Speaker 2: try and you did. Did it motivate you to work harder?
Speaker 2: I know that your tournament career didn't really take off
Speaker 2: until later, so it almost seems as though it was like,
Speaker 2: you know, back to normal after that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was just back to normal, to be honest.
Speaker 1: I did have a phase actually online where I was
Speaker 1: a tournament player, but I was never really a full
Speaker 1: time live tournament player again until post COVID. I just
Speaker 1: always found cash games were fun and engaging, and I
Speaker 1: was pretty good at them, and I started I guess
Speaker 1: after that twenty thirteen score, maybe I got more into
Speaker 1: PLO and a little bit more into mixed games, but
Speaker 1: I had already been playing some of both of those things,
Speaker 1: so it wasn't maybe as monumental. It was certainly validating,
Speaker 1: and in terms of like the outside world, you know,
Speaker 1: it was validating with family and all that. But I
Speaker 1: don't think it changed things as much as you might think.
Speaker 1: I didn't really move up too much in stakes. I
Speaker 1: was kind of just I just had like a cushier
Speaker 1: bankroll now to play cash games. And it's interesting because
Speaker 1: that it didn't really make me think I was a
Speaker 1: great tournament player by any means. And I still think
Speaker 1: the main event is a unicorn tournament, so like, I
Speaker 1: don't think the skill set to be a great just
Speaker 1: no one at tournament player necessarily always translates over to
Speaker 1: the best main event players. I would sometimes take, like,
Speaker 1: let's say, a live cash player who plays two five
Speaker 1: or five ten and has like a ton of experience
Speaker 1: playing with the types of players you're going to play
Speaker 1: with in these fields, I would take them over some
Speaker 1: high stakes online tournament players. And I know I'll get
Speaker 1: pushed back from that from the high stakes community, and
Speaker 1: I understand that the high stakes players are more technical
Speaker 1: and more studied and probably going to be a lot
Speaker 1: better in ICM. In some of those late game situations.
Speaker 1: But I do think that there is kind of a
Speaker 1: specific skill set for the main that maybe is a
Speaker 1: little bit more transferable to cash games, and so maybe
Speaker 1: that's why, you know, having a score in the main,
Speaker 1: I just felt like it was like almost like another
Speaker 1: cash game in a way.
Speaker 2: You know, I've been fortunate enough to do commentary with
Speaker 2: you on PLO, and I'll be the first to admit that,
Speaker 2: you know, I love to do the play by play,
Speaker 2: yet you know, my PLO knowledge definitely is is just
Speaker 2: good enough to ask some good questions every now and then,
Speaker 2: but to me to sort of hear you say all
Speaker 2: this and then the progression You may to play all
Speaker 2: the games, win a stud bracelet win mixed game events
Speaker 2: like all over the place, and still have sort of
Speaker 2: this humble approach to your approach versus how some of
Speaker 2: the top pros are doing it. It almost seems like
Speaker 2: there's some disconnect between you fully appreciating how good you
Speaker 2: are at the game.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I think I'm confidence
Speaker 1: is one of the things that can come and go.
Speaker 1: So I've been in kind of a rougher stretch, i'd say,
Speaker 1: for the last year year and a half. I do
Speaker 1: still think I'm very good. I think my a game
Speaker 1: is very good, and I'm just trying to find more
Speaker 1: ways to play it. But I would say I've always
Speaker 1: had a unique approach to the game. I would say
Speaker 1: that I definitely believe in study, and I believe in
Speaker 1: solidifying your technical skills, and maybe I could do a
Speaker 1: little bit more of that some of the time, but
Speaker 1: I think there's so much more to playing high level
Speaker 1: poker than that, And so it's that classic classic like
Speaker 1: technical versus x plointative. Obviously the best players do both.
Speaker 1: There's other categories to like table presence and just like
Speaker 1: mental game and all that stuff, and the best players
Speaker 1: have all of it. But I find my results are
Speaker 1: best when I'm having fun and thinking creatively, and so yeah,
Speaker 1: I will make plays that maybe are very outside of
Speaker 1: the box, particularly in an event like the main event.
Speaker 2: The runs in hold them have sort of paid the bills,
Speaker 2: if you will, and then you have obviously you have
Speaker 2: a p low bracelet also. But the love and the
Speaker 2: passion for mixed games is not the I guess, from
Speaker 2: a poker sense, the recommended approach, because there's less volume,
Speaker 2: they are smaller, smaller, prize pools, and there's also usually
Speaker 2: a well studied competition, especially at the highest stakes. Is
Speaker 2: it just how much you're enjoying those games in an
Speaker 2: atmosphere that drives you to those games, or is there
Speaker 2: something else?
Speaker 1: First and foremost come from I love playing those different games.
Speaker 1: I love the stud games in particular. They're so fun.
Speaker 1: They're the only games where you can see part of
Speaker 1: your opponent's hand. There are games of partial information, and
Speaker 1: if you're paying attention and really like studying the way
Speaker 1: people play their upcards and then also remembering the dead cards,
Speaker 1: you can gain a pretty big advantage. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know that I would say that the competition is
Speaker 1: harder in mixed games. You know, yes, there are some
Speaker 1: very well studied players, but for instance, something like twenty
Speaker 1: five k horse versus something like a twenty five k
Speaker 1: Nolimit event, I think you could argue that the horse
Speaker 1: event is going to be a bit softer just because
Speaker 1: the no limit players at the top are are so
Speaker 1: well studied and there's so many of them, and there
Speaker 1: are fewer people at least that I think are taking
Speaker 1: that super disciplined, rigorous approach with mixed games. I mean this.
Speaker 1: For instance, this ten K eight game that just went on.
Speaker 1: It was good timing, it was right around the main event,
Speaker 1: but it was plenty of complete unknowns and it was
Speaker 1: a very nice field. No result for me, but you
Speaker 1: can't be a results already to win them all.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Is there perhaps too much name respect in mixed games?
Speaker 2: Probably because the thing for me, and you know, I'll
Speaker 2: call myself poker media, even though I find it a
Speaker 2: bit of a tough term, we often hang on to
Speaker 2: all these names and they are always in the mixgin furnaments.
Speaker 2: You pick up any result of a ten K mix
Speaker 2: game and it's just all sounds very impressive. Yeah, Are
Speaker 2: are the names just not living up to the hype?
Speaker 1: What? Yeah, I wouldn't necessarily say. What I would say
Speaker 1: is this, right, is people have their idea of who
Speaker 1: the best one hundred players are, who the best twenty
Speaker 1: five mix game players are. They have this idea in
Speaker 1: their head. Maybe they don't have a Google sheet with rankings,
Speaker 1: but they have a general idea. Right. But on any
Speaker 1: given day, a quote unquote bad player can play better
Speaker 1: than a quote unquote good player. So if you're not
Speaker 1: bringing your this is what I've always give the example
Speaker 1: of I think Jeremy Osmas as someone brings at least
Speaker 1: his B game to the table pretty much every time
Speaker 1: he sits down, and I think that's few and far between.
Speaker 1: So I think there are some great players, but you
Speaker 1: might catch them on their C game, or you might
Speaker 1: be not as good of a player, but you're on
Speaker 1: a run and you're on your A game. So I
Speaker 1: think the rankings are kind of in lu And yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean if the names you're talking about, I'm sure
Speaker 1: a lot of them are definitely just great players. But
Speaker 1: some of them also maybe they're backed and they're just
Speaker 1: they've been playing these tournaments forever and they're buried. You know,
Speaker 1: you never really know what someone's results are. Everyone's gonna
Speaker 1: have their own opinions on who the best players are,
Speaker 1: who the worst players are. That's what's great about the game,
Speaker 1: and that's what keeps everyone coming back.
Speaker 2: It'd be way way better to go viral if I
Speaker 2: asked you to name all the terrible players.
Speaker 1: I don't I don't know if we should do that.
Speaker 1: Would that would do well? I mean off the record.
Speaker 2: But instead what I'll do is, you know, reference for
Speaker 2: fifty K run this year, which of course iconic event. Yeah,
Speaker 2: has so much history to it. It's the only event
Speaker 2: in mixed games that has the kind of history. But
Speaker 2: I'm curious, you know this this year Benny Glasser one,
Speaker 2: ri A second, Idy got third. Who are some of
Speaker 2: the players in that type of atmosphere, that kind of
Speaker 2: arena that really stand out to you, that impress you
Speaker 2: and perhaps point out some things about them or their
Speaker 2: game that you remember.
Speaker 1: I'll start with those three, I guess. I think Benny
Speaker 1: is without a doubt one of the best overall mixed
Speaker 1: game players in the world. You know, he's proven it
Speaker 1: time and time again. I think this is his ninth bracelet.
Speaker 1: I think that's right, n Y, Yeah, it's up anyway,
Speaker 1: it's it's a big number. He plays online live clearly
Speaker 1: just very well studied, very very accomplished player. Josh Aria,
Speaker 1: I think, is someone who was less technical than some
Speaker 1: of the other guys, but just has a tremendous feel
Speaker 1: for the game. So just really really good instincts and
Speaker 1: very competitive person. And you know, somebody I really enjoy
Speaker 1: hanging out with a friend of mine. And then Phil Ivy,
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, he's the goat, right, so's it all
Speaker 1: started with Phil Ivey. I mean, he was my first
Speaker 1: hero when I was watching you know, poker back and
Speaker 1: I went to a boarding school actual for the last
Speaker 1: years of high school, and I just remember being in
Speaker 1: like our lounge watching World Series of Poker two thousand
Speaker 1: and three Phil Ivy with the Steve Francis Jersey, and
Speaker 1: you know, I'd look at that as kind of like
Speaker 1: why I wanted to get into poker. So yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's cool that he's back here competing because he he
Speaker 1: kind of goes on and off somedy, he'll take time off.
Speaker 1: It seems like he's he's locked in again and ready
Speaker 1: to really compete a high level and poker's just better
Speaker 1: when he's in the mix. And then so other players
Speaker 1: in the fifty k that I think are I mean,
Speaker 1: there's so many, right, It's I mean, Nick, are.
Speaker 2: There are there specific things you see or you know,
Speaker 2: is it too like you know, he makes one extra
Speaker 2: bet in some spots, or is it perhaps something more
Speaker 2: holistic on how they approach that type of setting that
Speaker 2: makes them stand out because you mentioned, you know, Aria
Speaker 2: and Ivy, they are coming from that fuel background. The
Speaker 2: results have been super impressive, But is there a way
Speaker 2: to perhaps quantify feel through the lens of how you
Speaker 2: see the game.
Speaker 1: To me, someone who has great feel is just acting
Speaker 1: purely off of instinct and they're not fighting themselves on
Speaker 1: a decision, right, Because if you take a technical player,
Speaker 1: especially someone who mostly plays online, and you sit them
Speaker 1: down live, they I might think to themselves, this guy's
Speaker 1: doing something that feels weird to me. I think I
Speaker 1: need to play an exploitative style to adjust to that
Speaker 1: decision that this player is making. But then they have
Speaker 1: to go through this whole brain solve in their head
Speaker 1: of well, if he's five percent two wide here, then
Speaker 1: how many pips down can I go for value on
Speaker 1: my three bets? And it takes up a lot of
Speaker 1: brain energy trying to solve all that, whereas somebody like
Speaker 1: Ivy or the Grinder, they're not thinking on that level.
Speaker 1: They're just reacting based off of instincts, based off of
Speaker 1: all the poker they play in their life, and they're
Speaker 1: making they're often coming to actually better conclusions on how
Speaker 1: to exploit without any of that internal struggle. So to me,
Speaker 1: that's what a great field player is.
Speaker 2: It's it's honestly the most fascinating topic for me and
Speaker 2: poker to talk about field players because it's so relevant
Speaker 2: these days where everyone is studying so much. Yeah, because
Speaker 2: back in the day, feel was the only way to win.
Speaker 2: When we watch we all watch the same stuff. When
Speaker 2: you watch that stuff, it's all about making reads. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I feel like it comes up in conversation making reads
Speaker 2: or you know, trying to you know, use feel or
Speaker 2: use instinct. But at the same time, the emphasis is
Speaker 2: so much on the studying part. How do you sharpen
Speaker 2: your feel?
Speaker 1: Hessee? I think sharpening your feel is something you do
Speaker 1: away from the table in a non studious way. So
Speaker 1: whether it's for me, it's doing things that put me
Speaker 1: in flow state, like skiing or hiking or golfing, you know,
Speaker 1: anything where I'm not on my phone. To me, that's
Speaker 1: how you sharpen your feel. It's it's kind of a
Speaker 1: thing that can't be taught though, in my opinion, So
Speaker 1: that's why you can be a great poker mind and
Speaker 1: you know what like And again it's not to take
Speaker 1: anything away from the from that type of player, because
Speaker 1: feel has its limitations. And this happened to me. I
Speaker 1: was crushing plo cash for many years and then you
Speaker 1: know around twenty eight ten, twenty nineteen, I found myself
Speaker 1: when when I wasn't the best player at the table,
Speaker 1: when there were a couple more studied players, I was
Speaker 1: struggling against them because they're obviously much more balanced and
Speaker 1: they're not giving away as much and I was a
Speaker 1: little bit technically raw. So then I started studying a lot.
Speaker 1: And I think studying is still really good of your
Speaker 1: field player because it helps hone your baselines. But can
Speaker 1: you teach feel? I don't know. I mean, you can
Speaker 1: definitely do things, probably mindset stuff, exercise, all that stuff's
Speaker 1: going to help you. But I think some people inherently
Speaker 1: have more of that quality than other people. Just like
Speaker 1: some people are inherently going to be better at studying
Speaker 1: the technical side, there's some people who for whom their
Speaker 1: brain cannot process the technical side. Obviously, the best players
Speaker 1: probably have the brain that can kind of do a
Speaker 1: little bit of both. I mean, the classic example for
Speaker 1: me would be Mateos, who has just immaculate feel, but
Speaker 1: is also extremely diligent and well studied and has that
Speaker 1: like logical side of his brain going, and then on
Speaker 1: top of that has amazing table presence and does everything
Speaker 1: I mean, he just he literally does everything you want
Speaker 1: to do to succeed as a as a high sticks
Speaker 1: poker player, and that's why he's at the top.
Speaker 2: What's stopping you from being there and doing that?
Speaker 1: That's a good question, I would say. So I got
Speaker 1: engaged recently, and you know, we haven't decided we're gonna
Speaker 1: have kids, but it's a possibility. We have a couple
Speaker 1: of dogs, you know. Yeah, No, i'd like to it's
Speaker 1: balancing life with poker. I think to really get to
Speaker 1: the very top, you need to be completely kind of
Speaker 1: obsessive with poker. And I am sure some of these
Speaker 1: guys who are the top also have families, so I
Speaker 1: can't just use that as a crutch. But I have
Speaker 1: sort of shifted some of my It's not to say
Speaker 1: I would never want to try and do that. I
Speaker 1: think in No Limit it's fair to say I would
Speaker 1: never really try to get to that level just because
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm at a big enough disadvantage in
Speaker 1: terms of like the highest stakes no limit stuff like
Speaker 1: playing against the Mattaoss and the Chidwicks and all the
Speaker 1: guys who have been doing it for so long. But
Speaker 1: I do want to be the best mixed game tournament
Speaker 1: player or the best PLO tournament player, and there's probably
Speaker 1: more I could be doing behind the scenes to get
Speaker 1: up to that speed. But then you know, I'm also
Speaker 1: mixing that with kind of a newfound love for commentating.
Speaker 2: So commentating is really fun as someone who's done a
Speaker 2: lot of it. I don't know why they keep asking me,
Speaker 2: but I love it again. But one of the things
Speaker 2: that I love about doing commentary with you, it's almost
Speaker 2: as if I'm in a coaching session, but it's kind
Speaker 2: of very natural. You're not laying it on too thick,
Speaker 2: but you always seem to have a response or a reaction,
Speaker 2: and your mind works so quick, and you know you
Speaker 2: and I have done PLO, so that's my sort of
Speaker 2: point of reference. And I've watched a lot of your
Speaker 2: trident and stuff. But what I find so interesting is
Speaker 2: that when I listen to you, I wonder, you know,
Speaker 2: what else is there that you would need to add
Speaker 2: in order to get better, because it seems as though
Speaker 2: you sort of always have the answer. Is there then
Speaker 2: a disconnect between application and what you know when the
Speaker 2: information has just presented you in that way?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I think Alex Fox and tweet something recently,
Speaker 1: or said something recently in an interview, whatever it was
Speaker 1: about how the difference between a great player and a
Speaker 1: world class player, or a good player and a great player,
Speaker 1: whatever it was, is just all execution. And I believe
Speaker 1: that for sure. You know, I think it's way easier
Speaker 1: from the booth when you can see the cards and
Speaker 1: you know there's always some amount of variance. But I
Speaker 1: try not to harp on that. I try not to
Speaker 1: use that as a crutch. Ever. I know, for a
Speaker 1: while one of my leaks was when I got short
Speaker 1: on chips, I didn't have the same commitment to making
Speaker 1: every decision as well as I could as when i've
Speaker 1: I've always been very comfortable playing a big stack. I
Speaker 1: know that some people have the opposite, where they're actually
Speaker 1: very comfortable grinding a short stack because they the decisions
Speaker 1: are kind of clean, and then they get like uncomfortable,
Speaker 1: they feel pressure when they have a big stack. That's
Speaker 1: never been the case for me. I always want to
Speaker 1: have a big stack. So maybe this year I found
Speaker 1: myself even kind of leaning back into some old traits
Speaker 1: where when I get short on chips, I'm just not
Speaker 1: quite as patient as I need to be. And you know,
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, this has been kind of a flat
Speaker 1: WSP with the exception of that PPC cash. It's been
Speaker 1: disappointing because I played all most of the ten case
Speaker 1: certainly not all of them, but you know, to not
Speaker 1: cash any ten case so far is not great and
Speaker 1: I have a pretty good record in those over the
Speaker 1: years before that, so I have to maybe just you know,
Speaker 1: reflect on it after the series, although still in the
Speaker 1: main event. I got some one fifty k in the
Speaker 1: main after yesterday, so maybe if I can just save
Speaker 1: it for that one, then I'll forget about all those
Speaker 1: other ten.
Speaker 2: Case at least, you know, you know how to do
Speaker 2: the trick in that event.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean I looked at my table drop
Speaker 1: for tomorrow. Looks great, So I feel pretty good about the.
Speaker 2: Main Is there a room for adrenaline in decision making
Speaker 2: in the stakes that you play? And is adrenaline something
Speaker 2: that you can either sort of accept or or step
Speaker 2: away from? Is it an advantage or disadvantage? I feel
Speaker 2: like it's not often talked about enough as to how
Speaker 2: it really feels to be in big decisions.
Speaker 1: Yeah, adrenaline is crazy, right, because it just keeps going
Speaker 1: up as you get deeper and deeper into the tournament,
Speaker 1: I feel personally more locked in the further along I
Speaker 1: am in a tournament, So I think I thrive off
Speaker 1: of adrenaline.
Speaker 2: Is what is adrenaline?
Speaker 1: Then?
Speaker 2: In that context, is it perhaps a heightened sense of
Speaker 2: focus or is it something else that happens when you're
Speaker 2: in that zone?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I would describe it as a heightened
Speaker 1: sense of focus and alertness. I just feel more. I mean,
Speaker 1: maybe I'm misunderstanding exactly what adrenaline is, but to me,
Speaker 1: when I have adrenaline, I am more awake, but also
Speaker 1: more common a way, right That does that sound right?
Speaker 1: I don't know it sounds yeah, and I'm not, but yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: Nature's adderall. There was this Nelly Korda, the LPG golfer.
Speaker 1: She had this great quote about They asked her, like,
Speaker 1: you know what she did when she won the tournament?
Speaker 1: Did she go out and party? And she said, no,
Speaker 1: you know what it was. I just went and laid
Speaker 1: in my hotel room with my phone on the side,
Speaker 1: and I just relaxed and I just like fell asleep.
Speaker 1: She said it. She said, it's the craziest thing when
Speaker 1: you win a tournament because it's like you have this
Speaker 1: surge of adrenaline that has just built up as the
Speaker 1: tournament goes on, and when you win, it just all
Speaker 1: leaves your body and you almost feel like this happened
Speaker 1: to me After I got third in the main I
Speaker 1: felt like a little empty for a few days, maybe
Speaker 1: even like maybe a few months. For being honest, there
Speaker 1: were like some sort of dark periods internally because that
Speaker 1: excitement has just been building and then when it no
Speaker 1: matter what the result is, if you win the tournament,
Speaker 1: even there's like a crash after that. So I don't know.
Speaker 2: I love how you brought in the main event run
Speaker 2: in twenty nineteen because I wrote an article and I
Speaker 2: talked to you right after you busted the title that
Speaker 2: I used was in disbelief and overwhelmed Alex Livings the
Speaker 2: finish just third in the main event. Obviously, unless you win,
Speaker 2: you're going to have some sort of what if going
Speaker 2: through your mind or at least reflection to the point
Speaker 2: as to you know, what could have been different? But
Speaker 2: take take me back to the moment where you know
Speaker 2: that it's over because you're in a two week run,
Speaker 2: low on sleep, you're eating when you can, and you're
Speaker 2: trying to both focus and analyze while the brakes are
Speaker 2: too short to somethings even use the bathroom. And then
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, that all comes to a head
Speaker 2: when the final card hits and it's over. Is it
Speaker 2: sort of like someone turns the lights on or turns
Speaker 2: them off.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this bracelet ceremony in the background is gonna be
Speaker 1: a little bit distracting. But I don't totally remember the
Speaker 1: exact moment when I bust. I know I got Ace
Speaker 1: jack in against Ace Queen standard sort of spot the
Speaker 1: hand before that. It was like a few hands before that,
Speaker 1: I played this big pot where I got all in
Speaker 1: on a Queen ten seven five two flush straw board
Speaker 1: with kings. I don't want to say I regret my decision,
Speaker 1: but Dario did this thing where I bet the turn.
Speaker 1: I think it was like Queen ten seven, I bet
Speaker 1: the flop small, he called out of the big blind
Speaker 1: turn five double flush straw he checks, I bet pot.
Speaker 1: He moves in for maybe like three and a half
Speaker 1: x my bet, and it's a computer call, and it's like,
Speaker 1: for sure a call in theory, and I didn't want
Speaker 1: a slow roll, and I and I just kind of
Speaker 1: called instantly. But he did this thing when he went
Speaker 1: all in, where he did this like triangle motion with
Speaker 1: his fingers, like signifying the all in button, and like
Speaker 1: something in my brain said, this is just really strong,
Speaker 1: like because obviously I'm hoping to be up against a
Speaker 1: combo draw, not two pair, or hoping to sometime be
Speaker 1: up against the Queen. But it felt strong, and so
Speaker 1: I don't know if I could go back. Maybe I
Speaker 1: just give myself a moment to think there and not
Speaker 1: worry about nitrolling somebody when you're playing for a six
Speaker 1: million dollars pay jump. But yeah, and then the actual
Speaker 1: bust out hand I think was pretty standard and there
Speaker 1: was a bit of a blur. I remember I did
Speaker 1: an interview with you and a bunch of other people
Speaker 1: asking questions, a big crowd. Yeah, and then we went
Speaker 1: to top Golf and had a good time. But I
Speaker 1: still felt pretty good at that point. But like it's
Speaker 1: like a few days later, you're just you're missing being
Speaker 1: in the moment, right. We all want to be in
Speaker 1: that in that moment, that's what we play for. So
Speaker 1: when it's over, it feels a little weird. So as
Speaker 1: the version of the ceremony is going on, and hopefully
Speaker 1: that didn't impact the audio of this.
Speaker 2: Hit adds to it, you know, Okay, like in this,
Speaker 2: in this moment.
Speaker 1: And we're really here, I should put my WSP hoodie
Speaker 1: back on.
Speaker 2: Please, where's your where are your bracelets?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Exactly, Yeah, yeah, I should have.
Speaker 2: The thing about this your main Event final table is
Speaker 2: that it was a unique lineup as I look back
Speaker 2: on it now, with sort of a blend between players
Speaker 2: that are accustomed to different stakes, players that might be underrated,
Speaker 2: players that might be seen as the favorite. And I
Speaker 2: think that you and and Dario were probably those two
Speaker 2: players coming into that final table. Did you have a
Speaker 2: sense of like, this is mine to win?
Speaker 1: It was weird. I mean I had gone into the
Speaker 1: day before or thirty fifth of thirty six, I believe
Speaker 1: something like that. I was second last, and Chips ran
Speaker 1: amazing obviously beg fifth of nine. So at that point,
Speaker 1: just being there was like kind of shocking and incredible,
Speaker 1: and I don't know that I was thinking, I mean,
Speaker 1: of course you want to win, but now I'm just thinking, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm in the middle of the pack, Like how do
Speaker 1: we play this stack? Like, just thinking about it, more
Speaker 1: like that, I would say probably Jario Hossein and myself
Speaker 1: were the three best players I would I would think,
Speaker 1: And so we got for a second and third. It
Speaker 1: wasn't super surprising, but you know, you never know what's
Speaker 1: gonna happen in a final table, right, So certain by
Speaker 1: no means are the best players guaranteed to do well?
Speaker 1: Or by no means are the big stacks guaranteed to
Speaker 1: do well?
Speaker 2: What does four million dollars due to someone's life?
Speaker 1: Yeah, and again I'd sold some action, but it was
Speaker 1: in taxes, but it was huge. It was huge. I
Speaker 1: bought some real estate, and now I was obviously comfortable
Speaker 1: to play much higher stakes. And I kind of took
Speaker 1: a little time off that summer, and then I was
Speaker 1: wondering what I wanted to do poker wise, But it
Speaker 1: wasn't really until after COVID I started. I had a
Speaker 1: huge score at the win actually twenty twenty two, I
Speaker 1: got third in like the win main kind of thing
Speaker 1: for seven hundred and fifty K, and that kind of
Speaker 1: reignited my desire to play high stakes. And after that point,
Speaker 1: I said, you know what, what if I tried battling these
Speaker 1: guys in the studio, which is something I'd always considered,
Speaker 1: like those guys were in a different league, But I said,
Speaker 1: why don't I just try battling. In the first series
Speaker 1: I went there, I think I cashed four or five times,
Speaker 1: including in some nelimit events, and I felt pretty comfortable, honestly,
Speaker 1: And then that sort of led to me, Now I
Speaker 1: had a newfound purpose to chase higher stakes and to
Speaker 1: play more tournaments.
Speaker 2: So then there's a point where you're asked to do
Speaker 2: a commentary, and I'm curious, what's it like to be
Speaker 2: asked to do that, and is there perhaps a sense
Speaker 2: of feeling like you need to perform and not let
Speaker 2: down those that watch this that are also really great players,
Speaker 2: Because it can sometimes feel like there was a pressure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it can, and I try not to feel. But
Speaker 1: it's kind of equated to kind of like being on
Speaker 1: a stream table. You know, all the eyes are on you,
Speaker 1: and if you do something quote unquote wrong, somebody might
Speaker 1: say something to you. I could maybe be even more
Speaker 1: honest with my opinions in the moment, but you don't
Speaker 1: want to be disrespectful to players, and so I try to.
Speaker 1: You know, I will disagree with the play sometimes, but
Speaker 1: I try to at least see where they're coming from,
Speaker 1: and you know, not just be full on berating people.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's a fine line, you know you want
Speaker 1: to be. I think Shulman just does it great. You know.
Speaker 1: He he gives insight in a way where you can
Speaker 1: kind of the way he talks, you know, you can
Speaker 1: kind of interpret things multiple ways, and he the language
Speaker 1: he uses is excellent. So I use him as kind
Speaker 1: of a role model for somebody who is just a
Speaker 1: great analyst in the booth, in the way that they
Speaker 1: conduct themselves professionally while still being entertaining, you know, providing insights. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean there's so many elite commentators out there. I
Speaker 2: think you are among those as well. Appreciate that, and
Speaker 2: it's just fun to listen to someone who is able
Speaker 2: to almost like boil it down without dumbing it down. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, you still keep a sense of like the
Speaker 2: high levelness of what people are watching. Because oftentimes when
Speaker 2: I do commentary, and not to be too reflective, but
Speaker 2: when there's all a bunch of great players at the table,
Speaker 2: I'm like, who am I to say? Yeah, Like who
Speaker 2: am I to say literally anything?
Speaker 1: And I think that's yeah, that's something to think about, Like,
Speaker 1: you know, how much you want to just let the
Speaker 1: players and the play do the talking, versus how much
Speaker 1: I want to do the talking, And it can depend
Speaker 1: based on the composition of the table. I can maybe
Speaker 1: depend based on my own expertise in the game. I
Speaker 1: think one of the things I try to do is
Speaker 1: offer commentary that can provide insight to strong players without
Speaker 1: scaring off weak players. So I try to be and
Speaker 1: I love when Allie and I going to the segues.
Speaker 1: He's the best at it. I mean, I like talking
Speaker 1: about things that aren't poker when I'm commentating. I think
Speaker 1: it's fun. Sometimes chat will start saying, come on, guys,
Speaker 1: focus on the poker, and you know, we'll get back there.
Speaker 1: But I think if you're just dry and monotonous in
Speaker 1: talking only about technical decisions, that's not what people want
Speaker 1: to see. Maybe if you're going too into the weeds,
Speaker 1: that's also not what they want to see. So it's
Speaker 1: all about trying to find those those balances and kind
Speaker 1: of meet in the middle on a lot of things.
Speaker 2: As someone who's on both sides. You know, you play,
Speaker 2: you do commentary. You see the live chat, which is
Speaker 2: obviously huge as well, because that's like instant feedback. Yeah,
Speaker 2: what's what's the state of poker from a I guess
Speaker 2: fan perspective? Because I feel as though, correct me if
Speaker 2: I'm wrong, we're highly saturated with different things that we
Speaker 2: could be watching, and at the same time, are we
Speaker 2: focused on the right things as far as what do
Speaker 2: we show and how do we show it? What's your
Speaker 2: view on that?
Speaker 1: Well, I think unquestionably everyone wants to see more mixed
Speaker 1: games at WSP, and from what I'm told, that's in
Speaker 1: the works for next year, so I look forward to that.
Speaker 1: Outside of that, you know, I think there's there's different
Speaker 1: things for different people. So you have these these high
Speaker 1: stakes cash games that have gotten quite big. A lot
Speaker 1: of them are in LA and that kind of thing,
Speaker 1: and you know, there's certain people that love watching those.
Speaker 1: It's not for me, but I completely understand why people
Speaker 1: would want to watch those. You have the vloggers and
Speaker 1: the streamers. I think that's a really cool addition to
Speaker 1: the space. And then in terms of tournaments, I personally
Speaker 1: would like to see more earlier day coverage, So something
Speaker 1: like the PPC I think you should do from day
Speaker 1: one because it really gives people a good foundational understanding
Speaker 1: of mixed games. Of course, the main event from day one,
Speaker 1: which they do. I'd like to see more, say a
Speaker 1: PLO event like a fifty K one hunter KPLO do
Speaker 1: a little bit of day one coverage or do a
Speaker 1: full day two coverage, because the problem with final tables
Speaker 1: is that they can be very ICM driven. You see
Speaker 1: a lot of tighter folds and you just see a
Speaker 1: lot of more careful play. So I think covering early
Speaker 1: levels you get to see kind of like how the
Speaker 1: games are actually played, how they're played in cash games,
Speaker 1: how they're played without all this ICM focus, and it's
Speaker 1: more exciting, more entertaining, and you know, deeper stack depths.
Speaker 1: It's just always a little bit better to me.
Speaker 2: For someone who focuses on mixed game and PLO. Obviously
Speaker 2: that's not a thing in the cash game world unless
Speaker 2: you can play in Bobby's room and you know, similar
Speaker 2: games that are happening in Vegas perhaps, and I think PLO,
Speaker 2: as far as I know, might even be more difficult
Speaker 2: to get a high stakes game going that's truly high
Speaker 2: stakes and that truly is available to people to play.
Speaker 2: Are there enough opportunities for players like yourself to make
Speaker 2: a living not having to constantly, you know, fight for
Speaker 2: small edges.
Speaker 1: I dabble in a few private games here and there.
Speaker 1: I'm definitely not like one of these people who's always
Speaker 1: trying to get into every private game. But if I
Speaker 1: have a friend who's running one and I can get in,
Speaker 1: I'll certainly play that sometimes. And then for public games,
Speaker 1: I think mix is actually an okay spot because you
Speaker 1: have there's a three hundred and six hour game in town.
Speaker 1: There's eighty one sixty games, so there's actually forty eighty.
Speaker 1: There's quite a few different levels in town that you
Speaker 1: can play publicly. I don't play the super high stakes
Speaker 1: like the Bobby's Room stuff anyway. So and then for PLO, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think there's pilo's kind of booming in other parts
Speaker 1: of the country, maybe more so than Vegas.
Speaker 2: Is that an ambition for you to play more like
Speaker 2: high stakes like live PLO, because I feel like the
Speaker 2: tournaments are booming. But I mean this is also just
Speaker 2: from my perspective. You don't hear much about high stakes
Speaker 2: PLO cash because it's all private.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so maybe I from just a making money perspective,
Speaker 1: I should be looking more into trying to get into
Speaker 1: more private games, but there's a whole bunch of politics
Speaker 1: and stuff that I don't necessarily want to involve myself with,
Speaker 1: and so I kind of just stick to the games
Speaker 1: I can already get into, and I don't have a
Speaker 1: huge ambition to play like the super highest Pero Cash
Speaker 1: games or anything like that.
Speaker 2: Bobby's Room is a place that I have to mention
Speaker 2: it has so much lower It's something that speaks to
Speaker 2: the imagination. Has it ever been an ambition of you, yeah,
Speaker 2: to make it there, and perhaps maybe still.
Speaker 1: It has been, and there was a time when I
Speaker 1: considered going in and check taking it. But to me,
Speaker 1: it's just such a big jump, right because I've played
Speaker 1: as high as four hundred eight hundre actual as hig
Speaker 1: as five hundred one K limit, but Bobby's Room is
Speaker 1: usually at least fifteen hundred and three K, and often
Speaker 1: more like three K six K. It's just it's huge.
Speaker 1: I mean, you're swinging. You can easily swing two or
Speaker 1: three und k in a session, and yeah, it's pretty
Speaker 1: easy to do that. And I just don't know, I
Speaker 1: don't have the ambition right now to play that big.
Speaker 1: I don't have the role to play that big right now,
Speaker 1: so I look at tournaments is a great opportunity, and
Speaker 1: I can play some some cash games as well, can commentate,
Speaker 1: do some coaching. Kind of dabbling in a lot of
Speaker 1: things right now, which you can argue would maybe impede
Speaker 1: my if I wanted to just be the best at
Speaker 1: one thing, it might be better to be a bit
Speaker 1: more singularly focused. But I kind of enjoy a lot
Speaker 1: of the different things I'm dabbling in, and I think
Speaker 1: that's half a battle too, is making sure you're staying
Speaker 1: fresh and having fun.
Speaker 2: People that watch this might think like, oh, you know
Speaker 2: this guy with a college in Boston, and you mentioned
Speaker 2: like a lot of things happening in the US, but
Speaker 2: proud Nova Scotia is is on your Instagram bio. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I want to pivot to like, you know, family and
Speaker 2: sort of know where you're from. And I find that
Speaker 2: really interesting because first off, I don't think there's many
Speaker 2: pocal pros from Nova Scotia. And I'm also curious why
Speaker 2: you feel that's important to mention.
Speaker 1: Well, I still live in Nova Scotia, so I got
Speaker 1: recently engaged and my fiance Julia and I live in
Speaker 1: her hometown, like where she grew up in New Glasgow,
Speaker 1: which is about an hour and a half from Halifax,
Speaker 1: which is the big city in the area. So and
Speaker 1: I've spent huge chunk of my life in Nova Scotia.
Speaker 1: Even when I was living in Vegas, I was going
Speaker 1: back to Nova Scotia for at least a month every summer.
Speaker 1: It's a very very special place to me. I hate
Speaker 1: that WSP is this time of year. You know, there's
Speaker 1: that one year it was in November during COVID and
Speaker 1: that was amazing because I could spend the whole summer
Speaker 1: in Nova Scotia. So, you know, as much as I travel,
Speaker 1: I do still live in Nova Scotia. It means a
Speaker 1: lot to me. The people are great, It's where I
Speaker 1: was raised, it's you know, home is always going to
Speaker 1: feel special, I think in a certain way. I love
Speaker 1: the food there, I love the summers there.
Speaker 2: So for those watching, who I mean most people have
Speaker 2: never considered probably going there. If they're visiting, what kind
Speaker 2: of experience are they getting and what's the Alex Livingston
Speaker 2: pitch on Nova Scotia.
Speaker 1: Well, if you're a golfer, you definitely want to go
Speaker 1: play Cabot Links and Cabot Cliffs. I actually have a
Speaker 1: rental property up there and people that is when people
Speaker 1: tell me they've been in Nova Scotia. If they're a golfer,
Speaker 1: that's probably the reason they've been there. But if you're
Speaker 1: not a golfer, I would say, just go for the seafood,
Speaker 1: the people, the music. You'd want to go see Halifax
Speaker 1: and see all the restaurants and breweries there, and then
Speaker 1: also make it up to Cape Breton, which is kind
Speaker 1: of an island on the northeast tip of Nova Scotia,
Speaker 1: and it's just got rugged beauty. You can drive around
Speaker 1: the Cabbot Trail and do hikes and see that. And
Speaker 1: then we've got vineyards, and we've got the South Shore
Speaker 1: which has you know, you can go out on a sailboat.
Speaker 1: It's just an amazing time. Some of the cruise ships there,
Speaker 1: but it's an amazing time to visit between you know,
Speaker 1: June and October. I'd say so.
Speaker 2: Then, with the family life and maybe being a bit
Speaker 2: more home than focused and being engaged, do you think
Speaker 2: that long term poker will always fit into that? Have
Speaker 2: you ever considered stepping away?
Speaker 1: I can't see myself stepping away because I don't know
Speaker 1: what I would do, and I do think I'm pretty
Speaker 1: deeply ingrained in the poker world. I could see a
Speaker 1: world in which maybe we end up spending more time
Speaker 1: somewhere else that's not Nova Scotia, And then still I
Speaker 1: would still always want to go back there in summers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because it's been a little bit challenging for you know,
Speaker 1: where Julia's home all the time and I'm commentating and
Speaker 1: I'm here for WSP and we have two dogs, and
Speaker 1: she's actually fostering a third dog, Josh, right now. So
Speaker 1: if any of thee wants, you'll have three dogs. If
Speaker 1: anyone wants a dog, Josh is available. Yea, we may
Speaker 1: you never tell. We're y. So it's a little harder
Speaker 1: for her to come travel with me. But I think
Speaker 1: down the road, maybe we spend more time somewhere else. Uh.
Speaker 1: But you know, I always love being there, and I
Speaker 1: think it's good for me too. I think that, like
Speaker 1: I always look at my I see you're wearing a
Speaker 1: whoop as well, and like I've got one too in
Speaker 1: the recovery scores when I'm in when I'm home in
Speaker 1: Nova Scotia, I get into the nineties regularly, and when
Speaker 1: I'm here, I rarely get above seventy. Have you found
Speaker 1: that too, like different you do well in different places.
Speaker 2: For me, it's been about like, where's my focus?
Speaker 1: Lie?
Speaker 2: Yeah, like WSP of course we're here every day. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it might be Leslie, you're not as routine that you're
Speaker 2: used to. And you know, when I was training for
Speaker 2: a big race, I noticed that even though I'm training
Speaker 2: much harder, I'm also recovering harder. Yeah, because you're so
Speaker 2: focused on that. Yeah, it makes sense, and here you're
Speaker 2: sort of guided by the day to day at the WSOP.
Speaker 1: I think I just have trouble relaxing in Vegas, and
Speaker 1: I'm much more relaxed when I'm home in Nova Scotia,
Speaker 1: So it's always important for me to spend time there
Speaker 1: to recharge. The issue is it's harder to work, you know,
Speaker 1: I have to either play online or to coaching. There
Speaker 1: is a couple live I can get into, but they're
Speaker 1: pretty small.
Speaker 2: So one thing that I find interesting is I'm also
Speaker 2: from a really small town. But I've never won millions
Speaker 2: of dollars, so no one ever comes knocking on my
Speaker 2: door for any help. But you have. What's it like
Speaker 2: to become a celebrity or or at least become known
Speaker 2: for being the guy who won millions of dollars when
Speaker 2: you're when you're from a place where I feel as though,
Speaker 2: you know, if if there's a garbage can knocked over,
Speaker 2: you know, people will find out about it, because small
Speaker 2: things become much bigger.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I think people are people are just very
Speaker 1: kind in Nova Scotia, So I did. I did not
Speaker 1: get inundated with a bunch of people asking to borrow
Speaker 1: money or invest in businesses. There were a couple here
Speaker 1: and there, but that wasn't something that I had to
Speaker 1: deal with by any means. I was able to help
Speaker 1: people a little bit during COVID because you know, it
Speaker 1: happened shortly after my main bank and there were people
Speaker 1: that were struggling. So I was able to help the
Speaker 1: local community a little bit, which which felt great. I
Speaker 1: don't think anything really changed in my day to day life,
Speaker 1: and I don't think people really treated me differently, And
Speaker 1: I hope that I didn't treat people differently, and I
Speaker 1: think that sort of speaks to what Nova Scotia's value
Speaker 1: system is. You know, it's not a materialistic place at all.
Speaker 1: So people are happy for me and congratulations, but it
Speaker 1: doesn't really change my interactions with people. And I think
Speaker 1: that is. Yeah, you'd have to just go meet people
Speaker 1: from Nova Scotia. I mean, you're from the Netherlands, right,
Speaker 1: so I'm sure people are pretty similar to that there.
Speaker 1: I feel like it's pretty down to earth people there
Speaker 1: as well.
Speaker 2: In the Netherlands that people often say that if your
Speaker 2: head's above the tall grass, you know, they'll get chopped down.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I like that.
Speaker 2: It's also a situation where people in the Netherlands. I'm
Speaker 2: not sure how it is where you're from, but in
Speaker 2: the Netherlands they almost are telling you to just act normal,
Speaker 2: even if you celebrate success. So it's almost hard to
Speaker 2: be proud sometimes because people see sort of outward success
Speaker 2: as like bragging or you know, you're trying to flex.
Speaker 1: I could see that. I think maybe there's something similar
Speaker 1: with that. I certainly. I would say like a lot
Speaker 1: of the wealthiest people that I know or I'm familiar
Speaker 1: with in Halifax, they don't act like it or dress
Speaker 1: like it, or you know, have the flashy cars. It's
Speaker 1: very different than what you might have here in Vegas.
Speaker 1: It's kind of a very materialistic city kind of my definition, right,
Speaker 1: not to say that there aren't great communities of down
Speaker 1: to earth people, and I mean it's Vegas has just
Speaker 1: never been my place that I would want to sort
Speaker 1: of settle down long term. It's never been.
Speaker 2: The outdoors here is underrated though.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, no, and the golf and the I completely understand
Speaker 1: why people like living in Vegas. I have a lot
Speaker 1: of good friends who live here, and all the reasons
Speaker 1: make sense, but it just doesn't The city doesn't draw
Speaker 1: me in that way.
Speaker 2: Of course. A few small, small final things before I
Speaker 2: let you go, And it's been a really interesting conversation.
Speaker 2: You mentioned on a different podcast that you were considering
Speaker 2: writing a book about the poker lifestyle, not the strategy
Speaker 2: what I mean. I'm not sure if you're still thinking
Speaker 2: about that, but what sort of ideas that you have
Speaker 2: when you had those thoughts, and you know, give us
Speaker 2: some more context.
Speaker 1: Well, I think Garrett Adelstein beat me to the punch now, right.
Speaker 1: I was going to write the first book about the
Speaker 1: poker lifestyle, and he just wrote one and he's promoting it.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I was going to tell stories like
Speaker 1: the time that I lost forty K playing beer pong
Speaker 1: in twenty nine, when I had seventeen K to my
Speaker 1: name and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, you can't just gloss over that and
Speaker 2: not tell the story. I mean, that's insane. Set the
Speaker 2: scene for us.
Speaker 1: I mean, we had a rental house with ten or
Speaker 1: twelve guys. I was twenty two, and one of the
Speaker 1: guys wanted to bet on everything, and he kind of
Speaker 1: told me at the beginning of the summer, He's like, look,
Speaker 1: if the number gets high, we will settle for something less.
Speaker 1: Don't worry about it. He was obviously kind of like
Speaker 1: hustling me, and he was better than me. Made a
Speaker 1: lot of things, and so we ended up playing beer pong,
Speaker 1: and it started off at one hundred dollars or tw
Speaker 1: hundred dollars a game, and we just kept doubling, and
Speaker 1: eventually somehow we had I was thirty two K in
Speaker 1: the whole, I don't know how, and he gave me
Speaker 1: four to one on the next game, so I was
Speaker 1: either going to get even for or I was going
Speaker 1: to owe forty K. And we made all the shots too,
Speaker 1: and we made all the shots. Did everyone know that
Speaker 1: the bets were happening, yeah, but it was just me
Speaker 1: and the guy betting big. The other guys might have
Speaker 1: had one hundred bucks whatever. We made the shots, so
Speaker 1: they had rebuttal they had to try to but we
Speaker 1: had three cups left. Their first guy misses, so the
Speaker 1: next guy to send it into overtime had to make
Speaker 1: three cups in a row. And this is the guy
Speaker 1: I was betting with. He made three in a row.
Speaker 1: We went to overtime. We lost in overtime. I actually
Speaker 1: cried that night, I mean I was this was all
Speaker 1: my money and more. And that same year I punted
Speaker 1: in the main event where on No Sleep I went
Speaker 1: in there and reshoved fifty six big blinds. This is
Speaker 1: another good story. But Chad Batista opens rip. Chad Battista
Speaker 1: opens the hijack, and he was very, very very aggressive,
Speaker 1: probably familiar with the name. A very loose passive player
Speaker 1: calls cut off. Loose passive player calls button. And I
Speaker 1: had whittled down my stack from thirty k was the
Speaker 1: starting stack at the time, down to seventeen. We're just
Speaker 1: coming back from dinner, so I got fifty six big linds.
Speaker 1: I think he opened two and a half or maybe
Speaker 1: even three x, so there was a lot out there,
Speaker 1: I think two and a half. So I just thought
Speaker 1: to myself, well, if I can get through Chad, I
Speaker 1: know these other two guys are always folding, they would
Speaker 1: have three bet their good hands, and so I just
Speaker 1: shoved ten five off for fifty six lines, which is
Speaker 1: like kind of crazy now thinking back on it. And
Speaker 1: he Phil Hellmuth style calls me, you know, like the
Speaker 1: Phil Helmuth like snap call or the chips are like,
Speaker 1: he like beats me into the pot. So I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh shit, I just ran into a monster. And then
Speaker 1: he rolls over pocket eights, which at the time was
Speaker 1: like a pretty amazing snap call. Like even now, I
Speaker 1: don't think people would be a lot of people would
Speaker 1: just fold of course, and certainly a lot of people
Speaker 1: are not going to snap call. So that just shows
Speaker 1: you his instincts. But that was a wild summer. So
Speaker 1: I did not win that hand, and that was my
Speaker 1: first main event.
Speaker 2: So did you did you pay the full forty?
Speaker 1: No, because we settled, like he said we were gonna
Speaker 1: be able to settle for less, and so I think
Speaker 1: he said, okay, we'll settle for twenty and I paid
Speaker 1: him like twelve that summer and I paid him the
Speaker 1: other eight over the next year or something like that.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's still insane. That's a massive number. Yeah, in
Speaker 2: your years in poker, is there any other crazy story
Speaker 2: that stands out that you're thinking back on, like how
Speaker 2: did it even happen?
Speaker 1: I mean, that has to be one of the wildest ones.
Speaker 1: I mean I don't gamble that way anymore, right, Like
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't play table games anymore. I rarely
Speaker 1: sports bet. I'm kind of boring now, so I don't
Speaker 1: have those leaks, and I certainly don't bet forty K
Speaker 1: with seventeen K to my name. That was just, you know,
Speaker 1: dumb twenty two year old stuff. The beer pong one
Speaker 1: in the Amsterdam missing the flight are definitely like two
Speaker 1: of the better ones that I can think of off
Speaker 1: the top of my head that kind of involved my
Speaker 1: poker career. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, it's been really good having you on the show.
Speaker 2: I really appreciate your time, and I look forward to
Speaker 2: the book. Are you still working on?
Speaker 1: I didn't really ever get too far in Oka. I
Speaker 1: wrote some notes and my mom would love nothing more
Speaker 1: than to see me write this book, and maybe I
Speaker 1: do at some point. But I guess I just feel
Speaker 1: like I have too much other stuff on the go
Speaker 1: right now. But I would like I would like to
Speaker 1: do that at some point. I think it would be
Speaker 1: pretty interesting.
Speaker 2: All right, So no pre orders just yet. Yeah, but
Speaker 2: we'll keep a tab on how Alex is doing with
Speaker 2: his book. Yeah, Alex, thanks so much for on the show.
Speaker 2: Appreciate it. You guys at home, please liked the video.
Speaker 2: Subscribe to the channel and leave a comment on who
Speaker 2: you want to see next, or perhaps additional questions for Alex,
Speaker 2: and I'll send him over to him and maybe we'll
Speaker 2: have him answer those. Thanks for watching, and we'll see
Speaker 2: you on the next one.