Speaker 1: Two days after the main, Howard Letter calls me and says, Okay, Josh,
we're putting Full Tilt together and we want to bring
you in as team Full Tilt.
Speaker 2: Hey, this is Remco. Thanks for clicking on the video.
This is my brand new podcast called Face the Ace,
in which I talked to the most interesting people in
poker and go a little deeper into the topics you
most care about. Enjoy, Ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to a
new episode of Face the Ace. The Ace today, mister
Josh Aria a career going back many decades, Lots to discuss,
lots to talk about. First off, if you enjoy the podcast,
please like the video, subscribe to the channel, leave a
comment for perhaps an idea on a future guest. Josh,
We're going to dive right into it. So as we're
sitting here, we are hearing some of the buzz and
the excitement of day eight of the main. To paint
the picture for people when this is happening.
Speaker 1: A seven or day seven, I think sleep in the
main same thing you went on a run this year.
Speaker 2: We talked on the bubble briefly. It seemed like you
were completely in it. You were in it mentally you
were totally making a run. Does it feel just as
exciting every time you get some chips in this one?
Speaker 1: Yeah, this tournament's just different. I mean it's you start
to sense, like the environment, the atmosphere. You see the
media running around, like when the bubble, like it starts
a little before the bubble, because it's like getting to
day three and day four of a tournament is tough,
like not going broke day in and day out is
very hard. And then the media starts running around when
we're on the bubble, and that's a lot of fun.
And you know, you start hearing stories from people that
like this is their dream that there was one guy
that he said that he spent twenty three hours flying
here to play this one event and is actually the
guy that beat my set of sevens. But no, there's
so many cool stories, and then like I just there's
times that I'm playing that I kind of you know,
zone out and uh start realizing just how fortunate I
am and just reminding myself because you know, we do
this every single day, day in, day out. We come
in here and we do the same thing, but the
main event's different. And then it's just like I remind
myself how lucky I am to be in this spot
and to be comfortable in this spot. So yeah, it's
the main event is just a different animal, and there's
no there's no close second.
Speaker 2: Would you have given me a similar response when you
first was playing the main?
Speaker 1: No, No, I was a very naive young kid that
expected you know, it was it's like my third or
fourth main that I ran deep in and just even there,
I mean, it was exciting being there. I remember the
adrenaline just pumping through me. But the thought of, you know,
soak it in you might not get to do this
again never crossed my mind. It was just like, Okay,
see you guys next year. So now I know how
special this event is, so.
Speaker 2: You're able to appreciate the one run you did have. Ah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, I love watching back and it's, uh, it's it's
really cool thinking about, you know, things that happened along
the way. There was one there was there was one
story that so I got really lucky against UH. I'll
think of who it was, but but like there was
like a five six seven flop and I had eight
ten and I jammed on the turn and I got
called by UH. Set of fives and banked the straight.
But I remember not even stacking my chips. I was
like so overtaken by the moment, Like it was like
two minutes before dinner break, I didn't even stack my chips,
and I just went to dinner break, and the people
that I was meeting at dinner thought that I had
gotten knocked out, like they looked at me. I was
like so shaken from it. But now it was there
was there was It was a lot of fun. It
was it was in the moment you forget, like you
don't feel it, or I don't. I get into a
zone and like when I'm making deep runs in a
tournament and and and I don't really feel what's going on.
I just play and it just time slows down. You
get in that zone and just you just play and
you're not thinking about You're staying in the moment. You're
not thinking about externals. But afterwards, when when I look back,
and it's just like, man, that was fun.
Speaker 2: So the moment in time that you chose to make
your run probably a massive factor as well for how
the rest of your career played out, because it came
with so much attention on ESPN we're talking like that.
The game was peaking, numbers kept going up year over year,
and you were, all of a sudden, overnight sort of
poker mainstay. If you were at a table, it would
be like, oh, this is josh Aria's table, and that
has sort of carried on for years and years. How
was it to be sort of, you know, poker famous,
if you will.
Speaker 1: Well, at first, it was really hard, like very hard,
because that was back in the I don't know what
was what would you call the forums, like the two
plus two forums. It was really hard because that was
I'd never really looked at the forums before. And now
all of a sudden, like I'll hear from somebody and Josh,
did you see what people were saying about you? And
and I've never been I always liked people liking me,
and as a kid, it just I wanted everybody to
like me. It would just it made life easier. And
I was an outcast as a teenager, didn't really have
a group of people, so I just I had that
pick me, uh vibe or whatever. So now I'm looking
at these news and people are saying shit about me
that I've never heard. This guy is a punk, this
guy's an asshole. Screw him. I can't believe he would
do that. He's poor sportsman. So now I'm seeing things
that I've never thought about myself. I've never seen or
heard anybody say this about me. Now I'm going to
I have plans to go to the Borgata. It was
the September, the final table was in May, and plans
on my first poker trip after that and going to
the Borgota. But I'm scared to go, Like I'm like,
people hate me. It was hard. I went and got
through it and realized that people are so much meaner
on the Internet than they are in real life because
I didn't experience any of that in real life. But
I was young, and I'm a completely different person now,
very secure with who I am. I understand and that
you know people's views, people's views of me are through
their lens, and you know their opinion of me is
none of my business. And those are things that I
wish I knew back then. It was cool because I
was never coming up. I was never the best baseball player.
My best friend was better than me. I was never
the best pool player. I was always third or fourth
in our group of guys. There was a couple guys
in town that that that played better poker, you know,
because they didn't go broke. I would go broke. I
would run up bigger bank rolls, but I would also
go broke. So so now all of a sudden people
like me because I did good in a tournament. It
was cool. A lot of cool things came with it.
You know, I got a sponsorship from an online site
that you know, provided for my family. So yeah, it
was cool. It was I I've always been able to
talk to people, so it did. It didn't It didn't
really affect me negatively, but yeah, the cool things that
came with it made it made it nice.
Speaker 2: Was the attitude that a lot of people remember you
for in the for Maine. Was that almost more like
a defense mechanism.
Speaker 1: No, it was just me. I mean I come from
the pool hall. I come from gambling with drug dealers
and and uh addicts and degenerates and and in the
pool halls. You know, you have to, you know, have
this bravado about you or you're gonna get run over.
And it's just where I come from. I've never, like
I said, I've never been the best at anything, so
I have to like you say put. I don't know
if it's a defense mechanism, but it's almost like a
costume where it's like I want you to feel it,
like I want you to if I'm not your biggest fear,
I want to make you feel like it. You know,
I want to believe that I'm your biggest fear. So
I mean, it's I'm just a competitor, and sometimes bad
things come up, and still to this day, I get
I get upset. I mean, and I did a good
job biting my tongue a few days ago, like I
took a six sick beat on day five. I think
I was in a guy jammed with a seven off
suit and I had two aces and I lost the
pot and it almost came out. I was I was
burning inside, like I couldn't believe that I lost this hand.
But you know, at fifty one, you're I'm able to
reel it back in and you know, a couple of
minutes to vent and then you know, I'm back to myself.
Speaker 2: But isn't that fire perhaps also the reason for your success.
Speaker 1: One thousand perc one thousand percent, Like it's I'm a
competitor in nature, no matter what I do It's like
if if if we're leaving the house at the same
time going to the same place, I want to get
there first. You know, if if if we're leaving the
tea box on the golf course at the same time,
I want to get to my ball first. You know,
it's I just I'm a competitor and I always will
be like that's you know, that's what's allowed me to
continue to compete at you know, this age that I'm
at against kids that work a lot harder and a
lot smarter. You know, there's I've got something in me
that helps me compete with them. And that's what it is.
Speaker 2: It is really cool, and we'll get deeper into this.
To have sort of seen your resurgence sort of twenty
nine ish and then you sort of built on that,
and for many years prior to that you were around,
but you you didn't have that same sort of presence,
and yeah, that the same result. We'll get into what
turned things around, and I'm very curious how that wins.
But what I'm curious about is purely from like a
skill and a game level, what it is now that
still makes you able to compete because all we ever
hear are the stories of the studying and all that stuff.
But what is it? Is it experience and perhaps the
live element that make you successful. How would you define them?
Speaker 1: It's definitely the live element. Like I I'm good at
live poker, like I when I get to look at
a guy in the eye and you know, evaluate, And
but also I've worked on my game a lot. Like I.
I'm surrounded by the best players in the world. Like
I talk to Daniel mcgran who every day. I talked
to Sean Deep every day. I talked to Matt Glance
every day, Dan Wyman every day. There's a laundry list
of and even some of the people like with Poker Steak,
I talk to these people that post on Poker Steak,
and I have the best players in the world. At
my dispense, I'd be a complete idiot it to not
soak up everything that I can. And that's just one
thing I've always done is my whole life. I've remained
the dumbest person in the room and absorb everything that
I can. So I ask a lot of questions. I
work in the gray area. I question like, I ask
a lot of questions, like when somebody that's not that
good or isn't supposed to be that good is doing good?
I want to know what they're doing, like I ask questions,
and because they're doing something right, there's something there. It's
not just pure luck. So I do my poker has
definitely improved on a technical aspect, but at the same time,
I've dealt with a lot of personal issues that I
want to succeed. Whereas there were many times in the
past where I was unwilling to accept the pain of
trying hard, and that was a stumbling block that I
got over where I was like it was so much
easier just to dump off eternally, Like internally, it was
easier just to punt because I could just tell myself, oh,
I punted it and it didn't hurt that bad. But
I was afraid of feeling the pain of trying my
best and failing. But now it's I try my best
and I'm I'm happy with the result and I'm not
afraid of the pain.
Speaker 2: So when you have that massive success at the start
and sort of launch you into poker fame, also coming
into a lot of money, having to sponsorships on top
of that, you you know, have like another big almost
million dollar score, you know nine, it seems like, you know,
unstoppable in a way of cashing the fifty k in
twenty eleven. So everything sort of seems to be rolling forward.
But from the way you say it, it's almost like
you were slowly fading or slowly falling. When did the
sort of the falls start and how deep did you fall?
Speaker 1: I mean, I felt pretty hard because I didn't care.
I was in a marriage that I hated. I was
stuck there because I loved my kids immensely, and I
was afraid of the situation that my kids would fall
in had I left. So it's a horrible decision. Like
if I could go back, I would have left a
long time ago. I don't know. I'm extremely happy. I'm
not saying I wish I would have done something different,
But it was a bad decision to put my ex
wife through and to put my kids through in a
very unloving relationship. What I was doing was really bad,
Like it was destructive. It was extremely destructive to me,
to my ex, to my entire family, my kids. But
I went through the motions, and you know, finally, when
my kids got a little older, I left the relationship,
and that's when life turned around, relationships, career, everything, it was,
it was, it was. It was really muddy for a
little while, Like it was really muddy, but you know,
relationships with my kids and my family, my dad, my brother,
my sister. It's a hundred x of what it was
like from two thousand, two thousand to twenty nineteen. Yeah,
it was everything came together. I got the most positive
human being on the face of the earth. Like my
wife now is an incredible, incredible human that I love
spending time with, and like I can't imagine how she
was attracted to the person that I was in twenty
nineteen because I was a fucking disaster.
Speaker 2: When you say disaster, give us like an example. Was
it your attitude? Was it?
Speaker 1: Just everything habits, like everything. I was on drugs or
not drugs. I was well, yeah, drugs. I was taken
adderall every day. I was taken adderall every day. I
was taken ambient to go to sleep, and thought that
I needed it. You know, I thought I was diagnosed
by a doctor with ADHD, and you need to take
thirty milligrams of adderall in the morning, you know, take
another fifteen out at another fifteen milligrams of adderall and
then and then you know you have that much adderall
pumping through your system, how are you going to go
to sleep? Well, just take an ambient. Same doctor prescribes
the same ambient. I didn't care about my poker results.
I mean I had you know, I own a bar
in Atlanta, and I'm not a big spender. Uh so
I don't need that much money. I was fine, But yeah,
I was. I was just a disaster. I was. I
would look at things very negatively, but yeah, just like
it was just it was so awesome meeting. I couldn't
wait to introduce Rachel to my kids, and it was.
But yeah, it's been we've been together. We met shortly
after I was separated, and we've been together like seven
years now, and it's, uh, it's it's it's a pleasure
waking up every morning and living life with her, and
and like, uh, it's it's made me a different person,
and it's made me in my old days or in
my young days. I should have wanted to impress my kids,
impress my dad, even if I even if I didn't
like my partner, I should want to impress my dad,
my kids. But I didn't. I guess I wasn't mature
enough to so there wasn't anybody that I was really
responsible to except for myself. But now it's like, I
want to live life to impress my wife, Like when
I do something cool, like I mean, she sees it
before I say, oh did you see that or whatever
and like and so it's I just I want to
impress her every day and I want to I want
to be a better person for her because she deserves it,
and it just makes me so much happier with myself.
Speaker 2: So when I look at your your career arc as
far as tournament results, the one thing that does stand
out is that throughout all those years, as you mentioned,
you know it it was like a steady decline from
two thousand onwards, the results are still there. You're still
playing all these events. You're still you know, getting in
the mix, and you know, lots of close calls in
big events. So what was it that did motivate you
to keep doing that? Because it almost sounds to me
as though you might as well have couldn't just you know,
driven off to Alaska to go fishing for a couple
of years.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean I love competing. Vegas is fun, you know,
it was I was younger and I was doing the
wrong things in Vegas. I uh, you know, I was.
I was around like there was like a six or
seven year stretch where like I had a locker at
Shadow Creek, I was gambling really high in the casino.
So I was having what I thought was fun, very destructive,
Like I mean I was, I was winning or losing
two to five hundred thousand a year in the casino.
And now I don't cammel at all. I was having
fun and h it was, you know, taking my mind
off you know, the other stuff that was not right
in my life.
Speaker 2: Was there a turning point as far as the gambling goes,
where you realize, like why am I doing this still?
Speaker 1: I mean the turning point was when I got separated
and it wasn't fun anymore. Like I didn't need to
get that high from gambling. I didn't need. It wasn't
doing for me what it did before. I wasn't escaping
from anything. Yeah, just like as soon as I made
the move in twenty nineteen, just like the desire to
go gamble huge just stopped.
Speaker 2: It's funny because you you had that big moment happened
in your life where separation, meeting your your now wife Rachel,
and then all of a sudden, like a cascade, the
results came pouring in. And I'm not one to say that,
you know, momentum is real or you know, if you
do good things you get nice, but in your in
your sort of career arc or even even just looking
at the pure results, everything just started clicking it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it did. That was when I started getting really
close to Matt, Glance, Dan and Sean and so now
I have these great players that I talked to, and
I just you know, they're typing in hand histories and
I half understand them, and I'm just like reading them
through them, reading through them and like over and over
and over and like not acting, you know, acting like oh,
it's just a hand history, but like you know, then
asking some questions about it and just absorbing it all.
And I kind of had a new found desire for success.
I found myself, you know, getting super short in a
tournament and not giving up. I found myself noticing spots
that I'd never noticed before, or because I guess my
mental space was now clear for some strange reason. But yeah,
I started caring and and you know, things started happening.
And you know, the funny thing is is that in
the beginning of twenty twenty, during COVID, I had plans
of being done with poker, like I took a job
at poker Steak. And the reason I took my job
at poker Steak is because I was I mean, in
twenty twenty, I was like forty six, forty seven and
thinking about this is the decline of my career. I mean,
I don't like to study. If I wanted to study,
it wouldn't have to be the decline of my career.
But I understand that studying is part of improving in
today's day and age. But so I took this job
at poker Steak thinking that, you know, I'm going to
cut down on the stuff that I do. And then
all of a sudden, so my job starts to August first,
twenty one. I'm a head of Poker Steak World Series
rolls around because it's in uh, it's in November and
twenty one, and I just had this clarity that I
hadn't had in many, many, many years. This desire to compete,
this desire to want to be at the table and
not at a video poker machine or not on the
golf course or or at some club or I was
one hundred percent content in where I was at any
moment of the day, and things just started working. And
I won a couple of bracelets in one Player of
the Year, and I still wasn't sure that I was
going to continue like this. This may have been my
swan song. It might have been, you know, this is
a good way for me to to start working my
way out of poker. But then you know, twenty twenty
two World Series rolls around and I make back to
back twenty five K final tables and I win to
I win one point two million. I'm one point two
million winner the first week of the World Series. I
don't know, it's just uh. I love my time at
the table. It's a total different mindset and person that
I was, and I will always love competing no matter
what it is. Like we could go out there and
see who could throw a bottle of water into the
trash can first, right, I would have so much fun.
I would look like a kid, and poker gives that
to me. And as long as I'm able to compete,
and as long as I'm able to continue to I
love wreckon Havoc, and I love seeing these really smart
guys struggle with me. So you know, as long as
that's going to happen, I mean, I could see myself
coming out and or I guess it's not coming out.
I'm here now. I could see myself competing at the
World Series and until they roll me out of here,
I guess.
Speaker 2: So then the competitive spirit was sort of reignited for
to success. And then what I find fascinating with you
winning POY Now you're seemingly in contention. Every year you
play big volume, you get your chances at winning a bracelet.
Of course, you know everything has to click, but at
this point, as you mentioned, you know you're not a
big spender, so we're not maybe chasing buying an even
bigger house or living in a nicer place. What is
now the motivation to show up every day?
Speaker 1: I just want to impress my wife. I just I
love the I love the way that she sweats so hard.
And it's like I give a lot of people, my family,
my friends, like I have really good people in my
corner and they love sweating it. And I love the
fact that when I get deep, I bring so much
excitement to the people that are following me, and that's
like my happy place. Like I remember I was Pads
on his story a week or a couple of weeks ago.
He's like, what's your happy place? And and I was like, man,
it's sad to say, but my happy place is at
a final table with the World Series of Poker. Just
because I'm bringing so much excitement and joy to all
the people that have been following me for twenty five
thirty years.
Speaker 2: That's that's amazing. And the one thing on the resume
that I think might still be a goal to chase
Es to win that fifty k PBC. You've had, You've
had you've had more, probably more Casher than most people
in that event. But more importantly, you've had two runner
up finished. And I can tell by looking her face
that one's things. But what does that event mean to you?
Speaker 1: It's fun, It's a different fun. It's rolling your sleeves up,
running in the mud against the best players in the world,
and it's fun. It's exhausting, it's it's it screws with
your head, but you know it's that's my kind of fun.
You know, let's get dirty, you know, it's uh playing
cheap events. You know, that's a different kind of fun,
you know, having fun, talking, laughing with a bunch of people. Yeah,
that's that. That's that's a small amount of fun over here.
But my kind of fun is in the fire. I
want to be in the fire and I want to
inflict pain. I want to feel pain. Yeah, it's it's
I just think about this clip I've seen I've seen
before of like a boxer when they're like ten rounds
deep in a nasty fight and he's like, this is
my kind of fun. This is my kind of party.
And uh, yeah, this that's my kind of party because
it's it's grueling. You're staring down the best players in
the world, guys that play three and six thousand limit
poker every you know, every day you're playing Benny Glacier,
You're I mean you're playing Uri Sewn Dee Daniel mcgron
or you're playing the best of the best, And uh,
that's that's my kind of party.
Speaker 2: So the two runner up finishes. When you think back
of those now, and of course one of them being
very very recent, is that a sense of pride or
do you feel perhaps a sense of like, you know,
what if and and and how much how much? How
much emotion is attached to those close calls.
Speaker 1: Not much, because when I'm in the moment, I'm not
thinking about anything other than that second in time. What
does my resume look like with a first place instead
of a second place? Yeah, it's a little bit more,
but you know, I for me, it's so much more
of the journey and enjoying and and and remembering the
journey and accepting thinks that there's so many situations that
that could have been different along the way, But no,
I don't think of, oh what could have been? I
don't think about anything other than, you know, enjoying the
journey and giving it the best that I have. And
in those two particular tournaments, I gave it my best.
I brought everything I could to the table and accept
the consequences if and luckily, I don't have to look
back to any of to either of those two and
and say, oh, man, I I didn't have my best
And so I'm totally at peace with both results.
Speaker 2: In my sort of view, you're one of the few
players with consistent good results in fifty K that is
not synonymous with Bobby's room. I don't often hear you
as part of a Bobby's Room story. Why did you
never make that jump.
Speaker 1: Because two reasons. Number one, I don't like the feeling
of feeling less than when I go in that room
and see those players Jason Mercier, Eric Wass, Brian Rast,
ray d Oppenheimer, I feel less than. I feel like
the fish, and I don't like that feeling. I like
the feeling of feeling like I'm the best player, and
no matter what would happen, no matter how much money
I won, I could not go into that arena and
feel like the best player, and so I would feel
like a fish, and I don't enjoy that feeling. That's
the number one reason. Number two reason is I don't
really enjoy poker that much. I don't enjoy what it
takes to be the best. So playing poker is kind
of boring to me. Playing I'm sorry, playing cash poker
is boring to me. In less I'm playing higher than
I can afford. And if I'm playing higher than I
can afford, then then it's exciting. Obviously. I think I've
played one cash game in the past four years, and
that was because I texted ODB one night and they
were playing like three and six hundred at the Bollagio
and I was bored. I was into. It was before
I lived here and I was in town by myself,
and he's like, yeah, we have a fun lineup, come play.
So I went played and I had fun. It was
a fun lineup, like Nacho was playing he's always a goofball,
and Nick Wright was playing and ODB and it was
it was. It was a good time. But yeah, that's
I think that was. That may have been in twenty
twenty three, was the last time I played.
Speaker 2: That's crazy because the cash grind and those guys they
always seem to be like the very very top of
the game, and with your competitive spirit, I just assumed
that you wanted to also measure yourself against those guys.
But there's also a sense of like, like I don't know,
humble nature in perhaps accepting that I don't have to
step in that ring.
Speaker 1: If it was fun, like if it was a good
group of guys and it was like but then it
would be like seventy percent work, thirty percent social like
it would be I would be going to make money
in the end, but also enjoying time doing it. I
just don't want to go sit at a table with
a bunch of people that I don't really know. And
I'm very like introverted. So this, like the social part
of forty five days in a row is it wears
on me a lot. Like Rachel will tell you, I like,
she's the same way. We just we stay at home,
we don't go out much, we we hang to ourselves
and uh so, so putting more social stuff in my
life is not a formula for a happy life.
Speaker 2: I'm just I'm just glad that on one of the
final days of the summer, you're willing to sit down
with me. Sure.
Speaker 1: No, You've always been great for poker.
Speaker 2: So the arc up has been established, and now it
seems like you're just comfortable living and operating in this space.
But I do want to jump back a little bit too,
when you were sort of gambling and golfing and having
that routine. And just for the people that are listening
to this or even watching this, what an average day
for josh Aria look like at sort of the heyday
of your distractions as you as you call them.
Speaker 1: I'd wake up eleven thirty or twelve, probably grab a
huge coffee, go play ornament, and not care what happened,
kind of you know, try to spin it immediately. If
the spin didn't work, then I'd head to Shadow Creek
and you know, gamble playing golf. Maybe go somewhere else,
go sit down on a video poker machine until I hit
something big or I felt a lot of pain from
the amount that I was losing. I was losing big numbers.
It was insane, insane the numbers that I was I
probably lost one hundred and fifty thousand in a day
playing video poker. Yeah, it's crazy, you know. I always
I have a decent relationship like an I, but I
haven't really gambled in Like I said before I was
twenty nineteen, really slowed down the gambling. But I mean
I messed around a little, like win or lose thirty
or forty thousand in a year in the casino. Now
it's like zero. Like now I might win or lose
five K in a year for like the past four years.
Speaker 2: I want.
Speaker 1: I want to ask my host for my lifetime because
I'm interested, and I actually I don't. I know, I
can go online and look at the P and L
statements for the year, but I don't know if it
goes back lifetime. I'm interested to see how much money
I've lost in the casino in my life, because it's, uh,
it's pretty fucking disgusting.
Speaker 2: The fact that you're still afloat with that kind of
habit that what does that speak for? Or Two, I
put myself in good situations. I've always been a good gambler,
except for video poker, because video poker was always like
I could go zone out. I'd play poker, and I'd
have to talk to people all day and I'd have
to be social all day. Now like going in and
playing like five ten k worth and video poker at
the end of a poker session was always my like
like I would decompress from the day and just sit
there and zone out and I wouldn't have to talk
to anybody. And people would always ask me, why do
you play video poker?
Speaker 1: It's so boring. It's just the same thing over and over,
but it just it It lets me gamble. It would
let me gamble and remove all human interaction. I could
sit there in my own little world, smoke cigarettes, drink
diet cokes and just be a d J. I don't know,
But like in every other aspect of life I had.
I would always find an edge in whatever gambling I'm doing,
whether it's sports or whether it's pool gambling or anything
golf gambling. I always had an edge. So and I've
always had a knack of finding my way in into
affluent groups and people with money. So just that like
old pool hustler in me that that I've never had
a problem making money.
Speaker 2: So in world of high stakes gambling, you mentioned the host.
What were the perks, the or the stuff that came
that came with living that lifestyle.
Speaker 1: I had it all. I would stay in a two
bedroom penthouse at the top of the first it was
at the top of the belagio. Then my guys moved
over to the area and I would stay in the
two bedroom penhouse in the area. I had a locker
at Shadow Creek. They bought me clubs that would stay
at Shadow Creek, limos back and forth Shadow Creek, like
I would stay there the whole summer. I would stay
either since two thousand At first I used to stay
with my friend during the summer up until like two
thousand and five, But then like from two thousand and
five to two thousand and twenty, I would stay in
a two bedroom penhouse for the entire summer for forty days,
and my bill at the end of the month was
my tips. And even one year I was gambling so
big they covered my tips and my dry cleaning. Most
other years I would have to cover my tips and
that was about it. Everything else was comped.
Speaker 2: For someone who wants to sort of use the word
hustler in like a positive light, I've heard you say
that before, that it's it's not supposed to have that
negative content. No, it's not so for someone with the
hustler mentality and always finding an edge, it's it's almost
funny to me that you're accepting all these gifts because
they know that the sucker will keep coming back.
Speaker 1: It was cool, like I would just like I understood,
like the the theoretical loss, I understand. I always understood that,
like I'm giving up like one percent or something or
one and a half percent. So in my head I
was I was may it was okay with me because
all this other convenience stuff was worth it, and I'll
give up that edge. You know. Now I'm staying at
the area and I have transportation back and forth whenever.
All I have to do is call down and say, hey,
I need to car to the Rio, and I'd go
downstairs to Sky Sweets and I'd have a car drive
me to the Rio. I never had to make a
reservation at any of the restaurants, so so I knew
I was giving up a little the best of it,
but all the cool things that came with it, like
made me cool. I mean it was, I'd yeah, it was.
I was definitely blinded by the glitter and the glamour
and uh.
Speaker 2: Do do you think do you think it's It's almost
surprising that you were able to stay in your lane
with video poke Werd, because there's so many stores of
people who start somewhere and then it starts to cascade
and all of a sudden they find themselves on the outside.
Speaker 1: No, I I there was a part of me that
there was a line, like I would never put my
family at risk. I knew I had bills, I knew
what I had to do, and I trusted my ability
to make money. So when it got bad, when when
when it when it was really sideways, I could draw
the line and say I'm done. Like if I blew
x them out, it's like okay, that's it. I'm done
for the year. I'm done till my bankroll gets back.
And and I was in on a lot of things
that like I'm good at making money and uh so
you know, it just it would take away, like but
I don't care, like, uh as long as the bills
could get paid, and and it didn't matter to me,
like money is just money. It's I don't I don't
have nice things, like I mean, I don't. I mean
I have nice things.
Speaker 2: But like there's not the goal to have nice things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like it, having a one hundred thousand dollars car
doesn't make me any happier than my regular car or
whatever normal car. I don't need designer things. I I
wear one hundred dollars Nikes every day, and I wear
T shirts and hoodies and and you know, once in
a while, I'll go for an nice meal. I don't
wear jewelry. I you know, it's so I don't need
all that extra stuff.
Speaker 2: I'm going to put a hypothetical in front of you,
and I might be way off here, but could it
be that the best thing that ever happened to you
was not getting a piece of full tilt.
Speaker 1: I've talked about that, so often, so yes one. So
I don't know if I've told this story before, but
so Full Tilt is in the later stages of building
their ambassadors. Right after two oh four, two thousand and
four main event, I'm on the phone. I'm living in
I'm living in a house that I bought before the
main event, and Howard Letter calls me. It's two days
after the main Howard Letter calls me and says, Okay, Josh,
we're putting Full Tilt together, and you know we want
to we want to bring you in as team Full Tilt.
Here there's our offer. You pay us four hundred thousand
for X amount percent. I don't remember what it was,
but it was a fair deal. Like it was it
was whatever it was, Yeah, ownership would I would have
had ownership in it. And then but we'll also give
you a piece of the player's pool. So now I
call my agent. He was my friend at the time.
And then right after the final table, Brian Basbaw tells me.
He's like, you know, I think we can make some
money off you. And now he goes from friend to
agent and so I talked to Brian and I was like, Brian,
Howard just called me you know, four hundred thousand. And
my dad had always taught me buy a house. If
you can buy a hostle cash, just buy a house.
So now in the two thousand and four made event,
I was getting staked, so I had like one point
two million. I'd never had more than one hundred thousand
in my name my whole life. So now I'm weighing
the decision buy a houstle cash, invest in full till, Like, look,
why are we going to use your money to invest
in full tilt when I can get a company to
pay you three hundred thousand a year. Yeah, let's not
go with full till. So I thought about it for
a long time, and I was mad at Brian for
a long time because I didn't realize it then. But
now Brian is one of my closest friends. He was
the efficient in my wedding. I'm so grateful for Brian
in my life. Like he got me to the Choice
Center back in twenty fifteen, which was a huge milestone
in my life of realizing some things. I think my
paycheck would have been two hundred and fifty thousand a
month for like twenty four months before it got shut down,
and I obviously would have moved to Vegas, and it
would have been I was not prepared for that kind
of money in Las Vegas at that point in my life.
It would have been absolute distruction. It would have been
bad on my kids. It would have been horrible for me,
so as I'm so grateful to Brian for all that.
Speaker 2: And you bought the house.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I bought the house. Yeah, I bought the house,
and yeah, yeah. I mean there's part of me that's
like because I'm around Eric Lingern a lot. You know.
Eric Lindren and I used to be really close friends
until we had a falling out, and I'm seeing him
just get two fifty a month, month after month after month,
and he was fucking his money off like at warp speed,
doing the dumbest things. And I wouldn't have been near
on that like that level, but like it could have been.
It would have been ugly and in more ways than
just In more ways than just I would have been
drugs for sure, women. I mean, it would have been bad.
Speaker 2: A lot of poker fans these days might not have
been even around for the sort of heyday that you
fully lived when the money was running from the sky
in that period of time. What was that like, because
because I'll give you one piece of context here, I was,
I turned twenty one and eighty. First WSP that I
worked was nine, and that's in nine it was still
you know, five K patch deals where I had for
ten k. You know, oh, you're on the main feature,
we'll double it. And the agents Brian included were running
like around like maniacs, patching people up. And then you
know there was all the all the suites that they
had at every single poker room had their own suite
in the hallway. But prior to that, it must have
been even crazier. What do you remember from that era
and how wild it was?
Speaker 1: One main thing that that seeing the way that Eric
used to gamble was just one of the wild memories
that I have. Like I remember one time flying into
Vague and called Eric, told him I'm headed out to
the house and he's like, oh, we're at TPC Summerlin,
just just come straight here. So I get to TPC
Summerlin and i'm and find out where they are and
I go out to number seven. Say so, I get
out to number seven and I see Doyle Brunson in
the bunker and then I see Doyle Brunson pick his
ball up in the bunker, put a tee down, and
put his ball on top of a tee in the bunker,
and I was like, wait a minute, what the fuck
is going on? So after the hole, it's like, yeah,
you know, that's Doyle gets to teaed up anywhere. And
I was like, oh, okay, Doyle's seventy five years old
or seventy years old whatever, you know, And Okay, Eric
golf's pretty decent, so fine, it could be kind of fair.
It's like, what are y'all playing for? We're playing fifty
thousand a hole? Fifty thousand a hole, Like I'm just like,
you mean to tell me you're playing fifty thousand a
hole against one of the greatest gamblers that's ever lived.
And yeah, So that like shit like that was all
the time. I mean there was times that like the
Golden Nugget took on like a new owner at one
point where it was like a dude, I don't remember
who it was that bought the and he was trying
to make Golden Nugget in downtown cool again and invited
some poker players down there to shoot dice. Well, we
go down there and shoot dice and it's just a
few poker players and Eric blows like a big number.
And so it was like, I mean, money just wasn't
a thing like nobody. Money was so easily to you know,
came about so easily. Poker was really easy to the
guys that were really good, and there was just money
being thrown around from sites that like websites were paying
two hundred and fifty thousand and for a main event
patch just just if you made the final table of
the main event. For like two years, there was like
five different companies that if you put their patch on,
they'd pay you two fifty And that's just for one tournament.
You're not an ambassador for the year. All you're doing
is sticking and patch on for two hundred and fifty
thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: And you were with Bodog.
Speaker 1: I was with Bodog, and I got to do some
really cool things with Bodog, like I, uh, that was fun.
I got to experience it with David and uh and
then uh, you know that was for three years and
that but that ended up going away. But yeah, I
mean it was it was fun. We we I mean,
we were I was friends with you know, all the
suits in the casino and so like we would go
to a club and we would just have a booth
and we would never pay a thing, and uh yeah,
a lot of debakery. It was. It was the things
that I'm not proud of you.
Speaker 2: You were also much younger.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the.
Speaker 2: Sharp contrast between the big win and the money you
came into and then all of a sudden the opportunity
that led to is is kind of crazy when you
mentioned just in the same sentence saying I never had
more than hundred thousands of my name prior to that.
What was the initial you know, struggle or grind, like
to even get to Vegas to play in the WSOP
And did you did you forget where you came from
once you got rich, because it feels like you hit
the ground running being a successful guy once the money
showed up.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I just I don't think that I was that
cerebral about it, Like I didn't think about it like
I didn't I took a lot of it for granted,
Like I never took a I never like stared at
into space and was like, wow, this is just me
every year now. I never thought of it like that.
I was a very cocky kid that thought I was
the best and thought I was always going to win,
and thought that I belonged there. Yeah, it was. It
was very contrast to my later years where I'm so
grateful for every opportunity that i have, and I look
around and I see all these people that you know,
they come and they play the main event because it's
a once in a lifetime dream and it's just like, yeah,
it's really nice to see that stuff, and because I
get to be grateful about it.
Speaker 2: But then like when you first came to Vegas, there
must have been perhaps a dream or an ambition, and
how did you put together whatever the the idea was
for the trip, because we're talking you're win your first
bracelet in nineteen ninety nine. Yeah, and that was also
prior to the poker boom, so poker wasn't as visible.
It wasn't as it wasn't as obvious to go through
the world troops.
Speaker 1: Of pokel I had been. I had been any time.
So I was hustling the games in Atlanta, and anytime
that I had a bankroll of like one or two K,
I would get in my car and I drive to
Biloxi and I'd play ten twenty until I went broke,
and then eventually I'd stop going broke. Eventually I got
to be good enough to where I could beat those people.
And then and then a friend of mine that I
knew from Atlanta, he had moved to Biloxi and he
was playing a lot of poker down there, and he
would go to the World Series and play cash for
the whole World Series. So I talked to him, and
he's like, Josh, you should really come out and try
the World Series of Poker. So I came out and
I won the second tournament that I played. The first tournament,
the first tournament that I played, I stayed up all
night playing video poker, went and played the tournament and
lasted like two hours, and then slept for twenty hours,
and then won the next tournament. So success came quick.
Success coming quick to a kid that's already cocky and
thinks that he's better than everybody else is not the
best formula. I instantly thought I belonged, and instantly, no
matter who I was against, I thought that I would win.
Speaker 2: That's kind of uh the attitude that will drive a
lot of people to successes well in sports, right where
they think they have an edge, and it also makes
them carry that and and makes makes them successful in
a way because it keeps them, you know, chasing whatever
is coming up. I just.
Speaker 1: And one thing that I've been thinking about with lately
is I'm okay with being wrong. So like and being
wrong and being wrong or losing is very good for
me because I learned from it and I grow from it.
If you just win every time, and you just you,
you have this mindset that everything I'm doing is correct.
I don't need to change, I don't need to improve.
But when you when you're wrong and when you lose,
that's when you That's when I start questioning and and
and you know, questions and questioning my my theory and
my my gameplay and whatever I bring to the table evolving.
That is very important for me and for me to succeed.
Speaker 2: Awesome, Well, it's been great having you on the show.
Love all the stories. Hope you guys at home listening
watching enjoyed having Josh. Are you on the show? I
would say, please like the video again, subscribe to the channel,
leave a comment down below. Follow this guy on social
media for whatever he goes deep in next and I'll
say until next week, we have a new guest on,
so thanks for watching and we'll see you soon.