Speaker 1: The stakes are so hot.
Speaker 2: Average buy in nowadays is around like fifty to sixty thousand.
It's very easy to just lose a few million very fast.
Speaker 3: Hey, this is Remco. Thanks for clicking on a video.
This is my brand new podcast called Face the Ace,
in which I talk to the most interesting people in
poker and go a little deeper into the topics you
most care about. Enjoy. Welcome to a brand new episode
of Face the Ace The Ace today, mister Seth Davies.
If you're new to the show, please like the video
subscribe to the channel weekly episodes coming out with some
of your favorite players in the game. Seth, good to
have you on the show. The summer, of course, always
a sort of a pivotal moment in the life of
every poker player. However, for you guys quote unquote high rollers,
it doesn't seem to carry the same weight that it
does for the rest of the poker world. How do
you view this this time of year?
Speaker 2: You know, as far as like my total earn as
a poker player, it's not as.
Speaker 1: Big as it used to be.
Speaker 2: But you know, THEWS is always going to be really
special in everyone's because, you know, is what we all
kind of looked looked up to when we were new
poker players. But yeah, maybe it's not where I would
where I'm playing most of my buyings nowadays. I guess
most is usually about a million in buyings for me,
whereas like Triton over the years like over five million.
Speaker 1: But you know, I still take it really seriously. It's
close to home.
Speaker 2: I live here, and the tournaments are incredible, like as
far as one hundred k plus no limit WSP is
as good as it gets, as far as the field quality,
the softness of the field, So it's definitely something worth
taking very very seriously.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so I'm loving it, glad to be here.
Speaker 3: How do you balance the aspirations as it comes to
prestige versus purely financial versus ROI shot taking? Perhaps you
know some fields might not be as great, but you
still want to be in there. Are those all things
that you consider?
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely, And I mean that's one of the really
cool things about poker, especially at a very high level,
is like we're we're playing a skill game right where
like we're competitors, and I think if you only approach
this game as like money in, money out, like I'm
strictly here to just suck as much money out of
as possible. I think that that's just like not the
best type of life to live, at least for me.
You know, I like competing. I think like, for example,
if I was to go play one hundred K at Triton,
that was a very tough one and say, I'm only
returning a few percent, So what is that like a
few thousand dollars profit? Compare that to going to play
like a really soft five K, where I'm making a
similar amount of money, Like I would much more enjoy
the hundred k, you know what I mean, because it's
a very highly competitive environment that takes a lot of
work to get there, it takes a lot of work
to stay there, and you're every hand is very stimulating,
and like you're like, all right, I'm one on one
with an elite player where it's not like Okay, I'm
gonna go play this five K and like get top
paerent value bet really big. You know, it's just not
as not as stimulating. So and look, at the end
of the day, like you have to make money. You
have to make as good a life for you as
you should. Like that's you know, one of the reasons
we were all got into poker in the first place
was it was a good opportunity to make a good
living doing something fun, and the sky's the limit. You know,
you can make a lot of money doing this. But
I think it should not be understated that, like, it's
really cool to be playing a competitive game for a living,
and I think that should be taken seriously.
Speaker 3: In your sort of high roller universe, or maybe I
should even say high roller economy. Is it the case
that perhaps you track ROI and value? Do you have
spreadsheets of who you value or you know, if I
compare it to blackjack, do you keep count you know
plus or minus? How these fields evolve and if so
or if not, how do you assess value and deciding
whether you want to play certain events?
Speaker 2: Well, for me, I'll pretty much play everything nowadays. You know,
it's very very rare that a tournament will come around
and I'll be like, Okay, this is just so bad,
I won't even play. It's not never like it would
definitely happen, especially with Triton where the rake's a little higher.
But they have done a good job of that recently
by they've reduced the on time Rake and like some
of their highest events. But you know, it's the high
stakes tournament. Economy is very sensitive, and sometimes you'll show
up to it right and then there's just like two
or three VIPs there who are just like super blasting
and you're just like, holy shit, like this is an
incredible Like I'm making so much money just being in
this tournament right now because the guy is just like
twenty x opening and then just like stacking off every
flop when he has like a gut shot.
Speaker 1: Or whatever, you know, like it's just so profitable.
Speaker 2: And then the next trip it's like where all the
vap's there's zero, you know, So I'm just like I'm
just the worst player in the field is like a
great player, you know, as far as the whole hierarchy
is concerned. So you're constantly kind of you know, doing that.
But for me, it's like I'm pretty much just gonna
play no matter who's there. Like if there's a very
terrible tournament, yeah, I'll set it out because you know,
I play enough poker anyway, but I think I've developed
my skill set to the point where I can pretty
much profit in any tournament that runs.
Speaker 3: How does the view on buy ins and selling and
perhaps swamping. How has that evolved for you throughout your
career and guide us a little bit through how perhaps
your threshold for stakes changed over time and how that
works currently.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean the threshold for stakes changes over time
for two reasons. One, like you just make more money. Like,
as you're a profitable player, you go through your career,
you win money and hopefully you're saving it, and you know,
for fortunately for me, i don't have like very expensive tastes,
so I've been able to like accumulate, I'd been able
to level up as I've gone along, having more of
myself and then also swaps compared to just like selling
action because you know, selling action obviously you don't take
the risk. But yeah, the kind of resilience towards stakes,
I think as my career has progress, I've gotten access
to swapping with better players, I would say, And for
me that usually means like a pretty common kind of
spread for me would be like fifty percent of myself
ten percent of five other players roughly, So that's like
it keeps a good balance of like, yes, I have
much more myself than anybody else, so it's still like
integrity there's no conflict of interest there, but also smooths
out a lot of the variants and portly for me,
over the years, I've been able to develop relationships and
just my game to the point where I five very
strong players that I can swap with, So that reduces
the variants a lot, right, And it's crazy, Like there's
been some discussion recently, like some Triton databases have been
made public, which I don't think are entirely accurate, But anyway,
that's we can talk about that later. But and you know,
a lot of extremely good players are down a lot
of money, and then obviously a lot of extremely good
players are up a crazy amount of money too. So
being able to take my variance and distribute that over
six players myself and the five others obviously have less
of them than I do myself, but like it makes
us a much more realistic way to make money, because
you know, like as people can see with that database
that comes out, like people can play ten years, and
I think the total number of tournaments in the database
was four hundred, which is a very small sample, you know,
and like it takes thousands of tournaments to really let
that smooth out.
Speaker 1: So being able to have that you know, kind of
various distribution is really nice.
Speaker 2: And the other thing I want to say about that
real quick would be like the thing like because whatever,
the internet's the Internet, but like whenever something like that
comes out, like the people are with the Internet are like, oh,
these guys are losing money. This is like this is
so fake, Like there's such bullshit, and like the thing is,
almost everybody I know who plays high stakes mptts for
a living like they make a very good living on
other things, like whether it's coaching or ambassad deals or whatever.
So yes, like there's a good point to what people
are saying, Like if you only want to play high
stakes cernaments for a living, it's I don't know how
good of an idea is that, but like being validated
as a world class player, it opens up other opportunities
for you. And that's like, you know what I would
say about people.
Speaker 1: Like how do you do this for a living? Especially
with taxes?
Speaker 2: It's just like not even possible, and like, yeah, it
kind of is because mostly because of like site income.
Speaker 3: I would say that trend list is very interesting, and
I think the biggest thing you hit on is the
sample size which of course is insane.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it brings up like thirty seven million,
it's like half of the total profit. That's want to trite,
and it's obviously like insanely like like three hundred percent
ur iers on. It's just so ridiculous. But yeah, yeah, No.
Speaker 3: This other thing that I wanted to get into in
relation to the lack of volume is you know, if
I if I put it really bluntly, just for the
sake of this conversation, is what's the point to keep
going once you've had a big score, because in a way,
you've you know, achieved and unlocked level completed. Let's advance
to whether it's you know, a sideways move or into
a different direction, because we all know variants is crazy.
So the variance of doing it multiple times, of course,
you know, the chances of flipping the coin and hitting
tails still remains fifty percent even the second and the
third time. But at the same point, the same time,
the the I guess risk of ruin or or at
least your future opportunity sort of doesn't really increase after
you've won. So have you ever looked at it like that,
Like maybe there's a point and time where I quote
unquote cash out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But I think the problem with that is, like
I was saying too, is like once you exit the
game and kind of step away from like the highest
level of poker, you're you're just you lose your validation
as a world class player. So those kind of side
those those streams of side.
Speaker 1: Income go away. Right.
Speaker 2: It's like, Okay, if you're you know, say a top
thirty player in the world or whatever, you can charge
a certain amount to coach people or run a coaching site,
or make a master class or start, yeah, start your
own coaching.
Speaker 1: Site or whatever.
Speaker 2: There's this level of credibility obviously, but like as soon
as you or as an ambassador, because as an ambassador,
like you're playing on the streams that like everybody's watching.
Speaker 1: It's a very important part of your.
Speaker 2: Value as an ambassador, as well as just being visible
in general. But as soon as you step away from that,
like that kind of goes away, right, Like that that
opportunity dries up. So that is a big part of it,
you know, and poker sites they like to make money.
They like to have people representing their brand, like to
make coaching content. It's it's it's great for the masses
in a way. So yeah, there is a sense of
like if you do go on this massive heater get
some kind of massive payday, it's like maybe I should
just step away, you know. But at the at the
end of the day, like we kind of talked about
at the start, was like for me like that because
that's another thing I've seen like a million times. I'm
on social media a lot nowadays because I'm.
Speaker 1: More active there.
Speaker 2: But like it's a very funny comment you constantly get
from like casual poker people. They're like, you just won
ten million dollars in two months, Like why do you
not retire and just go play? Like one case, I'm
just like like that sounds so fucking boring, you know
what I mean, Like like like I spent twenty years
working as hard as I can to become like a
world class poker player. Now I'm just supposed to be
all right, like got a bunch of money. Now I'm
just gonna like stop and just like what what might
I spend my time doing. I'm sure I have hobbies
and stuff, but like I love poker. I love being
like competing at like a truly world class level and
all the kind of benefits that brings. Like I was saying,
it's very satisfying as a person and also monetarily obviously
with coaching and other things. So yeah, there's I just
couldn't really picture myself just like stepping away honestly.
Speaker 3: Going through the years you've had in the game. Looking
at the numbers. One thing we have to keep in
mind is that the buyings have also increased over time.
So the average binds you put into a year is
crazy compared to let's say ten years ago. But it
is kind of interesting. Twenty eighteen you cash for a
million and a half. That was your first seven figure year.
Since then you've got at least seven figures every year,
but then twenty Just to name the numbers here, twenty
twenty was a million, then three point five, five point four,
five point five, nine point one, and then last year
twelve point one. I've seen some of your videos, by
the way, they're great. Checkout South Davi's YouTube channel, some
very good content on there, and you talk through the
insanity of the ups and downs and what goes on
behind the scenes.
Speaker 1: As far as you know.
Speaker 3: One Trident trip might go unnoticed to the general public,
but you're stuck three million exactly, so.
Speaker 1: A little high, but yeah, there's a lot. The numbers
are big. There are millions on the line.
Speaker 3: Shed some light on those super successful years from the
perspective of someone just googling your name and how those
actually ended up playing out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sou Poker tournaments are funny because whenever somebody's doing
very well, it's extremely visible.
Speaker 1: You know, it's very very clear that, like their name's.
Speaker 2: Everywhere, and as it should be, like there anythink, but
like when someone's not doing so well, you just kind
of forget about.
Speaker 1: Them, you know, and.
Speaker 2: That's natural, right. There's an extreme amount of variants. The
upswings are phenomenal, and the downswings are devastating. I mean,
what more to say about that, Like it's very easy
to just lose a few.
Speaker 1: Million very fast, you know.
Speaker 2: It's the stakes are so high, like you're saying, I
think my average buy in nowadays is around like fifty
to sixty thousand average, and you're talking about the highest
buy ins are generally the toughest tournament. So there's going
to be like the more devastating downswings. I would say,
it's a hard thing to go through.
Speaker 1: And that's like you know.
Speaker 2: One of the reasons why I think a lot of
the people have kind of enjoyed the stuff I've been
putting out because I kind of talk about that, like
my whole with this content I'm creating, I'm not signed
to be like I'm not trying.
Speaker 1: To be like look at me, I'm such a baller,
you know.
Speaker 2: I got like I'm well private jets and shit, That's
not what I'm trying to do at all.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to be like, hey, this is what this
actually looks like.
Speaker 2: Like I just went, uh three weeks and lost you know,
one point five million, two million.
Speaker 1: It's just devastating. This sucks. Like, here's me in my room.
I'm like sad.
Speaker 2: You know, it's not like it's not and that's real.
And that's what a lot of us are going through.
And you spend so much time again, this is an
elite competition. You spend months and months and months and years,
like throughout your whole career like preparing and just being
all in on being the best poker player you can.
Then you just go to Triton and you like totally
brick it and it's just like a crazy, crazy feeling.
And that's kind of what I'm trying to shed light
on that you know, as poker fans, this is something
that's not gonna be very obvious, but like one of
the most impressive things at least somebody who's doing it
is people that go through those massive downswings and they
stay in action. Like the best example I like to
think of is Christoph Vogel saying, who over the last year,
he's doing great last couple of years, but like he
went on a devastating downswing. I think it lasted for
like two or three years, just got absolutely crushed, was
running so about. And he's like an incredible poker player,
has been a high stakes winner since like twenty ten
cash games online, playing two hundred four hundred all these
tournaments over all the years, and he went through this
this devastating downswing and he stayed in action.
Speaker 1: And what does that mean.
Speaker 2: It means one, he's just like accumulated a bunch of
wealth himself through his own poker player. And two, even
though he was losing getting crushed, people still like believed
in him to swap with him to buy his action.
I don't know if he's ever selling, but like he
stayed in action. And eventually got out of that hole
and has been on this like great upswing over the
last couple of years, which is great to see. So like, yes,
it's very easy to see somebody going a megaheater and
be like, wow, what a great player, But like the
real test is like getting crushed for multiple years and
still staying in the game.
Speaker 1: Like that's a great player.
Speaker 2: And I hope people like who see this or hear this,
like take this to heart, because like that's the real
show of like this guy's a fucking elite poker players.
He just lost you know, five million in two years
or whatever, six million, and he's still playing. People still
believe in him, So like that's a real test of
a great player.
Speaker 3: What's the deepest and darkest moment that you've been through
in your high roller career and perhaps give color to
it in the sense that you know, you remember, you know,
walking to your hotel room, we're calling your wife, or
or you know, maybe sitting down behind the computer to
go over some spreadsheets. Do you recall that moment and
please sort of describe that to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So, really early in my career, there was Trenton, London,
which I believe was twenty nineteen. It was the one
where they had the million dollars buy in, and it
was I was still pretty new to the high roller
senior in general. I mean, I guess a couple of
years in. I think the first time I was playing
real high stakes was twenty eighteen. I think this London
was twenty nineteen. It was definitely before COVID And I
remember like going into this main event and this was
one hundred k main event and it was pounds, and
I ended up firing four bullets into this main event
in about an hour, like just four hundred k pounds
just shredded in like an hour. And you know, this
was before I had like much success at these stakes,
Like I had success in like five k's, ten k's
and main events before this. But like I remember just
going back to my room and just being like I
don't think I belong here, you know what I mean?
And I don't know, like those tournaments were good, and
like I definitely wasn't nearly as good as the player
I am today. Back then, I think I was good
enough to at least, you know, like make a small profit,
especially in those tournaments. But like until it happens for
you until you you know, like have good scores, like
put together a great year, put together a great upswing.
You get caught in your own head. It's just like
do I have what it takes to win? You know?
Speaker 1: And once we're.
Speaker 2: Small edges here, so like the way you actually end
up with profit in the long run is like picking
up you know, just small pots that people wouldn't necessarily
pick up through like a live read, or just having
like very solid fundamentals in general and not leaking win
rates other players. But like when you have a huge
heater or a huge downswing, like that's not what causes it,
you know, Like when I won ten million in six weeks,
like I was winning flips, I was getting dealt big hands.
I was, I mean, I was playing fine, But like
the mega ups and downs, they don't come from you
out playing somebody every hand or getting outplayed every hand.
It's it's you know, the variants of poker, That's what
it is. And in the long run, the small pots
you pick up and the small decisions you make along
the way add up to your to your win rate.
And back then, you know, before I had experienced like
the great run, it was just like like it was
just kind of deer in the headlights, you know, And
and it was just like.
Speaker 3: Was it a time where you had to make actual
adjustments to you know, how big the pieces were you
wanted to take sell more action. Was there sort of
a down shift happening.
Speaker 2: No, I've always been pretty conservative with with bankroll management
and generally done things on a trip by trip basis,
So like in the middle of the trip, I'm knocking
to be like, oh shit, I gotta I gotta, I
gotta reset here and like and sell more or whatever.
It's always like, okay, I know, even if this trip
goes as bad as possible, I'll be okay and we'll
reassess at the end.
Speaker 1: Of the trip. And that's that's, you know, what's happened.
Speaker 2: Like I've talked about before where I've had trit and
trips where I would it was like ten percent of
my net worth and it just like oh shit. But
like never had to like pull the rip cord in
the middle in the middle of the trip or anything.
And that's that's much more of like the London trip
I was talking about. It's much more of like a
do I belong here type of feeling rather than like,
oh shit, I just lost all my money. You know,
I've never been in a situation where I was like
at risk of going broke.
Speaker 1: It was much more.
Speaker 2: Psychological and just like sitting in the room, like should
I go get a job?
Speaker 1: Like I don't know, you know, It's just it was rough.
Speaker 3: Is is high stakes tournaments? I guess being a high
six storm professional? Is it basically just as simple as
you're constantly preparing for the heater.
Speaker 2: I think it's actually that's actually a bad idea, honestly,
because if you are preparing for, like basically things to
be going really well for you, because what happens to
some people, like winners tilt is a real thing, right,
like winners till this absolutely real thing where somebody wins
the tournament, then the next tournament they're just like super
reckless with a bluff that wouldn't usually make or whatever.
So like, I think it would be a much better
idea as a for your focus in preparation, be like,
all right, how am I going to prepare for when
I'm down a million and this is really fucking hard
and I can't win a pot, you know.
Speaker 1: But I think in the end, the preparation is mostly.
Speaker 2: Just fundamentals, Like poker fundamentals are super real, and I
know people think they're boring, but which is also complete
nonsense by the way, which is very funny because like
people are like, oh, like GTO style players, it's just
boring and tight and it's just not at all like
it's people who say that are just like just don't
really know what they're talking about, don't have experience with it.
Like like people who train a lot with like GTO
trainers or whatever, like go get on like GTO Wizard
or GTO lab or anything and play against the G
two bot.
Speaker 1: It's like the.
Speaker 2: Most savage like bluffer, Like they just always have bluffs,
always have crazy bluffs. That's extremely like entertaining just to
watch a robot play poker, and that's like what you know,
a GTO style, very fundamental player is trying to emulate.
So that's always something that kind of tilts me. It's like, Okay,
you watch a stream like high stakes poker or whatever,
somebody three bets queen three off suit.
Speaker 1: They like bet once and give up.
Speaker 2: If you don't have anything where it's like you watch
like a great player, it's like, okay, they three bet
they have six five suited, but then they bet three
times for like five hundred big blinds on the river
as a stone bluff with six high where you like,
like that's cool entertaining poker to me. So like, yeah,
fundamentals is the big thing then, and there is a
lot of kind of exploited at play, like much more.
Speaker 1: Than people think.
Speaker 2: Uh, in high stakes tournaments, there's tons and tons of
live reads, timing tells, exploitive adjustments to everything. So that's
you know, the other big part of the thing is
like just being really tuned into the streams what everybody's
up to and all that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, is there such a thing as the Seth Davies's
Book of Tells where you keep track of your opponents
because you guys play the same groom over and over
again and the entire group has so much exposure through
live streams and you know even even like broadcast episodes
that you actually are generating tons of study material.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Yeah, I mean I keep a massive spreadsheet of
everybody I play against. But there's as that's something that
I've really like evolved in and I think everybody who's
really good at this will tell you, is that like
every single tell has context, and it's like, Okay, the
way this guy is playing against me is not the
same he's going to play against the next guy, even
though even if we're like pretty similar players, you know,
because like it's this big web of different opinions on
other people, right, and like based on the context of
that person playing against whoever else is in the hand,
like they're going to behave differently, whether it's physically or
just like in their betting patterns or whatever.
Speaker 1: So it's a very easy.
Speaker 2: Trap to fall in and be like, oh, this guy,
you know, kind of lean forward when he had a
big hand or something. But it's like there's context to
every single thing, and and it's like live like live
reads and exploitive poker in general. It's just the biggest
art form ever. It's not scientific. It's very much artistic
and everything is completely unique. And yeah, like I'll keep
a spreadsheet and think of things generally. Like more so,
like something I would put in a spreadsheet that would
be useful would be like, Okay, this guy's like very
aggressive in multi way pots, Like something that I think
will be just like a baseline of his like general strategy,
or maybe it's something some kind of exploit he's developed
over lots of online play. I know a lot of
online primarily online players. They like to do database work
and kind of exploit population tendencies much more than live
players do because our playerpool is different. So so yeah,
it's it's something I you know, there is a ton
of study fodder in that way, but it's something you
have to be very careful with to not be like
dogmatic about it and think like, Okay, this guy always
blessed too much. It's like every single opportunity to bluff
has tons and tons of contacts and you.
Speaker 1: Need to pay attention to all of that.
Speaker 2: So's that's the most important part with like exploited play
for sure.
Speaker 3: Are you ever still surprised or enlightened by something you
see or experience yourself at the table because so much
is being studied and the exploits of course, are you know,
like an art form, Like you said, I'm just curious
whether it all always makes sense or if you're still
left scratching your head either positively or negatively. By the
by the peers, I'm not talking about VIP players, but
by the peers, how do you look at that?
Speaker 2: No, absolutely and that's like one of the coolest parts
of tournaments in po and poker in general is like
the game is so incredibly massive that even after playing
full time for nearly twenty years now, like I'm constantly
put into situations I've never been in before. You know,
like there's just simply so so many different things going
to happen.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: You hear the thing about like a deck of card shuffle,
there's like more combinations than atoms in the universe or whatever.
So like there's so many runouts, so many different things.
So and now you talk about tournaments where it's like, okay,
I have tournament pressures where bubbles coming up, final tables
coming up, paye jumps this, like there's a vip in
the field. So this like personal behave differently. So yeah,
constantly seeing things that are stimulating be like ah, man,
like I see who's doing that.
Speaker 1: That's pretty damn cool, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: So yeah, that's that's like one of the great things
about playing very high stakes tournaments too, is you're constantly
watching the best players play, so like there's constantly something
to be learned.
Speaker 3: You know, there are certain players that, at least from
my perspective of the sidelines sort of do stuff a
little different, or at least that's my perception. So please
correct me on that, because of course I'm not. I'm
not getting five out by these guys. But just if
you name a few names and you perhaps if you
have an anecdote or an example of why there might
be difference, just please jump in. But I see names
like Brin Kenny, Adrian Matteo's further down the list fade
or especially back in the day when he was when
he was really coming up, those are the first sort
of that come to minds that to my to my view,
seem a little different. Are those perhaps names to stick
out that are sort of unconventional.
Speaker 2: I mean Adrian, Adrian's name on that list sticks out.
I don't think he's an unconventional player. He's just like
an incredible player. He's fantastic, fundamentally, fantastic, Exploitatively.
Speaker 1: I think those other two.
Speaker 2: That you mentioned, Brendan fad Or are much more exploitative
based and less interested in being like very great fundamentally
well and like for for a number of reasons. That's
not that's not for me bashing on them or anything.
I think both of those guys are Brennan, Fador are
like well passed there, Like I care a lot about
being a great poker player stage like they still play
a lot. But like fad Or and like what was
the twenty sixteen or whatever, like that guy was all
in on being like an incredible poker player, and he was,
you know, he's he still is an incredible poker player.
But I think he even he would tell you he's
like got a lot more other things going on in
his life. He doesn't want to spend the time and
effort to try to be as best as he can.
I think Britain's the same way, whereas Adrian is so
focused all the time, like the perennial like superstar poker
player who's just always locked in, always prepared, always giving
it one hundred percent, and uh yeah, he's like truly
truly one of the best.
Speaker 3: How are the guys that are unconventional and I'll probably
have to take this outside of the high roller sphere,
how are they able to still be successful? And I'll
give a few names here too for the viewers as well.
Michael was Rocky just won his ninth pricelet when's the
main in the fifty K last year. Someone like Cheina Reim,
for all his ups and downs, is still able to
do it. And it's also very outspoken about the fact
that he's never studied a day in his life.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I can probably name a dozen more examples. What is
it that those guys have X factor wise that you
might look at and say to yourself, there is something
in their game that I could learn from.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2: I mean, poker talent is a real thing, you know,
Like it's I constantly preach about like fundamentals and being
strong fundamentally, but like, I know a lot of people
who are very like kind of book smart at poker,
but they do not perform very well because like their
actual in game talent is is.
Speaker 1: Is kind of lacking.
Speaker 2: And you know, the guys I'm not gonna say any names,
but like there are plenty of guys who've kind of
tried to knock on the door at high stakes and
they've kind of failed. And this is exactly why I think,
and that's the difference between the guys who stick around
a guy like Adrian or Jason Kuhn, Stevie Chidwick, all
these guys who like they're incredible fundamentally, but they also
have incredible poker talent too. So a guy like Chino
or Miss Rocky or whatever, like, they have great poker
talent in a way where like one, they're just good
like good hand readers, and that comes from both just
like playing a lot and live reads like like timing
tales or whatever at hand whatever it may be. They're
just quite talented at like, you know, just determining what
a guy has, and that will get you pretty far.
But like when you start playing against very great players
that have balanced ranges and are not getting time tales,
that's where those guys really struggle, right, And that's fine,
you know, like they don't need to come play two
hundred k's at trite and like they don't you know,
it's not what they're trying to do here. Those guys
are are yeah, are quite good at you know, being
just like locked into what people are up to, which
is what poker talent is as well. And like hand
reading is great. But like fundamentally, when you don't get
that information from like the very best players, it doesn't
go well for them.
Speaker 3: If a prop bet was proposed to you for an
amount of money that is significant to you would you
absolutely demolish the five K and lower buyings a WSP.
Speaker 2: I think, so, yeah, yeah, I mean I have no
interest in doing something like that. I mean, the biggest
thing about prop bets like that is like, Okay, if
I'm going to make a bet like this, it's probably
going to be against somebody I don't really like, because
I wouldn't I wouldn't try to like be crushing my
friends for a bunch of money.
Speaker 1: And I don't really like dealing with people I don't like.
Speaker 2: So like if somebody's like, all right, let's bet a
million dollars, you know, who can like win the most
money in five ks or something, It's like, Okay, it's
like I don't want to deal with somebody that I
don't like, and also the risk of them like not
paying or anything, so like, yeah, I mean it would
be worthwhile.
Speaker 1: I think.
Speaker 2: I think there's almost nobody in the world who I
would not take on and a bet like that, But
like the logistics of an actual bet, like it's never
gonna happen, But in.
Speaker 3: A hypothetical sense, it's fun to sort of, I guess
brainstorm on because it gives you a sense or it
gives you an opportunity to paint a picture of what
the actual sort of skill level differences between what you're
accustomed to playing against versus what everyone else plays against, right.
Speaker 1: And actually, like this is this is I'm glad you
brought this up because.
Speaker 2: I actually had a conversation with my my buddy Marco Johnson,
good old roommate of mine.
Speaker 1: He's doing mixed game player.
Speaker 2: As like I don't know, seven bracelets or something, but
we had to talk about this yesterday. I saw him
at the gym and we were talking about because he
won a brace in the twenty five hundred a couple
of weeks ago, and we were talking about that tournament
and like, and we were talking about how to play,
Like he was saying, like how I would play, Like
I'd play completely different in that than a one hundred k,
Like we talked about like gto and fundamental poker, like
that just completely goes out the window when I'm playing
in a twenty five hundred, Like, yeah, sure, I'll generally
like kind of have like solid opening ranges and stuff,
but there are like a lot of situations and I
see this, I've actually employed this strategy just preflop which
is pretty interesting in a number of those like if
you have somebody on your table who's playing like eighty
percent of hands, which you get like not super often
but kind of often. Like playing just like a two
point five x open and fold strategy is like not
a very good idea, right, so you play like a
limp and like a four x open strategy. I was
actually doing this in the win ten K, so yeah,
like that's completely opposite of like poker fundamentals, Like I
had a spot where like I folded King's pre flop.
I would never ever do that in one hundred k
against the real players. So it's just like the whole
like gto goes out the window. And again I'm not
saying that people who play these steaks should not study
that type of thing, because you know, there are tons
and tons of professionals in the field, obviously, and you
need to be able to beat them and hang with
them if you want to make the most money, and
especially if you want to move up in stakes. But
like at the end of the day, again, I was
talking to another buddy of mine and he said he
plays like six hundred dollar tournaments and whatever, and he's like,
do you have any tips for me, And I was like,
whenever somebody shows weakness, doesn't matter where your cards are,
just completely smash them. Like if they have an opportunity
to bet the flop and they don't bet the flop,
and like the turn is a turn that doesn't like
hit their range. Doesn't matter where your cars are, just
like bet gigantic and if they call, then go all
in the river, Like your cars are completely irrelevant. Whereas
like at high stakes or gto land, that's not exactly
that's not how you want to play at all, right,
Like if the board's like jack six, five, ten, and
they check back the flop and the turn comes to
ten and you just have like King Dews just like
one hundred and fifty percent pot and then all in
on the river, you know, because they're like they're not
gonna The difference is like at high stakes, someone's gonna
have say like ten nine there, and they're gonna call
you for all their whole stack, where like you know
it's just massive bet, massive bet, they're gonna call you down,
like because they believe you're bluffing. But like the fallacy
at lower stakes is that like I will not go
broke without a great hand, so they've gotten themselves into
a situation where they never have a great hand. So
you just like go get all in by the river.
We're going to call you right. So it's like that's
like how you explore that, Like that's like classic population
exploit at lower steaks. So like again going back to this,
if I wanted to play low stakes for a bunch,
like I would not at all, Like people would if
they didn't know who I was, they'd be like, oh,
this guy's like a hood poker player, you know, because
he's just not playing like gto at all.
Speaker 3: You know, why is it so compelling to almost play
within the constraints of theory versus the artistic nature and
and you know creative availability of those lower stakes because
there's still lots of money to be wanted lower stakes.
You can also you know, play one hundred percent for
yourself because it almost seems to me like you're more
drawn to the science of it than the art.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I think the misconception is that the
constraints of science are tight and simple, and and that's
like one of the like people that are true experts
at hold them, they'll they get this and they don't.
But like so like people think the constraints are like Okay,
if I bet, I need to have a hand or
a draw, like I need to have something. But there
are constantly especially in like tournament sack sizes where sacks
get shorter, where you're constantly like taking complete nothing and
like going nuts with it. If, for example, take like
a button versus big blind three bet pot at like
forty big blinds, where the big blind's three bet range
will be very good hands in very weekends. Uh, it's
an extremely insane thing to like train and like try
to excute because you just have like King five offsuits,
so like you're not gonna make a draw with King
five offsuit, but you also have good hands that you
want to like bet, bet and get all in or whatever.
So like you have to take these very non intuitive
types of hands. And this is where the best players
really shine, right is like consensus is of all the
like GTOs boring and it's constrained to like, Okay, you
only bet when you have a good hand or something.
Speaker 1: It's just like not true at all.
Speaker 3: No, No, I didn't mean it in that sense. I meant
it in the sense that your line of thinking is
so different. You just mentioned, you know, the win ten
k where or four x. That is not a decision
that you have to make when you play in one
hundred k, right, and then in one hundred K. The constraint,
I guess is the fact that you have to you
have to reach back to to what you know, what
you've studied, as opposed to having to be sort of
outside the book creative on the fly.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, I see what you're saying. Yeah,
and that's cool and everything. But the thing that's not
stimulating about that, Like it's cool to come up with
kind of unconventional strategies, but the thing that's not necessarily
so great about it is that, like when you have
a lower sticks tournament where your win rate is going
to be much higher, the players are going to.
Speaker 1: Be much more explainable. It's kind of simple, you know
what I mean.
Speaker 2: It's like it's like the example I said, if anybody checks,
they show weakness, you just smash them and take the pot.
Like it's it's a pretty simple thing to do. The
limp in four X example is a little bit more
complicated and cool and kind of fun to execute, But
in general, it's like, Okay, I think this guy's never bluffing,
so I'm gonna fold every time, or I think this
guy's never gonna call me down, so I'm gonna bluff
every time, Whereas at high stakes it's much more complicated.
It's like, Okay, this is a guy who is very
capable of, you know, protecting himself in certain ways or
being aggressive in proper ways. So it's much more stimulating
to try to find the chink in his armor there
rather than just like, Okay, this guy's never gonna call
me down. I'm just bet bad all in So it's
it is cool to kind of get out of the
box and execute strategies like that, But in the end,
lower stakes players are much much more predictable, especially in
either direction. Like the main event is always a cool
opportunity because you get people who they'll never call you
down or you should never call them, and then you
get plenty of people that you should call them every
single time where they're like very aggressive. So what people
are up to is a bit more obvious at lower stakes,
and that's just completely not true at high stakes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, are poker fans, and I would say large majority
are poker fans unable to truly appreciate what it is
that they're watching when they're watching these eight to ten
hour high roller streams. And if so, what what can
you or you you guys as a community do, or
what can the viewers do to to like, you know,
better appreciate what it is they're seeing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good that's a good question. I think
the answer is both yes and no. I think what
people can appreciate who don't have super deep poker knowledge
is like when a big play happens, it's it's pretty
obviously like what this guy is try to accomplish. It's like, okay,
say somebody goes all in for two x spot and
they have seven high. It's like, oh, this is a
sweet bluff, and you know this is how he got there.
But what the thing that's hard to appreciate is that
as on an elite level, what poker or hold them specifically,
but poker in general, it's like it's a the strategy
as a whole needs to make sense. So an example
of this is like when somebody like checks back a
really good hand when they could bet, Like the casual
poker fan might just be like, like why didn't he bet,
Like he's got to set, Like why did he check?
Like he had an opportunity to bet, And the idea
there is is like I need to check this hand sometimes,
so like because it's hard for a h like someone
without very deep pok knowledge to be like, okay, like
if I bet all my good hands here, the problem
is not that, Like the problem is not in this
current situation, right, Like it's fine to bet all your
good hands. The problem lies in when I decide not
to bet. Is if all my hands that are good
go in a betting range with then when I check,
I just have nothing and I'm very exploitable. And that's
like what great players are good at is like like
that's like I just talked about in the lower stakes
where people won't check back good hands even though they're
supposed to it. Sometimes so people will constantly see or
not constantly, but sometimes see very high stakes players and
criticize them, be like what is this guy doing. He's
checking a great hand, Like they're like he's got to bet,
like he's got to try to build a pot, But
like what he's actually doing is he's managing the entire
strategy of like all these different lines and all these
different outcomes that hand can take. And that's that's the
thing that's very hard to appreciate, even for like mid
tier professionals, I think, because even as a mid tier professional,
you can win at poker without like being good at
that at all or really having much depth of knowledge
of that, where it's like at high stakes you just can't.
You know, the kind of mid tier professional poker players
they're all quite good at, like knowing which hands they're
supposed to bet, which hands they're supposed to semi bluff
with or bluff the river with, knowing like have some
rudimentary knowledge of how blockers are supposed to work. But
at high stakes, it's like, Okay, what am I doing
with my range? What hands do I need in this range?
The checking range, the betting range, the raising range, the
calling range. It's managing the entire possibility as a strategy
as a whole.
Speaker 3: I know you're good friends with Jason Kuhn, and I
am fortunate enough to you know, consider him a friend
and talk to him every now and then when we
come across each other, and I won't speak for him
or sort of you know, frame it the way that
he did. But what I found interesting about a recent
conversation I had with him is how he pointed out
certain players and I won't him any names, that he
just said, like, those people are just different. They are
just have a different type of view on things, and
they are able to do things that might be ahead
of the game in a way. Do you experience that too,
and and do you talk to Jason about how to
combat that? And and then the final question, is Jason
on your list of those people?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Jason's on that list of those people. He's fantastic
at that. And you know one of the guys, like
I will, I will name and name please, Ben Tolerant.
Speaker 1: Ben Tolerant. And this is kind of a great example.
Speaker 2: Of why elite poker players play this way, Like Ben
is fantastic at doing exactly what I just said about
managing all the different lines, like knowing which hands they
have in a checking range in this and this, And
what happens when you play against guys like this is like,
regardless of what has happened, you end up on like
the turner river and like they spring like a raise
on you or something and you're just like, oh shit,
Like it just feels like they're like one step ahead you,
and they kind of are right because like he's he's
managed his range in a way where okay, now he
has something behind that he can actually do this, and
all a sudden raise four hundre percent pot and you're
just like, oh, what the hell? And and Jason's definitely
one of those guys, and those two are close friends.
I'm close friends with both of them, and and yeah,
that's what it feels like, is you feel like you
feel like you're constantly like stepping in a trap, you
know what I mean, Like if if you're talking about
again kind of more simple poker strategy where it's like okay,
bet bet bet what do I call his bluff with?
Or maybe I'm the aggressor okay, bet bet bet what
do I bluff with? Whereas against the guy like Ben
or Jason, it's like, okay, the flop, point, check check,
maybe a small bet on the turn, Okay, I checked
to the river and now he bets and then.
Speaker 1: Oh he raises for him, It's like what the hell?
Speaker 2: Like, you know, this guy has has like sprung this
like slow play on me. But it's not just but
their strategy is not like, oh, I'm gonna trick them
here by like checking. It's like, okay, I need this
type of strong hand in this range for these reasons,
and it always feels like he stepped in it, you
know what I mean, And it makes them extremely difficult
to play against.
Speaker 3: Where did they or where have they obtained that edge
or that line of thinking or is that like you
know how certain people are just smarter and they have
another level of creativity and what do you do to
close that gap?
Speaker 2: I mean, that's that's all about solver study. It's like
all these things are learned through solvers. It comes back
to poker talent and way and this is another version
of poker talent. Whereas like these guys for many many
years they've understand this is how the game works. This
is how you have to be successful, is to manage
the game in this way. Rather than just like looking
at a solve and saying like okay, ace queen, yeah,
bets here, It's like it's not okay, what bets here?
It's like, all right, what sneaky hands do I need
to like protect my range with and things like this.
So the way you close the gap is just by
you know, studying amount yourself. You know, it's the depth
of knowledge in this game is so so deep and
the ceiling is infinite that it's there's just an unlimited
amount of things to learn and study.
Speaker 3: The old days, so the old ways to get good
was to talk with friends, you know, shout out to
like Skype and like MSN Messenger back in the day.
Oh yeah, and aim was probably on there too, and
of course uh toopless two forms talking through hand histories,
very simple to the point what would you do here?
What would you do there? I was part of that generation.
What does what does talking strategy look like? These days?
When you talk with your your brightest friends, how do
those conversations go?
Speaker 2: It's still quite similar. I mean nowadays we have like
the external thing about the solvers as well, but like
even with like when you use solvers or any type
of software to get better, like a bad way to
do it is like okay, I played this hand running
all okay I did okay, sure, Like that's not like
gonna make you. It's something worth doing, but it's not
what's going to make you better. Because in a poker
hand there are a million different things you can think about,
especially if you're like well versed and have done a
lot of work. There's just a million different things you
can focus on. So by talking hands with your friends,
you get kind of different perspective on what they find
important in this hand. And that might be like a
solver mechanic, it might be a live thing, it might
be a tournament thing where it's like, okay, half the
people pay at this point. So like constantly running hands
by your friends, it's still very much, very similar to
back then. And again, like I was saying, like so
much of the like quality poker strategy is not necessarily solvable.
It's an art form more than it is a science.
So yes, like you have your solvers to kind of
guide you in the right way, but your friends are
going to tell you what they think is important in
the hand, and that kind of recalibrates you to be like, oh, well,
like maybe that's something that didn't really run across my
mind in this situation, you.
Speaker 3: Know, speaking of art and solvers, palamon Omaha has taken
up a huge portion of the interest of high stakes players.
Padam and Omaha never really was that game, and that
has really evolved quickly. The fields are massive in these
high buying tournaments, but the game is far more complex
if you're trying to solve absolutely How do you think
that will continue to grow? And how is it possible
that there was an inflection point where that game took
off even though it's been around for a very long time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I think PLO took off.
Speaker 2: Largely because it's never been easier to be very good
at no limit no one to hold them. So you
have just like tons and tons and tons of very
strong no limit players, and unfortunately, like a lot of
them like are pretty boring to play with. You know, like,
if you play like a twenty five hundred, it's pretty
likely you're going to have somebody at your table who's
like way too slow and kind of annoying, and it's
like it's it's kind of unfortunately has kind of killed
the game, even though that person just trying to play great.
And I love that people are trying to play great
and working hard to be good. But at the same time,
you do get a lot of kind of frustrating players.
So I get that, and so one the games have
just gotten tougher too, They've gotten a little bit more
annoying to play in a lot of senses. So I
think PLO is kind of the the like you said,
it's more artistic, it's it's more enjoyable, especially because it's
a looser it's a very loose game, especially the way
all the tournaments play with the big blind anny now,
which is great, by the way. So so yeah, I
think it's cool that it's happened and pretty natural because
it kind of fills those gaps that used to be
there in No.
Speaker 1: Limit, the kind of no longer are you know.
Speaker 2: Like in No Limit used to be able to be
like total hood poker player, like win and stuff, but nowadays,
when the fields just get tougher and tougher and tougher
every year, it's that this doesn't really work anymore. And
PLO does tend to be more kind of jovial atmosphere,
people like having a little bit more fun. But PLO's
like I've gotten much more serious about PLO over the
last couple of years, like largely because of what you
said about how it's taking off as a tournament game.
And it is such a good poker game, you know,
like you have so many different combinations pre flop, right,
there's like what two hundred and twenty thousand or whatever
compared to in hold them, it's like a couple hundred.
So whenever you play a PLO hamm, all your cards
matter in a way because like say you have.
Speaker 1: Ace king on a ace king.
Speaker 2: Seven board, like your two side cards are so important
about how you should proceed.
Speaker 1: Whether you should bet or we should check back or whatever.
Speaker 2: So it's like this constant logic puzzle, whereas hold them
is it's still a logic puzzle in a way, but
it's like, Okay, you only have a s king, you
don't have the two side cards, so what do you do?
You check it seventy percent of the times, you bet
it thirty percent of time. It's much more kind of
computery in that sense where it's much more frequency managed,
whereas PLO is like, Okay, I have these four cards,
these are the cards on the board. There's an answer here,
like I need to try to figure out what the
answer is, and it's much less about like okay, I
need to check thirty percent of the time. It's just
like doesn't really work that way. So it's it's super
super fun, super stimulating.
Speaker 3: Would you advise ambitious poker players to just, you know,
say farewell to hold them and focus on pot limit. Omaha.
Speaker 2: I mean in a perfect world, yes, but if you're
an ambitious poker player, you should play what games are
available to you. So if there's a good PLO game
somewhere on you like you kind of haven't made, you know,
like play that PLO game, have a great time, get
good at probably have a massive win rate. But for
I think a lot of people, the best plan, at
least like coming up if you're kind of trying to
establish yourself is generally going to be like playing online.
And sure, you can play PLO online, but there's also
a bunch of great tournaments online and and like I'm
talking about PLO, but like tournament no Limit is awesome too,
Like I've just had so much experience with it, Like
PLO is kind of new to me, so I'm really
enjoying it. But like, no, the tournaments are incredible and
there's they're never going to go away. PLO is a
little bit more fragile. Maybe your country or region wherever
you're from might not have as much PLO going on,
whereas like virtually anywhere in the world you can play
online no limit tournaments and like make a good living.
So so yeah, I mean, I don't think you can
go too wrong there ideally, Like I think PLO would
be the way to go. I think the ceiling is
a bit higher, especially of access to like high stakes
cash games. But you know, either one, you're in a
good space, good spot.
Speaker 3: The cash games you bring up always intrigued me because
there was a time where cash games were in a
way a little similar to tournaments, to where you just
show up right, you get on the list, you get
in the game, there's no game, try to start a
game whatever. That era that has died out completely, that
doesn't exist anymore. Yeah, you cannot get into a big
game without either knowing someone or having some sort of
involvement in organizing or what have you. How do you
look at that and then sort of secondary to that,
have you ever tried to make that switch and pivot
because the value just seems unlimited.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I've never got involved much at all in
the private cash game scene. There's a couple of reasons why.
Like one, I was just like very established along the
tournament path for a very long time. You know, even
back very early in my career. I went full time
as a pro in twenty ten, I played online tournaments
for a living and that's never changed. There was one
stretch of time and I think it was twenty fourteen
where I played online cash games professionally for about but
other than that, it's pretty much all been tournaments for me.
The thing that you know, I absolutely love about tournaments
is you buy in and if you win or cash,
you go the cage, they give you your money. That's not
necessarily how it works in private cash games. There's a
bunch of credit, there's a bunch of getting stiffed, there's
a bunch of like politicking, like you know, who's who's.
Speaker 1: Vouching for who? You know, like where are we playing this?
Speaker 2: You know, there's all this like kind of external stuff
that just sounds very annoying to me.
Speaker 1: And again like the.
Speaker 2: You get rewarded for that, you know, the upside is fantastic.
You end up playing like a big cash game with
you know, two pros and six VIPs. It's an incredible
way to make a lot of money. But again going
back to what I said earlier, it's like that that
just doesn't really like sound very stimulating to me. And
I like to I like to be work hard, to
be great at things, whether it's poker or like I
like fitness, like tennis, Like I like doing these things.
But like, if you're kind of living this private game lifestyle,
it's like, all right, we'll play from five pm to
four am.
Speaker 1: We're gonna get drunk all night.
Speaker 2: It's like, well, we're gonna do this three times a week.
And sure like people like that. I'm not like bashing them.
It's just that's not for me, you know. I like,
I like waking up early, I like going to the gym,
and like hanging out with my family.
Speaker 1: I don't like drinking all that much.
Speaker 2: But I think there's two buckets of people who what
do they want out of poker? And I think tournaments
attract both VIPs and professionals in general, attract a lot
more of the people who like the competitive aspect of it.
They're like, oh, I'm going to study, try to be
a little better, you know, whether I'm a hobbyist or
a professional. And then cash games is like, oh, you know,
let's drink some wine and gamble, you know, do some flips,
double board, bomb pots. Like It's it's much more of
like a fun thing for them, And that's just not
like what I'm here for. And if that means I'm
gonna make a lot less.
Speaker 1: Money, so be it.
Speaker 2: You know, I get I get to enjoy working hard
and getting the competitive aspect of it.
Speaker 3: How is it possible that being a professional since twenty ten,
we're now sitting here in twenty twenty six, and you
speak with the same amount of drive and passion about
this that has obviously brought you a lot of good.
But at the same time, no matter what the career is,
whether it's in business or if in pro sports, whatever
the case may be, there always seems to be a
pivot point or someone changing lanes. How have you carried
this passion for so long?
Speaker 2: Well, it has not stayed the same for sure. Like
I remember back in twenty ten, when I was a
new pro, I could sit on the computer play sit
and gos and low stakes tournaments twelve hours a day
every day, never get tired. It was just like heaven,
you know, it was just like I would There's nowhere
else I would rather be. I can't do that anymore,
you know. I like to play it, but like even WSP,
like I don't have it in me to come in
here and play twenty straight days and a lot of
these guys do, which is incredible, and I envy them
for that for sure, Like I definitely need my time off.
But the thing like that always keeps me excited about
poker is and it might sound boring to some people,
but like I truly love to like study and learn
about poker. Like even it's like it's really really fun
to learn things about poker, and like I said, there's
just an endless amount of things to learn, so like,
and it's constantly in flux.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: It's like the games, even high stakes games, like the
way they're playing will definitely change, like six months to
six months, like whether it's new players coming in or
whether it's like certain players are on a heater or
like going downhill, and like certain like groups are kind
of like doing well or not. Like the games will
kind of shift and flow in a way, so like
you're constantly kind of adjusting to how how you approach
these games. So it's just like it's just like this
never ending stream of just like stuff to stay on
top of, which is motivating and fun, you know. And
I'm not I'm not gonna lie and say that, like
I'm as motivated as when I was twenty three. The
I mean, the whole thing is just way different now.
A lot of it is obligations to other people as
well as like obligations to like my family. It's like
I need to make money for my family too, right,
whereas back then it's.
Speaker 1: Just like I love to play. Let's play all the time,
all the time.
Speaker 3: You know, how do you see the landscape evolve? Because
I've heard you on different podcasts talk about how the
sort of the super high role ecosystem can be super
fragile you mentioned earlier. If the VP doesn't show up
and fire ten bullets, then your trip is all of
a sudden, very bleak.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And if if you know, and credit to them Richard
Jong and Paul Fua who organized Tried or who are
also very involved in playing those events, if they decide
to one day they're tired of poker, then that ecosystem
changes to How do you look at the future of
that sort of top tier segment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's extremely hard to predict, you know, And
fortunately I think those guys, I don't think their love
for poker's going anywhere for a while. But you're right,
like maybe maybe it will like who knows, And I
think Triton is pretty self sustainable at this point. So
again that like it just belongs to those guys, so
they could pull the plug if they wanted to. But
like even if I could, I could envision a situation
where those guys might be, like, I don't want to
play for a while, But like Trenton still kind of
carries on, maybe not in as good of a like
iteration as it is now or has been, And that's
you know, one of the reasons why you really have
to stay on your toes. And like I was saying,
the kind of side income that comes with being this
type of player is something you really need to take
advantage of because like everything else might be gone tomorrow,
you know what I mean, Like it like might be
over and I have to be you know, I have to,
Like it's some kind of punishment, but like maybe next
year Treitent's gone and I have to play every single
wsop tournament and like that's how that's how I need
to continue on. So yeah, it's it's it's all about,
you know, creating opportunity for yourself in as many ways
as possible, and fortunately for us, like poker tournaments in
some sense will be available forever. Maybe that means taking
a big pay cut and playing lower stakes or whatever
it means. But but yeah, it is kind of anxiety
and do things like eighty percent of my buy in
could be gone.
Speaker 1: Tomorrow if they just decide they don't want to do
it anymore. So, yeah, a.
Speaker 3: Few more things before I let you go. It has
been super interesting to talk to you about this stuff.
There have been various different iterations of the high roll
or landscape, right, so people come and go. There was
an era of the Germans, and there was an era
where certain American groups were more prominent. And when you
look at the Ulti money lists, it's very apparent that
some guys aren't around as much anymore, and they have
already won all their millions. How do you look at
your position within sort of the legacy of the super
high role or ecosystem. Just to put the numbers on it,
forty five million earnings or eighteenth on the Ulti Money list.
You're among the absolute best and the most successful of
all time. But do you also feel like you belong there?
Speaker 2: I think I do, And the main reason I do
is because my close group is a group of guys
who they've been doing this for a very long time,
you know, whether it's Jason, whether it's been Tolerant, or
whether a number of other guys. They have been professionals,
heigh stakes professionals for fifteen plus years, and getting to
feel like one of those, Like I'm kind of the
I'm the young buck in my in my group for sure.
And I mean it's crazy because like I've been playing
high stakes for nearly ten years now, but those guys
have been around longer than that. And you know, like
I was saying before, it's like you have had these
guys throughout the history of high stakes tournaments who like
they come for a couple of years, like maybe do
well at the start and then they go away, or
maybe they do well and leave, you know, like maybe
they come and go, but you see a lot of
these kind of flashes in the pan and virtually or
everybody I work with, study with, swap with, and friends with,
like they're all ten plus years career guys.
Speaker 1: So getting to feel as a.
Speaker 2: Part of that group, I feel pretty confident in like
my position here, and yeah, I don't see it any
ending anytimes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you mentioned this side opportunities that come from having
the profile of being being among the best, playing among
the best. Try to try quantifying that, because this is
not something that people often hear about. How does like,
how does coaching at that at that super high level work,
Because you know, I could ask you to coach me,
and I'm you know, I'm whatever decent, but I probably
won't get much out of what I can get from
you versus someone who probably costs a tenth of what
you would charge. And then alongside of that, the ambassadorship.
Players are often vocal about the fact that you know,
we put up our own money, this is our own risk.
No one is paying us to be here. But from
the way you say it, it sounds as though it
is a little bit more lucrative then we might see,
like we might see it as.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean with the ambassadorship thing, I think like
at least everybody that I know who's involved with things
like that, like they treat that income as totally separate
from from like their poker bankrell or whatever, so like,
and I think that is the good way to do it.
Like you kind of you hear this a lot with
professional athletes. Again, I'm not comparing us to professional athletes,
but the thing kind of holds the same idea kind
of holds true. Where like professional athletes, it's pretty common
for them to be like, Okay, I have my contract
for playing on the field, I put that here with
one financial manager maybe what are one account, and then
I have all my endorsement deals. And I treat these
as two entirely separate entities. And that's like a very
good way for them to manage. Like, you know, maybe
I get cut and I lose all this money, and
like this h endorsement money is in this other bucket basically.
And that's people how I think most people, as the
ones I know I deal with, you know, poker ambassadorships,
It's like, okay, this is and and the two like
natures of the two streams of income are entirely opposite, right,
And it's one of the reasons why these sight incomes
are great. It is like, if you're an ambassador or
a coach, it's like you're getting paid a salary basically, right.
For the most part, some people have like you know,
affiliate codes or whatever, so it's generally stable income, whereas
MTT poker income, it's the exact opposite. It's just completely unstable.
You might get three years worth of income in a
month and then none for the next three years.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: It's it's so it's very polarized in the sense of
how the money comes in. So I think that's the
way to keep it separate. And then the good thing
about being you know, very lead poker player who has
coming up the ranks, like I know how to beat
every stake, you know, like I started playing one dollar tournaments,
I started playing ten cent twenty cent, and I won
in that, and I build up by a bankroll one dollar,
two dollars whatever, all the way up, so like I
understand what it takes to win at each stakes. And
I also understand like how to coach very strong players.
So I've coached like plenty of players who are you know,
nearly I would call them elite, but very strong professionals.
And I've coached a lot of guys who just play
in like all VIP games too, that are very high
stakes that you know, the coaching is much more rudimentary,
I think as far as value per dollar. You know,
if somebody's playing softer games, like yeah, like go with
a cheaper coach, but the value is there for for
kind of all stakes, and like I was saying, kind
of when I play lower, it's, uh, this strategy is
just kind of simpler, you know. It's it's it's you know,
your exploits are going to be much easier to kind
of describe and and and come about where it's like, Okay,
if I'm coaching a guy who plays you know, average
buying of ten K, we're gonna talk a lot about
depth in depth strategy and like getting his rangees crisp
and all that. So, yeah, that's that's kind of how
it goes there.
Speaker 3: What is a what is a super high row or coach?
From on of me?
Speaker 1: These days?
Speaker 2: If you're a pro, like you're probably gonna be looking
at anywhere from like five hundred and one kN hour. Yeah,
it depends, Like well, no, that's I'll just say that. Yeah,
Like like certain things, like I say, it depends because
like I've had times in the past where it's like
I've had somebody approach me and say like, hey, I'm
playing a two thousand and four thousand cash game all weekend,
Like I need you to come coach me for like
three hours today and they'll just pay you like fucking
eight k or whatever. So like that's where it's like
like obviously kind of like out of control rate. But
like if you're coul do anything kind of like structured
on the say package like anywhere from five hundred to
one kN hour.
Speaker 3: So then do you then build specific plans for the
player in their situation or is there a a SETH
Davies sort of handbook where players sort of are sort
of asked to like this is the study material and
just the way that it used to be in high school.
We have a curriculum and we're going to move through that.
Speaker 2: Honestly, I think the best way to learn, especially if
you're dealing with somebody who's already a very strong professional,
like is organically like let's record you playing an online session.
Let's go over every hand that comes up, and then
you'll go on like very good tangents.
Speaker 1: And this is how I make most of my training videos.
Speaker 2: I have make training videos for run at Once, and so,
like the curriculum idea, it is good, and I think
that like generally people should do that with like master
classes or yeah that basically master classes, people will be like, Okay,
we're going to talk about ic M play.
Speaker 1: As a chip leader.
Speaker 2: These are all these spots, but I think like as
far as one on one coaching goes, the best way
to get better is to just show a recorded session
or if you're playing live, like a bunch of written
down hands, and let that drive you into some kind
of broader topic that's more fundamental that you can like
kind of dig into. And that's how I study myself
as well as like I reviewed a session I played
and like, oh, this is something interesting. I'm going to
test this, you know. Like let's say you're like, oh,
I play four handed at a final table, the cutoff opens,
I'm in the button.
Speaker 1: And I like went all into it. Is this two
week of a hand to go on whereever.
Speaker 2: And it's like you see like the way A Salvers
says to play and you're like, oh, that's interesting, and
like what if I change the button stack from twenty
big lines to fifty big lines? Like, now, how does
it change? What if I change my stack by it?
Like so you just take this real situation that you
were reviewing and end up testing it in a bunch
of different ways. Researching it in a bunch of different ways.
Speaker 1: I think that's the most productive way to like coach
people and learn yourself.
Speaker 3: Let's say a winning, a winning low stakes cash game
player who plays live watches this and they have a
good ROI, but they simply don't have the money to
move up or you know, their their overhead is to
the point where they're doing good, but you know they're
not getting rich. Would you coaching them be able to
unlock something to where they can progress forward?
Speaker 2: I think so, And I mean the biggest or not
the biggest thing, but one of the biggest things about
like somebody, Like in my situation, it's like I've made
a bunch of mistakes along the way, whether it's tournament uh.
Speaker 1: Game selection study.
Speaker 2: Like one of the one of the main problems, Like
one of the main mistakes I made early in my
career was when I tried to make more money, I
tried to just play more volume. I didn't focus enough
on getting better. So that's like something I can tell
somebody right now, that's a very obvious one. But it's
like I was stuck for a couple of years, not
necessarily stuck, but like that's that's that wasn't the proper mindset.
If I wanted to you know, eventually get rich and
like make ten times as much money. So yeah, I
think like the experience of just coming from nothing, you know,
like I didn't Mike. My dad was a truck driver,
my mom was a dental hygienis, you know, like we
lived month to month. I never had a rich family,
never had rich relatives. Everything I made was for myself.
Uh So, like I've gone through this entire trajectory of
having no money, coming from no money to like reaching
like near the top of poker or whatever.
Speaker 1: And uh I think.
Speaker 2: There's just like a wealth of experience in that, both
in poker strategy and in like self management, you know.
So I think there's a lot of value in that
for sure.
Speaker 3: Final question, what has poker and the experience of reaching
the top and staying at the top taught you about
life that someone watching this can take away from and
apply to their life as they are probably not a
poker player, but they could learn from from what you've
been through.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good question.
Speaker 2: And two things really stick out to me, and they're
both extremely valuable. And one is nobody really cares about you.
And I don't mean that in the negative way, Like
you know, everybody, you know, like everyone's heartless. What I
mean is like when you're on a downswing in poker,
it's very easy to be like the oh woe is me,
like like all this pity, like all this self pity,
and it is just completely unproductive, Like it does absolutely
nothing for you. Like even like your closest friends that
like acknowledge that you're on a crazy down swing, like yeah,
that sucks, man, Like I really feel for and you're like,
let's work together and try to grind it out. But
like like you got to dig yourself out, you know,
like nobody's gonna save you. Like self pity is just
like the ultimate handicap, Like it's just going to destroy you.
There's absolutely no reason to fall into that. And it's
you know, it's obviously we all have some amount of
self pity when things aren't going wrong, but like if
you can get great at dealing with that and being like, Okay,
I'm not gonna sit there and complain. I'm not going
to be like this negative Oh oh I'm so broke
guy like that type of shit, Like that's if you
can master that, like you're incredible, then the second thing,
and it's like kind of similar, but like poker teaches
you that, like I was saying before, you can spend
months working extremely hard preparing for like one of these
tritons or whatever, spending like so much time and effort
to like perform well and be good, and it just
completely not go your way. And that is dealing with
that and building the experience and the resilience that that
will teach you is just like such a valuable life
lesson because that's just gonna happen over and over and
over and over with you, you know, whether it's with
your relationships or anything. You know, like things you're really
gonna want and you've worked really really hard for they're
not going to go the way you want them to,
and being able to say, like, you know what, all right,
took my lumps, I'm gonna get back up. We're gonna
keep going, like and poker's just fantastic at teaching you
that because you know, there's variant, there's so much variance
in play, you could play absolutely perfect and just get wrecked.
Speaker 1: So I think those are two really really important lessons.
Speaker 3: All right, Seth Davis, thanks for being on the show.
Follow this Man on YouTube. Seth Davies one, two, three.
He's got five thousand subscribers. He'd better have like ten
thousands at the end of the summer. That'd be great, great,
awesome content. Thank you again. I appreciate you joining, happy
to be here for the people watching. Please subscribe to
the video. Like the video, leave a comment, and make
a suggestion to the comments on which guests you would
like to see. No names are off limits because Seth
has all the phone numbers, so I'll probably get them on.
Speaker 1: The show they are. Thanks for a lot. Tiger Woods
all text tiger Woods.
Speaker 3: I'm only new to that.