The stakes are so hot. Average buy in nowadays is around like fifty to sixty thousand. It's very easy to just lose a few million very fast. 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? You know, as far as like my total earn as a poker player, it's not as. Big as it used to be. 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. But you know, I still take it really seriously. It's close to home. 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. But yeah, so I'm loving it, glad to be here. 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? 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. 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? 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. Or whatever, you know, like it's just so profitable. 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. 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. 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. So being able to have that you know, kind of various distribution is really nice. 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. Like how do you do this for a living? Especially with taxes? It's just like not even possible, and like, yeah, it kind of is because mostly because of like site income. 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. 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. 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. 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. Income go away. Right. 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. Site or whatever. 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. It's a very important part of your. 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. More active there. 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. 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. As far as you know. One Trident trip might go unnoticed to the general public, but you're stuck three million exactly, so. A little high, but yeah, there's a lot. The numbers are big. There are millions on the line. 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. Yeah, sou Poker tournaments are funny because whenever somebody's doing very well, it's extremely visible. You know, it's very very clear that, like their name's. Everywhere, and as it should be, like there anythink, but like when someone's not doing so well, you just kind of forget about. Them, you know, and. 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. Million very fast, you know. 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. And that's like you know. 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. To be like look at me, I'm such a baller, you know. I got like I'm well private jets and shit, That's not what I'm trying to do at all. I'm trying to be like, hey, this is what this actually looks like. Like I just went, uh three weeks and lost you know, one point five million, two million. It's just devastating. This sucks. Like, here's me in my room. I'm like sad. 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. And what does that mean. 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. Like that's a great player. 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. 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. 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? And once we're. 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. 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. 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. Of the trip. And that's that's, you know, what's happened. 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. It was much more. Psychological and just like sitting in the room, like should I go get a job? Like I don't know, you know, It's just it was rough. 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. 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. But I think in the end, the preparation is mostly. 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. It's like the. 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. They like bet once and give up. 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. Than people think. 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. 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. 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. So it's a very easy. 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. Need to pay attention to all of that. So's that's the most important part with like exploited play for sure. 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? 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. You know. 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. That's pretty damn cool, you know what I mean. 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. 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. 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. I think those other two. 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. 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. Yeah. 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. Yeah, yeah, definitely. 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. Is kind of lacking. 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. 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. 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. And I don't really like dealing with people I don't like. 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. I think. 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. 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. And actually, like this is this is I'm glad you brought this up because. I actually had a conversation with my my buddy Marco Johnson, good old roommate of mine. He's doing mixed game player. 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. 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. 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. It's just like not true at all. 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. 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. Be much more explainable. It's kind of simple, you know what I mean. 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. 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. 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. 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? Yeah? 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. Ben Tolerant. And this is kind of a great example. 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. Oh he raises for him, It's like what the hell? 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. 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? 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. 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? 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. 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. Yeah, So I think PLO took off. 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. Limit, the kind of no longer are you know. 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. Ace king on a ace king. Seven board, like your two side cards are so important about how you should proceed. Whether you should bet or we should check back or whatever. 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. Would you advise ambitious poker players to just, you know, say farewell to hold them and focus on pot limit. Omaha. 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. 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. 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. Vouching for who? You know, like where are we playing this? You know, there's all this like kind of external stuff that just sounds very annoying to me. And again like the. 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. We're gonna get drunk all night. 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. I don't like drinking all that much. 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. Money, so be it. You know, I get I get to enjoy working hard and getting the competitive aspect of it. 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? 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. You know. 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. Just like I love to play. Let's play all the time, all the time. 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. Yeah. 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. 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. Tomorrow if they just decide they don't want to do it anymore. So, yeah, a. 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? 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. So getting to feel as a. Part of that group, I feel pretty confident in like my position here, and yeah, I don't see it any ending anytimes. 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. 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. You know. 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. What is a what is a super high row or coach? From on of me? These days? 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. 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. 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. And this is how I make most of my training videos. 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. As a chip leader. 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. And I like went all into it. Is this two week of a hand to go on whereever. 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. I think that's the most productive way to like coach people and learn yourself. 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? 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. Game selection study. 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. And uh I think. 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. 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. Yeah, that's a good question. 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. So I think those are two really really important lessons. 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. The show they are. Thanks for a lot. Tiger Woods all text tiger Woods. I'm only new to that.