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