00:00:15 Speaker 1: Pushkin, Hey, risky business listeners. 00:00:28 Speaker 2: As you listen this episode, we're probably still recovering from New Year's Eve or in a crowded airport somewhere. So today we're bringing you one of our favorite interviews in twenty twenty five to help bring in twenty twenty six. 00:00:40 Speaker 3: Yeah, and this is an interview with one of our favorite poker players and favorite people in the poker world. Please enjoy. Today on the show, we have a very special guest, Vanessa Seltst. Vanessa and I first met when we were both Poker Stars Team pros. I was just starting out playing poker and Vanessa was just getting the hell out of there. And Vanessa remains one of the most impressive people I have ever met in or out of poker. Yale Undergrad, Yale Law School. Only female poker player ever to have reached number one on the GPI that's Global Poker Index rankings overall, so both men and women like just number one, period, but only female to have ever done that. Over eleven million in earnings, three World Series of Poker bracelets, and then left it all behind, left that glamorous life behind to join Bridgewater Associates and go into the Hedge Fund World, after which she went to Jane Street Capital, which is where we find her today. Welcome to the show, Vanessa. 00:01:56 Speaker 4: Thanks Maria, thank you for that intro. Definitely more than I deserve, but I appreciate it nonetheless. 00:02:04 Speaker 3: And Nate, how long have you known Vanessa? 00:02:07 Speaker 2: I think I knew her kind of about the time, maybe when she quit. Maybe I reached out and I'm like, oh, you know, if you've kind of left poke for other things. I know, since it was stupid cold email, I think we wound up becoming friends and we have a lot in common, and so I'm a huge admirer of Vanessa as well. 00:02:22 Speaker 5: That's not right at all, Nate. 00:02:23 Speaker 4: We met at a really awkward well, my wife was joking, was like a really awkward date. 00:02:29 Speaker 5: You don't remember this, And at Aussie Millions and like. 00:02:31 Speaker 2: Oh millions, okay, when are we. 00:02:34 Speaker 4: Twelve or twenty fourteen? I don't even know what year it was, but like I don't know. The people at Austin Millions were like, Nate Silver wants to meet you. I was like, oh, I want to meet him, and then we went on like like at dinner. But it was just like super awkward and funny, but like, it was a good time. 00:02:49 Speaker 2: I super. 00:02:53 Speaker 4: And then, uh so that was when we first hung out, but then we didn't really start hanging out till a few years later, so I just didn't know. That was a very special one of my awkwardest states that I've ever had, so I guess it was more meaningfully awkward to me, but that's okay, it was it was a good time. 00:03:08 Speaker 3: So I actually I remember the first time I met you was in Monte Carlo. It was my first ever Poker Stars stop and it was my first ever major, kind of major tournament period. I knew, you know, I had known nothing about poker, and kind of there I was, and Eric Sidell introduced us. Eric Sidell, obviously you know who he is, and listeners of the show, no, he is, you know, one of the greatest players of all time, became my coach and he was like, I want you to meet Vanessa Selts. She's really really impressive. And I was like, I don't want to meet Vanessa. She's scarce me. 00:03:45 Speaker 5: Yeah, that's funny. 00:03:47 Speaker 3: And then and then we met and at first I was like, I don't think she likes me, and Eric's like, no, no, she likes you, and then we became friends and I realized that you were actually pretty amazing. 00:03:56 Speaker 4: Well thanks, Yeah, it was great, great to meet the beginning of a great friendship. You know, it is funny that you say that, because there is this thing where there's this like, you know, not to get to like whatever serious about kind of a lighthearted anecdote, and it's like, there really is this thing where you're on TV and you're or you're just playing poker in general, not even on TV, where you know, you're like you have your game face, you're like in the zone, and I get really intense when I'm playing and I'm like really concentrating, and I'm also often like playing pretty aggressive. So there's this like weird like crossover between your poker style and your personality, right, and so I can come across it's like really intense, and I get really intense sometimes, like I'm really in the moment, and I think sometimes it would just be like really intense and people will be like, oh my god, who is this person? 00:04:42 Speaker 2: But you're you're very self I mean you're very self possessed. And I never want to make assumptions about someone's inner confidence level versus how they project outwardly? But did you feel like it was an advantage to be on TV? 00:04:58 Speaker 5: Oh? 00:04:59 Speaker 4: Like, was it an advantage that I got to be on TV playing poker? 00:05:02 Speaker 5: Like? Absolutely? 00:05:04 Speaker 2: Do you feel I guess do you feel like you played better on TV? Relative? You know, maybe everyone plays worse because there's more external factors to deal with. But did you like if you are told I'm at whatever day of the World Series main event, right you're at the future table? Is are you happy about that or not? 00:05:22 Speaker 5: Oh? 00:05:22 Speaker 4: Man, that's a complicated question. That's a good Question's a complicated question because I didn't actually like the. 00:05:27 Speaker 5: Act of like being on TV. 00:05:29 Speaker 4: If you will it just like I definitely added advantage over my competitors that are random World Series tournament where I've been on that stage a million times and they haven't, and I'm gonna make better decisions and stuff. But I just didn't like it on like a visceral level. But being on TV was actually a huge advantage for me. I kind of like utilized that. Basically. What I mean to say is like I got a reputation the first time I was ever on TV. 00:05:51 Speaker 5: I made this like really. 00:05:53 Speaker 4: Crazy bluff I four bet all in with you with two five suited. It was a thing that happens now occasionally is still considered a reckless play, but at the time it was two thousand and six and no one had ever seen anyone do that or like had any idea, you know what I mean. You re raised with like pocket aces, maybe as king if you were feeling like fluffy, you know at the time. And so when that happened, I got this reputation as being like the craziest person in the world, you know, in poker. 00:06:18 Speaker 3: And by the way, you managed to run into aces in that hand. 00:06:21 Speaker 4: I did manage to run to aces, and I don't know if that was a coincidence. Having just explained that most people at three bet usually had aces, So the point just being like it was this crazy play, and everybody kind of took notice, you know, They're like, I don't look like your typical poker player. It wasn't playing like your typical poker player, Like who is this person? And I think that stuck out in people's mind so much that I just instantly got this reputation for being this like crazy, crazy player, to the point where I would play games and I you know, I would end up in like a thousand big blind pots, meaning for the average viewer, were meaning pods that were like way bigger than your average pot, like just a giant, giant, giant pot. And I would like go all in on the river, and I would get called by like Ace High, and You're just like, how do I end up in a situation where there's like a thousand big blinds in the middle and I'm being called by A And so, anyway to get back to the original point of what I was saying, like I was just as crazy player. 00:07:14 Speaker 5: I was never gonna shake that image. 00:07:16 Speaker 4: And so it's honestly part of what led me to retire from poker, because it was pretty boring. I like really just couldn't bluff nearly as much as your average person. Like every story was like so I knew they had third pair, so I just gave up, or like, you know, or I decided I was either gonna put in you know, my entire stack or give up. And so what I ended up doing was realizing I was like, Okay, I literally I get the most action of any player ever, so I just have to play tight. This is the most profitable strategy by far. So whenever I went on TV. If there was ever a close decision between like making aggressive action like bluff or rays or just like folder call, I always took the aggressive action. And sometimes even when it wasn't a close decision, you know, like when I, you know, five bet shove with Jackson Suitor whoever. I wasn't trying to light money on fire, but it was this really weird real thing where it was like I would give up a little bit of equity or a lot of equity sometimes to just kind of maintain this crazy image because you know, and I can say this now because I don't play poker anymore, but it was like a decade of me just like playing I would say, I mean, postlop I was pretty aggressive, but like preflop I was probably tighter than like ninety percent of the table honestly, because I couldn't never shake that image anyway. So I was just like, let me use these last like TV time as a way to kind of keep up my reputation, and people just believe what they see on. 00:08:33 Speaker 5: TV, and that was just the most profitable way to play. 00:08:36 Speaker 3: Yeah, So I think you're raising a really interesting point, which is that you know, when you're talking about you know, we we love poker on this show, not just because we all play poker, but because it's such a great way of looking at decision making. And I think you you're raising a really important point, which is that no decision is made in a vacuum. 00:08:53 Speaker 5: Right. 00:08:53 Speaker 3: I have a very different reputation from yours, but you know, I've been a bounty in big events and I hate it because you can't bluff, right. It's kind of the same thing. 00:09:02 Speaker 2: Funny thing. We're like, we'll talk up. So you've said, I think a couple of times, Maria, we're like, okay, when you make a big shove or a big bet on the river and an opponent tanks, and if you're not a poker fan, that means they're waiting, you know, at least half a minute to several minutes to make a decision. Right. In my experience, when they tank against me, they fold two thirds of the time, right, And you said it's the opposite for me. 00:09:25 Speaker 3: They call right for me. The longer they tank, the more I'm like, okay, motherfucker, just call already, right, like, you know, just stop, take me out of my misery hand. And it is, you know, it is so incredibly. You know, there's I think that's one of the interesting things about poker, and I'm curious, you know how it how you see it both in poker and outside of poker, kind of that added layer to it, right, that there is it's not just the math, right, that every single risk assessment, every single decision is so dependent on the player, on the situation, on the dynamics, on all of those things. The math is there, right, the math, The math matters. But but but there's so much more going on. 00:10:05 Speaker 5: One hundred percent. 00:10:05 Speaker 4: And I think your point about like the longer it takes that being the key point of vergence is like a really a really great perception because I think that is like we have all these kind of emotional biases, and you know, like if you usually your brain is kind of leading the charge for the first like beginning of your decision making, right, and then eventually it's like the emotional the monkey brain or whatever it takes over. And that's what I used to say about, you know, to go back to that story about how people would call me with these crazy, crazy hands, and it's like there were hands where the only way to correct call if I'm like bluffing with a part of my range, Like we're in spots, you're supposed to bluff like fifteen percent. They would have to have assumed I was bluffing like eighty percent to make the call. And it's like, Okay, you see a person who's had like very good poker results. Could I be like the one point oh one percent luckiest person and just a terrible poker player. I guess it's possible, although like from a Baysian perspective, like probably, like if the other priors that like you're wrong about my range, like probably that's be a stronger prior, but like hey, never mind, So you know, people would make these calls where I'm like, Okay, the only way that this call could be correct is if I'm just a terrible player and getting lucky all the time. Like there's no way that I could be a successful player and be bluffing the frequency that it needs to be. But it didn't matter, Like it was just like I've seen you on TV. I call you know what I mean, or like I'm not going to be bluffed by you. I'm not going to be bullied by you. And it's truly incredible because if you really just thought about it from a logical decision making, like rational perspective, it would just be an absurd way to play against anyone. 00:11:44 Speaker 2: So I'm curious. So you think when people take longer to make a decision that they get more emotional because people would say, well, I'm going through all the all the different combinations and thinking through things carefully. You think that like actually kind of like. 00:11:56 Speaker 3: I think mostly there, yeah, a few people are thinking through the combinations. 00:12:01 Speaker 5: But even if you're thinking. 00:12:02 Speaker 4: Through the combinations, I think, like, even in a really complicated way, it takes you like max thirty seconds to get like ninety percent of the way there. Like, I just think that time is allowing so much more emotional stuff to creep in that it's just like the ratio of like math to emotion is just like definitely going down over time. 00:12:21 Speaker 3: Totally agree. 00:12:22 Speaker 2: If you so you were kind of playing in the era before solvers became quite so ubiquitous, if. 00:12:29 Speaker 3: I don't think they existed at the beginning when. 00:12:30 Speaker 5: I've literally never used a solver before. 00:12:32 Speaker 2: So, and a solver, if you're not aware at home, is a product that literally solves the Nash equilibrium for a poker. 00:12:40 Speaker 3: Literally since it doesn't actually exist. 00:12:42 Speaker 2: But yes, wait, what do you mean? Well, there's because you abrium Truther. 00:12:46 Speaker 3: No, but because poker is an unsolved game, it approximates a solution. 00:12:50 Speaker 5: But that's true, it does break down. 00:12:53 Speaker 4: It's wow, wow, sorry, that is true technically. Actually, you know, I feel like when you need that means literally Truther. 00:13:02 Speaker 2: So yeah, would you how would you play differently today? Do you think you'd try to be more quote unquote GTO driven or even or less so or this or the same? 00:13:13 Speaker 5: That's a great question. 00:13:14 Speaker 4: And so my goal is just to make the most money, right, It's not to like play in a way that makes Jane Street look more like a reasonable place and not make crazy bluffs. Right. So okay, just under that premise, I would say, I think I mean so in my career, I'm a trader, like poker player, trader whatever it is, Like you think about where does your edge come from? And it's certainly for me not in playing GTO better than anybody else at this point, Like I've literally never used to solver, I've never studied it. I'm also very unpracticed from the game, and so I don't even remember like what the lines I'm supposed to take in various spots. Are like I used to come close enough to what the solvers would say if I had used them. 00:13:56 Speaker 5: It was actually like pretty cool. 00:13:58 Speaker 4: I would ask my friends, and I'd be like, I kind of got there, you know, just from understanding the theoretical underpinnings of the game. And I'm pretty far from that because I really play maybe once or twice a year at this point for the last most decades, so you know, I don't have to play less GGO. My strategy back then was to put people, you know, people that were trying to play gto that I thought were just kind of like memorizing and like there was there's this class of poker players that was like successful because they were good at memorizing things and not not that great at thinking through things. And so I was like, Okay, let me sacrifice a little bit of EV on an early part of the hand in order to get them into a spot they're very unused to, uncomfortable with, and just outreason them in a spot where the pot is much bigger. And I would just do that repeatedly, and kind of through doing that, I would you know, kind of figure out where the population where most players were making the most mistakes, and you know, and so I think I would just do that, but even more because I think my edge there is probably still similar to what it is now. You know, it would take me a while. I probably wouldn't be winning at first doing that, because I think part of the reason that was such a successful strategy for me was like I would just see the same thing over and over. I would be like, you know, I don't know, not to make it too pokery, but I'd be like, oh, I check the turn in a spot that no one would and then I would like raise small and then you know whatever, like some weird line that no one dates. But I would take it a lot, And so I would see how people would react over and over again. But I think, like whenever you're making any decision, and I think this applies to trading way even more than poker, it's just like thinking through really really carefully, like where does your edge come from? Where does my edge not come from? Where am I getting out played? And so that would have to be the answers. 00:15:40 Speaker 2: No, I would much rather play against like a gto perfect player than like Vanessa. 00:15:48 Speaker 3: I think it's such a smart strategy both in poke around in life, to put people in parts of the game tree where they're not as familiar, right, get them out of their comfort zone. And I've been on the receiving end of that when I was just starting out. There are some people who are very exploitive players. I still remember a hand I played against someone, you know, Vanessa Joe Chong, and he defended the blinds. I was the pre flop raiser. He checked, I bet, and then he led the turn and I was already planning to bet that turn. I was. It was a perfect barrel cart, and he led it. I was like, what the hell are you? 00:16:22 Speaker 5: What are you doing? 00:16:23 Speaker 3: And it really I messed up. I ended up busting the tournament on that hand. 00:16:28 Speaker 4: And he's probably done that a bunch of times, and now he kind of understands how people in their first time reacting to that react and you know, the mistakes wind up being way bigger. 00:16:37 Speaker 3: Yeah, so he's making. 00:16:38 Speaker 5: A conscious decision. 00:16:38 Speaker 4: You know. 00:16:39 Speaker 5: It's really interesting. 00:16:40 Speaker 4: One thing I have heard that Once again, I don't know anything about this, so if i'm I might be speaking on my ass, But I think you can like do things like node lock. So if you make some assumptions about you know, the way or player will react in a certain spot. You can like, you know, that's different than GTO. I think you can node luck and then you can like kind of go back and say, okay, like conditional on them reacting a certain way, what is my GTO play and like that's what GGO is about. It's not or that's what like just I guess solid strategy and anything is. It's not like supposed to be this rigid thing. It's supposed to be a way to say, okay, conditional on these assumptions I'm making about the world, what is the best course of action? The problem is that gdo pure GTO. The assumption that it's relying on is that everybody else is going to play perfectly. And then if you condition on different assumptions, it's going to tell you like different things. 00:17:30 Speaker 5: And so that's pretty cool. 00:17:35 Speaker 3: And we'll be back right after this. You have a unique background for people who went into the world of poker, and I mean, I think something that unites a lot of what you've done is kind of the competitive edge to it, the love of games. But you went to undergrad you studied political science, right, and then you played poker after that, but then even though you were ridiculously successful, you didn't go pro. You went to law school. And only then after law school did you did you go into professional poker. Can you talk us through that and how kind of how that thinking went and kind of what what the strand, whether the strand that I have picked out, kind of the competition and kind of the game aspect of it is correct or not? You know, how did that all work out? 00:18:33 Speaker 5: It's not that deep for me. 00:18:35 Speaker 4: It was mostly me trying to convince myself I'm not a degenerate, when in fact I am a degenerate. So yeah, that was I mean, honestly, it was a lot of like, oh, this isn't actually what I'm doing for a career, right, Like that's not a real career, and so it was much more like a hobby. And honestly, it kind of always was a hobby for me. 00:18:55 Speaker 3: When did you start playing? 00:18:57 Speaker 4: And like, well, I mean I started playing in high school, like when we watched rounders. Oh, my friends and I love to play. Yeah, old school and so yeah, my friends and I used to play in like the lunch room. But but I started getting more serious at Yale there was a like a game where like a bunch of people were like getting pretty serious about the game. And I discovered two plus two and I started going to Foxwits every week, and you know, so the story goes and then so I played for a few years and it was okay. But then I don't know, I just like thought, I don't know, you know, like you're from like an upper middle class Jewish background. You're like, you know, you're taught like education, blah blah blah, like I'd done well in school. I thought that was kind of just like the path. I thought this was just kind of like a fun sidetrack thing for me. And so yeah, I took all my money offline when I went to law school, and I was like, I'm not not doing this. I'm not gonna like fall into playing pograming nor my studies. This is like a great opportunity. That's what I always wanted to do. 00:19:52 Speaker 3: And you'd always wanted to be a lawyer. 00:19:55 Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I thought I did. 00:19:57 Speaker 4: I mean that, you know, there's like, you know, you don't know what careers actually are available to when you're younger, but. 00:20:02 Speaker 2: It's kind of done that they make you pick when you're young. 00:20:04 Speaker 4: Yeah, I know, but uh yeah, so I had no idea, so thought I wanted to be a layer, and I just ended up falling back into poker because I just ran like hotter than the sun. In law school, Like there were these four tournaments that I played, like two there was one tournament fox that it's in one tournament Mohigan both years, and I played some like it was like you know, a three K, a three k there was a main event or and I just like won three of them and got third in. 00:20:32 Speaker 5: The other one. It was like, yeah, it was really dumb. 00:20:36 Speaker 4: It was, I mean, part of it was probably like I was not being in my own head anymore about like I was still not far enough from a move poker that was still pretty good at it. 00:20:42 Speaker 5: Everybody else was terrible at. 00:20:43 Speaker 4: That time, and I was just like feeling it, you know what I mean, I didn't care. I was just playing my game and stuff. So I obviously I was also running hotter than the sun, and so I kind of just fell back into it at that point. 00:20:54 Speaker 2: Have you seen twenty one, which is a movie adaptation to bring down the House? Right, They like fly back from like Vegas with like tens of thousands of dollars in their pockets, right, and they have to like go to their fucking like Monday morning classes where you feel like I am cooler and or smarter than these people. 00:21:11 Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean not cooler or smarter. That definitely was smarter, was definitely not up there. 00:21:15 Speaker 5: But I was like. 00:21:16 Speaker 4: Definitely, like, honestly, I would better, you know what I mean. I felt like on top of the world for sure. It was always really fun. 00:21:22 Speaker 2: So how long were you kind of doing the whole poker tournament live world travel scene and like just because like not many people do that, right, And yeah, I'm interested in you because you're not somebody I think if you, you know, you have a lot of attitude Panessa at a lot of a lot of things. Yeah, so you might not always find your way into this. But like, what's it like for someone like you, young, openly gay, very bright, has you know, is interested in politics in the world. What's it like kind of being on the poker scene for a few years, the kind of grindiness of it or the glamour of it. 00:21:53 Speaker 4: Yeah, honestly, I like never really felt like a poker pro. And I know that's weird to say, to answer your question, I played. I would say it was like close as close to full time as I ever was from twenty eleven to twenty seventeen. So that was kind of like the main part of my poker career when I was mostly not doing other things, although I still dabbled, dabbled in law because I think I was still always trying to convince myself that I wasn't really a poker player or something. 00:22:22 Speaker 5: But yeah, because honestly, it was hard. 00:22:25 Speaker 4: It was, like I think, it can be really fun, you know, you you know like it it's you know, you're playing poker. It's the ultimate lifestyle. You're seeing the world. I mean, I don't want to dumplay like it was. It was really great and it was really fun. You're you're seeing the world, you know, traveling from country to country or whatever. You get to play a game pretty much all day every day if you want to. If you wake up and you don't feel like going to work, you don't go to work like you you know, you're in ultimate control of everything, and at the end of the day it's really fun. You're meeting really interesting people from all over the world. I did find it hard. I guess to kind of stay informed and stay kind of doing things that felt like meaningful. I think a lot of poker players struggle with that, like finding meeting Like when you're just playing a card game all the time, it's like kind of what is the point of this? You know, When I was doing law, my goal was to be a civil rights attorney, but I just you know, my brain is built in a certain way, and I tried being a lawyer, but it was horribly inefficient and just like I just couldn't do it, Like it just felt really slow and not like fun. And I think poker and trading is the thing that gets me really excited in terms of the strategy, Like you're constantly making strategic decisions like every second of the day. So for me, it was just sort of like an evolution of my understanding of self that I that I knew this is what like made me happy, and then what do I have to do to make meaning for myself in the world. And so being in the poker world, it was just like hard to kind of be more well rounded, like have interests in different places. It was like, you know, when you're traveling, there's this weird disoriented thing of like being your physical environment kind of dictates like what you're thinking about or what you're focusing on. And so for me, it's like, now I have a boring routine. I have kids, I wake up, I like have my boring commute. I like go to the office, you know. 00:24:09 Speaker 5: I mean like I just kind of like understand what life is. 00:24:12 Speaker 2: If you have a big trade on, do you enjoy the sweat of that? 00:24:16 Speaker 3: What he's asking is, are you still a djen Vanessa? 00:24:19 Speaker 5: Am I still a DGEN? Yeah? 00:24:21 Speaker 4: No, for sure, I'm still a DGEN, much more so than anybody else. I'm like, for sure, I like to, you know, sweat the outcome of trades and stuff. But you're you know, but but much less than poker than I. You know, it's not like the most DGEN exciting stuff. 00:24:34 Speaker 2: Okay, so you're playing poker. I can imagine a very very particular skills set. I don't know if I want to stereot type people. I can imagine a very particular type person has like poor social skills and it's very undisciplined, right for whom like poker is a maximizing amount of money, But for for ninety seven percent of good players, then you can probably make more money doing something else if you still want to be a DJ, and then you can go work for Hedge fund or something. But like, I mean, when you shots fired, how did you get into this industry? 00:25:07 Speaker 1: That? 00:25:07 Speaker 2: Because I mean you you you quit and literally the New York Times wrote about you. That's pretty cool. Yeah, did you find Bridgewater or they found you or or you found them through friends or how did this relationship come about? 00:25:20 Speaker 5: Yeah? 00:25:21 Speaker 4: It was just Galen, like Galen Hall, another really successful poker player. Like, I didn't know anything about finance. I kind of thought of it as like you know, the Wolf of Wall Street kind of situation, you know. 00:25:33 Speaker 5: So Galen was working at. 00:25:35 Speaker 4: Bridgewater and he was like, oh yeah, this place like they'll higher you. They have a really good the kind of like education program. And so I was just thrilled that I had heard about finance and like kind of how it was similar to poker. And my mom actually had been an options trader when an avid poker player. 00:25:48 Speaker 3: That's amazing. 00:25:49 Speaker 5: What year was that? 00:25:51 Speaker 3: How did that happen? 00:25:54 Speaker 5: Yeah? 00:25:54 Speaker 4: She played poker like basically to put herself through college, which I guess was in like seventy three or seventy two and then was an option trader like in the nineties. Yeah, on the American stocky strain. 00:26:09 Speaker 5: It's pretty crazy. The only woman I think. 00:26:12 Speaker 3: I was gonna say there might m must not have been married many. 00:26:14 Speaker 4: It was basically just her and so so I'd heard about it, but I but I didn't know much about it, and so Galen was like, yeah, they'll they'll teach you and whatever. So I was just told someone was like willing to give me a job. But yeah, ultimately it wasn't. It wasn't like the right fit. And they're like kind of more they do like kind of like long term investment strategy stuff, and so it felt more like a think tank. Like I would try to get people to gamble with me on stuff and they were just like no, and I'm like, what, like what you know, don't we work at a Like I would finally get people to gamble with me. They'd owe me like, you know, seven dollars and sixty cents because like that's what they were comfortable gambling for and they were like or like whatever, and they're like, okay, can you pay me? And I'm like yeah, like let's just flip until it's like one hundred or zero, and you actually liked this story. Literally, I'd have debts of like thirteen dollars that I would have to pay, and so I'd be like, okay, let's just flip, like, let's roll a hundred sid to die and you know, I'll take thirteen number or you can take thirteen numbers and you know, if you get one of them, I'll. 00:27:07 Speaker 5: Give you a hundred bucks. 00:27:08 Speaker 4: And they're like no, I'm just like, they're like, I don't campl like, I can't deal with this. So what I I went to the bank and I got a lot of rolls of pennies and some nickels, and I unrolled them all, a lot of them, like one hundred rolls of pennies and like one hundred rolls of nickels, and I put them in a bag under my desk, and anytime someone wanted me to pay them a debt and a number that wasn't a round number, I used to just sort through my bag of pennies and nickels and pay the debt. 00:27:38 Speaker 3: That way is the best. 00:27:42 Speaker 4: Yeah, And when when I left, actually, my old coworkers met up at some point, like a few months later, and they. 00:27:49 Speaker 5: Were like, Oh, we found this bag of pennies under your desk? Did you want that? 00:27:53 Speaker 4: Like? 00:27:53 Speaker 3: No, no, no, So you worked with a bunch of nets, Vanessa, is what you're trying? 00:27:59 Speaker 4: I was like, literally, do you guys remember that this? But anyway, so it wasn't it wasn't the same kind of fit. But luckily that's where I heard about Jane Street, which is a much better fit. 00:28:07 Speaker 3: So do you feel like poker has kind of enabled you to excel in that kind of environment? Was it transferable or were both of these things that you kind of carried with you both to poker and now to Bridgewater and then and then Jane straight like is it what you're bringing to it or did it impart knowledge that you're now using as well? 00:28:30 Speaker 4: Oh? I mean, like of course, Like it's a completely different sphere, Like there was a ton to learn. There's still a ton to learn, like learning all the time. It's it's like such a complicated complex like world, but poker. I mean, I didn't realize just how much it mattered, Like how much whether it's just poker or just general strategic thinking, Like I think the way that poker players think is the way that traders think like just thinking about things and expected values, but also just like thinking about the different players in a game and your motivations, because if you're trading, someone else is on the other side of the trade, and particularly I trade options and options are like really complex things where there's like a lot of different kinds of risk and different like kind of distributions of returns and whatever, and so you really have to think through like the different possible situations, the probabilities of them, what someone's motivation, the whole concept of average selection. Who am I trading against? What is their motivation? It really does feel like being in a poker game, and and there's the reason, like a lot of you know, there's a lot of poker players at the firm that are anywhere from casual poker players where there's always poker games going. We have poker tables in our like main cafeteria, and so there's always a poker game after work. 00:29:39 Speaker 5: And then you know, even at the. 00:29:41 Speaker 4: World Series, a couple of the guys always go out and one of them actually I think got like second or third, I don't actually remember, and one of the one of the events last year. So there's like some serious poker players here and it's not you know, it's not a coincidence. Like there's a huge amount of like crossover skills. 00:29:56 Speaker 2: Do you find it hard to play against coworkers because of like the office politics dimension of it. 00:30:04 Speaker 5: Uh no, only office politics. 00:30:07 Speaker 3: And I love how you said that competition. 00:30:10 Speaker 4: No, no, No, it's like it's actually like amazing because I think Jane Street is really good at this if like it's it's really competitive in the sense of like everybody comes from a place of like being having really competitive background. Like a lot of a lot of the people that get hired are people that have a history of playing games or math competitions or or whatever. It is like you know a lot of people with like really competitive personalities. But Jane Street is a place that is very collaborative, like out of all of the different you know, training firms or whatever, like just for a lot of reasons, Like it's just like a very collaborative, like congenial place. So it's sort of like a great mix where we're like super competitive with each other at the poker table, but just in like a fun way, you know, a place where people just really appreciate when someone like outplays someone else and just like, oh yeah, props, Like that was awesome. Like everyone just wants to outplay each other, you know, and and play really well and like that's that's the joy of it is is just like finding the best place and figuring it out, you know. 00:31:14 Speaker 2: And we'll be right back after this break. 00:31:29 Speaker 3: Is that a GPI award that I spy over your shoulders? Pokers? 00:31:34 Speaker 5: It's a bookend. It's a bookend. 00:31:35 Speaker 3: Yeah, but it is a GPI saying it as a book and you're using it. But but don't don't skirt the question. 00:31:41 Speaker 2: You do know about prize? It's a bookend, it's. 00:31:44 Speaker 5: I guess it is. 00:31:45 Speaker 4: Yeah, Actually, I just know you'll like this too. I just finally cleaned out my garage after four years. Uh we am renovating the basement and we moved here four years ago. I'm in Montclair, New Jersey, and we realized I hadn't really unpacked. So I finally found all of my old trophies. This is now sitting in my office. It's my old oh Bartush poker turn. This is the best biggest tournament I ever won. It's covered in hay. This is okay, so you can find some Hey, here you go there's like a whole bunch of hay everywhere. 00:32:18 Speaker 5: I don't know if you can see. 00:32:19 Speaker 4: Yeah, because my wife decided that it was a good idea to purchase lots of different bales of hay and keep them also in our garage. 00:32:26 Speaker 5: So now all of. 00:32:27 Speaker 4: Because I don't know, you have to decorate for fall. I don't know, there's like a lapse. She's very into decorating, and there's apparently a lapse between Halloween and Christmas that involves lots of barrels of hay. But anyway, all of my old trophies are now covered in hay. 00:32:41 Speaker 5: And have like lots of cracks. 00:32:42 Speaker 4: So I got to figure out what to do with them, maybe like some kind of we My kids were trying to use them as weapons. 00:32:47 Speaker 3: So Partush was the biggest tournament you ever won. 00:32:50 Speaker 5: Yeah, and the biggest trophy. 00:32:51 Speaker 3: That's amazing, Vanessa. Were you at the Partouche with the cheating scandal or was that not your ear? 00:32:57 Speaker 4: Oh? Yeah, that was that was my year. Yeah, that's a good, great memory that you remember that. Well. 00:33:00 Speaker 3: I'm I'm writing a book about cheating right now, so oh awesome. So for people who aren't familiar, since you were there. This is a great store and involved journalism or faux journalism and a lot of things. So, Nest, do you want to tell us a little bit about your part twish victory and this crazy moment. 00:33:19 Speaker 5: Yeah. 00:33:19 Speaker 4: So, well, from my perspective, I was a triplayer going into the final table and it was the delayed final table, which was crazy. So we finished the tournament in September and played down to the final table and then played the final table in November, so we had like two months to stew on it. So I'm having like literal nightmares that I'm like chip leader my equity. It was the biggest turnam I ever played. First prize was almost two million, you know, and I was having nightmares that I would like bust out ninth. So when I get there and they're like, oh, congratulations, everyone's got at least eighth, I was like, Okay, cool, I'm gonna win this now, you know, Like basically all of my nightmares were no more. But but yeah, so when I got there, they were like, yeah, you're all guaranteed eighth for like what. 00:33:56 Speaker 5: They're like, oh yeah. 00:33:57 Speaker 4: One of the guys was just like cheating the whole time throughout the whole tournament and also on the whole poker tour. Yeah, he had these like like journalists I guess with this like fake website that had nothing on it. I think it was like I don't remember the name of this, but he would just have like fake journalists stand behind people and like fake report and then just like give signs to this guy Ali what was his name. 00:34:18 Speaker 3: His name was Ali Tecantum. 00:34:21 Speaker 5: Guk tech and tagak. There you go. 00:34:23 Speaker 2: Yeah, it's pretty good fucking cheat. 00:34:25 Speaker 4: Yeah, so he would just give him signals on like what they had, and he's just like looking over at paper soldiers. 00:34:29 Speaker 5: It was so old school. 00:34:30 Speaker 4: There's no devices, there's no like you know, poker's gotten a lot more sophisticated, like we've gotten poker cheating solvers now. 00:34:36 Speaker 5: I feel like, you know that are. 00:34:37 Speaker 4: Just they're like, that is not the GTO way to cheat, Like the GTO way to cheat with this strategy would have at least involved having legitimate poker blog that had some words on it. But but yeah, so he was finally discovered. 00:34:49 Speaker 2: So you can't trust you can't trust journalists. See. 00:34:52 Speaker 3: Well, it was one of those things where when I heard that story, I was like, oh, Wow, like you really need to learn how to protect your cards, Like, yeah, just you know, it's crazy that cheating. I mean, cheating has always been a part of whenever there's money. Even when there's no money, there's there's cheating. People cheat on trivia nights. But yeah, I just remember that he had the fake journalist who would look at people's cards and just hand signs, completely old school, and you think about. 00:35:18 Speaker 2: All this, like the press hats and stuff like that probably. 00:35:21 Speaker 3: Had, Yeah, all of these things. 00:35:23 Speaker 4: It went on for like a year and a half something crazy like it was. But like the number of cheating scales that you've read about and been like, wow, if you were just a little less greedy, you could have gotten away with this forever. 00:35:33 Speaker 3: Absolutely no, I mean that I think that's the case with most of them, whether or not it's poker, that if you just cheated a little bit smarter and you know, got out a little bit faster, we would not know about it. And some of the biggest cheating stories in poker they did get out. And so, oh my god, you have user for your people's reputation that is more or less intact. 00:35:56 Speaker 4: Really, are you gonna uncover some of this in your book. 00:36:00 Speaker 3: I will have to have some allegedlies in there. I will. I will tell you that one of the people is no longer alive, so you could probably put two and two together. 00:36:10 Speaker 5: But yeah, that's my favorite guy. 00:36:12 Speaker 2: Mahy have been from the Southern United States. 00:36:14 Speaker 3: Yeah, Nate's accents, nate'scent. So are you now, you know, now that you're kind of settled down, do you how do you feel about poker? I'm actually just curious. You know, we obviously know it's a big part of your life because you have your GPI award in your zoom background, and you've got your You're not you've got your part. 00:36:40 Speaker 2: I mean, I've got that World Series Poker carpeting. 00:36:42 Speaker 3: I think, where are your bracelets, Vanessa? But I mean it is, it is, actually it is remarkable that and you know, there's a numbers game. A lot of things have changed in the game since you've left, but a lot of things haven't. This year was a record low number of women in the w s P main event for like, you know, it just it went, it went. 00:37:05 Speaker 5: It was It's just like low enough that it's just. 00:37:07 Speaker 3: It was just yeah, exactly in terms of like the last you know when people have been tracking this, there's still So when I won my first bracelet this year, I was, I think. 00:37:19 Speaker 5: Woman, I don't know, you want to bracelet? 00:37:20 Speaker 3: Ye? What so I was woman number like twenty nine, I think it was. I don't remember. It was under thirty women who've won open bracelet events since the beginning? 00:37:28 Speaker 5: What did you win? 00:37:28 Speaker 3: How do I know? 00:37:29 Speaker 5: I really don't follow poker all, but congratulations. 00:37:32 Speaker 3: That's OK, thank you. It was that was eighty eight crazy eights. 00:37:36 Speaker 5: Oh my god. 00:37:37 Speaker 3: So that that was fun. But it was a you know, women's are still not really winning open events. Like so if you don't count the women's events and you don't count senior, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's still under thirty. Like I said, I think I was number twenty nine. 00:37:48 Speaker 5: I don't. 00:37:49 Speaker 4: Actually, I feel embarrassed to be in the presence of two bracelet winners. 00:37:52 Speaker 5: I am. 00:37:53 Speaker 2: I fucking guess second a couple of years ago. I mean, we're gonna grind this year. They're going to grind schedule card this year. 00:37:58 Speaker 3: Yeah, so I'm curious kind of how you know, giving your legacy and that you're you're still I mean, if I were to say, like, who is the person I most look up to in the game, it would be you on a because because of the of what you've accomplished, and it does it does you know, it means a lot like where you came from and you know kind of what you've done. And I don't know who's number two, right, Like you're kind of in a category of your own. So how do you you know, how do you think about your your legacy? You're still very much alive and still playing, but like how you know, how is that a part of your life other than you know, being a part of your Zoom background. 00:38:34 Speaker 2: Oh? 00:38:34 Speaker 5: Man, I don't know, it's weird. 00:38:38 Speaker 4: I just never wanted to think that much about that kind of stuff, Like, you know, I don't know, it just wasn't me. Like I didn't like all that that the attention about it and and the pomp and. 00:38:49 Speaker 5: Circumstance of it and all. 00:38:51 Speaker 4: I don't know that that's you know, Look, Kristin Bicknell is probably gonna like win a bunch more money like this year, or she's gonna overtake that spot, and then I'll just be some random husband. You know, I don't think that'll be good. 00:39:04 Speaker 3: No, you'll be the You'll be the deuce five into ass never Never Never, the random houseband, you know, the go ahead. 00:39:11 Speaker 4: Yeah, Oh, I was just gonna say, I do feel like I'm in a spot where, like for a few years, I felt like I want nothing to do with this game, and I find myself like coming around like realite, remembering why I love the game. Like, you know, I really had like a love hate relationship followed by like a hate hate relationship with it towards the end, Like you know, we would hang out and you'd be like my friends at the end of my burger, hear my friends be like, so we're gonna go play the tournament. I'm like, now, I'll see it later, let me know any bus you know. But but now I feel like whenever I'm playing, I'm having fun again, and I don't feel like burdened by all of the different stuff that came that came with the I don't know, so so I enjoy playing again. 00:39:47 Speaker 2: If you're at a random dinner party, you don't know somebody is super well, right, was it more awkward to introduce yourself as a poker player or as a hedge fund employee? 00:39:57 Speaker 5: Rhenda. 00:39:58 Speaker 4: Actually, my wife has this funny joke because I used to go around, you know, and people would talk about it all the time, and I was used to getting all this attention and stuff, so I'd just be like, oh, like, you know whatever, I play poker, you know, and I would try to try to change the subject. And now I like go out to people and I'm like, they're like, what are you doing. I'm like, I'm in I'm a trader, like in finance, and they just like look around. But I used to be a poker player so bored by the time I finish the sentence, and I'm like, no, no, no, I swear to god, I'm a little more interesting. So the grass is always greener, I guess. 00:40:29 Speaker 3: So so what's next for you? What does the future hold for Vanessa? 00:40:33 Speaker 4: I don't know what is I mean, who knows really? I mean, I love my job, so hopefully I'll do that for a little while at least. 00:40:41 Speaker 5: And kind of play it by year. 00:40:43 Speaker 4: Honestly, I don't see myself like reinventing myself again, but but I think some combination of trading poker hobbies, spend time with the kids. Like, you know, my kids are really fun age they're almost five and almost. 00:40:58 Speaker 3: Time time to start them playing poker. 00:41:00 Speaker 4: Yeah, I know, No, it really is my older one. Felix's friend is really into poker, and so I keep trying to be like, let's go over to Clark's house and like, let's go play poker. But yeah, so some combination of that stuff. Like I think probably my guess is like when I'm retired or something and maybe who knows, ten years or ten fifteen years, like just poker much more recreationally. You know, I'll have to get you guys to like start a regular home game. 00:41:27 Speaker 3: That will be fun. Well, We'll make the hardest, hardest home game. 00:41:31 Speaker 2: In the senior poker It will be fun. 00:41:35 Speaker 3: Well, Vanessa, this has been such an absolute pleasure. I am so glad that Eric introduced us and that I got to meet you, and I don't know, you know, I think you have made my life richer and I hope that all of our listeners will have learned something from listening to you today. 00:41:52 Speaker 5: Thank you well, Thank you guys so much for thank you so much. 00:41:55 Speaker 6: We appreciate you spending this time with us. 00:42:08 Speaker 3: Let us know what you think of the sho reach out to us at Risky Business at Pushkin dot FM Risky Business is hosted by me Maria Kanakova and. 00:42:17 Speaker 2: By me Nate Silver. The show was a Cool production of Pushing Industries and iHeartMedia. This episode was produced by Isaac Carter. Our associate producer is Sonya gerwit Lydia, Jean Kott and Daphne Chen are our editors, and our executive producer is Jacob Goldstein. Mixing by Sarah Brugerer. 00:42:35 Speaker 3: If you like the show, please rate and review us so other people can find us too, But once again, only if you like us. We don't want those bad reviews out there. Thanks for tuning in.