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