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Speaker 1: Hi, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bomb Left podcast.

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Speaker 1: My guest today is the iconic sort of the best

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Speaker 1: seller of the Biggest Bluff. Thanks so much for having me,

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Speaker 1: Bob So in this COVID nineteen era. Are you playing

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Speaker 1: any online poker? I am. I actually just got back

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Speaker 1: from New Jersey a few weeks ago because I'm in

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Speaker 1: New York, where online poker is illegal, but it's legal

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Speaker 1: in New Jersey. So my husband and I rented an

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Speaker 1: airbnb for two weeks so that I could play the

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Speaker 1: World Series online. Um, you have to be physically located

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Speaker 1: in New Jersey or about it to do that. So

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Speaker 1: I spent two weeks in a lovely studio on the

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Speaker 1: Jersey shore playing poker. And how did you do in

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Speaker 1: the World Series? Um? I'm I was down by but

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Speaker 1: just by a few thousand dollars, which to me is

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Speaker 1: winning because when you are buying in for tens of

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Speaker 1: thousands of dollars, being just a few feels like a win. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so how much? Um, it's multiple events. There's an event

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Speaker 1: every single day. So the way that they did it normally,

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Speaker 1: this doesn't happen right now. The World Series was supposed

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Speaker 1: to be happening in Las Vegas. Everyone was going to

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Speaker 1: be there. It was all going to be live. My

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Speaker 1: book UM, which came out on June, was originally coming

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Speaker 1: out the week before the main event, so it was

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Speaker 1: all planned out perfectly. And obviously you can plan all

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Speaker 1: you want, and then COVID happens and all of a sudden,

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Speaker 1: there's no World Series of Poker, there's no live poker period,

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Speaker 1: no no poker tournaments, and so they scrambled and they

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Speaker 1: decided to do a semblance of it online, and the

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Speaker 1: way they did it was to do thirty one events,

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Speaker 1: one every single day of July UM and the buying's

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Speaker 1: range from four hundred dollars for the lowest UM to

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Speaker 1: around four thousand dollars for for the highest and you

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Speaker 1: can re buy into most of the events. Then they moved.

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Speaker 1: As of August first, it's still going on, but now

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Speaker 1: it's on an international platform g G Poker. So I

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Speaker 1: was planning to go to Canada, but the border is

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Speaker 1: closed because I wouldn't let us in either. UM. So unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: I'm not playing, but a lot of people who are

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Speaker 1: outside of the United States are, and they're the buyans

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Speaker 1: can actually be higher and they're doing a mini main

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Speaker 1: event for five thousand dollars, but I will not be

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Speaker 1: taking part because I'm not in Canada. Well, is it

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Speaker 1: higher just because it's Canadian dollars? No? No, no, no,

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Speaker 1: this is all in US dollars. Okay, let's just go

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Speaker 1: a little slower for the uninitiated. How does the World

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Speaker 1: Series of Poker work? How do they come up with

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Speaker 1: the ultimate Champion? So the World Series of Poker is

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Speaker 1: actually it's a series, so there are lots of events.

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Speaker 1: So normally for about a month and a half, poker

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Speaker 1: players from all over the world come to Las Vegas

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Speaker 1: and play a number of tournaments. And when people talk

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Speaker 1: about the World Series of Poker, they're usually just thinking

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Speaker 1: about the main event, which is the single most important one.

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Speaker 1: It's a ten dollar buying and it determines the World champion.

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Speaker 1: It determines who the World Champion of Poker is for

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Speaker 1: that year. And so normally people just think, who don't

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Speaker 1: play poker, just think the World Series that one tournament,

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Speaker 1: but that's just the pinnacle. That's the last tournament of

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Speaker 1: the series. And people can play what's called side events,

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Speaker 1: but you can also win bracelets. Bracelets a bracelet is

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Speaker 1: what you win when you win a World Series of

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Speaker 1: Poker title. But if you win a bracelet in anything

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Speaker 1: other than the main event, you're just a bracelet winner.

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Speaker 1: You're not the world champion. Okay, to play in the

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Speaker 1: main event, you have to qualify in one of these

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Speaker 1: other events. They're completely independent. As long as you've got

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Speaker 1: ten grand you can play. And have you played in

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Speaker 1: the main event? I have. I've played in it multiple

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Speaker 1: times and done. Um the first year, this is the

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Speaker 1: opening scene of my book. I came down with a

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Speaker 1: migraine on the first day and spent the better part

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Speaker 1: of the second half of the day throwing up on

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Speaker 1: the bathroom floor of the Lovely Rio Hotel and Casino.

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Speaker 1: I did not do well. I made Day two and

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Speaker 1: then probably busted. The next year, I cashed. I actually

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Speaker 1: came in the top I don't remember, but it was

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Speaker 1: maybe top five hundred, top six hundred players, but out

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Speaker 1: of tens of thousands, So I felt pretty good about myself.

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Speaker 1: And do you like playing poker? I do? I mean

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Speaker 1: I used to not. I didn't know anything about poker

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Speaker 1: um as of you know, if you and I were

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Speaker 1: having this conversation five years ago, Um, I wouldn't have

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Speaker 1: known what poker is. Really. The only exposure I had

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Speaker 1: had to poker was Rounders, UM, which I thought was

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Speaker 1: a great movie, and I thought Matt Damon did a

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Speaker 1: wonderful job, and I really loved Teddy KGB. And that was,

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Speaker 1: seriously the only poker I had ever seen. I didn't

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Speaker 1: know how many cars were in a deck. I had

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Speaker 1: zero interest in the game whatsoever. I'm not a games player.

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Speaker 1: I grew up in a household that reads books. We

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Speaker 1: didn't even have a TV when I was growing up,

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Speaker 1: so I just grew up with lots and lots of bookshelves,

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Speaker 1: and for entertainment in the evenings, we read or my

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Speaker 1: parents read to us. And there wasn't even a deck

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Speaker 1: of cards around, no board games, no chest, nothing like that.

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Speaker 1: And so, like I said, five years ago, if you

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Speaker 1: and I were talking, I would have laughed if you said,

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Speaker 1: did you know that one day you're going to play

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Speaker 1: poker professionally? Um. I got into it as a book

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Speaker 1: project because I became fascinated by the notion of luck

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Speaker 1: and the role that luck plays in our lives. So

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Speaker 1: I came to it from from the side, from a

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Speaker 1: very different angle but I did fall in love with

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Speaker 1: the game and found that it taught me much more

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Speaker 1: about life than I thought possible, and I'm still learning.

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Speaker 1: I think it's such a beautiful game that really challenges

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Speaker 1: you on a constant level. Um. And to me, the

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Speaker 1: best things in life are the ones that force you

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Speaker 1: to grow, force you to become a better version of yourself,

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Speaker 1: constantly force you to think better. Are the things that

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Speaker 1: don't let you plateau and don't let you just kind

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Speaker 1: of past through. And to me, one of those things

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Speaker 1: is poker. Okay, forgetting the number of what you learned psychologically, etcetera.

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Speaker 1: How long did it take you to master the game?

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Speaker 1: To understand what the game was? I'm talking about on

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Speaker 1: the most raw level. If you're sitting there with someone

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Speaker 1: who literally knows nothing but doesn't know their fifty two

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Speaker 1: cards in a deck, how long would it take them

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Speaker 1: to understand the game? Well, it depends on what you mean.

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Speaker 1: If you mean learn the rules, not long at all.

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Speaker 1: Within a week, we can have you playing and knowing

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Speaker 1: exactly what it's going on in terms of the rules. Um.

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Speaker 1: If you're talking about really understanding the game. Um. My

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Speaker 1: coach Eric Seidel is one of the best players in

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Speaker 1: the world and has been playing since the eighties and

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Speaker 1: winning since the eighties. And if you ask him, he'd

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Speaker 1: say that he still doesn't understand it and he still

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Speaker 1: hasn't mastered it. So you've got those two extremes. Okay,

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Speaker 1: let's go back to the beginning, as you say, five

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Speaker 1: years ago, when you didn't even know how to play

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Speaker 1: at hand. What was the motivation for writing the book.

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Speaker 1: I went through a period in my life where nothing

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Speaker 1: seemed to go right. I became sick, and no one

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Speaker 1: knew what was wrong. It was an autoimmune condition, but

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Speaker 1: ideopathic was the was the final diagnosis, which means we

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Speaker 1: really have no idea of unknown origin for being specific.

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Speaker 1: And I just became allergic to everything. My skin became

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Speaker 1: allergic to everything. I couldn't go outside oftentimes because I

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Speaker 1: was just erupt in hives whenever anything touched my body.

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Speaker 1: I mean by a in hives, I mean face, neck, body, everything.

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Speaker 1: It was painful to put on clothes, and so I

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Speaker 1: had lots of time to think about things because I

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Speaker 1: was at home, not not able to do anything. On

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Speaker 1: massive doses of steroids. As people tried to figure out

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Speaker 1: what was wrong and get this under control. And at

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Speaker 1: the same time as this is happening and I'm trying

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Speaker 1: to figure out what's wrong with me, my grandmother dies.

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Speaker 1: And she wasn't sick or anything like that, totally independent, healthy,

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Speaker 1: living by herself. She just slipped in the middle of

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Speaker 1: the night. I think she was going up to go

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Speaker 1: to the bathroom and she hit her head and didn't

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Speaker 1: wake up. And it was one of these things where

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Speaker 1: you realize, you know, it's just an accident. You could

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Speaker 1: happen to anyone and you can't plan for it, and

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Speaker 1: we didn't without her being sick, no one said goodbye,

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Speaker 1: you know, we just had no idea. And my husband

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Speaker 1: lest his job, my mom lost her job. Just all

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Speaker 1: of these things kept happening, one right after the other,

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Speaker 1: and it made me stop and just really realize how

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Speaker 1: important luck is. That when things are going well, we

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Speaker 1: we like to take credit. So often we say, oh,

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Speaker 1: you know, I I've worked really hard. You know, I've

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Speaker 1: been working towards this, um I've earned this. And the

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Speaker 1: truth is, sure, you need to work hard, but you

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Speaker 1: also need to get lucky, and things have to go

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Speaker 1: your way, and luck has to come together in a

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Speaker 1: lot of different ways. And there's so many things that

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Speaker 1: are just beyond us, and someone else might have worked

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Speaker 1: just as hard but not gotten lucky and not be

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Speaker 1: where we are. And I wanted to write about that

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Speaker 1: and explore it and figure out a way to learn

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Speaker 1: to tell the difference between skill and chance, between the

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Speaker 1: things we control and the things we don't. And when

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Speaker 1: I started reading about all of these different elements, I

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Speaker 1: came across game theory, which is an interesting framework for

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Speaker 1: looking at chance, and learned when I started reading the

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Speaker 1: foundational text of game theory, the Theory of Games and

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Speaker 1: Economic Behavior, that John von Neuman, who's the father of

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Speaker 1: game theory and also one of the geniuses of the

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Speaker 1: twentieth century, um one of the fathers of the computer.

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Speaker 1: So you and I would be sitting here talking right

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Speaker 1: now if it weren't for him. That he was a

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Speaker 1: poker player, and that poker was the origin of game theory,

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Speaker 1: that he actually believed that solving poker would give you

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Speaker 1: a rubric for looking at life's most complicated decisions, and

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Speaker 1: he the way he described it really intrigued me. It

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Speaker 1: seemed that poker might be a way to tease the

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Speaker 1: part all of these different themes I was thinking about.

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Speaker 1: So I started reading about poker a little bit, a

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Speaker 1: little bit slower. So all these all these bad things

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Speaker 1: are happening. What makes you pick up the game theory book?

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Speaker 1: I started reading whenever I knew that I wanted to

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Speaker 1: write my next book about luck and about skill versus chance.

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Speaker 1: That is not a book. That's just a question, philosophical enquiry.

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Speaker 1: It ain't a nonfiction narrative. Um. You need a story

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Speaker 1: for any book. You need a way in Um what

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Speaker 1: I do at the beginning of any project. It doesn't

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Speaker 1: matter how long or short I might be writing. Uh

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Speaker 1: often I might be writing a New Yorker piece or

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Speaker 1: a book. I read a lot. I think that writers

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Speaker 1: need to first and foremost be readers. And for everything

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Speaker 1: I write, I've read thousands and thousands of words more

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Speaker 1: that I've written. And I just started reading everything I

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Speaker 1: could find that had to do with luck and had

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Speaker 1: to do with chance. And if you're reading about chance,

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Speaker 1: game theory comes up. Because game theory is one of

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Speaker 1: the foremost ways of looking at chance. It's one of

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Speaker 1: the foremost economic theories of the twentieth century, and it

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Speaker 1: teaches you about thinking probabilistically. It teaches you how to

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Speaker 1: make decisions in uncertain environments. And I knew this. I

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Speaker 1: have a PhD in psychology, so I knew that game

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Speaker 1: theory is where I went. For those who are not

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Speaker 1: up to speed, what exactly is game theory? Game theory

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Speaker 1: is just a way of looking at the world where

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Speaker 1: you try to figure out, how do I act in

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Speaker 1: a way that no one else can exploit or take

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Speaker 1: advantage of my decision? That's it. Okay, give us a

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Speaker 1: couple of exact, non poker examples where game theory would

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Speaker 1: come into play. Nuclear war, that's actually that was mon

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Speaker 1: Nouman's example. He thought that solving poker would help you

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Speaker 1: avoid nucle your war. If you're trying to figure out

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Speaker 1: whether your opponent Cuban missile crisis that actually happened, that's

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Speaker 1: game theory. What is Kruschev going to do? What is

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Speaker 1: Jeff k gonna do? How far can we push them?

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Speaker 1: How far is he going to do? Go? Is he

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Speaker 1: actually going to press the proverbial red button and fire missiles?

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Speaker 1: Is he bluffing? So this is a perfect quintessential game

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Speaker 1: theoretical example. How can you gather information to try to

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Speaker 1: figure out what the payoff matrix and game theories speak

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Speaker 1: looks like, how can you gather information to figure out

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Speaker 1: how we can get to a point in the matrix

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Speaker 1: where neither one of us has any incentive to deviate?

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Speaker 1: How can I figure out if he's bluffing or not?

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Speaker 1: How can I figure out how far he's willing to go?

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Speaker 1: And in order to do that, you need to input

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Speaker 1: a lot of things into that mental model. This is

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Speaker 1: why game theory isn't just about math. It is about math,

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Speaker 1: but it's also about psychology. It's about trying to put

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Speaker 1: numbers in probably abilities, on human emotions, on human actions,

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Speaker 1: on human decisions. And that's why von Neuman turned to poker,

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Speaker 1: and that's why game theory can give you an approximation.

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Speaker 1: But it's just an approximation. Everything in life is an approximation.

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Speaker 1: He realized that you can't solve anything, So let me

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Speaker 1: just you ask let me answer your question. So, if

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Speaker 1: you think about something like a Nash equilibrium, which is

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Speaker 1: when you actually find that square where no one deviates,

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Speaker 1: it exists in theory, but in practice it's almost impossible

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Speaker 1: to reach that square because people are people, and you

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Speaker 1: can think that you understand them, but Ultimately, there's always

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Speaker 1: the chance that you don't UM, and so it's a

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Speaker 1: probabilistic answer. It's not a definitive answer. Well, in game theory,

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Speaker 1: is there a specific paradigm or is it as simple

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Speaker 1: as you say, we're gathering information talking about the nouns

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Speaker 1: and the unknowns. What do you mean by that? Specifically?

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Speaker 1: You talked about the matrix? What did you know you

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Speaker 1: talk about game theory. It's like, I'm about the matrix

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Speaker 1: the movie. So you actually you actually draw a matrix.

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Speaker 1: So you have Bob on one side and you have

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Speaker 1: Maria on the other, and in the simplest one, you

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Speaker 1: have four squares. Let's say yes, no, yes, no. And

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Speaker 1: if we're trying to figure out what will Bob and Maria,

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Speaker 1: you know, what will their payoffs look like in the

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Speaker 1: four little squares of that matrix? So if both of

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Speaker 1: them say yes, then agree to whatever proposition. UM, let's

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Speaker 1: say you know that. Let's say we're choosing ice cream

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Speaker 1: and we're trying to and if you and I agree

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Speaker 1: on an ice cream flavor, we both get sent gallons

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Speaker 1: of this ice cream flavor. We can't talk to each

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Speaker 1: other beforehand. Obviously, in real life, you can but in

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Speaker 1: your so ideally you coordinate, but if you can't coordinate,

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Speaker 1: So if you and I both come up with the

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Speaker 1: same flavor, we get into the yes yes box, right,

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Speaker 1: and our payoff there. Let's say it's of four is

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Speaker 1: four and four. We're both really really happy, right if

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Speaker 1: But let's say you and I or actually it might

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Speaker 1: not be four and for because what if our two

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Speaker 1: flavors are different. What if I know that your favorite

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Speaker 1: flavors chocolate, My favorite flavor is vanilla, but I want

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Speaker 1: some ice cream rather than not having any ice cream.

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Speaker 1: And so if I know your chocolate, and I don't

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Speaker 1: think that you know that I like vanilla, I might

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Speaker 1: say chocolate. So we both get into that box. But

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Speaker 1: it's a four for you and it's actually one for me. Right,

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Speaker 1: So now now it changes, so you just get different

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Speaker 1: ice cream flavors. So let's say now we're in the

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Speaker 1: yes no, you stay chocolate, but I say vanilla. Well,

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Speaker 1: all of a sudden, we're in a different box, and

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Speaker 1: we're in a box where your payoff is lower in

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Speaker 1: mine is higher, and we need to try to figure

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Speaker 1: out how do we get to the box where we

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Speaker 1: both kind of maximize it. Maybe both of us kind

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Speaker 1: of like vanilla, it's in the middle. Maybe vanilla would

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Speaker 1: be a three for both of us. That would be great,

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Speaker 1: not vanilla, sorry strawberry, but we need a new flavor.

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Speaker 1: So maybe strawberries actually second best for both of us.

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Speaker 1: So strawberries are three for you and a three for me, Well,

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Speaker 1: then maybe we should try to coordinate on strawberry, right,

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Speaker 1: because that's actually going to give us the most the

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Speaker 1: best optimal mutual payoff because the total of that box

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Speaker 1: is six, whereas your chocolate my vanilla boxes just five. Right,

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Speaker 1: So we can start playing like that, and then you

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Speaker 1: have to try to figure out Okay, well, how are

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Speaker 1: you thinking? How am I thinking? I use the type

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Speaker 1: of person who's gonna want to coordinate on strawberry if

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Speaker 1: I can't see you or talk to you, um, and

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Speaker 1: should I risk it? Or are you the kind of

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Speaker 1: person who's just gonna go chocolate all the way you're

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Speaker 1: going to You're going to betray me, so to speak.

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Speaker 1: So we can't coordinate because you want that chocolate and

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Speaker 1: you don't care if I don't get any ice cream.

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Speaker 1: So that's a very silly example, but you can that's

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Speaker 1: kind of how you. That's how you that's how you

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Speaker 1: look at the matrix. You assign different ways well articulated.

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Speaker 1: So you're reading the book and he mentions poker. Does

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Speaker 1: a lightbulb go off in your head? Or is it

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Speaker 1: an evolutionary process to decide to write a book? Um,

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Speaker 1: it's both. At the beginning, it wasn't a light bulb.

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Speaker 1: When I read von Neuman, I became intrigued by poker,

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Speaker 1: and I thought, huh, this is interesting. And then when

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Speaker 1: I started reading about poker, all I did that I

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Speaker 1: had zero poker books in the house, so I just

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Speaker 1: googled poker and started reading a little bit about it online.

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Speaker 1: That's when a light bulb went off, when I just thought, Hey,

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Speaker 1: this game seems really interesting and it actually seems to

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Speaker 1: get out a lot of these things that I'm curious about.

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Speaker 1: It has an element of skill, it has an element

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Speaker 1: of chance. Von Neumann thinks that it actually has the

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Speaker 1: perfect balance of skill and chance to make it a

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Speaker 1: good analogy for life. I don't know much about it,

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Speaker 1: but if I even thinks so, it's good enough for me.

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Speaker 1: I mean, the guy's brilliant. So that's when a lightbulb

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Speaker 1: moment actually went off, and I thought this could be it.

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Speaker 1: And right away I actually just emailed my agent and said, hey,

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Speaker 1: what do you think does this seem like a good idea?

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Speaker 1: And at this point we've been going back and forth

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Speaker 1: for six months and she'd been saying no to every

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Speaker 1: single thing I've proposed, and this one she said that

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00:18:05,880 --> 00:18:09,159
Speaker 1: the sounds promising. See what you can find. So so

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Speaker 1: that was the start of the book. So what what

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Speaker 1: was the process of actually selling the book? So first,

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Speaker 1: and this was true of all of my books. Um,

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Speaker 1: I feel very very strongly that you need to work

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Speaker 1: very hard on your proposal, no matter how many books

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Speaker 1: you've written, and no matter what your reputation is, because

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Speaker 1: you're doing it not just for selling it. You're doing

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Speaker 1: it for you because it helps you think through the

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Speaker 1: whole thing. It helps you figure out whether this is

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Speaker 1: actually going to work as a book, whether it's going

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Speaker 1: to be a good story. So it's a really good exercise.

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Speaker 1: And a lot of the proposal is actually writing scenes

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Speaker 1: and writing parts of chapters to try to figure this out.

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Speaker 1: And so I actually, before I sold the book, I

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Speaker 1: spent putiple months playing. So I approached Eric Sidell, one

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Speaker 1: of the greatest poker players in the world who agreed

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Speaker 1: to become my coach. And I actually started on my

357
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Speaker 1: journey before selling the book because I needed material for

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Speaker 1: the proposal. I needed to see if it was going

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Speaker 1: to work. I needed to see whether the game was

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Speaker 1: actually going to fulfill its promise of teaching me what

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Speaker 1: I wanted to learn. I wanted to see if I

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Speaker 1: liked it. I mean, I didn't want to sell a

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Speaker 1: book and then go play poker and realize that it

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Speaker 1: made me sick and that I absolutely hated it and

365
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Speaker 1: that it bore me to tears. It's going to be

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Speaker 1: multiple years of my life. Any book is multiple years

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Speaker 1: of your life, so you better you better think hard

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Speaker 1: and pick something that's right for you. Um. And so

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Speaker 1: the process looked like me starting to learn to play

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Speaker 1: with Eric. I went to Vegas. I even made my

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Speaker 1: first a little bit slower, a little bit slower told

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Speaker 1: the book. Yet this stuff be doing because you've already

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Speaker 1: met Eric Seidell. Okay, how did you meet Eric and

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Speaker 1: how did you approach him? I'm a journalist. I cold

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00:20:02,520 --> 00:20:06,600
Speaker 1: called him. I had no connection to him whatsoever. I

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Speaker 1: followed him on Twitter and sent him a message. And

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Speaker 1: the reason that I chose him was a very sophisticated reason.

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Speaker 1: I did a Google search of best poker buyers of

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Speaker 1: all time, and his name came up in multiple lists,

380
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Speaker 1: and I did some research because his name wasn't the

381
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Speaker 1: only one who came in, and he seemed to check

382
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Speaker 1: the most of my boxes. I wanted someone who was older,

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Speaker 1: who had been around a while, and who had a

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Speaker 1: more broad approach to the game. I didn't want someone

385
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Speaker 1: who was young and just starting out and just had

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Speaker 1: of the mathematical stuff that's the hot ticket today. I

387
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Speaker 1: wanted someone who could really speak to my psychology background,

388
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Speaker 1: so that was number one. So I needed someone from

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Speaker 1: from from the past, so to speak. But I wanted

390
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Speaker 1: someone who was still relevant. And Eric was actually the

391
00:20:56,359 --> 00:20:58,520
Speaker 1: only person who checks both of those boxes, who was

392
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Speaker 1: winning in the eighties and who was a winning today.

393
00:21:01,200 --> 00:21:04,399
Speaker 1: I mean, that just doesn't happen. Most poker players careers

394
00:21:04,440 --> 00:21:07,800
Speaker 1: are much shorter, and they don't they can't keep performing

395
00:21:07,840 --> 00:21:10,920
Speaker 1: at the same high level. Then I looked at videos.

396
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Speaker 1: He seemed like a nice guy. He's very quiet, seemed

397
00:21:13,520 --> 00:21:15,760
Speaker 1: very self effacing, very humble, and a lot of the

398
00:21:15,800 --> 00:21:20,320
Speaker 1: other poker players were out there like in your face, screaming, swearing, yelling,

399
00:21:20,800 --> 00:21:24,399
Speaker 1: throwing temper tantrums, you know, throwing cards and trips in

400
00:21:24,400 --> 00:21:26,880
Speaker 1: the air. And Eric was just kind of sitting there quietly,

401
00:21:26,920 --> 00:21:29,040
Speaker 1: and I thought, I'm going to spend a year with

402
00:21:29,119 --> 00:21:31,879
Speaker 1: someone as my mentor. I want someone nice and I

403
00:21:31,920 --> 00:21:34,919
Speaker 1: want someone I can get along with. And then I

404
00:21:35,000 --> 00:21:37,480
Speaker 1: realized that he was the guy from Rounders, so that

405
00:21:37,600 --> 00:21:39,359
Speaker 1: was just a bonus that he was the guy in

406
00:21:39,400 --> 00:21:42,720
Speaker 1: the in the red visor in the Rounders videos. And

407
00:21:43,040 --> 00:21:45,520
Speaker 1: I thought, wow, it's a Rounders guy. It's they gotta

408
00:21:46,040 --> 00:21:49,960
Speaker 1: gotta email him. So I found him on Twitter and

409
00:21:50,119 --> 00:21:52,919
Speaker 1: I just contacted him and I said, hey, you know,

410
00:21:53,040 --> 00:21:55,200
Speaker 1: I'm a journalist. I was still at The New Yorker

411
00:21:55,240 --> 00:21:59,240
Speaker 1: full time then, um and said I'm working on a

412
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Speaker 1: new project. I'd love to talk to you about it.

413
00:22:01,200 --> 00:22:03,720
Speaker 1: I think it's something that might interest you. Um And

414
00:22:04,000 --> 00:22:08,639
Speaker 1: he wrote up and he he was just immediately open.

415
00:22:09,000 --> 00:22:10,880
Speaker 1: There were no like tell me more about you. I'm

416
00:22:10,920 --> 00:22:12,520
Speaker 1: not sure how much time this is going to take.

417
00:22:12,880 --> 00:22:15,720
Speaker 1: That he loves my writing. The guy reads the New Yorker,

418
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Speaker 1: he loves the New Yorker. He knew exactly who I was,

419
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Speaker 1: so that helped and I didn't realize how lucky I got.

420
00:22:22,200 --> 00:22:25,960
Speaker 1: Most poker players do not know what the New Yorker is. Okay,

421
00:22:26,000 --> 00:22:29,160
Speaker 1: so you meet Eric. What's the next process in this

422
00:22:29,240 --> 00:22:31,239
Speaker 1: run up to selling the book and deciding to do

423
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Speaker 1: the book? Well, first I had to pitch Eric and

424
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Speaker 1: have him agreed to take me on. So I convinced

425
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Speaker 1: him that it was a good idea. Um. The way

426
00:22:40,119 --> 00:22:42,280
Speaker 1: I did that was, you know, I told him that

427
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Speaker 1: my background was psychology and as a journalist observing people,

428
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Speaker 1: and he thought that and I'd studied decision making specifically,

429
00:22:50,800 --> 00:22:53,760
Speaker 1: That's what I did for my pH d. And so

430
00:22:53,920 --> 00:22:56,280
Speaker 1: I actually had studied a lot of the things that

431
00:22:56,320 --> 00:22:59,240
Speaker 1: are important for playing poker, So that was part of it.

432
00:22:59,280 --> 00:23:01,600
Speaker 1: And I think for him that was a challenge to see,

433
00:23:02,200 --> 00:23:04,879
Speaker 1: you know, can he take someone from zero and can

434
00:23:05,720 --> 00:23:10,320
Speaker 1: my background? Can a psychological approach still work? Because right now,

435
00:23:11,119 --> 00:23:15,080
Speaker 1: most new players, if not all, entering the game are mathematical,

436
00:23:15,240 --> 00:23:17,520
Speaker 1: and I had taken my last math class in high school,

437
00:23:17,720 --> 00:23:20,360
Speaker 1: so that was never my strong suit and so he

438
00:23:20,480 --> 00:23:22,879
Speaker 1: was curious to see if that approach could still work.

439
00:23:23,440 --> 00:23:25,280
Speaker 1: And I think the other reason he took me on

440
00:23:25,359 --> 00:23:27,600
Speaker 1: was that he loves the game, and he saw in

441
00:23:27,720 --> 00:23:30,240
Speaker 1: me an opportunity to spread the love of the game

442
00:23:30,680 --> 00:23:35,120
Speaker 1: to other people, to the non poker world, because I can't.

443
00:23:35,119 --> 00:23:38,080
Speaker 1: I wasn't part of the poker community, and the people

444
00:23:38,320 --> 00:23:40,879
Speaker 1: who read my books weren't poker players, and so I

445
00:23:40,920 --> 00:23:42,959
Speaker 1: think he saw it as a long term investment, so

446
00:23:43,040 --> 00:23:45,440
Speaker 1: he agreed to give it a try and to see

447
00:23:45,440 --> 00:23:47,720
Speaker 1: if it would work. And we ended up getting along.

448
00:23:47,840 --> 00:23:50,919
Speaker 1: So if we learned pretty early on that it was

449
00:23:50,960 --> 00:23:53,080
Speaker 1: going to work in terms of us being able to

450
00:23:53,080 --> 00:23:56,800
Speaker 1: work together, then I needed material before I could put

451
00:23:56,800 --> 00:24:00,439
Speaker 1: together a proposal to sell the book. So he started

452
00:24:00,440 --> 00:24:03,680
Speaker 1: teaching me. We started working together. UM, I started learning

453
00:24:03,680 --> 00:24:07,040
Speaker 1: to play. So before I sold the book, UM, I

454
00:24:07,160 --> 00:24:10,160
Speaker 1: spent a few a few months going daily to New

455
00:24:10,200 --> 00:24:14,240
Speaker 1: Jersey back and forth to play online because online poker

456
00:24:14,359 --> 00:24:16,640
Speaker 1: is legal in New Jersey and not legal in New York,

457
00:24:17,040 --> 00:24:20,200
Speaker 1: which is bizarre, but it's but it's the case. So

458
00:24:20,440 --> 00:24:22,520
Speaker 1: I did that, and then I went to Vegas for

459
00:24:22,680 --> 00:24:26,600
Speaker 1: my first live real life let's go just a little

460
00:24:26,600 --> 00:24:31,320
Speaker 1: bit slower. You you go to New Jersey, you created account,

461
00:24:31,880 --> 00:24:36,200
Speaker 1: what are those initial experiences playing online? Like? I hate

462
00:24:36,200 --> 00:24:39,240
Speaker 1: playing online, I still do. I'm not I'm not a

463
00:24:39,280 --> 00:24:41,800
Speaker 1: fan you it's not what I love about poker, but

464
00:24:42,840 --> 00:24:46,080
Speaker 1: why Eric wanted me to learn to play online, and

465
00:24:46,119 --> 00:24:49,440
Speaker 1: I think he was absolutely right with the experience. Online

466
00:24:49,560 --> 00:24:53,639
Speaker 1: is much faster. You can play thousands of hands these days.

467
00:24:53,720 --> 00:24:57,040
Speaker 1: Online players get experience in a month that it used

468
00:24:57,040 --> 00:24:59,960
Speaker 1: to take live pros people who didn't do this professional

469
00:25:00,240 --> 00:25:05,040
Speaker 1: years to acquire. That's the difference in speed. And so

470
00:25:05,119 --> 00:25:09,919
Speaker 1: if you're learning, it's really helpful to see a whole

471
00:25:10,400 --> 00:25:14,960
Speaker 1: array of situations and to see an array of behaviors

472
00:25:15,000 --> 00:25:17,760
Speaker 1: and to start learning by experience. That's how the human

473
00:25:17,800 --> 00:25:20,679
Speaker 1: mind learns best. And so playing online, I got to

474
00:25:20,720 --> 00:25:23,720
Speaker 1: see hand after hand after hand, and it was just

475
00:25:24,720 --> 00:25:29,080
Speaker 1: at first, it was very, very overwhelming, um and everything

476
00:25:29,160 --> 00:25:32,080
Speaker 1: stressed me out. I didn't know how to use the interface.

477
00:25:32,320 --> 00:25:35,440
Speaker 1: I don't like timers, and you have timers, how long

478
00:25:35,480 --> 00:25:37,680
Speaker 1: you can take to make a decision. All of this

479
00:25:37,760 --> 00:25:40,880
Speaker 1: stuff was very stressful, but it started teaching me how

480
00:25:40,880 --> 00:25:43,960
Speaker 1: to play. It started teaching me all of these different situations.

481
00:25:44,440 --> 00:25:47,800
Speaker 1: And the really good thing about it is I could

482
00:25:47,920 --> 00:25:50,920
Speaker 1: actually record all of my sessions because you can just

483
00:25:50,960 --> 00:25:53,760
Speaker 1: screen record. So i'd play a tournament, I'd record the

484
00:25:53,800 --> 00:25:55,760
Speaker 1: whole thing, and then I'd be able to take it

485
00:25:55,760 --> 00:25:57,840
Speaker 1: to Eric and we could go through it and he

486
00:25:57,880 --> 00:26:01,120
Speaker 1: could help me, so we could go through decision by decision.

487
00:26:01,200 --> 00:26:03,919
Speaker 1: What I was doing to start teaching me how to

488
00:26:04,000 --> 00:26:07,040
Speaker 1: think through things and how to think about poker. So

489
00:26:07,119 --> 00:26:10,160
Speaker 1: in that sense it was invaluable. But in the sense

490
00:26:10,200 --> 00:26:12,800
Speaker 1: of am I having fun yet? No, I wasn't having

491
00:26:12,840 --> 00:26:15,280
Speaker 1: fun and I didn't love going to New Jersey. To

492
00:26:15,320 --> 00:26:18,000
Speaker 1: be perfectly honest, you want to be able if you're

493
00:26:18,040 --> 00:26:20,119
Speaker 1: already playing online. You want to play from the comfort

494
00:26:20,160 --> 00:26:22,040
Speaker 1: of your home. You don't want to be sitting in

495
00:26:22,040 --> 00:26:25,280
Speaker 1: a Starbucks with strangers looking over your shoulder and asking, hey,

496
00:26:25,280 --> 00:26:28,920
Speaker 1: what are you doing, which is exactly what happened to me. Okay,

497
00:26:28,960 --> 00:26:32,399
Speaker 1: So what is the difference between the people who play

498
00:26:32,520 --> 00:26:35,400
Speaker 1: online and what did you learn about people and luck

499
00:26:35,600 --> 00:26:39,159
Speaker 1: in those initial sessions? Very little? I mean, this is

500
00:26:39,240 --> 00:26:41,720
Speaker 1: just me learning the ropes. This, This is why this

501
00:26:41,800 --> 00:26:45,000
Speaker 1: journey ended up taking three years instead of one. Um.

502
00:26:45,119 --> 00:26:48,240
Speaker 1: So this at this point I'm not I'm not learning much.

503
00:26:48,280 --> 00:26:50,040
Speaker 1: I'm just still trying to figure out whether it's straight

504
00:26:50,080 --> 00:26:53,160
Speaker 1: piazza flush or flush pizza straight. You have to remember

505
00:26:53,200 --> 00:26:55,880
Speaker 1: that I'm a total notice. I have to I don't

506
00:26:55,880 --> 00:26:59,040
Speaker 1: even know the rules of the game. So look, starting

507
00:26:59,080 --> 00:27:02,119
Speaker 1: online is me trying to figure out what I'm doing.

508
00:27:02,520 --> 00:27:04,920
Speaker 1: And we're not even at the scale versus chance yet.

509
00:27:05,040 --> 00:27:08,840
Speaker 1: Right now, we're still at the very rudimentary stage of

510
00:27:09,400 --> 00:27:12,840
Speaker 1: how do you play? Okay, So, in your online career

511
00:27:12,840 --> 00:27:15,640
Speaker 1: in New Jersey, before you get to Vegas, how much

512
00:27:15,680 --> 00:27:17,880
Speaker 1: did it cost you to learn how to play? Oh?

513
00:27:17,960 --> 00:27:20,000
Speaker 1: I ended up winning two thousand dollars, a little over

514
00:27:20,040 --> 00:27:23,399
Speaker 1: two thousand dollars, okay, But before you were up in

515
00:27:23,480 --> 00:27:25,639
Speaker 1: the black? How far deep in the red were you?

516
00:27:25,720 --> 00:27:29,080
Speaker 1: If at all fifty dollars was minnitial deposit. I never

517
00:27:29,160 --> 00:27:32,280
Speaker 1: re deposited. That's pretty good. So how long do you

518
00:27:32,280 --> 00:27:34,560
Speaker 1: play online before you decide to hit the big world

519
00:27:34,600 --> 00:27:41,200
Speaker 1: in Vegas? A few months? And how frequently? Um? Three

520
00:27:41,240 --> 00:27:44,119
Speaker 1: or four days a week? And so how do you

521
00:27:44,400 --> 00:27:48,000
Speaker 1: or does Eric decide you're ready to go to Vegas? Um?

522
00:27:48,240 --> 00:27:51,639
Speaker 1: Part of it was bankroll. So when I saved up

523
00:27:51,720 --> 00:27:54,639
Speaker 1: enough money because Eric wanted me to take it seriously

524
00:27:54,840 --> 00:27:57,320
Speaker 1: as a profession, and so he said that I had

525
00:27:57,320 --> 00:28:00,480
Speaker 1: to earn my way up, and so we waited until

526
00:28:00,520 --> 00:28:02,960
Speaker 1: I made enough money where I could finance my trip

527
00:28:03,000 --> 00:28:07,280
Speaker 1: to Vegas all through what I already what I want

528
00:28:07,280 --> 00:28:12,240
Speaker 1: from poker? Is that the same same two thousand dollars? Okay,

529
00:28:12,240 --> 00:28:14,639
Speaker 1: so good a thing I want. I withdrew it all

530
00:28:14,680 --> 00:28:18,119
Speaker 1: and we we went to Vegas. I mean, Eric was

531
00:28:18,160 --> 00:28:22,439
Speaker 1: in Vegas most of the time, most of that time anyway. Okay,

532
00:28:22,480 --> 00:28:25,639
Speaker 1: So you go to Vegas. Where do you stay? Um?

533
00:28:25,680 --> 00:28:29,760
Speaker 1: I stayed at different places I made. I spent multiple

534
00:28:29,760 --> 00:28:32,800
Speaker 1: months in Vegas, so I stayed in airbnbs, I stayed

535
00:28:32,800 --> 00:28:37,679
Speaker 1: at the Aria. So it just depended, okay. And the

536
00:28:37,760 --> 00:28:43,800
Speaker 1: longer you stayed does the hotel cut you a rate? Really? Really? Okay?

537
00:28:43,880 --> 00:28:46,840
Speaker 1: So you go to Vegas. Go to Vegas, and what's

538
00:28:46,880 --> 00:28:51,640
Speaker 1: the first step, Um, start playing baby tournaments, the dailies

539
00:28:51,640 --> 00:28:54,160
Speaker 1: that cost you know, thirty five dollars and the nightlies.

540
00:28:54,640 --> 00:28:56,760
Speaker 1: So I'm not allowed to play any of the more

541
00:28:56,760 --> 00:28:59,840
Speaker 1: expensive tournaments. I have to start from the bottom. And

542
00:29:00,320 --> 00:29:03,400
Speaker 1: until I start winning those, says Eric, I cannot make

543
00:29:03,440 --> 00:29:06,920
Speaker 1: my way up to any further stakes. Well, well, you're

544
00:29:06,920 --> 00:29:09,160
Speaker 1: a high achiever. How did it feel to be in

545
00:29:09,200 --> 00:29:12,440
Speaker 1: the little league? Oh, I don't care. I'm I'm not

546
00:29:12,760 --> 00:29:16,200
Speaker 1: I think there's not a there's it's a very it's

547
00:29:16,200 --> 00:29:17,760
Speaker 1: a it's a very different thing to be a high

548
00:29:17,800 --> 00:29:20,400
Speaker 1: achiever and to be embarrassed to be in the little leagues.

549
00:29:20,640 --> 00:29:23,120
Speaker 1: I'm never embarrassed to be in the little leagues. I

550
00:29:23,160 --> 00:29:25,760
Speaker 1: think that's how you learn. I mean, I've spent my

551
00:29:25,760 --> 00:29:27,680
Speaker 1: whole life saying I don't know how to do this.

552
00:29:27,760 --> 00:29:31,440
Speaker 1: Please tell me, and please teach me. I don't understand.

553
00:29:31,880 --> 00:29:33,760
Speaker 1: That's what I do. I write about people who are

554
00:29:33,840 --> 00:29:35,960
Speaker 1: much smarter than I am and who know much more

555
00:29:36,000 --> 00:29:40,120
Speaker 1: than I do, and I interview them and I write

556
00:29:40,200 --> 00:29:43,000
Speaker 1: articles about them and about their work. So I love

557
00:29:43,080 --> 00:29:47,160
Speaker 1: not knowing. Um, for me, it's fine. I got to

558
00:29:47,200 --> 00:29:50,040
Speaker 1: start at the bottom. You have to learn everything. You

559
00:29:50,320 --> 00:29:52,800
Speaker 1: talk about these baby tournaments, and that's where you start

560
00:29:52,840 --> 00:29:56,120
Speaker 1: to learn. You wonder what effect being a woman is

561
00:29:56,160 --> 00:29:58,840
Speaker 1: in the game. Certain people try to intimidate. Could you

562
00:29:58,880 --> 00:30:01,960
Speaker 1: amplify that a little bit? Sure? Of course, are we

563
00:30:02,000 --> 00:30:03,960
Speaker 1: still talking about selling my book because at this point

564
00:30:04,000 --> 00:30:08,160
Speaker 1: I've told my book. Okay, so literally literally, where in

565
00:30:08,160 --> 00:30:11,920
Speaker 1: this process did you sell your book? After? After I

566
00:30:11,960 --> 00:30:13,680
Speaker 1: had been in Vegas for a little bit, then I

567
00:30:13,720 --> 00:30:16,160
Speaker 1: went back to New York sold the book and then

568
00:30:16,200 --> 00:30:19,200
Speaker 1: came back to Vegas. Okay, how much to make it worth?

569
00:30:19,360 --> 00:30:22,200
Speaker 1: I'm not going to get how in terms of the

570
00:30:22,280 --> 00:30:25,440
Speaker 1: number that the company gives you. Are you saying, well,

571
00:30:25,480 --> 00:30:27,760
Speaker 1: I need enough to live for X per year and

572
00:30:27,760 --> 00:30:31,040
Speaker 1: that's that's the criterion. Nope, that's not how it works.

573
00:30:31,080 --> 00:30:33,360
Speaker 1: I mean my books sold that auctions. My third book,

574
00:30:33,360 --> 00:30:36,240
Speaker 1: my first two were best sellers. It was a It

575
00:30:36,320 --> 00:30:40,360
Speaker 1: was a pretty straightforward process. I have a good agent. Okay,

576
00:30:40,360 --> 00:30:43,000
Speaker 1: so that now that you're deep into the process, you're

577
00:30:43,040 --> 00:30:45,840
Speaker 1: not worrying about cash. You have enough to live on. No,

578
00:30:46,040 --> 00:30:48,680
Speaker 1: I mean you always have to worry about cash, especially

579
00:30:48,720 --> 00:30:50,640
Speaker 1: because I left the New Yorker, so my income went

580
00:30:50,680 --> 00:30:54,040
Speaker 1: to zero completely, and you have to even at the

581
00:30:54,040 --> 00:30:59,840
Speaker 1: New Yorker, there's all writers are freelancers. So no that

582
00:31:00,000 --> 00:31:02,000
Speaker 1: if it's no health insurance, this is all stuff I

583
00:31:02,040 --> 00:31:07,040
Speaker 1: have to pay for. And I have suddenly stopped writing.

584
00:31:07,240 --> 00:31:09,560
Speaker 1: I've realized that I need to be playing poker full time,

585
00:31:09,960 --> 00:31:12,440
Speaker 1: and so all of my income streams went to zero.

586
00:31:12,520 --> 00:31:14,320
Speaker 1: When you get a book advance, it's not what you

587
00:31:14,360 --> 00:31:16,040
Speaker 1: think it is because you have no idea how long

588
00:31:16,040 --> 00:31:17,720
Speaker 1: the book is going to take, So you need to

589
00:31:17,720 --> 00:31:20,600
Speaker 1: make sure that it will last you. You don't get

590
00:31:20,600 --> 00:31:23,000
Speaker 1: it all, you just get a quarter of it goes

591
00:31:23,040 --> 00:31:25,840
Speaker 1: to your agents. So so there's that you pay your

592
00:31:25,840 --> 00:31:28,880
Speaker 1: own taxes. So there's that I leave in New York City,

593
00:31:28,920 --> 00:31:31,600
Speaker 1: so the tax right is very very high. So there's that,

594
00:31:32,120 --> 00:31:35,040
Speaker 1: and you need to I have a mortgage. You need

595
00:31:35,080 --> 00:31:38,040
Speaker 1: to kind of know that you're paying for planning for

596
00:31:38,080 --> 00:31:40,800
Speaker 1: all of these things. So no, I have zero dollars

597
00:31:41,280 --> 00:31:44,480
Speaker 1: to spend on poker. Okay, so you you played online,

598
00:31:44,880 --> 00:31:47,600
Speaker 1: you went to Vegas, you sold the book. The next

599
00:31:47,640 --> 00:31:53,400
Speaker 1: step is starting starting to uh grind my way up

600
00:31:53,600 --> 00:31:56,360
Speaker 1: until I can start winning these little baby tournaments so

601
00:31:56,400 --> 00:31:58,960
Speaker 1: that I can make money, so that I can actually

602
00:31:59,720 --> 00:32:01,760
Speaker 1: see if I can move up to the next level

603
00:32:01,880 --> 00:32:04,440
Speaker 1: in the poker tournament. Because my advance is going towards

604
00:32:04,440 --> 00:32:07,120
Speaker 1: paying my mortgage and my health insurance and all these

605
00:32:07,120 --> 00:32:10,320
Speaker 1: other things, it's not going towards paying my poker tournaments.

606
00:32:10,720 --> 00:32:12,880
Speaker 1: I did put a little bit aside because I knew

607
00:32:12,880 --> 00:32:14,479
Speaker 1: that for the book, I wanted to play the main

608
00:32:14,520 --> 00:32:17,160
Speaker 1: event that you and I started off talking about, So

609
00:32:17,200 --> 00:32:19,120
Speaker 1: I knew that ten thousand dollars was going to be

610
00:32:19,160 --> 00:32:22,320
Speaker 1: budgeted for that no matter what, UM, and so that

611
00:32:22,400 --> 00:32:26,320
Speaker 1: was put aside. Otherwise I needed to earn my way

612
00:32:26,400 --> 00:32:29,640
Speaker 1: up or not as the case. Maybe Okay, going back

613
00:32:29,640 --> 00:32:33,040
Speaker 1: to those initial experiences in the baby tournaments, what did

614
00:32:33,080 --> 00:32:36,440
Speaker 1: you learn? I learned this is where I really started

615
00:32:36,520 --> 00:32:39,680
Speaker 1: learning a lot um. At the beginning, I wasn't doing

616
00:32:39,680 --> 00:32:41,800
Speaker 1: well for a number of reasons. I mean, first, I

617
00:32:41,840 --> 00:32:45,920
Speaker 1: was intimidated. Playing live is not like playing online. UM.

618
00:32:46,120 --> 00:32:49,440
Speaker 1: I didn't know how anything worked. I didn't know the mechanics.

619
00:32:49,480 --> 00:32:52,320
Speaker 1: I felt like a literal fish out of water. I

620
00:32:52,400 --> 00:32:55,600
Speaker 1: say literal because in poker or the term for bad

621
00:32:55,600 --> 00:32:57,920
Speaker 1: players who don't know what they're doing is fish. And

622
00:32:58,160 --> 00:33:02,400
Speaker 1: I was definitely a fish, um. And so I and

623
00:33:02,440 --> 00:33:04,680
Speaker 1: I felt it. I knew that I didn't know anything.

624
00:33:05,160 --> 00:33:07,120
Speaker 1: And it would have been one thing if it had

625
00:33:07,160 --> 00:33:10,280
Speaker 1: been just this really warm and friendly and welcoming environment

626
00:33:10,600 --> 00:33:13,240
Speaker 1: and people said, oh, it's okay, like you're you're okay,

627
00:33:13,400 --> 00:33:15,920
Speaker 1: we'll help you out, um. And that's what it was.

628
00:33:15,960 --> 00:33:18,320
Speaker 1: At the highest levels, they are excitels of the world.

629
00:33:18,680 --> 00:33:22,000
Speaker 1: They opened their arms wide and they were all incredibly

630
00:33:22,000 --> 00:33:25,120
Speaker 1: generous and helpful. All of the big high stakes players

631
00:33:26,000 --> 00:33:28,880
Speaker 1: gave me their phone numbers, said they'd help me, and

632
00:33:29,400 --> 00:33:32,720
Speaker 1: we're really excited about my whole journey. When you enter

633
00:33:33,800 --> 00:33:36,800
Speaker 1: a random casino off scrip and are playing in a

634
00:33:36,840 --> 00:33:40,360
Speaker 1: thirty five dollar tournament, those aren't the same players. These

635
00:33:40,360 --> 00:33:43,440
Speaker 1: are people who are here to have fun. They're drinking.

636
00:33:44,040 --> 00:33:48,840
Speaker 1: They are mostly men. The poker world is male um,

637
00:33:49,120 --> 00:33:53,720
Speaker 1: and they don't really care for a female at the table,

638
00:33:54,040 --> 00:33:56,960
Speaker 1: And if you're already there, they're not gonna mind their

639
00:33:56,960 --> 00:33:59,640
Speaker 1: manners because they're here to have fun and they shouldn't

640
00:33:59,640 --> 00:34:02,760
Speaker 1: have to act differently because a woman is at the table.

641
00:34:03,480 --> 00:34:08,719
Speaker 1: So I initially I wasn't playing well because it was

642
00:34:08,800 --> 00:34:12,080
Speaker 1: really intimidating, and I would let them bully me, and

643
00:34:12,239 --> 00:34:14,560
Speaker 1: I didn't want conflict. I wanted people to like me,

644
00:34:14,719 --> 00:34:17,920
Speaker 1: so i'd fold, and even when I had good cards,

645
00:34:17,920 --> 00:34:20,480
Speaker 1: I wouldn't necessarily bet as much as I should because

646
00:34:20,520 --> 00:34:23,200
Speaker 1: I didn't want them to think, Oh, that's the bitch

647
00:34:23,200 --> 00:34:25,839
Speaker 1: who was always so aggressive. You know. I wanted them

648
00:34:25,840 --> 00:34:28,560
Speaker 1: to think I was a nice person. That's not the

649
00:34:28,600 --> 00:34:31,160
Speaker 1: way to play poker. That was not that's not the

650
00:34:31,200 --> 00:34:36,240
Speaker 1: game theoretical answer, And I was I was just letting

651
00:34:36,239 --> 00:34:40,200
Speaker 1: them walk all over me. And then it took a

652
00:34:40,200 --> 00:34:42,480
Speaker 1: while for me to realize what was happening, And it

653
00:34:42,560 --> 00:34:45,640
Speaker 1: took a while for me to realize that this was

654
00:34:45,680 --> 00:34:50,520
Speaker 1: actually an advantage. That they were all underestimating me and

655
00:34:50,600 --> 00:34:53,080
Speaker 1: what I was capable of, and correctly, at the beginning,

656
00:34:53,120 --> 00:34:56,719
Speaker 1: they weren't underestimating me because I did exactly what they

657
00:34:56,719 --> 00:34:59,240
Speaker 1: wanted me to. You know, they'd bully me and I'd fold.

658
00:34:59,600 --> 00:35:02,280
Speaker 1: They do this, and I'd go away. You know, That's

659
00:35:02,440 --> 00:35:05,720
Speaker 1: that's what they wanted, and they got it. But once

660
00:35:05,760 --> 00:35:10,000
Speaker 1: I realized that I was able to take that dynamic

661
00:35:10,120 --> 00:35:14,880
Speaker 1: and put it up and turn it around and really

662
00:35:16,719 --> 00:35:19,919
Speaker 1: figure out, Okay, fine, if you think I'm just a girl.

663
00:35:19,960 --> 00:35:21,959
Speaker 1: There was a guy who kept calling me little girl

664
00:35:22,640 --> 00:35:25,560
Speaker 1: over and over and he really got to me. Um.

665
00:35:25,600 --> 00:35:27,560
Speaker 1: Good for him, you know, he he got me to

666
00:35:27,640 --> 00:35:30,800
Speaker 1: make bad decisions. That's what you're supposed to do. Um,

667
00:35:30,840 --> 00:35:34,960
Speaker 1: but he he really got to me. And but then

668
00:35:35,000 --> 00:35:36,719
Speaker 1: I realized, if, okay, if you think of me as

669
00:35:36,719 --> 00:35:40,080
Speaker 1: a little girl, then I can get away with things

670
00:35:40,120 --> 00:35:42,319
Speaker 1: that I wouldn't have otherwise been able to get away with.

671
00:35:42,680 --> 00:35:45,960
Speaker 1: If you think I'm incapable of bluffing, I'm going to

672
00:35:46,040 --> 00:35:49,239
Speaker 1: bluff more. I'm going to run big bluffs because you're

673
00:35:49,280 --> 00:35:51,840
Speaker 1: going to fold. Because if you think that I couldn't

674
00:35:51,840 --> 00:35:54,040
Speaker 1: possibly be doing that, then you think I must have

675
00:35:54,120 --> 00:35:57,600
Speaker 1: a strong hand. If you're someone who would rather die

676
00:35:58,160 --> 00:36:00,560
Speaker 1: than fold to a girl or be bluff by a girl,

677
00:36:00,600 --> 00:36:03,799
Speaker 1: well I'm not going to bluff you because that would

678
00:36:03,840 --> 00:36:06,160
Speaker 1: just be throwing money on fire, because you're going to

679
00:36:06,200 --> 00:36:08,880
Speaker 1: call me no matter what. But when I have good hands,

680
00:36:08,960 --> 00:36:11,000
Speaker 1: or even marginally good hands, I'm gonna bet a lot

681
00:36:11,040 --> 00:36:13,319
Speaker 1: because you're gonna call me, and you're gonna call me

682
00:36:13,360 --> 00:36:15,879
Speaker 1: with hands that are worse than mine. If you're someone

683
00:36:15,960 --> 00:36:17,799
Speaker 1: who doesn't want to take my money because you want

684
00:36:17,800 --> 00:36:19,640
Speaker 1: to be a gentleman, there are guys who are very

685
00:36:19,680 --> 00:36:23,080
Speaker 1: condescending and patronizing and telling me all the things I

686
00:36:23,160 --> 00:36:26,439
Speaker 1: was doing wrong, um, and wanted to help me out

687
00:36:26,880 --> 00:36:29,600
Speaker 1: by calling me honey and showing me their cards. You

688
00:36:29,600 --> 00:36:31,319
Speaker 1: know you made a good fold, honey, here you go,

689
00:36:31,440 --> 00:36:35,520
Speaker 1: here's my hand, um, And I'd say, okay, fine, this

690
00:36:35,600 --> 00:36:38,560
Speaker 1: is great, thank you for showing me your cards. Information

691
00:36:38,640 --> 00:36:41,680
Speaker 1: is very important, so I love seeing what what cards

692
00:36:41,680 --> 00:36:45,160
Speaker 1: you hold. But also I now know that when you

693
00:36:45,239 --> 00:36:47,239
Speaker 1: bet a lot, I should fold, even if I have

694
00:36:47,280 --> 00:36:49,080
Speaker 1: a pretty good hand because you don't want to take

695
00:36:49,120 --> 00:36:51,759
Speaker 1: my money because you're a gentleman, or you'd like to

696
00:36:51,760 --> 00:36:54,480
Speaker 1: see yourself as a gentleman. Once I could figure out

697
00:36:54,480 --> 00:36:57,319
Speaker 1: how people saw me and how they wanted to see themselves,

698
00:36:57,600 --> 00:36:59,160
Speaker 1: you know, do they want to see themselves as a

699
00:36:59,200 --> 00:37:01,880
Speaker 1: big macho ga or asked the gentleman? Or is this?

700
00:37:02,000 --> 00:37:04,200
Speaker 1: Or is that? Once I could figure out those more

701
00:37:04,320 --> 00:37:07,960
Speaker 1: human elements, that I started being able to really take

702
00:37:07,960 --> 00:37:10,040
Speaker 1: advantage of them. And that's when I started winning and

703
00:37:10,080 --> 00:37:13,440
Speaker 1: making real money. And when you made this money, did

704
00:37:13,480 --> 00:37:19,000
Speaker 1: the men get angry? Yeah, of course, that's a simple answer.

705
00:37:19,320 --> 00:37:21,960
Speaker 1: Not all of them, Um, I mean Eric was ecstatic

706
00:37:22,000 --> 00:37:24,760
Speaker 1: when I won my first tournament, as was my husband,

707
00:37:24,760 --> 00:37:27,480
Speaker 1: as where all of the players who Eric had introduced

708
00:37:27,480 --> 00:37:31,239
Speaker 1: me to, I mean everyone who Everyone was always very

709
00:37:31,320 --> 00:37:34,319
Speaker 1: very supportive and excited. The guys I was playing against, no,

710
00:37:34,480 --> 00:37:37,480
Speaker 1: they weren't. In the first tournament I won, Um, it

711
00:37:37,560 --> 00:37:40,480
Speaker 1: was a baby tournament. I don't remember how much. The

712
00:37:40,600 --> 00:37:46,280
Speaker 1: entry fee was around fifty dollars at Planet Hollywood. And

713
00:37:47,280 --> 00:37:49,719
Speaker 1: when we got to the final table, um, I was

714
00:37:49,760 --> 00:37:53,680
Speaker 1: the chip leader. I had most of the chips in play,

715
00:37:53,840 --> 00:37:57,400
Speaker 1: and they all started pressuring me to chop, which means

716
00:37:57,440 --> 00:38:00,960
Speaker 1: stopped playing and just divide up the money. Um, and

717
00:38:02,200 --> 00:38:04,480
Speaker 1: I didn't really know what that was. Eric and I

718
00:38:04,480 --> 00:38:06,520
Speaker 1: had never talked about it because I'd never been in

719
00:38:06,520 --> 00:38:09,760
Speaker 1: that situation. And I was going to agree because okay,

720
00:38:09,800 --> 00:38:11,840
Speaker 1: you know, I want to be nice, I want to

721
00:38:11,840 --> 00:38:13,960
Speaker 1: be amenable. Then one of them just turned to me

722
00:38:14,000 --> 00:38:15,560
Speaker 1: and said, yeah, you know you don't you know you're

723
00:38:15,560 --> 00:38:18,080
Speaker 1: gonna just lose all those trips. You're in a position

724
00:38:18,120 --> 00:38:20,160
Speaker 1: of power now, but you're just gonna lose them. And

725
00:38:20,200 --> 00:38:22,359
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, well screw you. No, I'm not

726
00:38:22,400 --> 00:38:25,440
Speaker 1: gonna chop. So they were not happy. They and then

727
00:38:25,480 --> 00:38:28,480
Speaker 1: they just kept and then another one of them busted,

728
00:38:28,520 --> 00:38:30,880
Speaker 1: and another one and they just kept pressuring me to chop.

729
00:38:30,960 --> 00:38:33,000
Speaker 1: But at that point nothing was going to compel me

730
00:38:33,040 --> 00:38:35,719
Speaker 1: to chop. So I ended up winning and I was

731
00:38:35,840 --> 00:38:38,560
Speaker 1: and they were not happy because they just wanted me

732
00:38:38,640 --> 00:38:46,720
Speaker 1: to give up my money and give it to them.

733
00:38:46,719 --> 00:38:48,760
Speaker 1: But you know, we talked about the arc from being

734
00:38:48,800 --> 00:38:53,960
Speaker 1: intimidated to winning. Uh, you know, it takes a psychological

735
00:38:54,040 --> 00:38:58,600
Speaker 1: makeup to be at the top and endure others people's

736
00:38:58,760 --> 00:39:01,319
Speaker 1: hate or anger or that you how did you learn

737
00:39:01,360 --> 00:39:02,960
Speaker 1: how to cope with that. How did you gain a

738
00:39:03,040 --> 00:39:06,560
Speaker 1: thick skin? Well, I mean part of it was my training.

739
00:39:06,800 --> 00:39:10,799
Speaker 1: So my graduate advisor, who I worked with for many

740
00:39:10,880 --> 00:39:13,600
Speaker 1: years and who then became a close mentor and friend

741
00:39:13,640 --> 00:39:19,360
Speaker 1: of mine, was Walter Michelle and two people who aren't

742
00:39:19,400 --> 00:39:23,000
Speaker 1: familiar with the name, they're probably still familiar with the

743
00:39:23,000 --> 00:39:26,360
Speaker 1: work because it's become part of the popular culture. The

744
00:39:26,400 --> 00:39:31,560
Speaker 1: Marshmallow test the famous psychological experiment that had little kids

745
00:39:32,480 --> 00:39:35,200
Speaker 1: set at a table with a marshmallow or another treat

746
00:39:35,320 --> 00:39:38,640
Speaker 1: whatever they liked the most in front of them, and

747
00:39:39,000 --> 00:39:41,359
Speaker 1: there was a bell next to the treat, and they

748
00:39:41,400 --> 00:39:44,839
Speaker 1: were told, you can you can ring the bell at

749
00:39:44,880 --> 00:39:47,200
Speaker 1: any point and you're allowed to eat your treat. But

750
00:39:47,600 --> 00:39:49,759
Speaker 1: if you don't ring the bell, if you just wait

751
00:39:49,800 --> 00:39:51,719
Speaker 1: for us to come back to the room, we'll give

752
00:39:51,760 --> 00:39:53,600
Speaker 1: you many more treats and you'll be able to eat

753
00:39:53,600 --> 00:39:56,200
Speaker 1: as many. You'll be able to eat more of them.

754
00:39:56,239 --> 00:39:58,759
Speaker 1: And what they wanted to learn was how long would

755
00:39:58,760 --> 00:40:01,200
Speaker 1: this child weight? A three year old or four year

756
00:40:01,239 --> 00:40:03,480
Speaker 1: old and there's this delicious things setting right in front

757
00:40:03,520 --> 00:40:07,320
Speaker 1: of you, it's really hard to wait, and one minute

758
00:40:07,400 --> 00:40:10,759
Speaker 1: feels like an hour. I mean to a kid that young,

759
00:40:10,880 --> 00:40:14,440
Speaker 1: it's actually really hard to delay gratification. And what Walter

760
00:40:14,560 --> 00:40:17,400
Speaker 1: found was that the kids who were able to wait

761
00:40:17,440 --> 00:40:20,880
Speaker 1: the longest had much better life outcomes. So they followed

762
00:40:20,920 --> 00:40:23,520
Speaker 1: these kids. They're still following them. Walter unfortunately died a

763
00:40:23,520 --> 00:40:27,080
Speaker 1: few years ago, but the kids are still being followed. Um.

764
00:40:27,160 --> 00:40:30,520
Speaker 1: And so now it's you know, over forty years later, um,

765
00:40:31,000 --> 00:40:34,839
Speaker 1: and they were the kids who waited longer, did better

766
00:40:34,840 --> 00:40:38,160
Speaker 1: in school, better SAT scores, went to better colleges, have

767
00:40:38,320 --> 00:40:41,320
Speaker 1: better health outcomes, are just much more successful in life.

768
00:40:41,840 --> 00:40:45,400
Speaker 1: And so this was kind of the foundational study of

769
00:40:45,400 --> 00:40:50,320
Speaker 1: self control and of how important the ability to regulate

770
00:40:50,360 --> 00:40:55,520
Speaker 1: your emotions and regularly cool hot stimuli. So the marshmallow

771
00:40:55,520 --> 00:40:57,680
Speaker 1: in this case is the hot stimulus. You want it,

772
00:40:57,680 --> 00:41:01,239
Speaker 1: it's right in front of you, yourity to wait, your

773
00:41:01,239 --> 00:41:04,440
Speaker 1: ability to cool it off. There were kids. I love

774
00:41:04,520 --> 00:41:07,440
Speaker 1: the interviews with the kids. So home said, you know, oh, well,

775
00:41:07,480 --> 00:41:09,480
Speaker 1: I put a frame around it in my head because

776
00:41:09,480 --> 00:41:12,040
Speaker 1: you can't eat a picture. Others that said, you know,

777
00:41:12,040 --> 00:41:14,440
Speaker 1: oh I pictured it. I pretended that it was a cloud,

778
00:41:14,719 --> 00:41:17,480
Speaker 1: and you can't eat a cloud. Others just turned the

779
00:41:17,560 --> 00:41:20,000
Speaker 1: chair around so they weren't looking at it. Now, these

780
00:41:20,000 --> 00:41:23,800
Speaker 1: are kids coming up with these strategies spontaneously. But Walter

781
00:41:23,880 --> 00:41:27,080
Speaker 1: found you could teach them. You could actually teach these strategies,

782
00:41:27,320 --> 00:41:30,239
Speaker 1: and kids who learned those strategies were just as successful

783
00:41:30,360 --> 00:41:33,600
Speaker 1: as the ones who had them intuitively. And so I've

784
00:41:33,680 --> 00:41:35,520
Speaker 1: been doing this work for a long time, and so

785
00:41:35,600 --> 00:41:38,520
Speaker 1: I think I had a lot of the arsenal and

786
00:41:38,680 --> 00:41:43,160
Speaker 1: the vocabulary for realizing what was going on and having

787
00:41:43,239 --> 00:41:45,760
Speaker 1: some techniques in play so that I could remove myself

788
00:41:45,800 --> 00:41:50,759
Speaker 1: from the situation that said, I mean, I wasn't successful

789
00:41:50,800 --> 00:41:52,600
Speaker 1: from the beginning. I had to work hard, and I

790
00:41:52,680 --> 00:41:56,080
Speaker 1: ended up actually working with a mental game coach, someone

791
00:41:56,160 --> 00:41:59,520
Speaker 1: who could help me, someone who could see me objectively,

792
00:42:00,160 --> 00:42:03,680
Speaker 1: because even if you're me, I mean, I was very

793
00:42:04,080 --> 00:42:06,360
Speaker 1: I think I was a little overcompetent at the beginning

794
00:42:06,480 --> 00:42:09,640
Speaker 1: of my ability to regulate my emotions because I thought, oh,

795
00:42:09,719 --> 00:42:12,000
Speaker 1: you know, I have a psychology PhD. This is what

796
00:42:12,040 --> 00:42:15,680
Speaker 1: I studied. I'm a natural. Well, when you're at a

797
00:42:15,680 --> 00:42:18,680
Speaker 1: poker table in a new environment and there's lots of

798
00:42:18,719 --> 00:42:22,680
Speaker 1: pressure and the stakes are rising, you're gonna you're gonna

799
00:42:22,719 --> 00:42:26,280
Speaker 1: mess up. And I realized that I did need help,

800
00:42:26,440 --> 00:42:29,480
Speaker 1: and so I a lot of the things that I learned,

801
00:42:29,600 --> 00:42:33,400
Speaker 1: I only learned because I was I had someone on

802
00:42:33,440 --> 00:42:36,960
Speaker 1: the outside who I could talk to and who would

803
00:42:37,520 --> 00:42:40,759
Speaker 1: be able to in a sense, mirror me back to me.

804
00:42:41,320 --> 00:42:45,640
Speaker 1: But to to say, oh, so, it seems like, you know,

805
00:42:45,719 --> 00:42:47,840
Speaker 1: you get really upset when these guys are trying to

806
00:42:47,840 --> 00:42:51,200
Speaker 1: bully you. It seems like when you're in those situations,

807
00:42:51,520 --> 00:42:54,040
Speaker 1: you default to this more passive thing. And I'd say, oh,

808
00:42:54,080 --> 00:42:56,520
Speaker 1: I guess you're right, because he was right. He just

809
00:42:56,640 --> 00:42:59,560
Speaker 1: I would just explain what happened and tell him the day,

810
00:42:59,640 --> 00:43:02,120
Speaker 1: but he could synthathize it in a way that it's

811
00:43:02,239 --> 00:43:05,120
Speaker 1: very difficult to do when it's you who's going through it.

812
00:43:05,719 --> 00:43:09,040
Speaker 1: Which is which is all to say that, sure, I

813
00:43:09,120 --> 00:43:11,160
Speaker 1: had a lot of the skills and a lot of

814
00:43:11,160 --> 00:43:13,520
Speaker 1: the knowledge, and I think that helped me, and that

815
00:43:13,600 --> 00:43:17,040
Speaker 1: helped me ramp up more quickly. But I still need

816
00:43:17,040 --> 00:43:20,239
Speaker 1: it outside help. I still needed someone who could help

817
00:43:20,280 --> 00:43:22,480
Speaker 1: talk me through it. Um. And I think that that's

818
00:43:22,520 --> 00:43:26,279
Speaker 1: something very important to realize. Whether you paid or not,

819
00:43:26,400 --> 00:43:30,520
Speaker 1: what is someone like that normally charge for their help? Um.

820
00:43:30,560 --> 00:43:33,720
Speaker 1: It depends on the person. Uh, there's there's a huge

821
00:43:33,760 --> 00:43:36,399
Speaker 1: scale and mental game coaches. I mean it starts at

822
00:43:37,120 --> 00:43:39,160
Speaker 1: a few hundred dollars an hour, and I know some

823
00:43:39,320 --> 00:43:41,800
Speaker 1: I never worked with them who charged over a thousand

824
00:43:41,840 --> 00:43:45,080
Speaker 1: dollars an hour. Okay, Just so there's a point in

825
00:43:45,120 --> 00:43:47,080
Speaker 1: your book that a lot of people are interested in

826
00:43:47,280 --> 00:43:50,600
Speaker 1: that does not directly relate to poker. You have a

827
00:43:50,640 --> 00:43:54,080
Speaker 1: line there we say you don't believe in the ten rule?

828
00:43:54,480 --> 00:43:58,920
Speaker 1: Could you go a little deeper there? Sure m. I

829
00:43:59,160 --> 00:44:02,120
Speaker 1: spent a lot out of time arguing back and forth

830
00:44:02,160 --> 00:44:06,759
Speaker 1: with Andre's Eriksson, who is the father of of the

831
00:44:06,880 --> 00:44:11,640
Speaker 1: research into into deliberate practice, who recently passed away. He did, yes,

832
00:44:11,680 --> 00:44:14,400
Speaker 1: he died a few weeks ago. Unfortunately. I liked him

833
00:44:14,440 --> 00:44:18,480
Speaker 1: a lot. He was a great guy. We disagreed on everything,

834
00:44:19,000 --> 00:44:21,960
Speaker 1: and we never got into a fight because he didn't.

835
00:44:22,200 --> 00:44:24,080
Speaker 1: He would just listen to you and he just never

836
00:44:24,160 --> 00:44:26,440
Speaker 1: raised his voice, and he just would not and say, yeah, no,

837
00:44:26,680 --> 00:44:29,560
Speaker 1: I don't agree, and he would and he would go on,

838
00:44:29,640 --> 00:44:32,239
Speaker 1: and it was it's so rare, you know. And I

839
00:44:32,280 --> 00:44:36,239
Speaker 1: was attacking his work because I wanted to challenge him

840
00:44:36,360 --> 00:44:38,240
Speaker 1: on a lot of the things that he was saying,

841
00:44:38,800 --> 00:44:41,960
Speaker 1: and he just he was okay with that, and that's

842
00:44:42,200 --> 00:44:44,799
Speaker 1: I really admired that. I think that's such a rare

843
00:44:44,880 --> 00:44:47,759
Speaker 1: characteristic for a researcher. So what is what is your

844
00:44:47,800 --> 00:44:52,400
Speaker 1: actual belief relative? So I think that I think that

845
00:44:52,440 --> 00:44:56,120
Speaker 1: practice is absolutely important. No one is saying that it's not.

846
00:44:56,239 --> 00:45:00,200
Speaker 1: You need to work hard, and you need to need

847
00:45:00,239 --> 00:45:02,640
Speaker 1: to practice, and you need to practice deliberately. I think

848
00:45:02,640 --> 00:45:07,120
Speaker 1: Honders was brilliant in so many ways in figuring out

849
00:45:07,160 --> 00:45:10,839
Speaker 1: that these components matter. However, he insisted that that's all

850
00:45:10,880 --> 00:45:14,000
Speaker 1: that matters, And what I say is that's absolutely not true.

851
00:45:14,239 --> 00:45:18,720
Speaker 1: Genetics matter, Talent matters. Who you are when you start matters.

852
00:45:18,800 --> 00:45:22,879
Speaker 1: The same amount of hours done in the exact same

853
00:45:22,880 --> 00:45:24,920
Speaker 1: way as not going to translate for person A to

854
00:45:25,000 --> 00:45:28,640
Speaker 1: person BE, and PERSONNE might need a hundred hours to

855
00:45:28,680 --> 00:45:31,439
Speaker 1: get amazing. Person B might never get to that level

856
00:45:31,560 --> 00:45:36,080
Speaker 1: even with a hundred thousand hours. So there are lots

857
00:45:36,080 --> 00:45:39,360
Speaker 1: of individual differences. There's a lot of variability, and yeah,

858
00:45:39,400 --> 00:45:42,120
Speaker 1: you have to work hard, but that's not enough, and

859
00:45:43,760 --> 00:45:46,759
Speaker 1: you have to also figure out where your skills are

860
00:45:46,840 --> 00:45:49,760
Speaker 1: and you have to figure out what you're able to do.

861
00:45:49,920 --> 00:45:52,680
Speaker 1: Had I decided that I wanted to write a book

862
00:45:53,160 --> 00:46:00,399
Speaker 1: about playing golf, there'd be no book. My hand eye

863
00:46:00,440 --> 00:46:05,600
Speaker 1: coordination is zero. I cannot hit a golf ball, for

864
00:46:05,680 --> 00:46:08,719
Speaker 1: the love of my life, and I can't, especially for

865
00:46:08,840 --> 00:46:11,120
Speaker 1: a baseball book. If a ball is flying at my face,

866
00:46:11,200 --> 00:46:14,160
Speaker 1: I mean, I duck, I can't. I can't do that.

867
00:46:14,239 --> 00:46:17,160
Speaker 1: I'm not someone who's good at any of that. And

868
00:46:17,320 --> 00:46:20,000
Speaker 1: believe me, even if I practice for ten thousand hours,

869
00:46:20,080 --> 00:46:22,719
Speaker 1: even something like golf, which is a very which is

870
00:46:22,760 --> 00:46:25,279
Speaker 1: something that's very amenable to learning, never going to be

871
00:46:25,320 --> 00:46:28,759
Speaker 1: able to hit balls with tiger woods or or go

872
00:46:28,880 --> 00:46:31,480
Speaker 1: on any sort of a decent level. I know that,

873
00:46:32,040 --> 00:46:34,160
Speaker 1: and I and I'm willing to bet a lot of

874
00:46:34,160 --> 00:46:39,240
Speaker 1: money on it. And that's the difference between me and uders.

875
00:46:39,400 --> 00:46:42,040
Speaker 1: Unders would say that's absolutely not true. You can be

876
00:46:42,120 --> 00:46:44,560
Speaker 1: tiger Woods, and I'd say, no, only tiger woods can

877
00:46:44,560 --> 00:46:46,319
Speaker 1: be tiger Woods. And he said, no, Well, you didn't

878
00:46:46,320 --> 00:46:51,400
Speaker 1: practice well or you didn't practice deliberately enough. Okay, Uh.

879
00:46:51,440 --> 00:46:53,919
Speaker 1: There's a lot in the psychology in the book. One

880
00:46:53,960 --> 00:46:56,160
Speaker 1: thing we didn't cover is the game you're playing is

881
00:46:56,239 --> 00:46:57,960
Speaker 1: Texas Hold Him. You make a big point in the

882
00:46:58,040 --> 00:47:01,320
Speaker 1: book where you're analogizing that to life, and you believe

883
00:47:01,360 --> 00:47:05,759
Speaker 1: it's the best analogy in in games. It's not me,

884
00:47:05,880 --> 00:47:08,759
Speaker 1: it's von Neuman. So let's just let's just get that

885
00:47:09,080 --> 00:47:11,360
Speaker 1: straight because I didn't make it up. I just stole

886
00:47:11,440 --> 00:47:16,200
Speaker 1: his uh with with full attribution, but it's his idea.

887
00:47:16,760 --> 00:47:20,840
Speaker 1: So which we're looking for is what is the balance

888
00:47:20,920 --> 00:47:24,720
Speaker 1: of known information to unknown information? What is the balance

889
00:47:24,800 --> 00:47:28,759
Speaker 1: between the things that we have in common and the

890
00:47:28,800 --> 00:47:31,360
Speaker 1: things that we have in private. Because poker is a

891
00:47:31,360 --> 00:47:34,359
Speaker 1: game of incomplete information, like life. So there are things

892
00:47:34,360 --> 00:47:36,719
Speaker 1: that you know, there are things that I know. There

893
00:47:36,760 --> 00:47:38,879
Speaker 1: are things we both know, and we need to make

894
00:47:38,920 --> 00:47:42,000
Speaker 1: the best decision possible knowing that we don't know everything right,

895
00:47:42,040 --> 00:47:45,080
Speaker 1: we can only guess at some of this hidden information.

896
00:47:46,200 --> 00:47:50,759
Speaker 1: Other games like chess are really bad analogies for life.

897
00:47:50,880 --> 00:47:53,800
Speaker 1: Von Neuman dismissed it completely because chess is a perfect

898
00:47:53,800 --> 00:47:57,000
Speaker 1: information game. There's always a right move. You can solve it.

899
00:47:57,280 --> 00:47:59,400
Speaker 1: And he said, if you give me enough computing power,

900
00:47:59,719 --> 00:48:01,520
Speaker 1: I'll tell you exactly what you're supposed to do. And

901
00:48:01,560 --> 00:48:03,600
Speaker 1: of course chess has been solved, and so he said,

902
00:48:03,680 --> 00:48:06,040
Speaker 1: that's not life. Life is not a chess game. You

903
00:48:06,080 --> 00:48:08,200
Speaker 1: can't see all the pieces, you can't see the board.

904
00:48:08,520 --> 00:48:10,160
Speaker 1: You know, you might think you're looking at a queen

905
00:48:10,239 --> 00:48:12,720
Speaker 1: and then while the disguise comes off and it's actually

906
00:48:12,719 --> 00:48:18,880
Speaker 1: a bishop or or whatnot. So life is full of deception.

907
00:48:19,280 --> 00:48:22,800
Speaker 1: Life is full of things you don't know and things

908
00:48:22,800 --> 00:48:26,560
Speaker 1: that are concealed, and so you need an imperfect information

909
00:48:26,600 --> 00:48:29,400
Speaker 1: game to be like life. But within poker, there are

910
00:48:29,440 --> 00:48:33,000
Speaker 1: lots of different variants. And the reason that no limit

911
00:48:33,080 --> 00:48:35,480
Speaker 1: hold them is the one that I chose, and the

912
00:48:35,480 --> 00:48:38,320
Speaker 1: one that seems to be the best is the exact

913
00:48:38,400 --> 00:48:42,520
Speaker 1: balance of knowns to unknowns seems just about right. There

914
00:48:42,560 --> 00:48:45,440
Speaker 1: are other variants of poker where there's too much unknown,

915
00:48:45,520 --> 00:48:47,400
Speaker 1: and so it becomes too much of a gamble. So

916
00:48:47,440 --> 00:48:50,120
Speaker 1: if there are five cards that every single person has

917
00:48:50,200 --> 00:48:52,359
Speaker 1: that you can't see, all of a sudden, they're just

918
00:48:52,400 --> 00:48:56,480
Speaker 1: too many X factors and it becomes too much about

919
00:48:56,520 --> 00:48:59,759
Speaker 1: a guessing game and too little about skill. If there's

920
00:48:59,800 --> 00:49:02,239
Speaker 1: only one card. There's some variants where there's only one

921
00:49:02,280 --> 00:49:05,320
Speaker 1: whole card. Then it becomes too mathematical, too much like chess.

922
00:49:05,440 --> 00:49:09,800
Speaker 1: There's too little that's unknown, and and hold him in Texas,

923
00:49:09,800 --> 00:49:12,240
Speaker 1: hold him. He thought that this was actually the variant

924
00:49:12,320 --> 00:49:16,000
Speaker 1: with the best balance, and the reason that you choose

925
00:49:16,000 --> 00:49:18,680
Speaker 1: no limit as opposed to limit. So the differences in

926
00:49:18,760 --> 00:49:21,480
Speaker 1: limit your bets are limited. There's always a cap to

927
00:49:21,520 --> 00:49:24,000
Speaker 1: what you can you can bet, and no limit there

928
00:49:24,080 --> 00:49:26,400
Speaker 1: isn't he said, Well, life is no limit. You can

929
00:49:26,440 --> 00:49:28,840
Speaker 1: always go all in, you can always bet everything. Nothing's

930
00:49:29,040 --> 00:49:31,080
Speaker 1: keeping you from it. So if you want an analogy

931
00:49:31,120 --> 00:49:33,919
Speaker 1: for life, it better be no limit. Okay. A couple

932
00:49:33,960 --> 00:49:36,520
Speaker 1: of things you brought up. You mentioned a couple of

933
00:49:36,560 --> 00:49:40,680
Speaker 1: times math and the people with mathematical skills. To what

934
00:49:40,840 --> 00:49:43,040
Speaker 1: degree do they have an advantage and where are they

935
00:49:43,040 --> 00:49:47,880
Speaker 1: in the poker hierarchy and sphere. Well, it depends. Um,

936
00:49:47,920 --> 00:49:50,360
Speaker 1: I think that you need both. I think that you

937
00:49:50,400 --> 00:49:54,319
Speaker 1: need both math and psychology. And I think that the

938
00:49:54,360 --> 00:49:58,200
Speaker 1: best players have both. And the best players know which

939
00:49:58,239 --> 00:50:00,560
Speaker 1: one is their skill and that's where they've focus, that's

940
00:50:00,560 --> 00:50:03,840
Speaker 1: where their edges. But they also learned to master the

941
00:50:03,920 --> 00:50:06,600
Speaker 1: other thing to the best of their ability. So for

942
00:50:06,640 --> 00:50:09,399
Speaker 1: someone like Eric Seidel, he's a psych guy and he's

943
00:50:09,400 --> 00:50:12,200
Speaker 1: not a math guy, and yet he has the most

944
00:50:12,239 --> 00:50:16,120
Speaker 1: advanced mathematical software that he uses to try to figure

945
00:50:16,120 --> 00:50:20,920
Speaker 1: out what the math guys are thinking. Someone like Stephen Chidwick,

946
00:50:21,000 --> 00:50:23,400
Speaker 1: who is currently considered one of the best tournament players

947
00:50:23,400 --> 00:50:26,479
Speaker 1: in the world. He's much younger. Um, he's a math guy,

948
00:50:26,760 --> 00:50:29,319
Speaker 1: He's the one who knows exactly how to set up

949
00:50:29,760 --> 00:50:33,040
Speaker 1: all of these simulations. Or someone who I worked with, Um,

950
00:50:33,120 --> 00:50:36,120
Speaker 1: who's just a great guy and a great player at

951
00:50:36,160 --> 00:50:38,879
Speaker 1: someone like I Caxton. They know the math, that's their

952
00:50:39,280 --> 00:50:42,440
Speaker 1: strong suit, that's where they've run all the simulations. Their

953
00:50:42,520 --> 00:50:47,640
Speaker 1: numbers leave me and Eric far behind, but their psychology

954
00:50:47,760 --> 00:50:52,040
Speaker 1: might not be quite as strong because they are much

955
00:50:52,120 --> 00:50:55,279
Speaker 1: more in their heads about the math and might not

956
00:50:55,400 --> 00:50:57,480
Speaker 1: be picking up on some of the physical cues, might

957
00:50:57,520 --> 00:51:00,880
Speaker 1: not be picking up on some of the psychological dynamics. However,

958
00:51:01,400 --> 00:51:03,480
Speaker 1: at the top, I mean, I actually think that Stevie

959
00:51:03,480 --> 00:51:05,759
Speaker 1: and I probably are picking up on all the psychology

960
00:51:05,800 --> 00:51:08,600
Speaker 1: because there I've just named two of the best players

961
00:51:08,640 --> 00:51:12,839
Speaker 1: in the world, But almost everyone else is not them.

962
00:51:12,920 --> 00:51:15,120
Speaker 1: And there are people who rely way too much on

963
00:51:15,120 --> 00:51:17,680
Speaker 1: the math and they miss a lot, and I can

964
00:51:17,680 --> 00:51:20,719
Speaker 1: actually sometimes they're the easiest to play against at the

965
00:51:20,760 --> 00:51:23,279
Speaker 1: table because you know what they're thinking, you know what

966
00:51:23,320 --> 00:51:25,480
Speaker 1: they're going to do, and you know that they're missing

967
00:51:25,480 --> 00:51:29,160
Speaker 1: a lot of information because they've already figured out mathematically

968
00:51:29,200 --> 00:51:31,640
Speaker 1: exactly what they need to do here, and there are

969
00:51:31,640 --> 00:51:34,359
Speaker 1: people who don't care about the math at all. They're

970
00:51:34,360 --> 00:51:37,640
Speaker 1: also easy to play against because you can exploit them

971
00:51:37,640 --> 00:51:41,040
Speaker 1: because they're going to make bad mistakes because they don't

972
00:51:41,040 --> 00:51:43,160
Speaker 1: care about the math. They don't care about the odds.

973
00:51:43,160 --> 00:51:45,760
Speaker 1: They're just playing the man. And you need to understand

974
00:51:45,800 --> 00:51:47,759
Speaker 1: the math. And you need to understand that part as well.

975
00:51:48,160 --> 00:51:50,200
Speaker 1: You mentioned at the beginning you hadn't taken a math

976
00:51:50,239 --> 00:51:53,480
Speaker 1: course since high school. To what degree have you? Uh,

977
00:51:53,600 --> 00:51:55,920
Speaker 1: you know, spit up and become accustomed to and learn

978
00:51:56,000 --> 00:51:59,240
Speaker 1: the math. I mean I count on my fingers and

979
00:51:59,480 --> 00:52:03,000
Speaker 1: Eric still do. And Eric told me at the very

980
00:52:03,040 --> 00:52:06,640
Speaker 1: beginning that there's no hard math the math. He said,

981
00:52:06,680 --> 00:52:08,840
Speaker 1: it's so easy that a sixth grader can do it.

982
00:52:08,880 --> 00:52:12,440
Speaker 1: If you can add, subtract, multiplind, divide. So I have

983
00:52:12,520 --> 00:52:14,600
Speaker 1: not picked up any advanced math skills, but I have

984
00:52:14,760 --> 00:52:18,320
Speaker 1: become better at because I've had more practice. Is mental

985
00:52:18,360 --> 00:52:22,319
Speaker 1: math um and I I'm someone who was always fine

986
00:52:22,320 --> 00:52:24,239
Speaker 1: at math. I mean I took advanced calculus. I just

987
00:52:24,239 --> 00:52:25,960
Speaker 1: took it in high school and I haven't taken it

988
00:52:26,000 --> 00:52:28,520
Speaker 1: since I always could understand the math. I just didn't

989
00:52:28,520 --> 00:52:31,239
Speaker 1: like it. It wasn't interesting to me. So I have

990
00:52:31,400 --> 00:52:35,160
Speaker 1: those muscles somewhere back there, UM, and I was able

991
00:52:35,239 --> 00:52:38,640
Speaker 1: to wake some of them up, so I can calculate

992
00:52:38,680 --> 00:52:41,640
Speaker 1: POD odds pretty quickly. At the beginning, it took me

993
00:52:42,200 --> 00:52:44,760
Speaker 1: a while and I'd have to be sitting there counting.

994
00:52:45,080 --> 00:52:46,840
Speaker 1: Now I still use my fingers, but I do it

995
00:52:46,960 --> 00:52:50,480
Speaker 1: very very quickly. Okay. Another element you talked about in

996
00:52:50,520 --> 00:52:56,080
Speaker 1: the book is aggressiveness. So, uh, is that something that

997
00:52:56,160 --> 00:52:58,840
Speaker 1: people just tend to play aggressively and they don't modulate

998
00:52:58,880 --> 00:53:01,959
Speaker 1: their behavior And are the aggressive players a certain type

999
00:53:01,960 --> 00:53:04,879
Speaker 1: that you can then adjust to? Well, it depends once again,

1000
00:53:04,880 --> 00:53:07,200
Speaker 1: it depends on the player. So at the beginning, I

1001
00:53:07,200 --> 00:53:09,840
Speaker 1: feel like players start off in one of two modes.

1002
00:53:10,200 --> 00:53:12,720
Speaker 1: Some are way too aggressive now I'm talking about amateurs

1003
00:53:12,760 --> 00:53:15,120
Speaker 1: who are just starting out, and some are like me,

1004
00:53:15,480 --> 00:53:18,799
Speaker 1: way too passive. UM. So I was too scary, UM

1005
00:53:19,000 --> 00:53:22,040
Speaker 1: and not nearly aggressive enough. And there are a lot

1006
00:53:22,080 --> 00:53:24,359
Speaker 1: of players, UM, and I think actually most players are

1007
00:53:24,360 --> 00:53:27,359
Speaker 1: on the other end. They play too many hands, they're

1008
00:53:27,400 --> 00:53:33,240
Speaker 1: too aggressive, they like bluffing and they enjoy that. And

1009
00:53:33,280 --> 00:53:36,759
Speaker 1: as you learn more about the game, UM, there are

1010
00:53:36,840 --> 00:53:42,080
Speaker 1: players who keep being super aggressive always and back in

1011
00:53:42,120 --> 00:53:44,640
Speaker 1: the day um as Area told me it was before

1012
00:53:44,640 --> 00:53:46,400
Speaker 1: my time, but he said that that used to work

1013
00:53:46,880 --> 00:53:49,319
Speaker 1: because all the thinking players would think, go, well, if

1014
00:53:49,320 --> 00:53:51,160
Speaker 1: you're being that aggressive, you know you must have a

1015
00:53:51,160 --> 00:53:54,080
Speaker 1: really good hand. Um And so there was once upon

1016
00:53:54,120 --> 00:53:56,919
Speaker 1: a time when the whole general level of the game

1017
00:53:57,000 --> 00:54:00,280
Speaker 1: was lower. Super aggression got people very very far are

1018
00:54:00,760 --> 00:54:03,719
Speaker 1: Once people started catching on, they, as you said, adjusted,

1019
00:54:04,040 --> 00:54:07,080
Speaker 1: they started realizing, wait, this guy is just running everyone

1020
00:54:07,120 --> 00:54:10,000
Speaker 1: over because no one's standing up to them. Now, if

1021
00:54:10,040 --> 00:54:12,080
Speaker 1: you start standing up to them, all of a sudden,

1022
00:54:12,080 --> 00:54:15,239
Speaker 1: the aggression is not paying off anymore. Because you are

1023
00:54:15,560 --> 00:54:18,200
Speaker 1: people are pushing back, and you have junk you have

1024
00:54:18,320 --> 00:54:20,160
Speaker 1: you don't have a strong hand at all. You're bluffing

1025
00:54:20,200 --> 00:54:22,319
Speaker 1: way too much, and all of a sudden you start

1026
00:54:22,360 --> 00:54:25,440
Speaker 1: losing money. And as Eric said, the guys who failed

1027
00:54:25,480 --> 00:54:29,719
Speaker 1: to adjust, who stayed super aggressive, wint bust. They went broke,

1028
00:54:29,760 --> 00:54:32,440
Speaker 1: they lost all of their money. And so the best

1029
00:54:32,440 --> 00:54:36,000
Speaker 1: players are players who This is actually a similar answer

1030
00:54:36,040 --> 00:54:38,239
Speaker 1: to the one I gave about math and psychology. The

1031
00:54:38,280 --> 00:54:41,120
Speaker 1: best players are players who figure out what their natural

1032
00:54:41,200 --> 00:54:44,120
Speaker 1: level of aggression is and who figure out what works

1033
00:54:44,160 --> 00:54:47,879
Speaker 1: for them, what feels comfortable to them, and then who

1034
00:54:47,880 --> 00:54:51,879
Speaker 1: are able to do that and to adjust to other players.

1035
00:54:51,920 --> 00:54:54,719
Speaker 1: So someone like Eric is not someone who's an aggressive

1036
00:54:54,760 --> 00:54:58,200
Speaker 1: person in real life and not someone who's like a

1037
00:54:58,280 --> 00:55:01,600
Speaker 1: maniac at the table. The at certain tables, he's capable

1038
00:55:01,600 --> 00:55:05,120
Speaker 1: of very maniacal plays because he's very good at adjusting.

1039
00:55:05,239 --> 00:55:08,239
Speaker 1: He's good at reading what people are doing and what

1040
00:55:08,280 --> 00:55:10,640
Speaker 1: people think of him, and so you need to learn

1041
00:55:10,680 --> 00:55:14,359
Speaker 1: to use people's perceptions of you against them. So if

1042
00:55:14,360 --> 00:55:17,919
Speaker 1: people are sitting there thinking underestimating Eric, thinking that oh,

1043
00:55:18,000 --> 00:55:20,680
Speaker 1: he's someone who's you know, he's never going to go

1044
00:55:21,000 --> 00:55:23,560
Speaker 1: maniac on me, well then it's time for him to

1045
00:55:23,680 --> 00:55:27,040
Speaker 1: go maniac on them. Um Or there are other tables

1046
00:55:27,040 --> 00:55:29,760
Speaker 1: when you're at a table with maniacs, and in those tables,

1047
00:55:29,760 --> 00:55:32,040
Speaker 1: you become very quiet and you wait for a very

1048
00:55:32,040 --> 00:55:34,879
Speaker 1: strong hand, and that's when you fight back. You don't

1049
00:55:34,920 --> 00:55:38,320
Speaker 1: fight maniacs with maniac tendencies. That's a mistake that people

1050
00:55:38,360 --> 00:55:45,000
Speaker 1: often make. Okay, how about tells. Tells are something that

1051
00:55:46,320 --> 00:55:49,719
Speaker 1: is not nearly as important as people think, and very

1052
00:55:49,760 --> 00:55:53,280
Speaker 1: different from what people think. So originally, you know, everyone

1053
00:55:53,320 --> 00:55:56,280
Speaker 1: always thinks poker face, right, you you have to stare

1054
00:55:56,320 --> 00:55:59,920
Speaker 1: at people's faces and the eyes are the window to

1055
00:56:00,040 --> 00:56:02,920
Speaker 1: the soul. My last book was about con artists, and

1056
00:56:03,000 --> 00:56:05,080
Speaker 1: let me tell you, if someone's a good liar, you're

1057
00:56:05,080 --> 00:56:08,520
Speaker 1: not gonna find out. Um. I spent multiple years with

1058
00:56:08,600 --> 00:56:14,200
Speaker 1: people who deceived on a daily basis, very very intelligent people,

1059
00:56:14,480 --> 00:56:16,040
Speaker 1: and when I met them, I knew who they were,

1060
00:56:16,320 --> 00:56:18,719
Speaker 1: and I was still taken by them because that's how

1061
00:56:18,760 --> 00:56:21,680
Speaker 1: good they are. And the psychology tells us that people

1062
00:56:21,680 --> 00:56:25,520
Speaker 1: are really really bad at spotting liars. We spot liars

1063
00:56:25,560 --> 00:56:30,239
Speaker 1: on average, no better than chance. Where we suck at

1064
00:56:30,320 --> 00:56:34,200
Speaker 1: learning to tell whether someone's being deceitful or not. And

1065
00:56:34,400 --> 00:56:36,920
Speaker 1: the face is actually the worst place to look because

1066
00:56:36,920 --> 00:56:40,120
Speaker 1: the face leads you astray because the face has fake cues,

1067
00:56:40,480 --> 00:56:43,279
Speaker 1: even if people don't mean to have them there, Their

1068
00:56:43,320 --> 00:56:47,440
Speaker 1: face tells you something because subconsciously we look at faces,

1069
00:56:47,520 --> 00:56:51,400
Speaker 1: and there are certain traits that communicate certain things like trustworthiness.

1070
00:56:51,680 --> 00:56:56,399
Speaker 1: Certain cuts of the jaw and certain eyebrows say trustworthy,

1071
00:56:56,560 --> 00:56:59,840
Speaker 1: others say aggression. It's not something we're consciously aware of.

1072
00:56:59,840 --> 00:57:05,400
Speaker 1: It just something that we experience and react to within

1073
00:57:06,400 --> 00:57:09,440
Speaker 1: just micro seconds, within fractions of a second of staying

1074
00:57:09,440 --> 00:57:13,160
Speaker 1: a face. And so when people are trying to stare

1075
00:57:13,160 --> 00:57:16,240
Speaker 1: someone down saying, oh, is your left eyebrow twitching? Is

1076
00:57:16,240 --> 00:57:18,720
Speaker 1: your nostril doing this? That's wrong. It's probably not going

1077
00:57:18,760 --> 00:57:20,800
Speaker 1: to tell you anything. It's probably gonna screw you up,

1078
00:57:20,800 --> 00:57:24,800
Speaker 1: and you're gonna make mistakes. That said, the human body

1079
00:57:24,880 --> 00:57:27,840
Speaker 1: does convey a lot of information, but most of it's

1080
00:57:27,840 --> 00:57:30,280
Speaker 1: not coming from the face. And it turns out, um,

1081
00:57:30,320 --> 00:57:33,600
Speaker 1: I met this really cool researcher um who actually studies

1082
00:57:33,640 --> 00:57:38,160
Speaker 1: secrets and was looking at tells in poker, because poker

1083
00:57:38,240 --> 00:57:40,960
Speaker 1: is natural secret keeping, right, You're you're trying to keep

1084
00:57:41,440 --> 00:57:44,520
Speaker 1: other people from guessing how strong your hand is. And

1085
00:57:44,600 --> 00:57:48,520
Speaker 1: so he looked at videos of people playing the main

1086
00:57:48,560 --> 00:57:51,120
Speaker 1: event of the World Series of Poker. He had people

1087
00:57:51,160 --> 00:57:54,800
Speaker 1: analyze them and ask how strong someone's cards were, how

1088
00:57:54,840 --> 00:57:57,600
Speaker 1: strong was their hand, And he had them look at

1089
00:57:57,640 --> 00:57:59,919
Speaker 1: unaltered videos. He had them look at just the face,

1090
00:58:00,200 --> 00:58:01,760
Speaker 1: and then he had them look at just the arms

1091
00:58:01,760 --> 00:58:04,840
Speaker 1: and hands. And what he found was when people just

1092
00:58:04,880 --> 00:58:07,240
Speaker 1: looked at the video, the unaltered one, they were no

1093
00:58:07,320 --> 00:58:11,400
Speaker 1: better than chance as predicted. When they just looked at

1094
00:58:11,400 --> 00:58:14,720
Speaker 1: the face, they were worse than chance. So the face

1095
00:58:14,760 --> 00:58:17,320
Speaker 1: screwed them up. They actually thought that they knew much

1096
00:58:17,360 --> 00:58:20,560
Speaker 1: more than they did, and they made they made bad

1097
00:58:20,640 --> 00:58:24,960
Speaker 1: mistakes when they looked at the hands, though they actually

1098
00:58:25,000 --> 00:58:29,440
Speaker 1: improved and they were predicting at much better accuracy. And

1099
00:58:29,520 --> 00:58:32,040
Speaker 1: so he found that the hands are giving off a

1100
00:58:32,040 --> 00:58:35,120
Speaker 1: lot more information than any other part of the body.

1101
00:58:35,680 --> 00:58:38,240
Speaker 1: And he's done a lot more work on that since then.

1102
00:58:38,840 --> 00:58:41,280
Speaker 1: And it turns out that it's not just in poker,

1103
00:58:41,480 --> 00:58:43,360
Speaker 1: that when we look at hands and a lot of

1104
00:58:43,400 --> 00:58:46,360
Speaker 1: different contexts, we can predict a lot about the behavior

1105
00:58:46,400 --> 00:58:49,840
Speaker 1: of the person. So do you employ that information when

1106
00:58:49,840 --> 00:58:52,400
Speaker 1: you play? Do you look at the hands and what

1107
00:58:52,560 --> 00:58:56,240
Speaker 1: might you see that might affect your play. It's all

1108
00:58:56,320 --> 00:58:59,080
Speaker 1: about how people handle their cards and their chips, how

1109
00:58:59,160 --> 00:59:02,520
Speaker 1: they under their bets, how they know how smooth their

1110
00:59:02,560 --> 00:59:06,280
Speaker 1: motion is. And this is really important. You have to

1111
00:59:06,320 --> 00:59:11,760
Speaker 1: observe someone over time. One time doesn't mean anything. You

1112
00:59:11,880 --> 00:59:15,720
Speaker 1: have to see how their actions and how the way

1113
00:59:15,760 --> 00:59:20,040
Speaker 1: that they move changes from normal. Right, So how do

1114
00:59:20,080 --> 00:59:23,080
Speaker 1: they how do they normally bet? Is this same or

1115
00:59:23,160 --> 00:59:25,760
Speaker 1: is it or is it smoother? Or is it you

1116
00:59:25,800 --> 00:59:28,480
Speaker 1: know or is it less smooth? So a lot of

1117
00:59:28,520 --> 00:59:32,280
Speaker 1: it is about deviations from baseline and in order to

1118
00:59:32,320 --> 00:59:35,280
Speaker 1: be able to see if someone is deviating from baseline.

1119
00:59:35,400 --> 00:59:38,320
Speaker 1: You need to establish a baseline. How do you do that.

1120
00:59:38,880 --> 00:59:41,320
Speaker 1: You do that by looking at people over and over

1121
00:59:41,360 --> 00:59:44,920
Speaker 1: and over and observing hands even when you're not playing

1122
00:59:45,440 --> 00:59:48,080
Speaker 1: with them, even when you're just when you don't have

1123
00:59:48,120 --> 00:59:50,280
Speaker 1: any cards and you're just looking at them when they're

1124
00:59:50,280 --> 00:59:53,640
Speaker 1: playing against someone else. Okay, Now, one of the big

1125
00:59:53,680 --> 00:59:55,720
Speaker 1: stories in the book is before you make it to

1126
00:59:55,760 --> 00:59:58,920
Speaker 1: the big game, you're playing I believe it planning Hollywood,

1127
00:59:58,920 --> 01:00:02,200
Speaker 1: are one of these so called baby games, and you

1128
01:00:02,280 --> 01:00:05,760
Speaker 1: have an incredible hand, but you're beaten by a better hand,

1129
01:00:06,320 --> 01:00:10,439
Speaker 1: and you go to tell Eric the story and I'm

1130
01:00:10,480 --> 01:00:14,000
Speaker 1: beaten by a worse hand. That's hence the bad beat.

1131
01:00:14,520 --> 01:00:17,680
Speaker 1: So when my when the money gets in, I have

1132
01:00:17,800 --> 01:00:20,640
Speaker 1: the best hand, and I should be winning there most

1133
01:00:20,680 --> 01:00:24,320
Speaker 1: of the time. I should be winning there over the time,

1134
01:00:24,920 --> 01:00:28,000
Speaker 1: and actually even more. I think at that point I

1135
01:00:28,080 --> 01:00:32,360
Speaker 1: was in almost favorite, and this person hits their miracle

1136
01:00:32,440 --> 01:00:35,360
Speaker 1: card and wins, and I'm knocked out of the tournament.

1137
01:00:35,720 --> 01:00:37,920
Speaker 1: That's what's called a bad beat. When you get your

1138
01:00:37,920 --> 01:00:40,880
Speaker 1: money in as a favorite, statistically speaking, and then the

1139
01:00:40,880 --> 01:00:43,400
Speaker 1: other part of the variance happens. Because there's no such

1140
01:00:43,440 --> 01:00:47,840
Speaker 1: thing as I've gotten my money in as favorite and

1141
01:00:47,840 --> 01:00:51,000
Speaker 1: I've lost. So two percent happens, and it happens a

1142
01:00:51,000 --> 01:00:54,320
Speaker 1: lot more frequently than you think it will happen. So

1143
01:00:54,320 --> 01:00:59,440
Speaker 1: so this is one of these things where you're supposed

1144
01:00:59,480 --> 01:01:01,720
Speaker 1: to Vaughan and say I made the right decision, and

1145
01:01:01,760 --> 01:01:05,120
Speaker 1: then variancet and go my way. That's not what I said.

1146
01:01:05,240 --> 01:01:07,680
Speaker 1: I ran to Eric and I started telling him as

1147
01:01:07,680 --> 01:01:11,240
Speaker 1: they started crying to him, not literally crying, but complaining, saying,

1148
01:01:11,240 --> 01:01:13,520
Speaker 1: oh my god, I can't believe this happened. And he

1149
01:01:13,640 --> 01:01:16,320
Speaker 1: shut me up. He said, I don't want to hear it,

1150
01:01:16,960 --> 01:01:19,800
Speaker 1: and I just I couldn't believe that he didn't want

1151
01:01:19,800 --> 01:01:21,120
Speaker 1: to hear what I had to say. I mean, he's

1152
01:01:21,120 --> 01:01:23,840
Speaker 1: my coach. He's supposed to listen to me. And he

1153
01:01:23,920 --> 01:01:26,120
Speaker 1: asked me, he said, do you have a question about

1154
01:01:26,120 --> 01:01:29,160
Speaker 1: how you played the hand? And my answer was well no,

1155
01:01:29,360 --> 01:01:31,840
Speaker 1: I mean, you know I had top set, which is

1156
01:01:32,080 --> 01:01:35,520
Speaker 1: about as strong as it guts. And he said, well

1157
01:01:35,520 --> 01:01:41,000
Speaker 1: that's it. Hand over, and he said, let's make a deal.

1158
01:01:41,120 --> 01:01:43,680
Speaker 1: I never want to know how a hand ends. All

1159
01:01:43,720 --> 01:01:46,640
Speaker 1: I care about is your decision process. All I care

1160
01:01:46,680 --> 01:01:51,440
Speaker 1: about is what you were thinking. Are there questions, are there,

1161
01:01:51,560 --> 01:01:54,840
Speaker 1: nodes are They're parts of the decision that you weren't

1162
01:01:54,880 --> 01:01:58,240
Speaker 1: sure of. If so, let's talk about it. But the ending,

1163
01:01:58,320 --> 01:02:02,480
Speaker 1: the outcome, just forget it because that's not what you control.

1164
01:02:02,600 --> 01:02:05,760
Speaker 1: So this goes back to my original question, skill versus chance.

1165
01:02:06,320 --> 01:02:09,600
Speaker 1: Skill is the process, it's the decision. It's how you

1166
01:02:09,680 --> 01:02:13,840
Speaker 1: made the decision. It's whether you were thinking clearly, whether

1167
01:02:13,960 --> 01:02:18,160
Speaker 1: you put your money in well as a favorite, whether

1168
01:02:18,280 --> 01:02:20,320
Speaker 1: you were using the information that you had to the

1169
01:02:20,320 --> 01:02:24,200
Speaker 1: best of your abilities. Outcome, that's luck. That has nothing

1170
01:02:24,200 --> 01:02:26,360
Speaker 1: to do with you. Now the money is already in

1171
01:02:26,440 --> 01:02:29,160
Speaker 1: your decision is done. Now the cards have to cooperate,

1172
01:02:29,440 --> 01:02:32,200
Speaker 1: and you don't control the cards. That's the chance. And

1173
01:02:32,280 --> 01:02:34,080
Speaker 1: so we don't care about the chance. We don't. We

1174
01:02:34,120 --> 01:02:36,360
Speaker 1: don't focus on that. What we care about is the

1175
01:02:36,400 --> 01:02:39,400
Speaker 1: stuff that we actually can change, which is how we play,

1176
01:02:39,520 --> 01:02:42,400
Speaker 1: how we think about something. And so that was his rule.

1177
01:02:42,560 --> 01:02:45,200
Speaker 1: No bad beat stories. He said, that's someone else, that's

1178
01:02:45,280 --> 01:02:47,760
Speaker 1: never you. You are not allowed to tell a bad

1179
01:02:47,800 --> 01:02:50,400
Speaker 1: beat story. Okay, At some point he says, you have

1180
01:02:50,520 --> 01:02:53,720
Speaker 1: enough experience to play at the ARIA. I have a

1181
01:02:53,720 --> 01:02:56,880
Speaker 1: couple of questions here. When you're at the ARIA, not playing.

1182
01:02:57,600 --> 01:03:00,320
Speaker 1: Does everybody allow you to see your their car or

1183
01:03:00,440 --> 01:03:03,480
Speaker 1: just Eric? What is the process there, and what is

1184
01:03:03,520 --> 01:03:06,920
Speaker 1: the process where you ultimately get in the game. And

1185
01:03:06,960 --> 01:03:09,200
Speaker 1: what if somebody who's at one of these baby games

1186
01:03:09,480 --> 01:03:11,919
Speaker 1: decides they want to play the aria, what happens? Then

1187
01:03:12,840 --> 01:03:15,800
Speaker 1: anyone can play any tournament. Anyone can play if you

1188
01:03:15,840 --> 01:03:19,600
Speaker 1: have enough money, just that buy in and there you

1189
01:03:19,640 --> 01:03:22,360
Speaker 1: are in terms of whether I can see people's cards.

1190
01:03:22,440 --> 01:03:28,640
Speaker 1: So I had quite a unique arrangement. Eric played in

1191
01:03:28,680 --> 01:03:30,840
Speaker 1: a lot of high roller events at the area. So

1192
01:03:30,920 --> 01:03:37,480
Speaker 1: these are tournaments that are dollars dollars to enter, so

1193
01:03:37,640 --> 01:03:41,080
Speaker 1: not not anywhere near the level that I'm playing. And

1194
01:03:41,480 --> 01:03:45,080
Speaker 1: there are a limited number of people who play those games,

1195
01:03:45,680 --> 01:03:52,480
Speaker 1: and how many people are there and depends on the day. Um,

1196
01:03:52,480 --> 01:03:57,000
Speaker 1: but we're talking tense. That's thirty would be a good day.

1197
01:03:57,240 --> 01:04:02,800
Speaker 1: Usually it's fewer. And the way that it worked normally

1198
01:04:03,240 --> 01:04:06,680
Speaker 1: is tournaments aren't cash games. No one is allowed to

1199
01:04:06,720 --> 01:04:08,960
Speaker 1: sit behind players and look at their cards. It's not

1200
01:04:09,040 --> 01:04:13,360
Speaker 1: allowed period. This was in a cash game, someone can

1201
01:04:13,360 --> 01:04:16,560
Speaker 1: sweat behind you, that's fine, No one cares. In a

1202
01:04:16,560 --> 01:04:20,000
Speaker 1: tournament this this is actually against the rules. However, this

1203
01:04:20,080 --> 01:04:24,760
Speaker 1: is the area can run its own tournaments, and I

1204
01:04:24,800 --> 01:04:27,560
Speaker 1: was learning, and Eric said that he wanted me to

1205
01:04:27,600 --> 01:04:30,920
Speaker 1: be able to see his cards, and the tournament director

1206
01:04:31,000 --> 01:04:33,800
Speaker 1: there said, if every single person is okay with that,

1207
01:04:33,880 --> 01:04:36,160
Speaker 1: then I'm okay with it. And so I asked every

1208
01:04:36,160 --> 01:04:39,520
Speaker 1: single person and all of them said sure, not a

1209
01:04:39,560 --> 01:04:42,560
Speaker 1: problem at all. And so I was allowed to sit

1210
01:04:42,680 --> 01:04:45,240
Speaker 1: and sweat with Eric to see his cards while he

1211
01:04:45,280 --> 01:04:48,560
Speaker 1: was playing UM. And then other players as I got

1212
01:04:48,600 --> 01:04:51,520
Speaker 1: to know them, and as they became friendly with me

1213
01:04:51,560 --> 01:04:54,080
Speaker 1: and started helping me with different elements of my game,

1214
01:04:54,360 --> 01:04:56,200
Speaker 1: other players would say, hey, why don't you sweat with

1215
01:04:56,240 --> 01:05:00,680
Speaker 1: me today? So I UM. All in all, I played with,

1216
01:05:01,000 --> 01:05:04,800
Speaker 1: played with, sweaded with three different players during my time there.

1217
01:05:04,880 --> 01:05:09,120
Speaker 1: I sweateated with Eric most frequently. UM. I also did

1218
01:05:09,880 --> 01:05:12,480
Speaker 1: a sweat a few times with Jason Coon and with

1219
01:05:12,600 --> 01:05:15,520
Speaker 1: I Caxton. Those are two amazing players, both of whom

1220
01:05:15,800 --> 01:05:18,360
Speaker 1: were really helpful to me. But everyone else I've never

1221
01:05:18,400 --> 01:05:21,400
Speaker 1: seen their cards. Okay, just talking irrelevant of you. All

1222
01:05:21,440 --> 01:05:24,680
Speaker 1: the high state game poker players know are at the area,

1223
01:05:25,400 --> 01:05:28,800
Speaker 1: well for that those tournaments, yes, so they're there are

1224
01:05:28,880 --> 01:05:31,960
Speaker 1: cash games coming up playing happening all the time. This

1225
01:05:32,040 --> 01:05:34,640
Speaker 1: isn't a cash game, So the high state cash games

1226
01:05:34,640 --> 01:05:36,680
Speaker 1: are happening at Bobby's room at the Bellagio, at a

1227
01:05:36,720 --> 01:05:41,720
Speaker 1: different casino. That's a different player pool, because tournament players

1228
01:05:41,720 --> 01:05:44,720
Speaker 1: are not cash players, and vice versa. Just for the uninitiated,

1229
01:05:44,840 --> 01:05:48,280
Speaker 1: explain the difference. In a cash game, every single chip

1230
01:05:48,480 --> 01:05:51,120
Speaker 1: is worth a certain amount of money. So you buy

1231
01:05:51,160 --> 01:05:54,080
Speaker 1: in for a hundred dollars and you get a hundred

1232
01:05:54,160 --> 01:05:57,800
Speaker 1: dollars worth of chips, and that's exactly how much you have.

1233
01:05:58,240 --> 01:06:00,600
Speaker 1: And if you lose them, you can read, you can

1234
01:06:00,640 --> 01:06:03,560
Speaker 1: add on whatever you want um and you can walk

1235
01:06:03,560 --> 01:06:06,040
Speaker 1: away at any point. Maybe you want a huge hand,

1236
01:06:06,080 --> 01:06:08,960
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, your hundred trips became five hundred,

1237
01:06:08,960 --> 01:06:10,280
Speaker 1: and you say, you know what I want to go now.

1238
01:06:10,360 --> 01:06:12,880
Speaker 1: That's called a hit and run. Then you take your

1239
01:06:12,880 --> 01:06:16,920
Speaker 1: tips and you leave. In a tournament, trips have zero

1240
01:06:17,040 --> 01:06:20,200
Speaker 1: cash value. You buy in for certain amounts, a hundred

1241
01:06:20,240 --> 01:06:22,080
Speaker 1: dollars and you get ten thousand ships, and so does

1242
01:06:22,120 --> 01:06:24,480
Speaker 1: every single person. And the chips are just a way

1243
01:06:24,520 --> 01:06:27,320
Speaker 1: of keeping score. So they're just like points, and your

1244
01:06:27,360 --> 01:06:30,800
Speaker 1: goal is to gather all of them, and your chips

1245
01:06:30,840 --> 01:06:34,760
Speaker 1: are only worth something relative to the chips of the

1246
01:06:34,800 --> 01:06:37,600
Speaker 1: other players, and you can never you can't get up

1247
01:06:37,600 --> 01:06:40,040
Speaker 1: and walk away when you suddenly find yourself with a

1248
01:06:40,080 --> 01:06:43,840
Speaker 1: hundred thousand ships. Nope, gotta gotta keep playing because they're

1249
01:06:43,840 --> 01:06:48,560
Speaker 1: worth zero um. And if you if it's a freeze

1250
01:06:48,560 --> 01:06:51,480
Speaker 1: out tournament, which means you can't re enter. If you

1251
01:06:51,560 --> 01:06:54,480
Speaker 1: lose them, you're done. You're out of the tournament. And

1252
01:06:55,360 --> 01:06:59,400
Speaker 1: of players give or take anywhere from depending on the

1253
01:06:59,440 --> 01:07:01,439
Speaker 1: exact turn, meant are going to go home with zero

1254
01:07:01,480 --> 01:07:06,080
Speaker 1: dollars because they will bust before the money and everyone

1255
01:07:06,120 --> 01:07:08,400
Speaker 1: else is going to make money. And in a cash

1256
01:07:08,440 --> 01:07:12,040
Speaker 1: game that just doesn't happen. That's not the same. Okay,

1257
01:07:12,160 --> 01:07:14,200
Speaker 1: a couple of things. So let's say I'm at the

1258
01:07:14,240 --> 01:07:18,880
Speaker 1: area in the tournament begins. Is there a time limit, Yeah,

1259
01:07:18,920 --> 01:07:21,440
Speaker 1: at the high rollers, Yes, you have thirty seconds to

1260
01:07:21,440 --> 01:07:24,360
Speaker 1: make every decision. No, I mean for the whole tournament itself.

1261
01:07:24,640 --> 01:07:27,720
Speaker 1: Oh no, it ends when it ends. Okay. And let's

1262
01:07:27,720 --> 01:07:30,920
Speaker 1: say I'm playing in a cash game and I walk away.

1263
01:07:31,320 --> 01:07:34,600
Speaker 1: The other players are cool with that, Yeah, they keep playing.

1264
01:07:34,840 --> 01:07:37,080
Speaker 1: I mean, if you're someone who always hit and runs,

1265
01:07:37,560 --> 01:07:40,760
Speaker 1: so you're someone who always comes and as soon as

1266
01:07:40,800 --> 01:07:43,040
Speaker 1: you win, you leave, they're probably not gonna want you

1267
01:07:43,080 --> 01:07:45,320
Speaker 1: to play with them anymore. Um. But if it's an

1268
01:07:45,320 --> 01:07:47,400
Speaker 1: open game, they can't do anything about it. If it's

1269
01:07:47,440 --> 01:07:50,600
Speaker 1: a private game, they can. Then you're saying, these are

1270
01:07:50,680 --> 01:07:54,280
Speaker 1: different players who play cash games and play tournament games.

1271
01:07:54,440 --> 01:07:56,720
Speaker 1: It's a different it's a different strategy. It's a different

1272
01:07:56,720 --> 01:08:00,920
Speaker 1: game because in a cash game, you are are always

1273
01:08:00,960 --> 01:08:04,720
Speaker 1: playing with the same number of blinds. So if you

1274
01:08:04,760 --> 01:08:06,840
Speaker 1: are playing at a low stakes game, say one dollar

1275
01:08:06,960 --> 01:08:10,200
Speaker 1: two dollars, it's not suddenly going to become a two

1276
01:08:10,200 --> 01:08:12,800
Speaker 1: dollar five dollar game or five dollar ten dollar game.

1277
01:08:12,880 --> 01:08:16,519
Speaker 1: Just doesn't happen. In a tournament, the blinds keep going up,

1278
01:08:16,640 --> 01:08:19,439
Speaker 1: and so it's a very different strategy because your chips,

1279
01:08:19,600 --> 01:08:23,320
Speaker 1: relatively speaking, suddenly start being worth less and less and less.

1280
01:08:23,720 --> 01:08:26,400
Speaker 1: It's something that has a beginning. The beginning is like

1281
01:08:26,439 --> 01:08:28,800
Speaker 1: a cash game because you're deep stack, you have lots

1282
01:08:28,840 --> 01:08:31,479
Speaker 1: of big blinds, and then it becomes much less like

1283
01:08:31,560 --> 01:08:33,799
Speaker 1: a cash game because all of a sudden, the blinds

1284
01:08:33,800 --> 01:08:35,840
Speaker 1: are you know, was one, two, and all of a sudden,

1285
01:08:35,880 --> 01:08:38,200
Speaker 1: it's a thousand, two thousand, and if you still have

1286
01:08:38,280 --> 01:08:40,839
Speaker 1: your ten thousand and chips, all of a sudden instead

1287
01:08:40,840 --> 01:08:44,920
Speaker 1: of you know, blinds, you all of a sudden have

1288
01:08:45,240 --> 01:08:49,200
Speaker 1: five and you're gonna bust. Um. And so the pressure

1289
01:08:49,280 --> 01:08:52,559
Speaker 1: is very different, The dynamics are different, the decision making

1290
01:08:52,560 --> 01:08:55,559
Speaker 1: process is different. A lot of players play both. Now

1291
01:08:55,600 --> 01:08:58,880
Speaker 1: I play cash as well, but most people specialize in one.

1292
01:08:59,320 --> 01:09:02,200
Speaker 1: So ultimately, uh, when you're at the area, do you

1293
01:09:02,360 --> 01:09:05,320
Speaker 1: what's the biggest buy in tournament that you ever played

1294
01:09:05,760 --> 01:09:08,640
Speaker 1: at the area. I've only ever played their daily tournaments,

1295
01:09:08,680 --> 01:09:14,040
Speaker 1: so two forty dollar? Okay? Low? Uh. So ultimately you

1296
01:09:14,080 --> 01:09:17,520
Speaker 1: go to Monaco and then you go to the Carabean

1297
01:09:17,600 --> 01:09:23,400
Speaker 1: where you ultimately win. UM. Tell us the process there,

1298
01:09:24,320 --> 01:09:26,439
Speaker 1: I mean, it was just it's more of the same.

1299
01:09:26,720 --> 01:09:31,680
Speaker 1: I just I kept working and studying and studying with

1300
01:09:31,720 --> 01:09:38,479
Speaker 1: more and more people, UM, and just improving slowly, UM

1301
01:09:38,560 --> 01:09:42,439
Speaker 1: and slowly working my way up. UM. Once I would

1302
01:09:42,479 --> 01:09:45,400
Speaker 1: do well at a certain level, so I'd constantly challenge

1303
01:09:45,439 --> 01:09:50,639
Speaker 1: myself UM. And no one could have predicted that I'd

1304
01:09:50,640 --> 01:09:55,080
Speaker 1: win a tournament, a major tournament at that UM. And

1305
01:09:55,640 --> 01:09:57,920
Speaker 1: that's one of these things where you have to work hard,

1306
01:09:57,960 --> 01:10:00,160
Speaker 1: but you also have to get lucky. And I most

1307
01:10:00,160 --> 01:10:02,920
Speaker 1: of those things had to come together and as a

1308
01:10:02,960 --> 01:10:07,439
Speaker 1: result of winning, uh, you get on the Poker Stars team.

1309
01:10:07,439 --> 01:10:10,120
Speaker 1: Tell us about that. So Poker Stars, which is one

1310
01:10:10,120 --> 01:10:13,040
Speaker 1: of the biggest poker companies in the world, has something

1311
01:10:13,040 --> 01:10:15,519
Speaker 1: that's called Team Pro. So it's a team of players

1312
01:10:15,600 --> 01:10:18,439
Speaker 1: which are their professional players that are sponsored by the brand.

1313
01:10:18,880 --> 01:10:21,720
Speaker 1: So whenever you play, you wear a little patches. Let's

1314
01:10:21,720 --> 01:10:24,519
Speaker 1: say you know, Poker Stars Team Pro. So you're like,

1315
01:10:24,880 --> 01:10:29,880
Speaker 1: you become like a NASCAR or Formula one where you're

1316
01:10:29,920 --> 01:10:33,240
Speaker 1: suttenly put putting all these decals on you. Um, but

1317
01:10:33,400 --> 01:10:37,599
Speaker 1: it's really prescigious and it's something where they kind of

1318
01:10:38,439 --> 01:10:41,599
Speaker 1: they endorse you and you represent them, but you all

1319
01:10:41,640 --> 01:10:44,920
Speaker 1: of a sudden also have more of a budget to play.

1320
01:10:44,960 --> 01:10:48,200
Speaker 1: So I never received a salary from them. That's not

1321
01:10:48,280 --> 01:10:50,320
Speaker 1: how it worked because I didn't want any sort of

1322
01:10:50,360 --> 01:10:53,679
Speaker 1: conflict of interest. But for their tournaments, I had a budget,

1323
01:10:53,880 --> 01:10:56,479
Speaker 1: so they'd say, you know, you can spend this amount

1324
01:10:56,600 --> 01:11:01,160
Speaker 1: on Buyen's for instance. So it enabled me to play

1325
01:11:01,280 --> 01:11:06,120
Speaker 1: without being quite as afraid of of going broke because

1326
01:11:06,120 --> 01:11:09,360
Speaker 1: I had I had this cushion and I wasn't paying

1327
01:11:09,439 --> 01:11:12,040
Speaker 1: for all of my own tournaments. At the Poker Stars.

1328
01:11:12,200 --> 01:11:15,479
Speaker 1: I'm not aligned with Poker Stars anymore. No, no, Um,

1329
01:11:15,520 --> 01:11:17,680
Speaker 1: I left the team last year. And what was the

1330
01:11:17,920 --> 01:11:22,240
Speaker 1: decision process there? It was a it was a mutual decision. Um.

1331
01:11:22,439 --> 01:11:25,519
Speaker 1: I didn't want to be involved with any poker company

1332
01:11:25,560 --> 01:11:29,040
Speaker 1: when my book came out, I wanted it to you know,

1333
01:11:29,080 --> 01:11:31,360
Speaker 1: I wanted to just promote the book and not anyone else.

1334
01:11:31,400 --> 01:11:33,240
Speaker 1: I didn't want anyone once again to think there was

1335
01:11:33,280 --> 01:11:36,760
Speaker 1: a conflict of interest. And they were moving on. They've

1336
01:11:36,800 --> 01:11:40,360
Speaker 1: actually cut most of their live pros. Um. Their strategy

1337
01:11:40,400 --> 01:11:44,000
Speaker 1: is now much more online. Um. And I'm not an

1338
01:11:44,000 --> 01:11:47,200
Speaker 1: online player. Okay. So let's say you get a hankering

1339
01:11:47,280 --> 01:11:51,719
Speaker 1: to play, doesn't matter who's playing in terms of names,

1340
01:11:51,720 --> 01:11:54,519
Speaker 1: where the location is. Maybe you go to Atlantic City,

1341
01:11:54,560 --> 01:11:56,800
Speaker 1: you play, or you say, you know, I don't like

1342
01:11:56,880 --> 01:12:02,000
Speaker 1: the players there. Um, I don't like Atlantic City, I

1343
01:12:02,080 --> 01:12:05,400
Speaker 1: hardly ever. I mean I so I for me, because

1344
01:12:05,439 --> 01:12:08,439
Speaker 1: I'm a tournament player. It's not a hankering. I go

1345
01:12:08,479 --> 01:12:11,240
Speaker 1: where the tour goes. So I look at the schedule.

1346
01:12:11,280 --> 01:12:13,720
Speaker 1: They're announced well in advance, and I plan out the

1347
01:12:13,760 --> 01:12:16,599
Speaker 1: stops I want to play at. So I I plan

1348
01:12:16,640 --> 01:12:19,880
Speaker 1: out where I want to be so at any given point,

1349
01:12:19,920 --> 01:12:21,960
Speaker 1: I mean right now, there's zero going on. Let's just

1350
01:12:22,000 --> 01:12:24,240
Speaker 1: be clear. In the middle of a pandemic, there's no

1351
01:12:24,360 --> 01:12:28,679
Speaker 1: live poker. But let's reverse, you know, two years ago

1352
01:12:29,479 --> 01:12:31,880
Speaker 1: when when this was still a thing. At any given

1353
01:12:31,920 --> 01:12:34,439
Speaker 1: point in time, there are lots of major poker tours.

1354
01:12:34,720 --> 01:12:37,200
Speaker 1: The World Series of Poker just happens once a year,

1355
01:12:37,520 --> 01:12:40,200
Speaker 1: but there's a World Poker Tour which has major events

1356
01:12:40,520 --> 01:12:43,479
Speaker 1: once a month. There's the European Poker Tour, which is

1357
01:12:43,479 --> 01:12:46,320
Speaker 1: the one that's run by by poker Stars, and that's

1358
01:12:46,320 --> 01:12:49,599
Speaker 1: happening in Europe. There's an Asia Pacific Poker Tour which

1359
01:12:49,640 --> 01:12:52,479
Speaker 1: is happening in Asia. Um, there are a bunch in

1360
01:12:52,520 --> 01:12:55,040
Speaker 1: the US. You've got the World Poker Tour, You've got

1361
01:12:55,120 --> 01:12:57,960
Speaker 1: the World Series Circuit events. So there are lots of

1362
01:12:58,000 --> 01:13:00,280
Speaker 1: things happening at any given point in time. Time and

1363
01:13:00,320 --> 01:13:03,960
Speaker 1: so what I would do would be sit down and

1364
01:13:04,360 --> 01:13:07,519
Speaker 1: map out a schedule, map out what events that what

1365
01:13:07,760 --> 01:13:10,680
Speaker 1: stops I wanted to go to, because they're all series.

1366
01:13:10,840 --> 01:13:13,080
Speaker 1: So you go and it's a number of different events.

1367
01:13:13,360 --> 01:13:16,439
Speaker 1: So if you don't do well in one tournament, you

1368
01:13:16,520 --> 01:13:19,240
Speaker 1: just enter another one and you have many opportunities to

1369
01:13:19,280 --> 01:13:22,679
Speaker 1: do well. Um. And so that's how I would choose

1370
01:13:22,720 --> 01:13:25,479
Speaker 1: when to play, and then when I went home, I

1371
01:13:25,520 --> 01:13:28,840
Speaker 1: really wanted to relax. I mean, in which was the

1372
01:13:28,920 --> 01:13:31,519
Speaker 1: year that I really spent really playing full time. That's

1373
01:13:31,560 --> 01:13:34,600
Speaker 1: when I was a Poker Stars Team pro. I was

1374
01:13:34,680 --> 01:13:36,679
Speaker 1: on the road for over eight months of the year.

1375
01:13:37,439 --> 01:13:41,719
Speaker 1: That's exhausting, and I was I was just I was spent.

1376
01:13:42,360 --> 01:13:44,719
Speaker 1: Uh So every time I was home, I just wanted

1377
01:13:44,720 --> 01:13:48,559
Speaker 1: to recharge. I had zero desire to play poker. Okay,

1378
01:13:48,640 --> 01:13:51,520
Speaker 1: now we live in an arrow. Used to be pre Internet,

1379
01:13:51,760 --> 01:13:54,240
Speaker 1: you had to go out to have experiences. Now all

1380
01:13:54,280 --> 01:13:57,000
Speaker 1: the actions at home. But one thing I always say

1381
01:13:57,040 --> 01:14:00,120
Speaker 1: is when you walk out the front door, you ever

1382
01:14:00,200 --> 01:14:03,320
Speaker 1: know what will happen. Let me give you an analogy

1383
01:14:03,360 --> 01:14:06,679
Speaker 1: to ultimately form the question there. I have a friend

1384
01:14:06,680 --> 01:14:09,599
Speaker 1: who got divorced, and to use the vernacular, he'll hit

1385
01:14:09,640 --> 01:14:14,800
Speaker 1: on anything that moves. So have you learned that it's two?

1386
01:14:15,240 --> 01:14:18,040
Speaker 1: Is engagement the key? Because of luck, you never know

1387
01:14:18,080 --> 01:14:20,799
Speaker 1: how the play plays out. Is it about the number

1388
01:14:20,800 --> 01:14:24,160
Speaker 1: of ups, shall we say? Or is it about strategizing

1389
01:14:24,200 --> 01:14:28,160
Speaker 1: the ups? It's about all of these things. So engagement definitely,

1390
01:14:28,200 --> 01:14:31,840
Speaker 1: because engagement gives you an edge, and engagement allows you

1391
01:14:31,920 --> 01:14:35,480
Speaker 1: to take in more information and information with power. Information

1392
01:14:35,600 --> 01:14:38,840
Speaker 1: is key, but yes, it's also about strategizing the ups

1393
01:14:38,880 --> 01:14:42,599
Speaker 1: and minimizing the downs. So poker isn't about winning every hand.

1394
01:14:43,000 --> 01:14:46,120
Speaker 1: It's about winning the most with your good hands and

1395
01:14:46,200 --> 01:14:49,400
Speaker 1: losing the least with your bad hands. And you can

1396
01:14:49,560 --> 01:14:52,200
Speaker 1: you can take that not just in the immediate hand

1397
01:14:52,200 --> 01:14:54,479
Speaker 1: to hand, but also in the long term in terms

1398
01:14:54,520 --> 01:14:57,639
Speaker 1: of tournaments. In terms of the long term. A lot

1399
01:14:57,680 --> 01:14:59,920
Speaker 1: of players go broke because they go on a hot

1400
01:15:00,040 --> 01:15:03,280
Speaker 1: streak and they're winning, and they don't realize that there's

1401
01:15:03,320 --> 01:15:05,760
Speaker 1: such a thing as regression to the mean that this

1402
01:15:05,800 --> 01:15:09,400
Speaker 1: isn't sustainable, that they're just getting lucky. Sure, they're probably

1403
01:15:09,439 --> 01:15:11,479
Speaker 1: playing well, but they're also getting lucky, and so you

1404
01:15:11,479 --> 01:15:14,160
Speaker 1: need to plan ahead. You need to figure out, Okay,

1405
01:15:14,200 --> 01:15:16,800
Speaker 1: how do I plan for the down swain which is

1406
01:15:16,840 --> 01:15:18,880
Speaker 1: going to happen. A lot of people don't do that,

1407
01:15:18,920 --> 01:15:22,080
Speaker 1: and instead they say, Wow, I'm great, I'm not going

1408
01:15:22,120 --> 01:15:24,240
Speaker 1: to play one thousand dollar tournaments anymore. I'm going to

1409
01:15:24,280 --> 01:15:27,960
Speaker 1: play ten thousand dollar tournaments. I'm gonna play twenty dollar tournaments. Hell,

1410
01:15:27,960 --> 01:15:31,760
Speaker 1: I'm gonna play fifty dollar tournaments. And there goes their money.

1411
01:15:31,800 --> 01:15:34,920
Speaker 1: Because they can't actually afford to do that. Now you

1412
01:15:35,040 --> 01:15:37,799
Speaker 1: talk in the book that you are on one side

1413
01:15:37,800 --> 01:15:41,839
Speaker 1: of psychological training and there's another side which might close

1414
01:15:41,880 --> 01:15:46,000
Speaker 1: you out of professorships. What's going on there? Oh, I

1415
01:15:46,080 --> 01:15:48,880
Speaker 1: was just so. So that was just me talking about

1416
01:15:48,920 --> 01:15:52,200
Speaker 1: different schools of social psychology. So the person who was

1417
01:15:52,240 --> 01:15:55,840
Speaker 1: my mentor, who was my advisor, Walter Michelle Um is

1418
01:15:55,920 --> 01:16:00,360
Speaker 1: someone who is very adamantly opposed to the person reality

1419
01:16:00,400 --> 01:16:04,840
Speaker 1: trait research. UM. So there's a school of personality psychology

1420
01:16:04,880 --> 01:16:07,080
Speaker 1: which says that you know, we have the Big five,

1421
01:16:07,160 --> 01:16:09,680
Speaker 1: the big five traits, and we have certain levels of

1422
01:16:09,720 --> 01:16:14,720
Speaker 1: extra version and neuroticism and open this to experience all

1423
01:16:14,760 --> 01:16:19,679
Speaker 1: of these things. And Walter said, bulletshit, that is not true.

1424
01:16:19,760 --> 01:16:23,120
Speaker 1: That's not how the world works. You can't decontextualized personality.

1425
01:16:23,600 --> 01:16:28,080
Speaker 1: Personality only matters in context if you're going to predict behavior.

1426
01:16:28,680 --> 01:16:30,880
Speaker 1: And he actually did this back in the sixties. He

1427
01:16:30,920 --> 01:16:34,960
Speaker 1: wrote a book that looked at the correlation between these

1428
01:16:35,160 --> 01:16:38,160
Speaker 1: all of these different measures and actual behavior and found

1429
01:16:38,160 --> 01:16:41,160
Speaker 1: that the correlation was point one or point two, so

1430
01:16:41,720 --> 01:16:46,120
Speaker 1: predicted ten to of what happened, which is nothing. It's

1431
01:16:46,200 --> 01:16:48,400
Speaker 1: very low. And yet people were saying, this is the

1432
01:16:48,439 --> 01:16:51,800
Speaker 1: holy Grail, and he said, here's your problem. People don't

1433
01:16:51,840 --> 01:16:55,600
Speaker 1: have a there's no such thing as someone who is,

1434
01:16:56,280 --> 01:17:00,879
Speaker 1: you know, conscientious. Maybe you're conscientious that well, your teachers

1435
01:17:00,920 --> 01:17:03,240
Speaker 1: think you're the neatest person ever, and you never make

1436
01:17:03,280 --> 01:17:06,360
Speaker 1: your bed, and your parents are frustrated because everything is

1437
01:17:06,400 --> 01:17:08,960
Speaker 1: such a mess, your clothes are on the floor, and

1438
01:17:09,000 --> 01:17:12,880
Speaker 1: you're the opposite of conscientious at home. Context. Maybe you're

1439
01:17:12,960 --> 01:17:17,800
Speaker 1: someone who is a risk speaker in certain situations, like

1440
01:17:17,840 --> 01:17:20,960
Speaker 1: you love to skydive, you like to really do all

1441
01:17:21,280 --> 01:17:24,720
Speaker 1: you know, go go go full on out there, but

1442
01:17:24,840 --> 01:17:28,559
Speaker 1: you're incredibly risk averse when it comes too many. And

1443
01:17:29,040 --> 01:17:32,080
Speaker 1: you're someone who you know who keeps all your money

1444
01:17:32,080 --> 01:17:34,560
Speaker 1: in a piggy bank because you're scared of the banks.

1445
01:17:34,600 --> 01:17:38,320
Speaker 1: So once again context, and he said that what matters

1446
01:17:38,479 --> 01:17:44,000
Speaker 1: is behavioral signatures. If then signatures, if we're in this situation,

1447
01:17:44,320 --> 01:17:47,240
Speaker 1: then this person behaves that way. That all of the

1448
01:17:47,320 --> 01:17:51,320
Speaker 1: other personality work was really pointless when it came to

1449
01:17:51,400 --> 01:17:55,360
Speaker 1: actually predicting how someone would behave, and pretty pointless as descriptors.

1450
01:17:55,560 --> 01:17:58,840
Speaker 1: There's an entire school of psychology who hates that and

1451
01:17:58,920 --> 01:18:01,840
Speaker 1: does not like Walter. I'm attached to him. I was

1452
01:18:01,920 --> 01:18:05,800
Speaker 1: his last student. When I apply to academic jobs, I

1453
01:18:06,360 --> 01:18:10,280
Speaker 1: come with Walter's baggage because I represent his viewpoint. And

1454
01:18:10,400 --> 01:18:13,599
Speaker 1: so if and I never was in academia, I don't

1455
01:18:13,640 --> 01:18:17,040
Speaker 1: like academia for these very reasons. Um, I think it's

1456
01:18:17,200 --> 01:18:20,960
Speaker 1: it's very I think it's very incestuous, very much who

1457
01:18:21,040 --> 01:18:23,360
Speaker 1: you know and whose school you're on, and all of

1458
01:18:23,400 --> 01:18:26,000
Speaker 1: these things. But imagine that I went on the job

1459
01:18:26,080 --> 01:18:29,800
Speaker 1: market and I applied to a school for someone who's

1460
01:18:29,840 --> 01:18:33,000
Speaker 1: really big in the Big five of personality is on

1461
01:18:33,040 --> 01:18:36,920
Speaker 1: the hiring committee. I might have done amazing work in

1462
01:18:37,000 --> 01:18:38,960
Speaker 1: what I do, but I'm not going to get an

1463
01:18:38,960 --> 01:18:42,160
Speaker 1: interview because that person is very opposed to my point

1464
01:18:42,160 --> 01:18:45,720
Speaker 1: of view and doesn't want me in their psyche department.

1465
01:18:46,320 --> 01:18:48,439
Speaker 1: Or I might not even have one of them, but

1466
01:18:48,479 --> 01:18:50,559
Speaker 1: I might have the department who thinks that all social

1467
01:18:50,560 --> 01:18:54,000
Speaker 1: psychology is total bullshit and that it's all about neuroscience.

1468
01:18:54,360 --> 01:18:57,839
Speaker 1: And if I get that person who's making the decision

1469
01:18:57,920 --> 01:19:00,439
Speaker 1: or listening to my job talk or reviewing my paper,

1470
01:19:00,960 --> 01:19:03,120
Speaker 1: I'm done. I don't have a fair shop. They're not

1471
01:19:03,160 --> 01:19:05,519
Speaker 1: actually going to look to see if i'm saying anything

1472
01:19:05,560 --> 01:19:09,320
Speaker 1: interesting or if my research is interesting, because fundamentally they

1473
01:19:09,360 --> 01:19:11,599
Speaker 1: disagree with what I'm doing. That's one of the things

1474
01:19:11,680 --> 01:19:14,800
Speaker 1: I loved about poker. Um, none of that matters. Doesn't

1475
01:19:14,840 --> 01:19:16,639
Speaker 1: matter what you look like, where you went to school,

1476
01:19:17,200 --> 01:19:21,360
Speaker 1: who you studied with, whether you even graduated, what your

1477
01:19:21,479 --> 01:19:24,599
Speaker 1: last name is, what religion you are. Another matters. If

1478
01:19:24,600 --> 01:19:27,320
Speaker 1: you play well, you get to play, and if you

1479
01:19:27,320 --> 01:19:29,600
Speaker 1: can afford it, you can buy into any tournament. No

1480
01:19:29,600 --> 01:19:32,360
Speaker 1: one can ever block you from buying into a tournament. Now,

1481
01:19:32,400 --> 01:19:35,320
Speaker 1: you immigrated from Russia at a young age. To what

1482
01:19:35,520 --> 01:19:40,320
Speaker 1: degree did that and having foreign parents affect your life

1483
01:19:40,320 --> 01:19:44,400
Speaker 1: and career trajectory? I mean, my life would have been

1484
01:19:44,400 --> 01:19:46,519
Speaker 1: completely different had that not happened. I mean it was

1485
01:19:46,560 --> 01:19:49,400
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union. I did not leave Russia. I left

1486
01:19:49,400 --> 01:19:51,160
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union. This was before the fall of the

1487
01:19:51,160 --> 01:19:54,599
Speaker 1: Berlin Wall. No one knew when that was coming down. Um,

1488
01:19:54,840 --> 01:19:57,719
Speaker 1: and so how did I stay? And I mean, I'm Jewish,

1489
01:19:58,240 --> 01:20:01,840
Speaker 1: It's I'm actually saying the reverse. I'm saying, how did

1490
01:20:01,840 --> 01:20:06,400
Speaker 1: it change someone who grew up or started in Russia

1491
01:20:06,479 --> 01:20:09,800
Speaker 1: had foreign parents as opposed someone who grew up in America.

1492
01:20:10,439 --> 01:20:12,519
Speaker 1: I can't answer that question. Because I didn't grow up

1493
01:20:12,520 --> 01:20:14,960
Speaker 1: in America, I know how my life was changed. I mean,

1494
01:20:15,000 --> 01:20:18,360
Speaker 1: I know that had I stayed in Russia, I wouldn't

1495
01:20:18,360 --> 01:20:20,080
Speaker 1: have had I wouldn't be a writer, I wouldn't have

1496
01:20:20,080 --> 01:20:23,760
Speaker 1: had any of these opportunities. What age did you come

1497
01:20:23,760 --> 01:20:27,760
Speaker 1: to America and did you feel different from kids? How

1498
01:20:27,760 --> 01:20:30,800
Speaker 1: long did it take to assimilate? Um? It took a while.

1499
01:20:30,840 --> 01:20:34,040
Speaker 1: I mean I didn't speak English, so of course, had

1500
01:20:34,080 --> 01:20:36,800
Speaker 1: I grown up here would have been different. Um. So

1501
01:20:36,840 --> 01:20:39,519
Speaker 1: I think I was much more aware of the limits

1502
01:20:39,560 --> 01:20:42,880
Speaker 1: of our abilities very early on, because I couldn't communicate.

1503
01:20:43,040 --> 01:20:45,280
Speaker 1: I couldn't say a single word in English. But I

1504
01:20:45,360 --> 01:20:48,360
Speaker 1: was lucky that I was little, so I was able

1505
01:20:48,439 --> 01:20:51,160
Speaker 1: to learn quickly. I don't actually remember learning English. It

1506
01:20:51,280 --> 01:20:54,360
Speaker 1: just happened naturally, the way I remember learning some other

1507
01:20:54,439 --> 01:20:57,400
Speaker 1: languages that I speak now, But my my four year

1508
01:20:57,400 --> 01:21:00,160
Speaker 1: old brain picked it up eventually. And what did your

1509
01:21:00,200 --> 01:21:03,240
Speaker 1: parents do for a living in America? Computer programmers? What

1510
01:21:03,240 --> 01:21:05,640
Speaker 1: they did in Russia, that's what they were trained. And

1511
01:21:05,680 --> 01:21:08,200
Speaker 1: how many kids in the family? Four? Four that I

1512
01:21:08,200 --> 01:21:11,840
Speaker 1: grew up with, actually five, okay, well the four that

1513
01:21:11,880 --> 01:21:14,680
Speaker 1: you grew up with the other three. What are where

1514
01:21:14,680 --> 01:21:18,479
Speaker 1: are you in the hierarchy, baby? And what are their

1515
01:21:18,520 --> 01:21:23,280
Speaker 1: lives look like? Um? My oldest sister is an m

1516
01:21:23,360 --> 01:21:26,519
Speaker 1: d PhD. She's an anatologist and runs a lab at

1517
01:21:26,560 --> 01:21:30,400
Speaker 1: Yale University. My other sister is a veterinarian and lives

1518
01:21:30,400 --> 01:21:34,400
Speaker 1: in Vermont, and my brother, Um, lives in Sweden with

1519
01:21:34,439 --> 01:21:38,919
Speaker 1: his wife and kids and works for Spotify. Really, okay,

1520
01:21:39,000 --> 01:21:42,519
Speaker 1: so you go to Harvard, what's that experience like? That's

1521
01:21:42,560 --> 01:21:45,000
Speaker 1: really you're at the age when Zuckerberg is there in

1522
01:21:45,040 --> 01:21:48,960
Speaker 1: the Biggle they were so so that was Zuckerberg was

1523
01:21:49,000 --> 01:21:52,160
Speaker 1: a year below me. Eduardo was my year, and not

1524
01:21:52,240 --> 01:21:54,880
Speaker 1: only my year. You lived in the same freshman dorm

1525
01:21:54,920 --> 01:21:57,320
Speaker 1: as I did. I've known I know all of those

1526
01:21:57,320 --> 01:21:59,439
Speaker 1: guys from the beginning. I was one of the first

1527
01:21:59,560 --> 01:22:03,000
Speaker 1: few hunt producers of Facebook. And what was your opinion

1528
01:22:03,080 --> 01:22:06,920
Speaker 1: of them? Um? I always I didn't know Mark well.

1529
01:22:07,040 --> 01:22:09,120
Speaker 1: I liked a Guardo he was always a really nice guy.

1530
01:22:09,320 --> 01:22:13,040
Speaker 1: And the the Winkle the Winkle Watses were always nice,

1531
01:22:13,120 --> 01:22:16,000
Speaker 1: but I didn't know them really either. Okay, so going

1532
01:22:16,040 --> 01:22:18,880
Speaker 1: to Harvard was a good experience. I loved it. So

1533
01:22:19,000 --> 01:22:21,160
Speaker 1: my my husband also went to Harvard and he hated it,

1534
01:22:21,520 --> 01:22:24,040
Speaker 1: so he and I had very, very different experiences, but

1535
01:22:24,120 --> 01:22:27,040
Speaker 1: I absolutely loved it. Is that where you met No,

1536
01:22:27,040 --> 01:22:31,519
Speaker 1: now we met later um through a friend who was

1537
01:22:31,680 --> 01:22:37,639
Speaker 1: my my co worker and his former roommate. So at

1538
01:22:37,640 --> 01:22:40,559
Speaker 1: what point do you decide you want to study psychology.

1539
01:22:41,120 --> 01:22:43,760
Speaker 1: I decided I wanted to study psychology when I was

1540
01:22:43,840 --> 01:22:48,360
Speaker 1: in high school and took an Advanced Placement psychology class,

1541
01:22:48,400 --> 01:22:52,080
Speaker 1: and the summer reading assignment was Oliver sax Is, the

1542
01:22:52,080 --> 01:22:54,840
Speaker 1: man who mistook his wife for a hat, And I

1543
01:22:54,840 --> 01:22:57,799
Speaker 1: remember reading that book and falling in love and thinking,

1544
01:22:57,960 --> 01:23:00,720
Speaker 1: oh my god, the human brain is the most fascinating

1545
01:23:00,720 --> 01:23:02,920
Speaker 1: thing in the world. I want to be all over

1546
01:23:02,960 --> 01:23:04,920
Speaker 1: sex when I grow up. Not the doctor part, but

1547
01:23:04,960 --> 01:23:07,400
Speaker 1: the person who can write that way and who can

1548
01:23:07,479 --> 01:23:10,720
Speaker 1: describe the human mind that way. So after you get

1549
01:23:10,720 --> 01:23:14,320
Speaker 1: your PhD. The concept of becoming a writer was instilled

1550
01:23:14,360 --> 01:23:16,960
Speaker 1: back in high school. Oh, the concept of becoming a

1551
01:23:17,000 --> 01:23:19,120
Speaker 1: writer was instilled when I was six years old, five

1552
01:23:19,200 --> 01:23:22,040
Speaker 1: or sex. Apparently I had announced it to my family

1553
01:23:22,560 --> 01:23:24,240
Speaker 1: way back then that I was going to be a writer.

1554
01:23:24,280 --> 01:23:28,000
Speaker 1: I wrote my first book in first grade. I've always

1555
01:23:28,040 --> 01:23:30,200
Speaker 1: wanted to write. I study in Harvard, I studied fiction.

1556
01:23:30,240 --> 01:23:34,040
Speaker 1: I studied fiction writing. I had actually I actually graduated

1557
01:23:34,080 --> 01:23:37,519
Speaker 1: with a writing portfolio. Okay, So if we look at

1558
01:23:37,560 --> 01:23:43,720
Speaker 1: the country at large, specifically Trump, the election, etcetera, what

1559
01:23:43,760 --> 01:23:47,519
Speaker 1: does your experience with game theory and psychology tell us

1560
01:23:47,880 --> 01:23:51,800
Speaker 1: about what is happening in America today. I'm very pessimistic.

1561
01:23:51,840 --> 01:23:54,640
Speaker 1: I mean and I'm very scared. I am not a

1562
01:23:54,640 --> 01:23:57,479
Speaker 1: Trump supporter at all. I've done everything I can. I've

1563
01:23:57,479 --> 01:24:01,360
Speaker 1: written for every publication about I could think of. You know,

1564
01:24:01,439 --> 01:24:04,080
Speaker 1: I started off with a piece in The New Yorker

1565
01:24:04,240 --> 01:24:07,559
Speaker 1: right after the election, call it saying Donald Trump con

1566
01:24:07,640 --> 01:24:10,760
Speaker 1: artist question mark. Well that has since changed to exclamation

1567
01:24:10,840 --> 01:24:15,160
Speaker 1: point written about Trump and his lives for Politico. Um.

1568
01:24:15,200 --> 01:24:16,960
Speaker 1: You know, I just wrote a piece about Trump and

1569
01:24:17,080 --> 01:24:20,120
Speaker 1: as a poker player, as a maniac poker player for

1570
01:24:20,240 --> 01:24:24,400
Speaker 1: Politico just a few weeks back. Um. I've become more

1571
01:24:24,400 --> 01:24:28,800
Speaker 1: and more pessimistic, and I think that we run a

1572
01:24:28,800 --> 01:24:31,920
Speaker 1: real risk of a second term, which scares me. Um.

1573
01:24:31,960 --> 01:24:37,120
Speaker 1: I think people cannot get complacent. Um. And this is

1574
01:24:37,160 --> 01:24:40,320
Speaker 1: just what a what a way to make the conversation

1575
01:24:40,400 --> 01:24:45,360
Speaker 1: going a really depressing direction. Trump. It's funny because people

1576
01:24:45,360 --> 01:24:47,600
Speaker 1: want to talk about every stuff and other stuff, but

1577
01:24:47,680 --> 01:24:50,439
Speaker 1: it's all really the people want to talk about. In

1578
01:24:50,520 --> 01:24:54,480
Speaker 1: terms of game theory, what might you advise the Democrats

1579
01:24:54,920 --> 01:24:59,040
Speaker 1: to beat Trump in the election? I mean, Trump is

1580
01:24:59,040 --> 01:25:02,160
Speaker 1: a maniac, and the way you beat mania accident to

1581
01:25:02,240 --> 01:25:06,639
Speaker 1: be a maniac back it's too fine. Pick your spots

1582
01:25:06,960 --> 01:25:11,320
Speaker 1: and play more conservatively, and but really concentrate on those

1583
01:25:11,400 --> 01:25:14,240
Speaker 1: few hands that you are playing. Um. I think that

1584
01:25:14,280 --> 01:25:19,240
Speaker 1: people make a mistake when they go down to Trump's level,

1585
01:25:19,280 --> 01:25:21,599
Speaker 1: when they stooped to that level, when they actually try

1586
01:25:21,640 --> 01:25:24,040
Speaker 1: to be a maniac back and return. You can't beat

1587
01:25:24,080 --> 01:25:25,800
Speaker 1: him at that game. I think you need to be

1588
01:25:25,880 --> 01:25:29,160
Speaker 1: much smarter than that, and I think you need to

1589
01:25:29,200 --> 01:25:33,559
Speaker 1: be much more patient and try to try to beat

1590
01:25:33,640 --> 01:25:38,040
Speaker 1: him by by playing stronger hands and playing them well. Okay,

1591
01:25:38,080 --> 01:25:40,960
Speaker 1: so in terms of engagement, everything is up in the

1592
01:25:41,000 --> 01:25:44,519
Speaker 1: year because of COVID. Would you tell Biden to debate

1593
01:25:44,600 --> 01:25:47,080
Speaker 1: him or not to debate Trump? Stay in the basement

1594
01:25:48,360 --> 01:25:52,200
Speaker 1: because you want to be you want to be as

1595
01:25:52,240 --> 01:25:55,240
Speaker 1: conservative as possible against a maniac. Don't give him any

1596
01:25:55,479 --> 01:25:58,960
Speaker 1: don't give him any occasions to uh to lash out. No,

1597
01:25:59,160 --> 01:26:02,760
Speaker 1: do not debate him. What's that going to do? Okay?

1598
01:26:02,800 --> 01:26:07,040
Speaker 1: And then let's go back to the nomination process. Obviously,

1599
01:26:07,120 --> 01:26:11,360
Speaker 1: Biden is a centrist. Bernie and Warren were further to

1600
01:26:11,439 --> 01:26:16,040
Speaker 1: the left, believing the American needed systemic change. Certainly since

1601
01:26:16,080 --> 01:26:19,559
Speaker 1: that time, Black lives matters happens, there are protests, we

1602
01:26:19,600 --> 01:26:24,360
Speaker 1: have COVID nineteen, we have all these economic issues. Would

1603
01:26:24,439 --> 01:26:27,800
Speaker 1: you advise l was a good decision to play conservatively

1604
01:26:27,840 --> 01:26:31,240
Speaker 1: with Biden. Would a decision further oute there like Bernie

1605
01:26:31,520 --> 01:26:34,240
Speaker 1: have been a better decision. Obviously it's never gonna happen,

1606
01:26:34,280 --> 01:26:37,479
Speaker 1: But what's your opinion. My opinion was that Warren was

1607
01:26:37,520 --> 01:26:41,559
Speaker 1: a much better nominee and that it should have been so. So. No,

1608
01:26:41,800 --> 01:26:44,519
Speaker 1: I don't think Biden was the best decision. Um, but

1609
01:26:44,560 --> 01:26:47,040
Speaker 1: I don't think that Sanders was the right decision either.

1610
01:26:47,120 --> 01:26:50,960
Speaker 1: I think I was in the Elizabeth Warren. But let's

1611
01:26:51,160 --> 01:26:53,839
Speaker 1: make it a little bit less about personality more about,

1612
01:26:53,880 --> 01:26:58,160
Speaker 1: you know, the vision. Both until she waffled a little bit,

1613
01:26:58,560 --> 01:27:02,360
Speaker 1: both Warren and c Anders were saying, Okay, you know,

1614
01:27:02,479 --> 01:27:04,720
Speaker 1: we have to break up the tech companies, we have

1615
01:27:04,840 --> 01:27:07,599
Speaker 1: to be aware of corporations. You know, we need health

1616
01:27:07,640 --> 01:27:12,160
Speaker 1: care for all, which is certainly different from what Trump

1617
01:27:12,200 --> 01:27:16,560
Speaker 1: and the Republicans are selling. When you're someone in that position,

1618
01:27:17,120 --> 01:27:19,559
Speaker 1: can you win with being outside or do you play

1619
01:27:19,600 --> 01:27:23,000
Speaker 1: it safe? I think you can win. I think I

1620
01:27:23,040 --> 01:27:26,760
Speaker 1: think that playing it safe is not always as safe

1621
01:27:26,760 --> 01:27:29,679
Speaker 1: a strategy as people think. That was a fundamental mistake

1622
01:27:29,720 --> 01:27:31,800
Speaker 1: that I made early on in poker. I thought that

1623
01:27:31,840 --> 01:27:34,519
Speaker 1: I couldn't go wrong by playing it safe, and it

1624
01:27:34,600 --> 01:27:36,519
Speaker 1: ends up that I could. That I was bleeding chips,

1625
01:27:37,000 --> 01:27:40,519
Speaker 1: I was bleeding supporters because I was just being very,

1626
01:27:40,640 --> 01:27:42,800
Speaker 1: very timid. So I think sometimes you need to go

1627
01:27:42,880 --> 01:27:46,760
Speaker 1: out there and realize that extreme more a little bit

1628
01:27:46,800 --> 01:27:50,760
Speaker 1: more extreme doesn't necessarily mean unsafe, that actually the safe

1629
01:27:50,840 --> 01:27:53,400
Speaker 1: choice might be the less safe one, because that's someone

1630
01:27:53,400 --> 01:27:57,400
Speaker 1: who's incapable of winning. I don't think Biden's incapable of winning,

1631
01:27:57,400 --> 01:27:59,840
Speaker 1: by the way, I'm just saying that, Um, I think

1632
01:28:00,000 --> 01:28:04,000
Speaker 1: it it's false to think that the quote unquote safe

1633
01:28:04,040 --> 01:28:09,280
Speaker 1: choice is actually safe. Another thing Eric says is essentially

1634
01:28:09,360 --> 01:28:11,559
Speaker 1: played a win. You don't want to just be in

1635
01:28:11,600 --> 01:28:16,280
Speaker 1: the money. Tell us a difference there, so, as I

1636
01:28:16,360 --> 01:28:20,800
Speaker 1: already um intimated, when you're playing tournament poker, it's very

1637
01:28:20,840 --> 01:28:25,000
Speaker 1: different from cash games because most people are going to

1638
01:28:25,040 --> 01:28:28,040
Speaker 1: walk away with zero, and so there's a point in

1639
01:28:28,080 --> 01:28:31,280
Speaker 1: a tournament called the bubble, and the bubble is the

1640
01:28:31,320 --> 01:28:34,639
Speaker 1: point where the next person out gets zero and then

1641
01:28:34,680 --> 01:28:37,479
Speaker 1: the person after that makes money. So let's say it's

1642
01:28:37,479 --> 01:28:41,080
Speaker 1: a hundred dollar tournament um and ten people are getting paid.

1643
01:28:41,240 --> 01:28:44,719
Speaker 1: The person who is out in eleventh place gets zero dollars,

1644
01:28:44,720 --> 01:28:46,760
Speaker 1: and the person who's out in tenth place gets, say

1645
01:28:46,800 --> 01:28:50,080
Speaker 1: a hundred and twenty dollars. Okay, so they make twenty

1646
01:28:50,120 --> 01:28:52,559
Speaker 1: dollars because a hundred dollars is they're buying, and they

1647
01:28:52,560 --> 01:28:56,639
Speaker 1: make twenty dollars. But the way that tournament payouts work

1648
01:28:57,200 --> 01:29:01,320
Speaker 1: is that they're concentrated at the top. So if you

1649
01:29:01,520 --> 01:29:04,599
Speaker 1: keep just min cashing, which means being out in tenth

1650
01:29:04,600 --> 01:29:07,280
Speaker 1: place right after the bubble, if you keep just squeaking

1651
01:29:07,320 --> 01:29:10,200
Speaker 1: your way into the money and you keep making twenty dollars,

1652
01:29:11,120 --> 01:29:13,760
Speaker 1: you're going to go broke, because what about all those

1653
01:29:13,760 --> 01:29:17,240
Speaker 1: tournaments that you didn't cash, What about the travel expenses,

1654
01:29:17,280 --> 01:29:19,400
Speaker 1: what about all these different things you need. Actually, to

1655
01:29:20,080 --> 01:29:21,880
Speaker 1: a hundred dollar tournament, you need to be making a

1656
01:29:21,920 --> 01:29:24,920
Speaker 1: thousand dollars or you need to be making ten thousand dollars,

1657
01:29:24,960 --> 01:29:27,880
Speaker 1: not twenty. And the only way to do that is

1658
01:29:27,920 --> 01:29:30,680
Speaker 1: to make the final table where the real money is concentrated.

1659
01:29:30,680 --> 01:29:33,400
Speaker 1: Because maybe out in tenth places a hundred and twenty

1660
01:29:33,439 --> 01:29:36,400
Speaker 1: dollars and first place gets nine dollars. That that's a

1661
01:29:36,400 --> 01:29:39,320
Speaker 1: little that's a little extreme, but maybe, but it's it's

1662
01:29:39,400 --> 01:29:42,000
Speaker 1: kind of like that. And so what Eric was saying,

1663
01:29:43,240 --> 01:29:45,200
Speaker 1: don't try to squeak into the money so that you

1664
01:29:45,240 --> 01:29:48,720
Speaker 1: can say you cashed, because you want to try to

1665
01:29:48,760 --> 01:29:51,360
Speaker 1: accumulate chirps, to put yourself in a position to win,

1666
01:29:51,720 --> 01:29:53,800
Speaker 1: to put yourself in a position to actually make the

1667
01:29:53,800 --> 01:29:56,639
Speaker 1: final table, to actually make a deep run, because that's

1668
01:29:56,640 --> 01:29:59,400
Speaker 1: how you actually make money in this game. And it's

1669
01:29:59,439 --> 01:30:02,200
Speaker 1: a very diff strategy. A lot of people will just

1670
01:30:02,280 --> 01:30:05,519
Speaker 1: start playing very conservatively, unfolding every single hand because they

1671
01:30:05,560 --> 01:30:07,800
Speaker 1: just want to say they cast they want to make

1672
01:30:07,800 --> 01:30:11,520
Speaker 1: that men cash. But that's a very short sighted strategy.

1673
01:30:11,640 --> 01:30:13,960
Speaker 1: You need to be more aggressive. You need to actually

1674
01:30:14,040 --> 01:30:17,360
Speaker 1: be willing to risk more, because only by risking more

1675
01:30:17,439 --> 01:30:19,800
Speaker 1: earlier are you going to be able to put yourself

1676
01:30:19,880 --> 01:30:22,960
Speaker 1: in a position to win the most. Okay, let's talk

1677
01:30:22,960 --> 01:30:26,800
Speaker 1: about different things where the numbers are different. In Gulf,

1678
01:30:26,840 --> 01:30:29,960
Speaker 1: they pay a long way down. Certainly the person who

1679
01:30:29,960 --> 01:30:33,080
Speaker 1: wins makes usually double what number two, But then from

1680
01:30:33,080 --> 01:30:35,960
Speaker 1: there people can make hundreds of thousands of dollars being

1681
01:30:35,960 --> 01:30:38,680
Speaker 1: in the top ten. Okay, and certainly there's costs to

1682
01:30:38,720 --> 01:30:41,880
Speaker 1: play golf now, a lot of those people play to win.

1683
01:30:42,479 --> 01:30:45,680
Speaker 1: I'm a fan of ski racing Bodie Miller, who's now retired.

1684
01:30:46,040 --> 01:30:49,000
Speaker 1: He would play to win, whereas it's a season long

1685
01:30:49,120 --> 01:30:54,040
Speaker 1: cup and people with lesser victories might win on a

1686
01:30:54,120 --> 01:31:00,000
Speaker 1: cumulative basis. The question becomes, do you at this elite level,

1687
01:31:00,640 --> 01:31:03,439
Speaker 1: do you have to play to win in order to

1688
01:31:03,560 --> 01:31:07,080
Speaker 1: succeed or is there a role for the journey person

1689
01:31:07,120 --> 01:31:09,960
Speaker 1: in this game? Now you have to play to win

1690
01:31:10,200 --> 01:31:13,360
Speaker 1: um in order to really succeed UM. I think that

1691
01:31:14,080 --> 01:31:17,400
Speaker 1: the journey person needs to play cash games as well,

1692
01:31:17,920 --> 01:31:21,240
Speaker 1: UM if they want to. Tournament poker is very high variants,

1693
01:31:21,280 --> 01:31:24,639
Speaker 1: So tournament poker, UM, if you're not, if you don't

1694
01:31:24,640 --> 01:31:26,880
Speaker 1: have a few big scores every single year, you're gonna

1695
01:31:26,880 --> 01:31:29,479
Speaker 1: lose money and you're going to go broke. A lot

1696
01:31:29,520 --> 01:31:32,080
Speaker 1: of tournament players they like playing tournaments, but they also

1697
01:31:32,120 --> 01:31:36,280
Speaker 1: supplement with cash games, which are much steadier, much lower invariants.

1698
01:31:36,280 --> 01:31:38,080
Speaker 1: So that's one way of doing it, so, so if

1699
01:31:38,080 --> 01:31:40,439
Speaker 1: you want to go hybrid that that's one way. Another

1700
01:31:40,439 --> 01:31:42,040
Speaker 1: way of doing it is to just sell a lot

1701
01:31:42,040 --> 01:31:45,959
Speaker 1: of your actions. So a lot of people who aren't

1702
01:31:46,000 --> 01:31:48,519
Speaker 1: making those huge scores but who want to keep playing,

1703
01:31:48,880 --> 01:31:52,280
Speaker 1: they'll sell nine of their tournaments, so they're just playing

1704
01:31:52,280 --> 01:31:54,760
Speaker 1: for ten percent. They can only lose ten percent, but

1705
01:31:54,760 --> 01:31:56,639
Speaker 1: if they actually hit that big score, they're only gonna

1706
01:31:56,680 --> 01:31:59,040
Speaker 1: win time percent of it, and their investors are going

1707
01:31:59,120 --> 01:32:01,280
Speaker 1: to get ninety percent. So there are lots of ways

1708
01:32:01,280 --> 01:32:04,120
Speaker 1: of mitigating risks. So in that sense, sure, there's there's

1709
01:32:04,120 --> 01:32:07,200
Speaker 1: definitely room for everyone. And if you're just there to

1710
01:32:07,280 --> 01:32:10,479
Speaker 1: have fun, I think there's also room for you because

1711
01:32:10,920 --> 01:32:13,160
Speaker 1: as long as you don't as long as you don't

1712
01:32:13,240 --> 01:32:15,920
Speaker 1: quit your day job, I think that it's something where

1713
01:32:16,000 --> 01:32:18,240
Speaker 1: you can learn a lot and where you can actually

1714
01:32:18,600 --> 01:32:21,400
Speaker 1: become a better decision maker. And I think it's better

1715
01:32:21,439 --> 01:32:23,080
Speaker 1: not to quit your day job. One of the reasons

1716
01:32:23,080 --> 01:32:25,880
Speaker 1: that I think I was able to improve quickly was

1717
01:32:25,880 --> 01:32:28,439
Speaker 1: I knew I didn't have to write. I could always

1718
01:32:28,479 --> 01:32:31,240
Speaker 1: go back to being a writer full time, and I

1719
01:32:31,280 --> 01:32:33,519
Speaker 1: didn't have to play poker to make a living, and

1720
01:32:33,520 --> 01:32:37,040
Speaker 1: I think that liberated me to actually play better. So

1721
01:32:37,080 --> 01:32:39,599
Speaker 1: what did you learn about your initial question, your premise

1722
01:32:40,160 --> 01:32:45,360
Speaker 1: life of visa VI, luck and chance. I learned that

1723
01:32:47,240 --> 01:32:50,559
Speaker 1: in the short term you have to have luck on

1724
01:32:50,600 --> 01:32:53,920
Speaker 1: your side. So in poker, poker is a game of

1725
01:32:53,960 --> 01:32:58,040
Speaker 1: skill and there's a chance element. But over the long term,

1726
01:32:58,200 --> 01:33:02,760
Speaker 1: the best players are going to win, and that I

1727
01:33:02,800 --> 01:33:06,840
Speaker 1: think is true in a in a macro sense as well.

1728
01:33:07,320 --> 01:33:10,320
Speaker 1: But in order to get to the long term, you

1729
01:33:10,360 --> 01:33:12,719
Speaker 1: need to get lucky in the short term. So any hand,

1730
01:33:13,120 --> 01:33:16,679
Speaker 1: any game, any tournament, a much worse player can win

1731
01:33:17,160 --> 01:33:19,639
Speaker 1: if they get lucky and if they actually look out.

1732
01:33:20,000 --> 01:33:23,120
Speaker 1: So I can play against Eric and win. That doesn't

1733
01:33:23,160 --> 01:33:25,479
Speaker 1: mean I've suddenly become better than Eric. That just means

1734
01:33:25,520 --> 01:33:28,000
Speaker 1: I got lucky. But if Rik and I play ten times,

1735
01:33:28,080 --> 01:33:31,840
Speaker 1: he's gonna probably win more than I win. If we

1736
01:33:31,880 --> 01:33:34,040
Speaker 1: play a hundred of times, he's definitely going to win

1737
01:33:34,080 --> 01:33:35,760
Speaker 1: more than I win. If we play a thousand times,

1738
01:33:35,840 --> 01:33:38,599
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna have any money left. That's how much

1739
01:33:38,640 --> 01:33:41,640
Speaker 1: more skilled he is than I am. So over the

1740
01:33:41,680 --> 01:33:47,200
Speaker 1: long term, skill in the immediate term, look, but you

1741
01:33:47,280 --> 01:33:50,000
Speaker 1: need to plan ahead. You need to realize that good

1742
01:33:50,080 --> 01:33:55,360
Speaker 1: luck and bad luck one doesn't necessarily follow the other

1743
01:33:55,640 --> 01:33:58,120
Speaker 1: and you never know how long the long term is.

1744
01:33:58,600 --> 01:34:00,599
Speaker 1: So it's not like if I got on lucky today,

1745
01:34:00,600 --> 01:34:02,680
Speaker 1: I have to get lucky tomorrow. Life doesn't work that way.

1746
01:34:02,680 --> 01:34:05,360
Speaker 1: Probability doesn't work that way. So all you can do

1747
01:34:05,600 --> 01:34:08,000
Speaker 1: is keep making good decisions and keep putting yourself in

1748
01:34:08,000 --> 01:34:10,720
Speaker 1: a position to win, and never risk so much that

1749
01:34:10,760 --> 01:34:13,639
Speaker 1: you can't recover. I think that's a very valuable life

1750
01:34:13,720 --> 01:34:15,760
Speaker 1: lesson because you don't know how long you're going to

1751
01:34:15,840 --> 01:34:18,800
Speaker 1: have to stick it out while the variance is not

1752
01:34:18,880 --> 01:34:20,719
Speaker 1: on your side, and you have to just be ready

1753
01:34:20,800 --> 01:34:24,680
Speaker 1: and be there when luck turns your way again. Okay,

1754
01:34:24,720 --> 01:34:26,880
Speaker 1: so let's just assume if I snap my finger and

1755
01:34:26,960 --> 01:34:29,439
Speaker 1: COVID was over, which of course is not going to happen.

1756
01:34:29,960 --> 01:34:33,080
Speaker 1: Are you a writer? Are you a poker player? What

1757
01:34:33,120 --> 01:34:38,080
Speaker 1: do you anticipate doing after this lull both? I mean

1758
01:34:38,200 --> 01:34:41,479
Speaker 1: I had no plans of stopping to play poker, never

1759
01:34:41,560 --> 01:34:44,599
Speaker 1: had any plans to stop writing, and they go very

1760
01:34:44,600 --> 01:34:46,800
Speaker 1: well hand in hand. I can write anywhere in the world,

1761
01:34:46,840 --> 01:34:48,799
Speaker 1: I can play poker in most places in the world,

1762
01:34:49,320 --> 01:34:51,719
Speaker 1: so why not do both? But I think I'm always

1763
01:34:51,960 --> 01:34:55,560
Speaker 1: first and foremost a writer that's always my my first identity.

1764
01:34:55,640 --> 01:34:58,720
Speaker 1: That's what I love. Um, that's where my heart is,

1765
01:34:58,840 --> 01:35:01,280
Speaker 1: and that's what makes me I am. But I love

1766
01:35:01,320 --> 01:35:03,799
Speaker 1: poker and I was still learning a lot and still

1767
01:35:04,439 --> 01:35:08,080
Speaker 1: really growing in the game when COVID hit um, and

1768
01:35:08,240 --> 01:35:12,560
Speaker 1: so I fully intend to keep playing, at least for

1769
01:35:12,600 --> 01:35:16,040
Speaker 1: the foreseeable future, while I'm still winning and while I'm

1770
01:35:16,040 --> 01:35:19,840
Speaker 1: still enjoying it. Why would I stop? And are you

1771
01:35:20,840 --> 01:35:24,040
Speaker 1: pulling together a new book as we talk? Um? No,

1772
01:35:24,280 --> 01:35:27,120
Speaker 1: I'm not someone who's thinking about my next project before

1773
01:35:27,120 --> 01:35:30,280
Speaker 1: I'm done with my previous project, and it always takes

1774
01:35:30,280 --> 01:35:32,160
Speaker 1: me at least six months to figure out what I'm

1775
01:35:32,160 --> 01:35:34,479
Speaker 1: going to do next in terms of books, So I

1776
01:35:34,520 --> 01:35:36,599
Speaker 1: have no idea what's next. I'm working on some other

1777
01:35:36,640 --> 01:35:39,080
Speaker 1: things that aren't books, um, that I can't talk about

1778
01:35:39,160 --> 01:35:41,760
Speaker 1: right now. But so I am. You will be seeing

1779
01:35:41,800 --> 01:35:44,960
Speaker 1: creative output for me from me in the coming months,

1780
01:35:44,960 --> 01:35:47,200
Speaker 1: but they're not It's not going to be in book form.

1781
01:35:47,280 --> 01:35:49,479
Speaker 1: But the next book is I'm not sure? But is it?

1782
01:35:49,680 --> 01:35:55,160
Speaker 1: The creative projects are writing yes, okay, into what do

1783
01:35:55,360 --> 01:35:59,559
Speaker 1: we did the success of the book? Uh? Meat or

1784
01:35:59,600 --> 01:36:03,280
Speaker 1: exceed your expectations? And what opportunities have come along as

1785
01:36:03,280 --> 01:36:05,920
Speaker 1: a result of the book. I mean, so far, it's

1786
01:36:05,960 --> 01:36:09,760
Speaker 1: only been a month since it's been out. So Um,

1787
01:36:09,960 --> 01:36:14,160
Speaker 1: I've been very happy with the with the reception that

1788
01:36:14,240 --> 01:36:17,000
Speaker 1: people seem to be responding to it and enjoying it.

1789
01:36:17,360 --> 01:36:19,479
Speaker 1: I didn't know what to expect. It's very different from

1790
01:36:19,479 --> 01:36:22,040
Speaker 1: my prior books. It's much more personal. I mean, it's

1791
01:36:22,040 --> 01:36:25,200
Speaker 1: a memoir, it's it's a first person book. It's the

1792
01:36:25,240 --> 01:36:27,720
Speaker 1: first time I've written in my real voice, not just

1793
01:36:27,840 --> 01:36:32,120
Speaker 1: my journalistic voice, and I've actually shared what's in my head. Um,

1794
01:36:32,240 --> 01:36:35,360
Speaker 1: And so I think it's always makes you feel very

1795
01:36:35,400 --> 01:36:39,599
Speaker 1: vulnerable putting yourself out there like that. So I didn't

1796
01:36:39,600 --> 01:36:42,720
Speaker 1: know if people would like it, and I've been very

1797
01:36:42,760 --> 01:36:46,240
Speaker 1: gratified that I've gotten a good response and that the

1798
01:36:46,280 --> 01:36:49,600
Speaker 1: poker community likes it. Um. That's also something that I

1799
01:36:50,200 --> 01:36:53,360
Speaker 1: didn't know, um, whether that was going to work out

1800
01:36:53,439 --> 01:36:55,880
Speaker 1: or not, because poker players can be a tough crowd,

1801
01:36:56,200 --> 01:36:58,680
Speaker 1: and so I I'm really glad that they think I've

1802
01:36:58,680 --> 01:37:02,760
Speaker 1: represented them well for the most part. Um, It's it's

1803
01:37:02,760 --> 01:37:04,920
Speaker 1: been hard. I mean I had to cancel my book

1804
01:37:04,960 --> 01:37:07,480
Speaker 1: to our, I had to cancel all of my events. Um,

1805
01:37:07,520 --> 01:37:09,640
Speaker 1: it's not at all like the book release that I

1806
01:37:09,680 --> 01:37:15,000
Speaker 1: had planned. Um, but you you, the funny thing is

1807
01:37:15,040 --> 01:37:16,960
Speaker 1: that's what my book is about. Right. You can plan

1808
01:37:17,040 --> 01:37:19,760
Speaker 1: as much as you want, and then chance is going

1809
01:37:19,800 --> 01:37:21,000
Speaker 1: to be what it's going to be, and you have

1810
01:37:21,080 --> 01:37:26,000
Speaker 1: to deal with it. Actually, the human narrative as opposed

1811
01:37:26,040 --> 01:37:29,920
Speaker 1: to the psychology, was the most interesting for me, and

1812
01:37:29,960 --> 01:37:32,880
Speaker 1: I almost wish there were two books, one without any

1813
01:37:32,880 --> 01:37:37,439
Speaker 1: of the psychological analysis and one with it, because just

1814
01:37:37,560 --> 01:37:38,760
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of times I would get really

1815
01:37:38,760 --> 01:37:40,280
Speaker 1: into it and you, you know, you would talk about

1816
01:37:40,280 --> 01:37:42,280
Speaker 1: all the theories, etcetera. But I said, you know, what

1817
01:37:42,400 --> 01:37:44,680
Speaker 1: is a person feeling? You know, what are they gonna do?

1818
01:37:44,800 --> 01:37:47,920
Speaker 1: What's happening? In any event, Maria, thanks so much for

1819
01:37:48,000 --> 01:37:50,120
Speaker 1: doing this. Thanks for taking time out of your day

1820
01:37:50,280 --> 01:37:53,599
Speaker 1: tell your story. Certainly fascinating for all those of us

1821
01:37:53,600 --> 01:37:56,519
Speaker 1: who are interested both in poker in life. Thanks again,

1822
01:37:56,880 --> 01:37:59,400
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Bob, It's been a pleasure. Until

1823
01:37:59,439 --> 01:38:01,120
Speaker 1: next time. This is Bob left Sex