Speaker 1: Pushkin.
Speaker 2: Hi, everyone, welcome back to Risky Business, our podcast about
Speaker 2: making better decisions. I'm Maria Kannakova.
Speaker 3: I'm Nate Silver.
Speaker 1: So today we're going.
Speaker 2: To be doing a little bit of a deep dive
Speaker 2: into the political situation that is a Joe Biden, and
Speaker 2: then we'll be talking about the World Series of Poker.
Speaker 2: It is currently the main event, and we are taping
Speaker 2: this right before I go play day three. I'm running
Speaker 2: on about four hours of sleep, but I'm very excited
Speaker 2: to be here Nate, and we're going to get totally
Speaker 2: psyched up to play by talking about the amazing decisions
Speaker 2: that the United States political machinery is making.
Speaker 3: I got a great night's sleep after having gotten knocked
Speaker 3: out of the main event on the last level. There
Speaker 3: is more poker later this week, but good luck to you, Maria,
Speaker 3: Thanks so much, Nate.
Speaker 1: Let's do a quick recap.
Speaker 2: So last time we spoke about the elections, it was
Speaker 2: right after the debate, which I think the scientific consensus
Speaker 2: was it was a total cluster fuck.
Speaker 3: It's epic shit storm, I think is the.
Speaker 2: Okay, actually perfect, I'm sorry, total cluster fuck. That's a
Speaker 2: little less than shit storm, right, No, actually.
Speaker 3: I think you're right. It's like a it's a shit
Speaker 3: storm inside a black hole, inside a cluster, fuck inside.
Speaker 2: Of fucking Okay, that sounds reasonable. So that's where we
Speaker 2: were last time. We are recording this on Tuesday morning,
Speaker 2: Vegas time. Now it's been a week and a half later, right,
Speaker 2: something like that.
Speaker 1: Two weeks later.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's been it's been twelve twelve restless nights for
Speaker 3: the since the debate for Joe Biden and the Democrats.
Speaker 2: Yes, and things have gone up and down. Right in
Speaker 2: the immediate aftermath of the debate, it seemed like people
Speaker 2: were absolutely horrified. And then Joe Biden is now going
Speaker 2: on his I'm not resigning tour.
Speaker 3: Look, some comeators. You know. Benji Sarlin's a very bright
Speaker 3: reporter for Semaphore and talks about the kind of mutually
Speaker 3: assured destruction scenario that Biden is presenting for Democrats right
Speaker 3: where he's saying basically, well, I'm going to be the
Speaker 3: nominee whether you like it or not, and so anything
Speaker 3: you do now will just put me in an even
Speaker 3: worse position against Trump. Right, So first of all, let
Speaker 3: me stay this is like actually not Biden's only option.
Speaker 3: Biden has the right to stand down. The ballots are
Speaker 3: not been printed yet. That's all misinformation, right, we haven't
Speaker 3: had the convention yet. By the way, it's actually technically
Speaker 3: speaking not the Democrats only option. There is a conscious
Speaker 3: clause in the convention which says, if you're in you're
Speaker 3: good conscious, you think this guy should not be the nominee,
Speaker 3: then you are not legally bound to vote for him. Now,
Speaker 3: ninety eight ninety nine percent of the delegates where people
Speaker 3: selected by Joe Biden. When you vote in the primaries,
Speaker 3: you vote both for a candidate and for his or
Speaker 3: her Dell gets the convention as chosen by the candidate, right,
Speaker 3: So they're loyal to Biden. But there also weren't really
Speaker 3: necessarily planned for a scenario like this. There might be regular,
Speaker 3: normy Democrats who are kind of local party leaders. If
Speaker 3: you look at polling now of Democratic voters, it's actually
Speaker 3: pretty close. I think in one poll which was put
Speaker 3: up by group it's advocating for this, So take that
Speaker 3: with a grain of salt. Right, In one poll, a
Speaker 3: majority Democratic voters actually said they prefer to have an
Speaker 3: open nomination process to Biden. I mean, I don't know
Speaker 3: what kind of cave people are hiding in. But like
Speaker 3: the concern about Biden's age and the debate is certainly
Speaker 3: not confined to uh, just elites, right, I mean, it's
Speaker 3: with registered impuls of voters for a long time, for months,
Speaker 3: for years, voters have said, sorry, we tolerated up to
Speaker 3: age eighty one, which he is now, right, but another
Speaker 3: another six months this plus another four years eighty six,
Speaker 3: that's not going to work for us, right.
Speaker 2: And if you talk to like, has that has that
Speaker 2: clause ever been used?
Speaker 3: I don't think so. But look, the general no, I
Speaker 3: mean I don't. Well, look, I mean it depends because
Speaker 3: before nineteen seventy two, roughly then, it was kind of
Speaker 3: a smoke filled rooms scenario where parties would have minimal
Speaker 3: to no input from voters. The primaries are mostly for show,
Speaker 3: and then they get going to the convention, like actually
Speaker 3: pick the candidates what the convention was for? You know,
Speaker 3: Since then there hasn't been a situation where the superdugets
Speaker 3: had to be invoked, although it was close in some years, right,
Speaker 3: you know, Hillary versus Obama was fairly close. For example,
Speaker 3: there was talk on the Republican side where Trump at
Speaker 3: one point had a plurality, but not a majority of delegance.
Speaker 3: In twenty sixteen, he wound up though sweeping the last
Speaker 3: twenty percent of states to have a clear majority in
Speaker 3: the end. But look, I mean, the reason you write
Speaker 3: emergency procedures is for emergencies, and Democrats are in kind
Speaker 3: of an emergency. I'm not going to be one of
Speaker 3: those peoplehos like, oh Trump gets elected, it's going to
Speaker 3: be the last election. I think it's probably hyperbolic, right,
Speaker 3: but like one of your goals as a party is
Speaker 3: to elect winning candidates and win elections, and Joe Biden's
Speaker 3: probably not going to beat Donald Trump. And in fact,
Speaker 3: even Democrats if you read the reporting, even Democrats who
Speaker 3: say we can't switch candidates, if you talk to them privately,
Speaker 3: they say, we think Biden's gonna lose. We just don't
Speaker 3: think we have a choice, right, we want to save
Speaker 3: down ballot racist things like that. It's just not very rational.
Speaker 2: I don't think, no, I mean, and it's a you know,
Speaker 2: it's a problem that you get in decision making a
Speaker 2: lot when it's a collective action problem and you need
Speaker 2: that one person to step up and to say something
Speaker 2: and to actually be the person who becomes that voice
Speaker 2: that says, Okay, we need to say publicly what everyone
Speaker 2: is saying privately. But unless that happens, that galvanizing force
Speaker 2: can't gain momentum. And so many times then in these
Speaker 2: decision making processes, and by the way, right right now
Speaker 2: we're talking about the presidency, which is huge, but this
Speaker 2: happens in boardrooms, this happens in corporate decision makings, This
Speaker 2: happens everywhere when everyone is thinking something privately but they
Speaker 2: can't say it publicly because they're too afraid of the repercussions.
Speaker 2: And the calculus just doesn't work out if we put
Speaker 2: it in our game theoretical framework. Right, you start looking
Speaker 2: at the payoff matrix and you say, okay, what's my
Speaker 2: payoff matrix? If I'm the person who speaks out and
Speaker 2: then people don't support me and all these things happen,
Speaker 2: and then I'm the one who loses. And Biden is
Speaker 2: actually playing into that because he's stacking it. He's explicitly saying, Okay,
Speaker 2: your payoff matrix looks like shit because you know I'm
Speaker 2: going to do this, and you don't want to be
Speaker 2: the person who betrayed me, right, you don't want to
Speaker 2: be Buddhists in this scenario.
Speaker 3: Well, look, I don't think he's going to be president
Speaker 3: for much longer. I'm not sure he's going to be
Speaker 3: an influential political figure for much longer, or in good
Speaker 3: health if he is already for much longer. Right, Look,
Speaker 3: I have an article I'm running on I'll finish for
Speaker 3: newsletter subscribers after we finished taping this podcast. I think
Speaker 3: Biden has a weekend and it's running a pretty bad bluff.
Speaker 3: And I think who select to go into politics tend
Speaker 3: to be what I would call knits meeting there. We've
Speaker 3: used that term before on the show, right, And it's
Speaker 3: like a neurotic riskivers person, and elected Democrats are like
Speaker 3: neurotic and riskivers and also very people pleasing. You advance
Speaker 3: in the party by by building alliances and the different
Speaker 3: constituents and commitments you have finding ways to balance those
Speaker 3: pleasing donors, which sounds like the worst thing in the
Speaker 3: world to me, right, to have like some rubber chicken
Speaker 3: dinner where you're pleasing these donors who are rich but
Speaker 3: have dumb opinions about politics most of the time.
Speaker 2: Let's be honest, Yes, you know that sounds like that chicken,
Speaker 2: especially public offer IPO chicken because when you go to
Speaker 2: IPO dinners, they always serve this rubber chicken.
Speaker 1: So yes, they have IPO chicken dinners.
Speaker 3: That life sounds like torture to me. You couldn't fucking
Speaker 3: pay me enough to be a fucking center or something
Speaker 3: like that. However, it selects for people who are not
Speaker 3: inclined to rock the boat. But look, there are several
Speaker 3: things here. What is that Biden has Clearly the first
Speaker 3: move was to get Biden to take a hint gently.
Speaker 3: I mean, the first move is you hope that he
Speaker 3: kind of is aware of the situation on his own right.
Speaker 3: The first move is said, get Biden to take the
Speaker 3: hit gently and then maybe not so quite so gently,
Speaker 3: where you start to have anonymous leaks and then you
Speaker 3: have backbenchers meaning relatively obscure members of Congress kind of saying, hey,
Speaker 3: you should think about this. As far as I know,
Speaker 3: as far as any reporting has suggested, there has not
Speaker 3: been like a posse of senior leaders who has gone
Speaker 3: to the White House and said, Joe, we're not fucking around.
Speaker 3: You're gonna lose, You're gonna embarrass your party, You're gonna
Speaker 3: embarrass your position in history. It's time to stand down.
Speaker 3: So far as I know, that hasn't happened. Really, they
Speaker 3: have kind of gone halfway up the escalatory spiral, but
Speaker 3: they haven't really used their best ammunition yet. Never mind
Speaker 3: these nuclear options like the conscious Clause or the twenty
Speaker 3: fifth Amendment is an amendment to the US Constitution that
Speaker 3: CanCERN if a president is unable to carry out his
Speaker 3: duties and the cabinet can say that the vice president
Speaker 3: ought to take over. I also think that like they
Speaker 3: haven't fully played the Kamala Harris card, and I want
Speaker 3: to talk about Harris in kind of the second half
Speaker 3: of this segment. But like you know, one of the
Speaker 3: ironies is that the Congressional Black Caucus has been what's
Speaker 3: helped Biden to save ground, to salvage ground so far right,
Speaker 3: I don't think there have been any Congressional Black Caucus
Speaker 3: members who have come out yet and said that Biden
Speaker 3: should step aside. There have been many who said that
Speaker 3: he should not step aside, and so you know that
Speaker 3: has been very helpful to him. But if Biden were
Speaker 3: to step aside, the most likely replacement would be, you know,
Speaker 3: the first woman president or the first woman. I guess,
Speaker 3: you know, I know you would take over immediately, But like,
Speaker 3: but Kamala Harris, who could become the first woman president
Speaker 3: and a black woman and an Asian woman as well,
Speaker 3: So it seems like I don't really buy. Look, my
Speaker 3: preference is that you'd have some type of voter input,
Speaker 3: more open nomination process. But like, it seems like, do
Speaker 3: they really prefer Biden to a black vice president who
Speaker 3: was at this point in her life much more capable
Speaker 3: than he is? Right, eighty one year old Biden's not
Speaker 3: more capable than Kamala Harris. I mean, he's not right,
Speaker 3: he's not prosecuting the case against Trump. He's not capable
Speaker 3: of like being up time when you need a potential crisis.
Speaker 3: I mean, you can think Kamala Harris is a mediocre
Speaker 3: at best politician, which I do, and she might not
Speaker 3: be your cup of tea. But like, but it's just
Speaker 3: a bizarre argument that like, you know, so I think
Speaker 3: if if they said, Okay, we might not have enough
Speaker 3: leverage to have this West Wing Aaron Sorkin fantasy convention,
Speaker 3: that Nate Silver might like, right, do you not have
Speaker 3: the leverage to say, let's agree that Kamala Harris is
Speaker 3: a less bad option, right, she is capable of actually
Speaker 3: prosecuting the case against Trump. You're not lying to the
Speaker 3: American public about her fitness for office, and you know what,
Speaker 3: she'll probably lose, but like, but Biden's probably gonna lose too. Like,
Speaker 3: what's the world in which Biden wins that Harris doesn't win.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's like the world where Biden win, involved
Speaker 3: world where the polling is so far off that we
Speaker 3: don't know what I'm gonna begin with, or where like
Speaker 3: Trump goes to jail or something, and like, like any
Speaker 3: Democrat can win into those conditions, any any halfway competent democrat.
Speaker 3: Maybe we're not gonna get more than a halfway competent option.
Speaker 3: But like, I mean, look, we're in Nevada, not Nevada, right,
Speaker 3: Nevada Nevada's And you see ads in Nevada because it's
Speaker 3: a swing state, which New York is not. Saw some
Speaker 3: Spanish language ad for example, where they're like, you know,
Speaker 3: Joe Biden is very competent, he is a steady hand,
Speaker 3: and like he does not have a steady hand. I
Speaker 3: mean literally, I'm not sure he has a steady hand. Anymore.
Speaker 3: I don't mean to diagnosed semtically, but like, but you
Speaker 3: can't project we are the campaign that is just a
Speaker 3: steady hand competence, no chaos anymore. Right, that cat is
Speaker 3: out of the bag. It's too late for that. You're
Speaker 3: selling people on a lie like it just you know,
Speaker 3: the honest thing to do is to say, we chose
Speaker 3: this woman to be vice president, and she has served
Speaker 3: as vice president for three and a half years. Now,
Speaker 3: at any moment she could become president. Joe Biden could
Speaker 3: have a heart attack, there could be some type of
Speaker 3: attack on whenever Joe Biden is located. We elected people
Speaker 3: elected Kamala Harris to be vice president and clearly you're
Speaker 3: in a situation where she is more fit to be
Speaker 3: president than Biden over the next four years. And like,
Speaker 3: what's it say about her or what's it say about
Speaker 3: like how cynical the decision was, Like maybe you picked
Speaker 3: her in June twenty twenty because you're in a period
Speaker 3: summer twenty twenty when you're in a period where there's
Speaker 3: a lot of this racial reckoning, so called right, but
Speaker 3: she is a center from California, She's been in this
Speaker 3: attorney right, she is like someone who I think is
Speaker 3: generally regarded as being very smart and competent. The problems
Speaker 3: were mostly the fact that like that, like politically she
Speaker 3: wasn't a very compelling hand ain't unless have some upside potential,
Speaker 3: But like, what is it saying that these people don't
Speaker 3: trust her in a circumstance where she you know, I
Speaker 3: think obviously it seems more fit for the job now,
Speaker 3: let alone for four more years.
Speaker 2: So what I but I actually so, I don't think
Speaker 2: we're I don't think what we're seeing is as much
Speaker 2: what it says about Kamala Harris. I think it's more
Speaker 2: what we're saying about delusion and doubling down, and what's
Speaker 2: going on psychologically with kind of with the Democratic Party
Speaker 2: and with Biden himself. So I think there are a
Speaker 2: few different real real fallacies happening here and real real issues.
Speaker 2: The first is that Democrats are saying, you know, Biden
Speaker 2: is a good man, like we can convince him to
Speaker 2: step down by kind of these these subtle hence, these
Speaker 2: subtle you know, he'll see the light. What they don't
Speaker 2: understand is that when you attack someone's core identity, right
Speaker 2: who they are, how they see themselves, what their reason
Speaker 2: for being is. That does not work, and what ends
Speaker 2: up happening is you double down and you really do
Speaker 2: not see kind of the light. And I think that's
Speaker 2: that's even worse with Biden right now, because he is
Speaker 2: degrading a little bit when it comes to cognitive capacity.
Speaker 2: We all know see the world through rose colored glasses,
Speaker 2: you know, have this kind of better than average effect
Speaker 2: where we think we're you know, better, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 2: But in the case of someone who is president right,
Speaker 2: who has that kind of hubris, who's been reinforced over
Speaker 2: and over and over, that's going to be completely doubled.
Speaker 2: I've wrote an article a number of years ago from
Speaker 2: The New Yorker called I Don't Want to be Right,
Speaker 2: and it's basically about how difficult it is to get
Speaker 2: people to change their minds when the essence of who
Speaker 2: they see themselves as is attacked. And so relying on
Speaker 2: Biden and trying to appeal to his good nature to
Speaker 2: step aside, that is not going to work. And we
Speaker 2: see that actually backfiring right now. We see Biden saying,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm not going to step aside. I'm going
Speaker 2: to fight, and it's obviously not helped that he has
Speaker 2: people around him like Hunter likes Joe Biden who are
Speaker 2: telling him, Oh, no, this is great, this is wonderful.
Speaker 2: And then the flip side of that is that you
Speaker 2: have this party that is a.
Speaker 1: Little bit kind of I don't know if diluted.
Speaker 2: Is the right term. It's a little strong, but it
Speaker 2: might be correct. So I think we've talked on the
Speaker 2: pod before, maybe not about how I see the Trump
Speaker 2: supporters as basically being cult followers, right, doesn't matter what happens,
Speaker 2: They're in this cult. So they're going to rationalize everything away.
Speaker 2: No red flags are actually red flags, and instead they're
Speaker 2: going to kind of go through this cognitive dissonance reduction
Speaker 2: so that they end up saying, no, this is still
Speaker 2: the best candidate, this is wonderful, this is great, like
Speaker 2: no matter what, we're voting for him. And I actually
Speaker 2: see think we're seeing a little bit of that in
Speaker 2: the Democratic Party, where it's not a cult, but it's
Speaker 2: more like Stockholm syndrome ish where they're also rationalizing away
Speaker 2: the red flags. And I think that actually intersects with
Speaker 2: what you were talking about with the risk aversion factor,
Speaker 2: because they're scared and they're scared of taking this kind
Speaker 2: of this gamble. They're scared of doing something unprecedented, and
Speaker 2: that is self reinforcing. So you have that, and then
Speaker 2: you have the kind of the delusion of no, everything's
Speaker 2: going to be okay. This isn't actually a red flag.
Speaker 2: He just had a bad day. And the more you rationalize,
Speaker 2: the easier it becomes to rationalize, and the more you
Speaker 2: actually start believing that this is reality. Because in the
Speaker 2: immediate aftermath of the debates, you were like, holy shit,
Speaker 2: were fucked right, And then like the next day you're like, oh, well,
Speaker 2: maybe it wasn't so bad. And then two days later
Speaker 2: you're like, Okay, really it wasn't so bad. You know,
Speaker 2: you kind of start rewriting history, you start rewriting the
Speaker 2: way that you perceive it, and you end up in
Speaker 2: this place where you're pretty divorced from reality. And that
Speaker 2: is a really dangerous place to be. And I think
Speaker 2: that might be kind of where we are right now.
Speaker 3: So let's say I commission you some I'm Barack Obama,
Speaker 3: right and you're my PhD Columbia psychologists, and I say
Speaker 3: I need to devise a plan to get Joe fucking
Speaker 3: Biden to quit, and I have a week to do
Speaker 3: it before we reach the point of no return. I
Speaker 3: can use any trick in the book, as long as
Speaker 3: it's not illegal, any psychological trick in the book. What
Speaker 3: is a plan to make Joe Biden think it's in
Speaker 3: his best interest to quit? Or is it not a
Speaker 3: matter of or is a matter of playing pure hardball?
Speaker 1: Well?
Speaker 2: I think I think that there can be too approaches
Speaker 2: to it. First, I think you do need to be
Speaker 2: completely straightforward with him and straightforward with the people around him. Right,
Speaker 2: you need to sit Hunter and Jill down as well
Speaker 2: and be like, stop fucking around, like this is bad, right,
Speaker 2: and get that, get that out of the way. But
Speaker 2: then I think you need to be straightforward with him,
Speaker 2: and you need to do it in a way that
Speaker 2: does not attack who he is, but actually reinforces it
Speaker 2: and says, you know, you want to go down in
Speaker 2: history as the great president who stopped Donald Trump. The
Speaker 2: only way to do that is by stepping aside. These
Speaker 2: are all the amazing things that you would be doing.
Speaker 2: This does not make you look weak. It's not because
Speaker 2: you're old. Of course, we know you're competent. Of course,
Speaker 2: we know what you're doing the other people are idiots, though,
Speaker 2: and you need to understand political perception. You need to understand,
Speaker 2: you know, how people are reacting. They're not rational, but
Speaker 2: it doesn't matter because you know that's who we're dealing with.
Speaker 2: So you need to be the bigger man and do
Speaker 2: the right thing. And you're smart enough to do it.
Speaker 2: You're competent enough to do it. You know, you're brilliant,
Speaker 2: use your brilliant mind to step aside and do the
Speaker 2: strategically correct thing to save the country from the brink
Speaker 2: of disaster. So you're doing several things right. You're playing
Speaker 2: to his ego. You're not saying he's weak, you're not
Speaker 2: saying he's too old, you're not saying you're not attacking
Speaker 2: him in ways that make him feel attacked. And instead
Speaker 2: you're trying to say, okay, how do you cement your legacy?
Speaker 2: And honestly, I might even do something like pull the
Speaker 2: RBG card and say, you know, let's let's look at RBG.
Speaker 2: You know someone who was this absolutely brilliant mind.
Speaker 3: Charles Carls Dickens film where the Ghost of RBG Comes.
Speaker 2: From, the Ghost of RBG comes. You know, I can
Speaker 2: dress up as RBG. You said, pull out all the stops, right,
Speaker 2: we can get some CGI special effects and I might
Speaker 2: be a little taller than she is, but you know,
Speaker 2: we'll figure it out actually work.
Speaker 3: Because Biden said, if the God Almighty came down right, Like,
Speaker 3: I'm thinking there's like a twenty percent chance, like if
Speaker 3: you actually stage that in the clever way, would actually work.
Speaker 3: And I'm like, I had some vision and like, you know,
Speaker 3: give him some stroom gummies. It's probably it's probably probably illegal.
Speaker 3: I didn't mean to suggest that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we're not going to do anything illegal, but yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean you could even pull that RBG card the
Speaker 2: ghosts of the ghosts justice has passed and saying, you know,
Speaker 2: I bet, like I actually bet that if we if
Speaker 2: we got the ghost of RBG on the pod, she'd
Speaker 2: regret her decision after she saw what happened. You know,
Speaker 2: she was a smart woman. She just let her ego
Speaker 2: get in the way. And I think that that's what's
Speaker 2: happening here. And you can compare, I mean, if you compare, Biden, like,
Speaker 2: I think the key also is to find other good
Speaker 2: historical precedents of people who he admires and who he
Speaker 2: thinks you know, are strong leaders who did something like this,
Speaker 2: who you can be like. You know, you can be
Speaker 2: like or you can be like RBG right, like you
Speaker 2: can do you can do these things. And it's not
Speaker 2: about you the whole thing, right, we always talk about
Speaker 2: you look at all these presidential addresses over you know,
Speaker 2: hundreds of years, and it's all about it's not about you,
Speaker 2: it's about the country. It's about the greater good. And
Speaker 2: so to try to kind of get to that and
Speaker 2: have him hear it, and the only way he's going
Speaker 2: to hear it is if he doesn't feel attacked, and
Speaker 2: if he doesn't feel like you're disrespecting him, if he
Speaker 2: doesn't feel billittled, if he doesn't feel like you're talking
Speaker 2: to him like an old man. Because he does not
Speaker 2: see himself that way, I think it's really important to
Speaker 2: project to him the way that he sees himself. He
Speaker 2: sees himself as still that young, capable senator who can
Speaker 2: do anything. In the debate, that became very clear because
Speaker 2: when he was asked, you know, what do you say
Speaker 2: about the age about the age complaints, he was like, well,
Speaker 2: I used to be the youngest, and everyone is complaining
Speaker 2: about my age. Well, that doesn't answer the question, but
Speaker 2: that actually gives you a really really interesting psychological lens
Speaker 2: into what's going on in his head. In his mind,
Speaker 2: he's still the youngest, he can still make it work.
Speaker 2: He just has off days. He is doing that exact
Speaker 2: same rationalization, and I think he truly truly believes it.
Speaker 2: I do not think he thinks he's slipping, and he
Speaker 2: can rationalize away like one bad day, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 2: And if he actually has diminished cognitive capacity, then once
Speaker 2: again it's going to be much that much more difficult
Speaker 2: for him to see reality. So the way the best
Speaker 2: con artists operate is to sell people the vision of
Speaker 2: the world that they already believe is true. And so
Speaker 2: here I'm suggesting we use the persuasion tactics of con
Speaker 2: artists to try to gently get persuade Biden to do
Speaker 2: what's best and make make him think that it's his
Speaker 2: own idea. That's the other thing that they do. Right,
Speaker 2: Instead of saying like give me your money, they make
Speaker 2: me say, Nate, you know, I think you really want
Speaker 2: to give me your money.
Speaker 1: And you're like, hey, you know what, Maria, I.
Speaker 2: Really want to give you my money, and so I
Speaker 2: think that's what we need to do with Biden, so
Speaker 2: that he ends up thinking himself, you know what, maybe
Speaker 2: I do want to step down. Maybe this is really
Speaker 2: for the best of everything, and maybe this is how
Speaker 2: I cement my legacy as the great man that I
Speaker 2: know that I am.
Speaker 3: What's challenging is that you have two kind of games
Speaker 3: in the sense of things that game theory might apply
Speaker 3: to going on at once. On the one hand, you
Speaker 3: have this private tactic that you're talking about, right, and
Speaker 3: the senators, supposed to the representatives are mostly saying things like, well,
Speaker 3: I was troubled the Susan Collins if you're a politics
Speaker 3: and I was troubled by what I saw on the debate,
Speaker 3: And I've gone back to my constituents to see what
Speaker 3: they think. But I wouldn't want to make a decision
Speaker 3: on behalf of Joe Biden, the greatest man who ever lived.
Speaker 3: It's like that kind of shit, like that.
Speaker 1: You should become a voice actor.
Speaker 3: Okay, thank you, Maria. I think that's kind of maybe
Speaker 3: the right play in terms of the psychology of it.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: However, you also have this thing where all these Democrats
Speaker 3: think Joe Biden should quit. And they have a collective
Speaker 3: action problem and kind of a preference cascade problem where
Speaker 3: people are acting differently than what they really think, you know.
Speaker 3: And so what Biden did on Monday is they kind
Speaker 3: of rounded up all of the people I think they
Speaker 3: could who would go on record for whatever selfish or
Speaker 3: unselfish reason or naive or not naive reason, you know,
Speaker 3: AOC and all these Democrats kind of when I record
Speaker 3: instead of course he has to be our nominee. It's
Speaker 3: not actually that many as a share of the caucus,
Speaker 3: but like, you know, but they're not worried about the
Speaker 3: preference cascade game. They're coming out and saying what they
Speaker 3: actually think, or maybe actually they're saying things that they
Speaker 3: don't actually believe but like but that they don't bear
Speaker 3: as much of a personal cost, or at least they
Speaker 3: don't think so, or or the presidents calling in favors
Speaker 3: or whatever else. So he made this aggressive move to
Speaker 3: like reverse this momentum and staunch the bleeding for how
Speaker 3: long I don't know. I mean, the fundamental problem is
Speaker 3: that he doesn't have the goods, right, He doesn't have
Speaker 3: the goods to run a normal campaign, and his slim chances,
Speaker 3: which aren't zero, but slim rests on you know, something
Speaker 3: about the information environment that we don't understand, or something
Speaker 3: that hasn't happened yet, some other dilemma that makes Trump
Speaker 3: even know nothing seems to change Trump's numbers. On principle,
Speaker 3: you could imagine. I'm not sure what that way now.
Speaker 1: I can't. I can't imagine anything on principle.
Speaker 2: But I actually thought about one other thing that is
Speaker 2: happening right now that we've talked about before in a
Speaker 2: past episode that can be a data point for people
Speaker 2: to use with Biden and was convincing him that sometimes
Speaker 2: these gambles pay off. Macron and France like, holy shit,
Speaker 2: you know what happened in the second round of elections
Speaker 2: when when people thought the National Front was going to
Speaker 2: sweep it and might become, you know, the majority, that
Speaker 2: didn't happen, right, that it actually his gamble kind.
Speaker 3: Of you know, we were we were a little bit wrong.
Speaker 1: It kind of paid off.
Speaker 2: I mean, we'll see, right, we'll see what happens. But
Speaker 2: the country really came together to stop this threat, and
Speaker 2: he did something completely unprecedented. You know, we we thought
Speaker 2: that it was totally insane, and now we see that.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, Like it's not it's not just because the
Speaker 2: country actually are in le Pen got like thirty nine
Speaker 2: percent of the vote by far the largest.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, absolutely, But however, predicted adults in the room acted
Speaker 3: like adults, and they said, what happens. You had very
Speaker 3: high turnout in all these constituencies, So like three candidates
Speaker 3: qual five for the ballot. You'd often have a right
Speaker 3: wing candidate, a centrist and elect wing candidate and the
Speaker 3: left in the center agree that in every constituency where
Speaker 3: one of us finished their third place, right, if it's first,
Speaker 3: two will battle it out, right, but like if one finished.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it worked, actually worked, They did it. They
Speaker 2: had the third.
Speaker 3: Bar twenty twenty in an amnic way when Democrats said,
Speaker 3: we are in the middle of an impending pandemic and
Speaker 3: we don't want to really left wing nomine like Bernie.
Speaker 3: And you can say that was the wrong decision or
Speaker 3: unfair to Bernie, but they did get Biden elected and
Speaker 3: they were able to like close down that primary pretty quickly.
Speaker 3: And so like you know, the notion that Biden is
Speaker 3: like running some anti elite campaign. First of all, he
Speaker 3: calls into like fucking like mourning Joe the like breakfast
Speaker 3: cereal of like the most elite political elites in the country,
Speaker 3: right to complain about how I mean it's very Trumpian
Speaker 3: or Nixonian. It's Trumpian. I mean, it's not like I'm
Speaker 3: not playing around with this. I'm being fucking both sides.
Speaker 3: I think. I think Joe Biden has acted more and
Speaker 3: more like Richard Dixon and Donald Trump in recent days.
Speaker 3: But like you know, he was appointed to positions by
Speaker 3: decisions made by elites. He finished in eighth place in
Speaker 3: the two thousand and eight Democratic primary or something, and
Speaker 3: and Barack Obama appointed him as his vice president. Right
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty, there was an intervention on his behalf.
Speaker 3: I think he might have eventually won maybe anyway, it
Speaker 3: was probably pretty close between him and burning other people.
Speaker 3: But there was an intervention by all these party elites
Speaker 3: to like Maximiz's chances as much as possible. So who
Speaker 3: the fuck is he is to think that he didn't
Speaker 3: earn this for being like the most impressive order or
Speaker 3: in America or the smartest person, right, I mean, if
Speaker 3: we're being fucking honest, like of the of the forty
Speaker 3: six hownty persons that it's at forty six, I'm losing
Speaker 3: my train to that. Yeah. Yes, in terms of what
Speaker 3: he's accomplished outside of politics, he's like not in the
Speaker 3: upper half of like no.
Speaker 2: But he but if you say this to him, like
Speaker 2: in his mind, he will have rewritten history, right, Like
Speaker 2: that's the way that self serving bias works, especially when
Speaker 2: you're in that position of power and you get that reinforced.
Speaker 2: He does not remember that it wasn't him. He does
Speaker 2: not remember that he finished aith. I mean, obviously he remembers,
Speaker 2: but he has already rationalized a bit away as I
Speaker 2: was always the best choice. I was going to win regardless.
Speaker 2: But what the Democrats need to remember is they made
Speaker 2: it happen. Right, So let's forget Biden. Like he's not
Speaker 2: gonna he's gonna say like I made it happen. But
Speaker 2: what the party needs to understand is that collective action
Speaker 2: is actually possible. And we just saw it in France,
Speaker 2: where that coordination worked and the fact that the candidates
Speaker 2: worked together, that they put aside their egos, that they
Speaker 2: stepped aside, you know, that they did what was right,
Speaker 2: and that, as you said, they behaved like adults. Why
Speaker 2: can't our country behave like adults. They're behaving like fucking children.
Speaker 2: Like it's really like both parties and you, you know
Speaker 2: what you said. The reason that I started saying that
Speaker 2: some of the things I was saying about connartists and cults,
Speaker 2: et cetera, and Trump, I'm now applying to the Democrats,
Speaker 2: that is because I kind of agree with you that
Speaker 2: Biden is acting in those ways more right now than
Speaker 2: he ever has in the past. And of course all
Speaker 2: politicians have a little bit of kind of that bent
Speaker 2: to them because you have to convince people to do
Speaker 2: things all the time. But he now is becoming increasingly
Speaker 2: divorced from reality and from what's going on. And as
Speaker 2: soon as your decisions become driven by ego as opposed to,
Speaker 2: you know, by what you should be doing as a
Speaker 2: politician the country, et cetera, et cetera, that's when things
Speaker 2: start to go wrong. So I but, as I said,
Speaker 2: let's let's call on the Democratic Party to actually remember
Speaker 2: who got him there, and that they are capable of
Speaker 2: doing big things like this, and that we now we
Speaker 2: see evidence that this works, and it's worked in other countries,
Speaker 2: and it's worked in our country, and why not try
Speaker 2: it again? Because yeah, it might not work, but what
Speaker 2: we're doing right now shures hell ain't working.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Look, if he is not able to process this,
Speaker 3: then maybe we should to book the twenty fifth Amendment.
Speaker 3: I mean it's kind of like, you know, I don't
Speaker 3: like the people around Biden. With them, would you play
Speaker 3: hardball or is that still about it? Because if for me,
Speaker 3: I'd be like, first of all, every fucking piece of
Speaker 3: dirt that we have on he was going to come
Speaker 3: out unless he quits in a week, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Okay, So the people the people around Biden are different
Speaker 2: from Biden. With them, I would play hardball. With Biden,
Speaker 2: I wouldn't be you know, I would start off with
Speaker 2: the strategy that I already that I already outlined. The
Speaker 2: people around Biden, that's totally different. Yeah, with them, you
Speaker 2: absolutely play hardball. And this is where you just go
Speaker 2: down and dirty and you do what you need to
Speaker 2: do to get them to act and to actually light
Speaker 2: a fire under their asses so that they do what
Speaker 2: needs to be done for the good of the country,
Speaker 2: because right now, you know, they've been left alone and
Speaker 2: that's not working. Whatever's happening right now is not working.
Speaker 3: I do wonder if you're some senior Biden's staffer. Right,
Speaker 3: what if you turn out to be the whistleblower and
Speaker 3: you write an not that for the New York Times
Speaker 3: and go on all the TV shows, come on this
Speaker 3: podcast and say Biden is not fit to be president.
Speaker 3: We've been propping it. We put it a much more
Speaker 3: diplomatic way. Obviously Biden was a great man, right, but
Speaker 3: as as time has evolved, he has had more and
Speaker 3: more challenges with day to day tasks. And I cannot
Speaker 3: get conscious not convey this to the American people anymore, Right,
Speaker 3: And I think he should step aside and let his
Speaker 3: extremely talented elected Vice president Kamala Harris be the nominee instead. Right,
Speaker 3: First of all, if if your cards play right, you
Speaker 3: might look like a genius for doing that. Although there's
Speaker 3: one other problem, which is that, like if let's say
Speaker 3: Kamala Harris has like a I'm going to give you
Speaker 3: if you've listened this far, and I'm gonna give you
Speaker 3: some numbers. Right, Let's say she has a thirty five
Speaker 3: or forty percent chance to win, and Biden has a
Speaker 3: twenty percent chance to win if he if he's forced
Speaker 3: to stay in, Right, I think it might.
Speaker 2: Be high, but these numbers, Yeah, I was going to say,
Speaker 2: are these numbers based on your model?
Speaker 3: The models is twenty nine percent. But there's one big
Speaker 3: problem with that, which is a model assumes that like
Speaker 3: Joe Biden is capable of running the type of campaigns,
Speaker 3: running the type of campaign that feeds a data in
Speaker 3: the model. Right, if you took Joe Biden right now
Speaker 3: in a hole and replaced him with an average Democrat
Speaker 3: John Kerry, maybe Joe Biden twenty twenty, who was notably
Speaker 3: a better performer, right, you know, if you put like
Speaker 3: an average Democrat in his shoes, Hubert h Humphrey or something,
Speaker 3: then I think twenty nine percent, the most recent reading,
Speaker 3: you know, might be reasonable. However, I don't think he's
Speaker 3: capable of running a normal campaign at all. He hasn't
Speaker 3: been so far. Every media cycle has been distracted, was
Speaker 3: going to turn into a distruction about like his age
Speaker 3: and performance and things like that. There's another debate coming up,
Speaker 3: so like, I think the chances might be if i'm
Speaker 3: you know, if i'm kind of I mean, my gut
Speaker 3: is the chancellor zero right now. I don't weigh my
Speaker 3: gut that heavily. My gut is like, there's just no
Speaker 3: fucking way then America is gonna like this guy for
Speaker 3: another four years, just fundamentally untenable. And he's already behind.
Speaker 3: Now he's fallen further behind. So if I average twenty
Speaker 3: nine percent zero, then you get in the fifteen percent
Speaker 3: range or whatever. Right, a kind of balancing head and model.
Speaker 3: And the reason why in this case I think it's
Speaker 3: important not to go up pure model is that there's
Speaker 3: not a precedent in circumstance for this, right, there's not
Speaker 3: a circumstance where like the canon is so obviously not
Speaker 3: ready to run a normal campaign anymore. And I think
Speaker 3: also like in a more technical matter, like we still
Speaker 3: haven't had that much high quality state polling since a debate,
Speaker 3: the model's being a little bit conservativebout it. So I
Speaker 3: bet on the model being twenty five percent anyway, that's
Speaker 3: where I get to, like fifteen or twenty percent. I
Speaker 3: think it's not zero, but like in Harris, I think
Speaker 3: might be double that roughly.
Speaker 2: Which is huge, by the way, even if we're below
Speaker 2: fifty percent, double Biden is huge.
Speaker 3: A lot of Marie on the turn picked up a
Speaker 3: lot of outs or hand looked back exactly. It picked
Speaker 3: up like a straight fluster on the turn. Not too
Speaker 3: bad badly.
Speaker 1: Now we have a combo draw.
Speaker 3: Combo draw, maybe even heading a pair. Maybe we hit
Speaker 3: that queen and the combo draw. Maybe that would be good.
Speaker 3: You never know.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, yeah, absolutely, and and so so I think that
Speaker 2: it seems to me, you know, last time we were
Speaker 2: talking about different options, I think that we agree that
Speaker 2: Kamala is kind of the best option given given where
Speaker 2: we are, just in terms of the fact that you know,
Speaker 2: she has all the machinery in place, she has all
Speaker 2: of the funds in place. You know, she gets to
Speaker 2: use the however many like ninety one million dollars.
Speaker 3: I don't want the machinery the best part of kom
Speaker 3: Will you get rid of this fucking incompetent Biden staffers? Right?
Speaker 2: Absolutely, But but she gets to use the money that
Speaker 2: has been you that has been raised for the for
Speaker 2: the Biden Harris ticket.
Speaker 1: She gets to use kind of she she.
Speaker 2: Is already someone who doesn't need to start from not zero,
Speaker 2: but from a from a much lower point. And right now,
Speaker 2: you know, getting to that double Biden's numbers seems to
Speaker 2: be a victory. But I think we should be taking
Speaker 2: every edge, right, take every edge you get.
Speaker 3: But let's say that kam Leg gets nominated and the
Speaker 3: sixty percent chance roughly that she loses got someone that
Speaker 3: plays out in our world. I guess you look bad then, right,
Speaker 3: because then you're like, well, you know, Joe, if only
Speaker 3: Joe Biden had stayed in I mean, this is but
Speaker 3: this is where like this, I think people are not
Speaker 3: willing to admit the untenability of the situation that like,
Speaker 3: I mean Biden again, the things that would allow him
Speaker 3: to win are things that would allow any Democrat.
Speaker 1: Anyone win, to win.
Speaker 3: I mean, look and look, I wrote some the New
Speaker 3: York Times last week. If you compare Democrats polling and
Speaker 3: Senate races to Biden, they are doing better in literally
Speaker 3: every single poll, literally every single pole in a say
Speaker 3: it's both a swing state. They're tied in one excuse me,
Speaker 3: out of like fifty poles. Democrats are actually doing pretty
Speaker 3: fucking well down the ballot. It's Biden that's the problem.
Speaker 3: The reason that's a problem is because he's eighty eighty
Speaker 3: one years old and is in rapid decline. I think, yeah,
Speaker 3: that's obvious to anyone with a fucking brain and like
Speaker 3: it just you can't sell that much of a shit
Speaker 3: sandwich to voters. It's not something you can compartmentalize because
Speaker 3: it gets into the very way that he speaks, the
Speaker 3: very way that he conducts the business of the White House.
Speaker 3: It's not like he you know, it's not like he
Speaker 3: screwed some intern and then and you can put that
Speaker 3: out of your mind.
Speaker 2: Right. No, this is fundamentally the person making our national
Speaker 2: security decisions, right This is the person who is reacting
Speaker 2: in times of crisis. This is the person who we
Speaker 2: turn to for the major executive decisions that matter. And
Speaker 2: you need someone with very clear executive making capacity, which
Speaker 2: I think right now he lacks. Now, of course, I'm
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna say this goes without saying because a
Speaker 2: lot of people are like the what about is and
Speaker 2: with well what about Trump? Yeah, of course, like Trump
Speaker 2: lacks it too. Trump should step aside, blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: That ain't happening, So like let's let's not let's not
Speaker 2: worry about that. To the people listening right now and
Speaker 2: being like, well, you know, what about No, not what about?
Speaker 1: Like Trump is awful?
Speaker 2: He can't think clearly, He's you know, he's too old,
Speaker 2: he has cognitive problems. We don't want him with the
Speaker 2: nuclear codes, you know, he but he is not stepping aside.
Speaker 2: So so that's just going to I just want to
Speaker 2: like get that, get that out of the way.
Speaker 3: Look, if you detect like a little peak in my tone,
Speaker 3: in Maria's tone today, I mean there's two things. Like one,
Speaker 3: I'm just offended by strategic stupidity and high stake situations right, although,
Speaker 3: to be fair, we don't know what individual motives are
Speaker 3: and that gets complicated. But also like I feel angry
Speaker 3: as a voter that I am not offered an acceptable alternative.
Speaker 3: I said last week, I'm not going to vote. I'm
Speaker 3: not going to vote for Biden. I'm not in a
Speaker 3: swing state. I don't know because.
Speaker 1: I'm in Nevada. Yeah, and he's come.
Speaker 2: But I hope that I don't have to write I
Speaker 2: really really hope that I'll be voting for Harris or
Speaker 2: for for whoever replaces him. I truly hope that, because
Speaker 2: you know, of course I will vote for Biden, but
Speaker 2: I do it kind of with a heavy heart because
Speaker 2: I don't want Trump to win. So let's just say,
Speaker 2: let's just put it out there, there's no way that
Speaker 2: Trump is withdrawing from the race. That just ain't happening.
Speaker 2: So there's only one party that exists that has the
Speaker 2: option of actually giving us a good candidate that we
Speaker 2: want to vote for, and that's the Democrats. So please,
Speaker 2: Joe Biden, now is the time be a hero withdraw
Speaker 2: from the race and do it now.
Speaker 3: Marie, I think I need something relaxing to talk about,
Speaker 3: like high stakes pumper tournaments instead, let's do it.
Speaker 2: We are in the middle of the largest main event
Speaker 2: in World Series of Poker history night so records were
Speaker 2: broken ten one hundred and twelve something like that. People,
Speaker 2: an insane number of people are out here in Vegas
Speaker 2: going for that ten million dollar first prize.
Speaker 3: So I'm of the roughly, what is it like sixty
Speaker 3: five hundred of the ten and twelve that are no
Speaker 3: longer in the tournament, you are in the four thousand
Speaker 3: or something that are tell me about how it's gone
Speaker 3: for you so far?
Speaker 1: So far.
Speaker 2: So we're about to start day three, so this means
Speaker 2: that we're not in the money yet, so there's still
Speaker 2: quite a ways to go until then. So far, the
Speaker 2: tournament has been very up and down for me, but
Speaker 2: I have I've not been running well, so Nate, I'm
Speaker 2: keeping track of our prop bet and yesterday I actually
Speaker 2: lost every single all in except for one tiny one,
Speaker 2: so and I would get it and I was an
Speaker 2: overwhelming favorite. I got two out of three times. My
Speaker 2: table thought this was very, very amusing. But I kept
Speaker 2: building back and being able to survive, and honestly, that's
Speaker 2: the key. So right now I'm going to have about
Speaker 2: fifty big lines heading into day three, which is totally fine, right,
Speaker 2: It's solid, it's not huge. I'm not one of the
Speaker 2: big stacks, but I'm not one of the micro stacks.
Speaker 2: And what's really really important to remember in an event
Speaker 2: like this, which lasts over many days, is survival matters.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: It's one of these things where even if you don't
Speaker 2: have a huge chip stack, as long as you have
Speaker 2: some chips and as long as you pick your spots,
Speaker 2: then you're in it. And of course this is poker,
Speaker 2: so anything can happen.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I did have a couple of moments where I could
Speaker 2: have been knocked out, and I took the more conservative
Speaker 2: line and it served me well. And so I'm proud
Speaker 2: of not of lasting through those but who knows. As
Speaker 2: you get shallower, you know, when I have two hundred
Speaker 2: big lines, it's much easier to avoid those.
Speaker 1: It's much easier to find the fold.
Speaker 2: When you have fifty and you have you know, said,
Speaker 2: when you're in a situation like that, at some point
Speaker 2: you can't fold.
Speaker 3: It's a tricky tournament because on the one hand, there
Speaker 3: are inclinations to be riskivers yourself. On the other hand,
Speaker 3: everyone else thaks the same way, so it can kind
Speaker 3: of like can kind of devolve into a game of
Speaker 3: Chicken a little bit.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: I was never getting very much going as far as
Speaker 3: like hitting hands right. So mostly ups and downs involved
Speaker 3: different types of bluffs. I tried to run, some successfully,
Speaker 3: some not. But you can run pretty big bluffs in
Speaker 3: the in the main event. People don't want to lose
Speaker 3: all their chips and get and get knocked out. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but yeah, I don't have a great narrative. I mean
Speaker 3: I was kind of just you know, remaining very patient
Speaker 3: because you can just like, oh, I lost like ten
Speaker 3: pots in a row, and because you have so many chips,
Speaker 3: and like you actually it's not affecting you all that much.
Speaker 3: But at some point, kind of late on day two.
Speaker 3: If you'd ever played the event, that's when the blinds
Speaker 3: start to creep up enough. You know, goes from one
Speaker 3: thousand big bline to fifteen hundred and then two thousand
Speaker 3: in two levels. Right, that's a doubling in two levels.
Speaker 3: And that's where a lot of people like me start
Speaker 3: to get knocked out or in a situation where where
Speaker 3: there was actually a cost to being patient, right where
Speaker 3: it's like, yeah, I just you know, I went I
Speaker 3: know if I wanted to technical about the terms, right,
Speaker 3: but like I shoved, I went all in with with
Speaker 3: the okay hand because I thought I had a lot
Speaker 3: of full equity. I've been playing very tight. I thought
Speaker 3: I had a good image. But you can have a
Speaker 3: good image of the m the theifona has kings, then
Speaker 3: it doesn't matterimes you.
Speaker 1: Just run into it.
Speaker 2: You know. Sometimes it's a good spot. You made the
Speaker 2: right decision and they just have they just have it,
Speaker 2: and those those situations are going to happen, and that
Speaker 2: doesn't mean you made the wrong decision.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Once again, this is to go back to what we've
Speaker 2: talked about a lot, and to tie this a little
Speaker 2: bit back to politics. The process is what matters, and
Speaker 2: you can't be you know, outcome oriented. If you made
Speaker 2: the right decision for the right reasons, even if you
Speaker 2: ended up losing, you can't be mad at yourself. So
Speaker 2: you know, if you ran the right bluff, went all
Speaker 2: in with the right hand, picked the right spot, and
Speaker 2: they just happened to have it, so be it. But
Speaker 2: at least you know that you did everything possible to
Speaker 2: put yourself in the situation to win. And I think
Speaker 2: that everyone would do well too to remember that lesson
Speaker 2: and to not be.
Speaker 1: Like, but what happens if I lose? I can't.
Speaker 2: You cannot have that sort of risk averse thinking going
Speaker 2: in that said, you know, I'm going to you know,
Speaker 2: my plan for today is to just play well, try
Speaker 2: to pick good spots, and hope for the best, because
Speaker 2: you do need to you do need to run well
Speaker 2: in these in these tournaments, and patience is important and
Speaker 2: not panicking is really really important because a lot of
Speaker 2: people when they start, you know, when their chips start
Speaker 2: going down, they start making decisions they shouldn't, They start
Speaker 2: taking risks they shouldn't to try to build back up,
Speaker 2: and that's not a good mindset. So I will try
Speaker 2: to be zen going into.
Speaker 3: The day and the main event. I mean benefits for
Speaker 3: people who have made like a deep run before. I think,
Speaker 3: I mean, you see one thing that was good. I
Speaker 3: made this deep run last year, which will not be
Speaker 3: repeated now obviously, But like you, you get that monkey
Speaker 3: off your back, and I felt loose. In What I
Speaker 3: think is I think you'd mostly rather be looser than
Speaker 3: tighter when you're playing poker. I don't mean in terms
Speaker 3: of like how you construct your ranges, right, that's a
Speaker 3: different type of looser tight yep. I mean in terms of, like,
Speaker 3: in terms of your vibe and your mood. I I
Speaker 3: don't think there's any harm from looking at the main
Speaker 3: event as quote just another poker tournament, right, I think
Speaker 3: that's more good than harmful. Now that might mean that,
Speaker 3: like now, strategically, their differences I don't apply to any
Speaker 3: other tournament, right. And there are things like it's more
Speaker 3: worth it to get your rest and your fitness and
Speaker 3: eat well instead of the cheap burger or whatever right
Speaker 3: on the break, right, the expected value difference is higher.
Speaker 3: But like you know, people who have success in the
Speaker 3: main tend to have repeated success because they've been there before.
Speaker 3: And I have anything to prove, and like, I think
Speaker 3: that's usually that's usually helpful any tournament where patience is
Speaker 3: very rewarded.
Speaker 2: Yep, absolutely so. So you know, here here's hoping that
Speaker 2: I will be rewarded today. I will do my best,
Speaker 2: but whatever happens, I just hope that I'm happy with
Speaker 2: my decisions at the end of the day.
Speaker 3: May you want to wrap it up? I mean I think,
Speaker 3: you know, yeah, a lot of politics, a little bit poker,
Speaker 3: but trust me, listeners, it'll be the reverse of that
Speaker 3: in some episodes in the future.
Speaker 1: That's absolutely right.
Speaker 2: But with that, I am going to go and prepare
Speaker 2: to play day three of the main I'm.
Speaker 3: Going to go and enter some other event where I'm sad.
Speaker 3: I'm sad, sad with the losers, the loser bracket.
Speaker 1: Good luck, good luck. You are my favorite loser.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Risky Business is hosted by me Maria Kannakova and.
Speaker 3: Me Nate Silver.
Speaker 2: The show is a co production of Pushkin Industries and iHeartMedia.
Speaker 2: This episode was produced by Isabelle Carter. Our associate producer
Speaker 2: is Gabriel Hunter Chang. Our executive producer is Jacob Goldstein.
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