Speaker 1: Pushkin, Welcome back to Risky Business, A show about making
Speaker 1: better decisions. I'm Maria Kanakova.
Speaker 2: And I'm Nate Silver. Today the election's over. What am
Speaker 2: I doing today?
Speaker 1: Today? Nate is having an existential crisis over the fact
Speaker 1: that the election is over and he no longer knows.
Speaker 2: Who I was so thrilled I gave a talk in Orlando, Florida.
Speaker 2: It was kind of like the official, official last election
Speaker 2: obligation I had, and the talks done at one thirty
Speaker 2: and I dovetailed like the big Mexican strip ball restaurant
Speaker 2: and get like the world's largest plate in he doesn't
Speaker 2: have margarita, and I'm like, fucking yeah, I do. This
Speaker 2: election's over, but the implications for our country are not over.
Speaker 2: Talking a little bit about Donald Trump's cabinet picks, the
Speaker 2: influence of the community I call the river people like
Speaker 2: Elon Musk, and looking a little bit ahead dangerously toward
Speaker 2: twenty twenty six and the midterm map.
Speaker 1: And after that will ship gears a little bit and
Speaker 1: talk about the NAPT the North American Poker Tour where
Speaker 1: I played last week and had some good results, including
Speaker 1: a fourteenth place finish in the main event. So we'll
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about that, about the strategy, the
Speaker 1: thinking behind it, and our poker plans for the future.
Speaker 1: Since we last spoke, Nate Trump has started making some
Speaker 1: of his initial appointments, and so we're starting to see
Speaker 1: the kind of initial trends outlines of what Trump two
Speaker 1: point zero, what the administration is going to look like.
Speaker 1: Some of those appointments seem to be more riverian than
Speaker 1: villagey in nature. Let's talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about river versus village and what the Trump
Speaker 1: administration seems like it's going to be as of now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So the river is my name for this kind
Speaker 2: of psychographic region of the world of people who take
Speaker 2: calculator risks for a living. So Silicon Valley and Wall
Speaker 2: Street in Las Vegas, both the casino and at least
Speaker 2: a skilled game players, poker players, sports betters and the like,
Speaker 2: and the river had gotten much more anti village. The
Speaker 2: village is the name for like the establishment the world
Speaker 2: that Kamala Harras comes from, so Harvard and the New
Speaker 2: York Times, and a government with Democrat is in charge,
Speaker 2: very risk averse establishment. The expert class and that class
Speaker 2: had like a bad week last week. I think, you know,
Speaker 2: will Elon be formerly part of the cabinet, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I guess you can bet at polymarket and the Ohs
Speaker 2: are in favor. I'm not sure that Elon necessarily wants
Speaker 2: to have a cabinet seat. I'm not sure that he
Speaker 2: needs to have a cabinet seat to have a lot
Speaker 2: of influence over the over the trajectory of the administration.
Speaker 2: You know, typically Republicans are also more willing than Democrats
Speaker 2: to appoint business people to cabinet seats. So for Treasury Secretary,
Speaker 2: for example, Scott Bessen, a hedge fund executive, is under consideration.
Speaker 2: Trump has, however, also made a lot of very kind
Speaker 2: of normal appointments. Elis Stefanak, for example, who is a
Speaker 2: used to be kind of moderate Republican member of Congress.
Speaker 2: Is uh is going to be the UN ambassador or
Speaker 2: some of the Republicans win the House by enough seats
Speaker 2: that they can keep the House if they lose a
Speaker 2: couple of seats, which is actually like a little bit
Speaker 2: of a risk. Marco Rubio is set to be Secretary
Speaker 2: of State. Lee Zelden, a former New York Long Island representative,
Speaker 2: relatively moderate, relatively is under considered for EPA administrator. So
Speaker 2: and there are some more MAGA epics. H Stephen Miller,
Speaker 2: who has very conservative views on race and immigration, is
Speaker 2: the Deputy chief of Staff for policy. But you know,
Speaker 2: Trump is how to put this, Trump's cabinet nominations, I
Speaker 2: would say, on balance so far with Rubio, for example,
Speaker 2: are maybe not quite what the village would most have feared.
Speaker 2: I don't think. I mean, I'm sure there will be
Speaker 2: one or two or three or four that they really dislike.
Speaker 2: Steven Miller is certainly one of those. For example. We'll
Speaker 2: see about Attorney General is a very important one, for instance.
Speaker 2: But you know, maybe that reflects a little bit of
Speaker 2: the a little bit of the the River's influence, just maybe.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, I would say the rivers should
Speaker 2: in principle be in favor of more rational governance. That's
Speaker 2: kind of pro business and pro growth. Doesn't do stupid things, right,
Speaker 2: you know. Now in practice they get very red pilled,
Speaker 2: and so you don't have the most intelligent version of
Speaker 2: the arguments coming from like Elon Musk for example. But
Speaker 2: you know, like if I were, let me put it
Speaker 2: like this, if Trump called me, and then I'd say, well,
Speaker 2: you want to be popular, don't do a bunch of
Speaker 2: fucking tariffs. It might be popular in the service, but
Speaker 2: it'll make the economy worse. Don't deport a bunch of immigrants.
Speaker 2: We can have a more organized conversation about that, right,
Speaker 2: And then maybe the other stuff. Okay, whatever you're Trump,
Speaker 2: it's not and you're not gonna do what I want anyway, Right,
Speaker 2: But you know, can they get Trump to moderate on
Speaker 2: these issues? Then? I don't know. That remains to be seen.
Speaker 2: And the answer when it comes to Trump and moderation,
Speaker 2: on the one hand, is never been on anything. On
Speaker 2: the other hand, it's not always clear where Trump's passions
Speaker 2: lie and what he really cares about beyond himself. You know,
Speaker 2: there was some poling that found that one reason that
Speaker 2: Harris's message on abortion didn't resonate as much as they
Speaker 2: were hoping for is because voters just didn't really believe
Speaker 2: that Trump was passionate about the abortion stuff. Right, So
Speaker 2: where will he be guided, I think is an open question.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I actually had a really interesting conversation right before
Speaker 1: the election with a poker player who will remain nameless,
Speaker 1: who was not going to be voting and was kind
Speaker 1: of saying that, you know, oh, obviously, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: pro choice, but I don't think I don't think that
Speaker 1: Trump is going to do anything bad for abortion. That's
Speaker 1: not an issue that's going to sway me one way
Speaker 1: or the other because Trump is just leaving it up
Speaker 1: to the States. So just like parroting back kind of
Speaker 1: that message. And this was a very smart person, and
Speaker 1: it just it made me realize that that, yes, that
Speaker 1: a lot of people don't really you know, it's one
Speaker 1: of these like I don't think it will actually happen
Speaker 1: types of things, and I'd like i'd like to believe
Speaker 1: that it won't. And I think that that's psychologically kind
Speaker 1: of that kind of hopeful or wilful ignorance or trying
Speaker 1: to say like, I don't think that's gonna happen. Oh,
Speaker 1: you know, it's not really that bad. I think that
Speaker 1: that is actually a very major thing. But I do
Speaker 1: actually wonder you know, we're talking about the river versus
Speaker 1: the village. Trump is very much of the village, right.
Speaker 1: He is very establishment, you know, old New York family
Speaker 1: money like he and the only time he the times
Speaker 1: he's tried to foray into the river. Like the casino business.
Speaker 1: He's bankrupted it, right. He has proven himself to not
Speaker 1: be very adept when he does Riverian things. So I
Speaker 1: think that I think that we do need to realize that.
Speaker 1: I think he is the village as well. Elon Musk,
Speaker 1: of course, does represent the river, and I don't think
Speaker 1: so far we have seen signs that with or without
Speaker 1: an appointment. It seems like, at least for now, he's
Speaker 1: still on the inn with Trump, you know, putting him
Speaker 1: on the call with Zelenski talking about foreign policy when
Speaker 1: that seems too you know, why in the world would
Speaker 1: he be doing that. I think that that's a really
Speaker 1: interesting trend, and we do see I think this confluence
Speaker 1: of you know, Silicon Valley technocrats, etc. Big money coming
Speaker 1: to Washington in an informal advisory way. That to me,
Speaker 1: and I don't want to you know, I'm not trying
Speaker 1: to draw too many parallels that might not hold, but
Speaker 1: to me, it's actually kind of evocative of what happened
Speaker 1: when Putin came to power initially, where you had a
Speaker 1: lot of oligarchs and a lot of you know, big money,
Speaker 1: a lot of big business people backing him and thinking
Speaker 1: you know this is going to be good for us,
Speaker 1: this is going to be good for our bottom line,
Speaker 1: and we're going to be able to control him. And
Speaker 1: obviously what happened was a lot of them are now
Speaker 1: dead or in jail or in exile because Putin was
Speaker 1: absolutely not controllable and ended up turning on basically all
Speaker 1: of the people who brought him into power. So I
Speaker 1: think that that's an interesting semi parallel and I'm very
Speaker 1: curious to see whether Elon Musk and others like him
Speaker 1: are going to be able to maintain their influence in
Speaker 1: Washington or whether we're going to see something like that
Speaker 1: as well, because we know that Trump has no problems
Speaker 1: turning on people who were allies of his right. He's
Speaker 1: done that. He did that in Trump one point zero
Speaker 1: and Trump two point oho is probably going to be
Speaker 1: more brazen, although as you say, who knows.
Speaker 2: I mean, so in the book, I don't put Trump
Speaker 2: in either the village or the river. I you know,
Speaker 2: I think he wishes he could have been in the village.
Speaker 2: I think he isn't. And at some level, if you
Speaker 2: if you're not wanted, then you're.
Speaker 1: Not fairpoint fair point.
Speaker 2: I mean, look, I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I can't like, I can't get into like the Trump
Speaker 2: putin comparisons, he won a fair election by quite a bit.
Speaker 2: He won a fair election a decent amount in part
Speaker 2: by like winning over lots of votes from lots of
Speaker 2: like Hispanic and Asian people, from younger voters, and has
Speaker 2: a more like diverse coalition, And like, I don't know,
Speaker 2: I you know, I don't know. I uh. And we've
Speaker 2: talked about this a little bit last week, but like, okay,
Speaker 2: let me ask you, Maria. Yeah, does the fact that
Speaker 2: Trump won by this convincing march and have you update
Speaker 2: your views on Trump at all?
Speaker 1: It does not have me update my views on Trump himself.
Speaker 1: I still think that Trump is someone who only cares
Speaker 1: about number one. It does make me realize that kind
Speaker 1: of the discontent is goes much deeper than I realized.
Speaker 1: And I do think that The other thing here is
Speaker 1: we've talked about the incumbency effect on the show in
Speaker 1: the past, and it does seem kind of worldwide right
Speaker 1: now that it's kind of Reber saying that, you know,
Speaker 1: with inflation, with all of these things, incumbent parties are
Speaker 1: actually not doing that well. That instead we do see
Speaker 1: people wanting change, and so I would not be at
Speaker 1: all surprised. You know, let's let's talk a little bit.
Speaker 1: You know, you kind of hinted that we'll talk about
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six, twenty twenty eight. I wouldn't be at
Speaker 1: all surprised if the Democratic parties make more gains in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six, because you know, when you're the establishment,
Speaker 1: it's much more difficult to kind of play the victimhood
Speaker 1: card and say, oh, you know, it's the establishment versus us.
Speaker 1: Now we are the establishment, So I think that we
Speaker 1: might start seeing kind of things go the other way,
Speaker 1: because I think that some of the vote wasn't necessarily
Speaker 1: a vote for Trump so much as a vote for
Speaker 1: I'm not happy, I'm not doing well. These people in power,
Speaker 1: you know, seem to be responsible, so like, let's put
Speaker 1: someone else in power and hope for the best.
Speaker 2: You're right, Like, relatively speaking, Harris actually lost less vote
Speaker 2: share than a lot of incoment parties around the world.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think the US is somewhat exceptional in
Speaker 2: certain ways, but also I mean, yeah, in starting on
Speaker 2: January twentieth, all these headwinds that Democrats face become a tailwind.
Speaker 2: Democrats almost flipped the House. Looks like they'll be something
Speaker 2: like three or four seats short. So you are going
Speaker 2: to have like a effectively freedom caucus led majority, which
Speaker 2: will not always disagree, will not always agree with what
Speaker 2: you might formally have called the up establishment majority. All
Speaker 2: of it is pretty maga now for the most part.
Speaker 2: And Democrats held their losses to four Senate seats, which
Speaker 2: sounds like I'm spinning. But here's the thing. So you
Speaker 2: have forty seven seats now, and you're gonna have Trump
Speaker 2: gable to appoint the cabinet nominees he wants within reason.
Speaker 2: Candemocrats get back to fifty Senate seats by twenty twenty eight,
Speaker 2: in which case we have a President Shapiro or President
Speaker 2: Gretchen Whitmer or ever else. Gavin Newsom, I think probably
Speaker 2: thinks he's gonna get it that I think that time.
Speaker 2: So for Gavin Newsom, I'm just kidding. Uh, you know,
Speaker 2: can they have a democratic Senate? And the answer is yes.
Speaker 2: It's not that hopeless for Democrats because they need three
Speaker 2: pickups if they win the presidency. They can win with
Speaker 2: fifty to fifty. There are two races in North Carolina
Speaker 2: between now and twenty twenty eight. There is one race
Speaker 2: in Wisconsin that's gup held, and there's one in Maine
Speaker 2: where Susan Collins keeps holding on every year, but now
Speaker 2: her luck might run out, right, So Democrats need to
Speaker 2: win three of those four without losing any of their own.
Speaker 2: There are some other longer shot bets. Ohio, where Shared
Speaker 2: Brown lost has a special election because of Jade Vance
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty six, and that's a race Democrats will
Speaker 2: surely contest. If he ran again in a more blue environment,
Speaker 2: he might be in a toss up race there. But yeah,
Speaker 2: look we're kind of going back to like, look, all
Speaker 2: the risks, the existential risks to democracy, I think think
Speaker 2: are are less now because you had a clear verdict.
Speaker 2: You didn't have a disputed verdict, Harris, Thank goodness didn't
Speaker 2: dispute the verdict. I'm sure Trump would have if the
Speaker 2: same result had been only in their foot. You know, look,
Speaker 2: you'll have commentary to say, well, what he doesn't want
Speaker 2: to give up the presidency in twenty twenty eight. I've
Speaker 2: never seen any type of like warrant for that theory. Necessarily, No,
Speaker 2: I hope, I hope you're right.
Speaker 1: I hope you're right, and I do think that the
Speaker 1: I do think that it is good that we that
Speaker 1: that this was not disputed. I think that that's one
Speaker 1: of the very few silver linings of this election. And
Speaker 1: I do and I do really hope that kind of
Speaker 1: democracy holds holds enough that we have another free and
Speaker 1: fair election four years down the line. And until we
Speaker 1: see signs that that's not the case, I'm just going to,
Speaker 1: you know, assume that that's going to happen and that
Speaker 1: you know, our our democratic transition will work. Do you
Speaker 1: have any any parting thoughts anything you think we should
Speaker 1: be looking at, paying attention to kind of heading forward
Speaker 1: or just let's revisit when it becomes a little bit
Speaker 1: more clear. I am like one of the things that
Speaker 1: I'm very curious about is to see kind of how
Speaker 1: much the Muskian influence will will remain in the Trump administration,
Speaker 1: or if he'll turn on him sooner rather than later.
Speaker 1: It's something that I'm just like quite curious about.
Speaker 2: You know. Look just for like the pure economic stuff
Speaker 2: between the tariffs and between what I expect will be
Speaker 2: a lot of cronyism in the White House. I don't
Speaker 2: necessarily expect a marvel of economic efficiency exactly. So for me,
Speaker 2: and again that's kind of again more of like an
Speaker 2: advanced argument. Tariffs are one of those things that seem
Speaker 2: appealing on the surface, but the economics are really bad
Speaker 2: if you're an econ wonk. So yeah, I worry about that.
Speaker 2: And you know, I think Democrats a new way to
Speaker 2: like have attack lines on cronyism, which can which can
Speaker 2: dovetail well with populism of different kinds. I mean, I
Speaker 2: think they don't know which way to go. I think
Speaker 2: they're kind of like shocked at how much certain parts
Speaker 2: and it's again it's minority of Silicon Valley. It's probably
Speaker 2: a quarter or thirty percent or something. But I think
Speaker 2: they were not ready for how much money there would
Speaker 2: suddenly be from the crypto space and from the AI
Speaker 2: space and from things like that mostly working against them,
Speaker 2: and what it was going to be like to have
Speaker 2: these people who of course, of course Democrats went to
Speaker 2: discredit Elon Musk, and Elon Musk acted like a total
Speaker 2: fucking goofball at various points of the campaign and retweets
Speaker 2: a lot of unreliable information, but at the same time
Speaker 2: he is a different type of person who can vouch
Speaker 2: for Trump and give him some credibility, as are these
Speaker 2: podcasters and the various like podcasts rows of different kind,
Speaker 2: you know, as as his increasing number of minority supporters
Speaker 2: racial minority or ethnic minority, and so like, there are
Speaker 2: people that can like that can now vouch for Trump
Speaker 2: and kind of like and all the Democrats are kind
Speaker 2: of like uncool dorks pretty much, and like how can
Speaker 2: they they have alebrities? I mean, joy Read the MSNBC
Speaker 2: host was like, you know, Beyonce endorsed and blah blah.
Speaker 2: It's like, come on, like you can't. Like it's not
Speaker 2: like actually how you win elections, you know. But look,
Speaker 2: look Democrats, the sooner Democrats. I think this is controversial.
Speaker 2: Trump is likely to hang himself hang himself to be
Speaker 2: unpopular again in the normal ways that incumbents are unpopular
Speaker 2: in their second term, meaning spending too much money even
Speaker 2: though GUP is supposed for definit production, they're not. They
Speaker 2: probably have another big tax cut that we're not paying for,
Speaker 2: and engaging in unpopular foreign policy conduct and personal scandals
Speaker 2: and just general fatigue and bad decision making that you
Speaker 2: make when when you're seventy eight. I mean, Trump is
Speaker 2: a few months older than Biden was at the start
Speaker 2: of his first term, and so you know, I don't
Speaker 2: I don't know that the rhetoric of like existential crisis,
Speaker 2: like I don't think it was helpful to Harris and
Speaker 2: I don't know that helpful to Democrats now. And it's
Speaker 2: made a little easier when you actually have a clear
Speaker 2: verdict on an election night where Trump will win the
Speaker 2: popular vote. And so you know, looking forward to and
Speaker 2: by the way, I think the Democrats have taken this
Speaker 2: loss about as constructively as you possibly can. I have
Speaker 2: not seen a lot of liberal tiers necessarily right, you know,
Speaker 2: in general, Democrats recognize that we have to move to
Speaker 2: the center, which is hard for parties to recognize. And
Speaker 2: that seems like that seems good. So you know, look
Speaker 2: as far as like having steering the country back toward
Speaker 2: I don't know. Maybe I'm neglecting the damage Trump could
Speaker 2: do in four years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think there is a lot of
Speaker 1: damage that people don't really talk about that he that
Speaker 1: he could do in four years. You know, some one
Speaker 1: of the things we haven't talked about is science, and
Speaker 1: we know what happened during Trump one point zero with
Speaker 1: science funding, with age funding, research funding, and the types
Speaker 1: of research that suddenly could not get any funding, you know,
Speaker 1: fetal cells, stem cell research, like a lot of things
Speaker 1: that are crucially important, and people are afraid that that's
Speaker 1: going to happen again. RFK, you know, being potentially very
Speaker 1: influential in the administration. I think that there are some
Speaker 1: effects like that that we're not even thinking about, you know,
Speaker 1: or like religion, you know, bringing religion into classrooms, what
Speaker 1: happens with federal judge appointments. So right now, we just
Speaker 1: had the Louisiana requirement to put ten commandments in every
Speaker 1: classroom that was actually struck down. We're going to see
Speaker 1: an appeals process there, right all of those appointments that
Speaker 1: Trump is going to be making, changing the judicial system.
Speaker 1: We'll see what happens to the Supreme Court. You know,
Speaker 1: what are there retires, who retires or dies? You know,
Speaker 1: I hope no one dies, and how Trumpian the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court becomes. Because there's a difference between conservative and Trumpian, right,
Speaker 1: There's a big difference between you know, your regular conservative
Speaker 1: judge and a Trump judge appointee. So I think that
Speaker 1: there are lots of effects like that that we haven't
Speaker 1: talked about yet that Trump could very much put in place.
Speaker 1: In four years. I think we will potentially see things
Speaker 1: that are going to be incredibly harmful.
Speaker 2: There's some good stuff. No one good thing is I
Speaker 2: think we'll probably end up getting a ban on gain
Speaker 2: a function research which may have been responsible for the
Speaker 2: COVID pandemic and I think is from an expected value standpoint,
Speaker 2: has negative expected values.
Speaker 1: So that's good.
Speaker 2: You know, I could probably point out a few other thing.
Speaker 2: I don't want to necessarily give people a laundry list
Speaker 2: of every single position that that Nates hold, but yeah,
Speaker 2: that Nate holds. But yet, Look, one reason why I
Speaker 2: find myself being a bit less worried about Trump than
Speaker 2: I might have been with that larger victory is that
Speaker 2: it does create more of a mandate for more mainstream
Speaker 2: cabinet members to come in, right, you know, Secretary of
Speaker 2: say it's a good job. But the fact that that
Speaker 2: Marco Ribio one of the more I mean he ran
Speaker 2: a band president campaign Tway sixteen, but one of the
Speaker 2: more normal electable GOP senators and maybe the most important role.
Speaker 2: I mean that that seems valuable.
Speaker 1: Well, right, here's hoping. And you know, and I do
Speaker 1: think that if we see I hope that we see politics.
Speaker 1: You know, I would love to see politics moving more
Speaker 1: to the center. I would love to see, you know,
Speaker 1: third parties become stronger. There are lots of things I
Speaker 1: would love to see. And if any of those end
Speaker 1: up being you know, downstream effects from this, that would
Speaker 1: be wonderful.
Speaker 2: Mariet, we can now guiltlessly talk about poker. So you
Speaker 2: want to do that, Let's do it after this break.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's now guiltlessly talk about poker. NIDE. So we
Speaker 1: are now finished with the North American Poker Tour, the
Speaker 1: NAPT which is the Poker Stars flagship event in North America.
Speaker 1: So there were the main event had almost nine hundred players,
Speaker 1: and I was lucky enough to be four of those players.
Speaker 2: Four of those So despite Norman Chad's scolding, you're still
Speaker 2: rebuying into these things.
Speaker 1: I am still rebuying despite the scolding that I received. Yes,
Speaker 1: so I the first Okay, so I played. So day
Speaker 1: one of the main event was November fifth, so that
Speaker 1: was kind of a big day in the country, and
Speaker 1: I was doing quite well. You know, everything was fine.
Speaker 1: I had plenty of chips. I never had a lot
Speaker 1: of chips, but I was never you know, I was
Speaker 1: kind of hanging in there. And then as the as
Speaker 1: it got late, you know, second to last level of
Speaker 1: the night, when it became quite clear that this was
Speaker 1: not going to end well for Kamala Harris, that Trump
Speaker 1: was probably going to win. I think I texted you
Speaker 1: a few times about my existential dread. You did not
Speaker 1: engage with them with those two Marie texts, and I
Speaker 1: quite frankly punted, you know, I made uh, you know,
Speaker 1: I made a decision that it wasn't a horrible punt.
Speaker 1: What do you think about this name? I had about
Speaker 1: thirty five big blinds. I was in the small blind.
Speaker 1: It had folded to me. I had ace ten offsuit.
Speaker 1: So for people who don't play poker, that's a very
Speaker 1: good hand. And you know in the small blind when
Speaker 1: it's folded to you, I raised, the big blind re raised,
Speaker 1: and I shoved with my.
Speaker 2: Ace ton how many big BLUs you have?
Speaker 1: About thirty five?
Speaker 2: So the small blind, big blind?
Speaker 1: So I raised to like three big blinds. Big blind
Speaker 1: re raises to let's say, you know, nine big blinds,
Speaker 1: and I shove.
Speaker 2: I think it's probably pretty close to gto. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: think that it's I.
Speaker 1: Mean, you're not supposed to fold, right, You're definitely not
Speaker 1: supposed to fold. Because so for people who don't play poker.
Speaker 1: By the way, blind versus blind confrontations are very interesting
Speaker 1: because you know, people think that you're taking advantage, right,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of psychological play there. But but but
Speaker 1: I busted. That was my first bullet, and then my
Speaker 1: second two bullets that was November sixth. Those were not puns,
Speaker 1: but I just you know, sometimes you have those poker
Speaker 1: days when you can't win a hand, right. I never
Speaker 1: got above starting stack, like, I could never get anything going.
Speaker 1: So I ended up not being able to do much
Speaker 1: over there. And so then I bought in for the
Speaker 1: fourth time, my fourth bullet on the start of day two,
Speaker 1: which was the last that you can buy in. So
Speaker 1: I started the day with twenty big blinds for people
Speaker 1: who don't play poker, that's playable, but not you know,
Speaker 1: not a huge stack by any stretch of the imagination,
Speaker 1: and far below average. I think average at that point
Speaker 1: was like over fifty big blinds, close to sixty. Because
Speaker 1: this is a you know, it's a main event. So
Speaker 1: on day two we have ninety minute levels, like this
Speaker 1: is a deep stacked tournament. And yeah, so I ended
Speaker 1: up starting day two with twenty big blinds and had
Speaker 1: a good day too, but didn't bag a lot. Started
Speaker 1: day three, made day three right, made day three with
Speaker 1: thirty big blinds, and ended up making the final two
Speaker 1: tables of the tournament on day four and ended up
Speaker 1: so first place was almost eight hundred thousand dollars. I
Speaker 1: was out in fourteenth, so I got around forty thousand dollars,
Speaker 1: and it was sad.
Speaker 2: It is so perverse that, like you almost went just
Speaker 2: shitloads of money, and then it's kind of crazy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it is kind of crazy. And so so
Speaker 1: for day four, you know, I was on the televised
Speaker 1: table the whole time, which is actually quite interesting because
Speaker 1: you know the dynamical No, I don't I don't love
Speaker 1: giving away all of that information. I would prefer people
Speaker 1: not know how I play, to be perfectly honest, But
Speaker 1: I've gotten you know, I understand that as an ambassador
Speaker 1: for poker, it's important to do that, and I tried
Speaker 1: just not to think about it. There was one hand
Speaker 1: where I actually ended up making a correct fold on
Speaker 1: the turn with top pair I had. This was also
Speaker 1: a blind versus blind situation, so I had limped in
Speaker 1: with ACE nine and the big blind checked. The flop
Speaker 1: was ACE five three. I bet one blind, got raised
Speaker 1: called the turn was a five. I checked and ended
Speaker 1: up folding to a big turn bet. And I later
Speaker 1: heard people talking about it, you know, once we were
Speaker 1: on break and the stream had caught up, saying, you know,
Speaker 1: oh my god, like I can't believe she folded, like
Speaker 1: she should have called and paid you off there talking
Speaker 1: to the person I was playing against, brock Wilson, who's
Speaker 1: a great player. He had five three right, so he
Speaker 1: had turned a full house and so I was drawing
Speaker 1: pretty much done and so it was a very good
Speaker 1: fault fold. But one of the reasons they thought I
Speaker 1: would have called was because it was on a TV stream, right,
Speaker 1: and you don't want to look dumb folding top hair
Speaker 1: in a spot like that where you're almost always good.
Speaker 1: And I said, you know, I just don't care, right,
Speaker 1: like I don't actually give a fuck of people.
Speaker 2: Usually when you feel when you feel that past because
Speaker 2: folding was hard, right, when you feel that temptation to
Speaker 2: make a tight fold that I'm trying to train myself
Speaker 2: to like just flick the cards in right, not get
Speaker 2: too attached.
Speaker 1: So let's also talk about let's talk about a hand
Speaker 1: that and we'll stop talking strategy after this, I promise.
Speaker 1: But you know, whenever I review performances like this, right,
Speaker 1: it's such a big it's such a big difference to
Speaker 1: come in fourteenth and first, right, I made forty thousand,
Speaker 1: I could have made eight hundred thousand, right, Like, that's
Speaker 1: that's huge, and every single place at that point is
Speaker 1: worth a lot of money, and so you go through
Speaker 1: all of your decisions. My bust out hand don't regret
Speaker 1: at all. You know, I had nine big blinds under
Speaker 1: the gun and shoved jack, tapsuited right. That was perfectly fine,
Speaker 1: ended up running into queen's and did not suck out
Speaker 1: the poker term for hitting when you should not you
Speaker 1: should not hit. So that was totally fine. But I
Speaker 1: do regret a hand that got me short where I
Speaker 1: raised Ace King, one of the best starting hands from
Speaker 1: under the gun and got called by the big blind
Speaker 1: and the flop I don't actually remember the exact flop,
Speaker 1: but I think it was like something like eight four duce,
Speaker 1: and I ended up checking back as opposed to betting,
Speaker 1: and I think that there's you know, it's Ace King
Speaker 1: off suit. Okay, Yeah, So I checked instead of betting
Speaker 1: when it was checked to me. And then the turn
Speaker 1: was a queen and it's a big blind bet and
Speaker 1: bet bigger than I would have bet the turn. But
Speaker 1: he ended up betting and I called, and then the
Speaker 1: river was a blank and he checked and I checked
Speaker 1: back and he ended up winning with a four. And
Speaker 1: I really regret how I played this hand. I actually
Speaker 1: think I messed it up multiple times. And that's the
Speaker 1: hand that kind of I think that had I played
Speaker 1: it differently, and even if I'd busted, even if he
Speaker 1: had hero called me with his four, I think I
Speaker 1: would have felt much better about it than I did
Speaker 1: in retrospect from having played it more passively. So I
Speaker 1: think that this is the show of the show, right
Speaker 1: Passive passive play is not is not is a decision,
Speaker 1: and it's not alw is the right decision even when
Speaker 1: you're have ic M considerations, which is independent chip model,
Speaker 1: pay jumps, et cetera.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because the reason you're called because you can just
Speaker 2: fold the turn if he's betting into a queen. I mean,
Speaker 2: I can mean different things, but but you don't have
Speaker 2: a pair. It's supposed to be a good card for
Speaker 2: your range, right, So if he's betting, if you are calling,
Speaker 2: then it's because I think you're calling almost your whole range, right,
Speaker 2: And so it's calling with the intent of betting pretty
Speaker 2: big on the river exactly, maybe maybe raising certain rivers
Speaker 2: against a small bet with your representatives queen. And so yeah,
Speaker 2: I look, I think you mentioned earlier how like, oh,
Speaker 2: it doesn't quite seem like a punt, right, And I'm
Speaker 2: not sure if this this is like a hand where
Speaker 2: it's more in the passive category. But like sometimes the
Speaker 2: things that involve like multi street planning are the things
Speaker 2: that tend to go away when when you're tired, when
Speaker 2: you're fatigued, or been playing too much for whatever else. Right,
Speaker 2: And so it's so you know, the twenty percent of
Speaker 2: the time you're supposed to reaschhove Ace ten off student
Speaker 2: at thirty five bigs, maybe you're doing that eight centimes
Speaker 2: because you have to just thinkings out of your hand, then, right,
Speaker 2: you don't have to like have this complex plan and
Speaker 2: so and so that can be a sign of.
Speaker 1: Fatigue, I think, and we'll be back right after this.
Speaker 2: You seem to have had I guess since the World Series,
Speaker 2: like a really good run of yeah poker. What do
Speaker 2: you attribute that to? Just variants? Are you doing things differently?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 1: I think I think a lot of it is variants.
Speaker 2: As always talked about what it's always the boring answers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean I think a lot of it
Speaker 1: is variants in the sense that you know, I, I've
Speaker 1: you know, been studying and trying to play well the
Speaker 1: whole year unfortunately, you know, the World Series. I just
Speaker 1: as we know, around like absolute shit and really below expectation.
Speaker 1: Some of it is probably just more intensive study because
Speaker 1: I was really upset after the World Series, and that's
Speaker 1: a good motivation. Upset not because like oh I'm so sad,
Speaker 1: you know, poor me, but upset because I was like,
Speaker 1: you know, am I I realize I'm not running well,
Speaker 1: but I really want to up my game, like I
Speaker 1: need to be competitive. Otherwise, what am I even doing
Speaker 1: spending my time playing poker? Right? What am I doing
Speaker 1: just spending money on this? I don't I don't like
Speaker 1: that feeling, And so that's I think do never underestimate
Speaker 1: that as a motivation when you're trying to do better.
Speaker 2: What kind of things have you been studying?
Speaker 1: I have just tried to So Number one, I've really
Speaker 1: really tried to study this seems very boring, my preflop
Speaker 1: game to make sure that I really did not have
Speaker 1: many preflop leaks, because that's just so basic. But that's
Speaker 1: something that I think is often understand studied because it's
Speaker 1: not just it's not just kind of opening ranges from
Speaker 1: all positions, but it's you know, how do you respond
Speaker 1: to three bets, how do you respond to four bets?
Speaker 1: How do you play different parts of your range in
Speaker 1: all of these situations? And so I've tried to go
Speaker 1: deeper on that to make sure that I'm plugging as
Speaker 1: many leaks as I can kind of at the beginning
Speaker 1: of my game, because that sets you up to play
Speaker 1: well afterwards, right Like, if you have a major leak
Speaker 1: or even a small leak at the beginning, then the
Speaker 1: entire game tree changes if you're making those early mistakes.
Speaker 1: So that's something that I've really worked on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you really want to see the importance of
Speaker 2: pre flop play some deep staked cash for limits that
Speaker 2: you care about enough to get some actual feedback, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, because I think a lot of cash game
Speaker 2: players are like I've been playing more cash lately, like
Speaker 2: or of the mindset that like, oh, I can make
Speaker 2: it up with my superior post flop play and the
Speaker 2: fact it said if your range is just two weak,
Speaker 2: then you just can't. You have too many bluffs and
Speaker 2: not the right bluffs. Right. You are constantly on the
Speaker 2: defensive about not wanting to bloat pots, right, So we're
Speaker 2: trying to get that more correct. And obviously in some
Speaker 2: cash game settings you're kind of node locking to not
Speaker 2: people people not playing optimally, right, and you're trying to
Speaker 2: be conscious of your image and not being too much
Speaker 2: of a knit. But like, yeah, you were really drill
Speaker 2: pre flop supportance into your head if you if you're
Speaker 2: playing huge four or five figure.
Speaker 1: Pots, absolutely, absolutely, And early stage tournaments for people who
Speaker 1: don't play poker or who want to learn are very
Speaker 1: similar to cash games because you do start out quite
Speaker 1: deep stacked, right, Sometimes you have two hundred big lines,
Speaker 1: three hundred big lines, and so that's when your mistakes
Speaker 1: are very costly, especially pre flop mistakes, and so many
Speaker 1: people just you know, want to see a flop, right,
Speaker 1: and so they'll they'll put themselves in situations where they're
Speaker 1: not they're not calling correctly, they're not raising correc they're
Speaker 1: just not playing correctly. And even though this is something
Speaker 1: that I know, you can always refine your pre flop play,
Speaker 1: and this is just something that I decided that I
Speaker 1: was going to focus on more because there was a
Speaker 1: time when I was like, Okay, like I got pre
Speaker 1: flopped down. Now I'm going to like work on three
Speaker 1: bet pods and I'm going to work on you know,
Speaker 1: for I'm going to work on like blind versus blind
Speaker 1: in the specific situation. And at some point I realized,
Speaker 1: you know what, now it's time for me to go
Speaker 1: back to the basics but in a more advanced way
Speaker 1: and to really make sure that I have that solid
Speaker 1: And I think that that's just good advice in general
Speaker 1: for life. Right, even if you have a strategy for something,
Speaker 1: as you as you get more advanced, as you start
Speaker 1: kind of being more sophisticated, you might want to revisit
Speaker 1: some of the fundamentals and basics to see if you
Speaker 1: need to update right toe to see what's happening. Because
Speaker 1: the world also changes. Poker changes, poker strategy changes, people's
Speaker 1: game evolves, and so you do constantly have to update things,
Speaker 1: even when you don't think you need to update them,
Speaker 1: Even if you think, oh, like my you know, preflop,
Speaker 1: what else is there to learn? Right? I know what
Speaker 1: my ranges are. No ranges change, right, And styles change
Speaker 1: and things change. And I think that just with everything,
Speaker 1: it's really important to keep revisiting to make sure that
Speaker 1: your process stays optimal, because if you don't update your process,
Speaker 1: it's going to grow stale as everything else changes around you.
Speaker 1: But you know, let's end on a positive poker note,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to choose to take my fourteenth place
Speaker 1: finish as a positive focus on the good. You know,
Speaker 1: I outlasted almost nine hundred players and I almost made it.
Speaker 1: Next time, Nate, I'm going to make it to that
Speaker 1: eight hundred thousand dollars score.
Speaker 2: Uh next time, Maria, if I know it, because next
Speaker 2: time we'll be playing together, hopefully, But all right.
Speaker 1: We can shop, we can chop. Let's do it. Let
Speaker 1: us know what you think of the show. Reach out
Speaker 1: to us at Risky Business at pushkin dot FM. Risky
Speaker 1: Business is hosted by me Maria Kondikova.
Speaker 2: And by me Nate Silver.
Speaker 1: The show is a co production of Pushkin Industries and iHeartMedia.
Speaker 1: This episode was produced by Isabelle Carter. Our associate producer
Speaker 1: is Gabriel Hunter Chang. Our executive producer is Jacob Goldstein.
Speaker 2: If you like the show, please rate and review us
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