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