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, and I forgot during my audio
Speaker 2: equipment to Las Vegas, so that's why I look ridiculous
Speaker 2: if you're watching this on YouTube holding my phone to
Speaker 2: my lips. Today, we have a special kind of year
Speaker 2: end show for you. We're going to be awarding the Riskies.
Speaker 2: This is our term for awards like DJ of the Year,
Speaker 2: NIT of the Year, TILT of the Year, basically a
Speaker 2: bunch of awards to people who made extraordinarily good or
Speaker 2: bad decisions. We're very excited about.
Speaker 1: These, yep. And after the Riskies, we're going to be
Speaker 1: talking a little bit about poker and our own Riskies
Speaker 1: because Nate and I are both in Las Vegas right
Speaker 1: now for the WPT series at the Wins, so we'll
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about how that's going. And finally,
Speaker 1: we're actually going to respond to a listener question about
Speaker 1: bilingualism and does it make sense to learn a second language. Nate,
Speaker 1: I'm really excited for our first of what I hope
Speaker 1: will be annual Risky Awards, the Riskies to talk about
Speaker 1: good and bad decisions of the year in all walks
Speaker 1: of life. So obviously, you know, we talk a lot
Speaker 1: about politics on the show, so we'll have some from politics,
Speaker 1: but also from business and from sports and Hollywood, just
Speaker 1: talking in general about risky decisions, which ones worked out,
Speaker 1: which ones didn't, which ones were good, which ones were bad.
Speaker 1: So let's get started and talk about awarding the first
Speaker 1: risky for the Hero call of the Year. So a
Speaker 1: decision that looked like it might have been a little
Speaker 1: crazy at the time but turned out to be brilliant, right,
Speaker 1: just like a hero callin poker when you're thinking, you're
Speaker 1: thinking you have jack high and it's your tournament life
Speaker 1: and you end up calling and you're right because the
Speaker 1: other guy was bluffing with eight high or whatever it was. Nate,
Speaker 1: do you have a hero call of the year?
Speaker 2: I think THEO the French Whale has to get the
Speaker 2: Hero Call of the Year awards. So what do you make?
Speaker 2: He ya eighty five billion dollars? So he here the
Speaker 2: French Whale was on Polymarket, which I'm an advisor to,
Speaker 2: and bet copious amounts millions of dollars that Trump would
Speaker 2: win and kind of even like distorted it as a
Speaker 2: loaded term, but like the whole market was effective, but
Speaker 2: it's one trader. Poly market has good volume, but not
Speaker 2: but you know it's not it's not the equities market
Speaker 2: or something like that. Apparently did some polling where he
Speaker 2: asked people, who are your neighbors owning? For this technique
Speaker 2: is not that proven, but look it worked. A hero call,
Speaker 2: by definition, is like if you get the answer right
Speaker 2: for lots of money, then you have to get some
Speaker 2: amount of some amount of credit right. A lot of
Speaker 2: people didn't have the story of conference election. Our forecast
Speaker 2: really had it. Literally had it more right Thom than
Speaker 2: a coin flip. And so I'm going to give the
Speaker 2: French whale THEO this award.
Speaker 1: I think that that's a beautiful Uh, that's a beautiful answer.
Speaker 1: THEO absolutely deserves Hero Call of the Year because we
Speaker 1: even talked on the podcast We're like this is insane, like, right,
Speaker 1: who is this whale? Like what is going on? And yeah,
Speaker 1: he ended up making a shit ton of money. So
Speaker 1: congratulations THEO, You've made our Hero call of the year.
Speaker 2: Congrats, Yes and come on the show.
Speaker 1: Yes, we'd love to. We'd love to talk about how
Speaker 1: you think about it. We Nate promises he will not
Speaker 1: do his French accent for you. All right, So you know,
Speaker 1: a flip side of the hero call is when you
Speaker 1: make the wrong decision, right, what was the worst fold
Speaker 1: of the year, So a decision that you know, ended
Speaker 1: up making people think, you know, what were you thinking?
Speaker 1: How could you fold? There? I have one for this,
Speaker 1: but yeah, you go ahead. It seems like you're excited
Speaker 1: about this one.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, is this so on brand? I have to
Speaker 2: go with like this, she should have picked Shapiro thing.
Speaker 2: I know, it's I know it's very politics heavy, but
Speaker 2: like you have this very charismatic politician who's like literally
Speaker 2: the popular governor of the most important spring state, which
Speaker 2: by the way, turned out to be the tipping point state, Pennsylvania,
Speaker 2: and she picked Tim Walls, who was kind of weird
Speaker 2: in practice, and like it just seemed like a no brainer.
Speaker 2: And I can try and dissect why the campaign did this,
Speaker 2: but like that that's a decision that's kind of the
Speaker 2: opposite of the hero call, right, It's like, yeah, the
Speaker 2: obvious play. If you don't make the obvious play, right,
Speaker 2: if you have this amazing semi bluffing opportunity, you have
Speaker 2: a straight draw and a flush draw, and you have
Speaker 2: full equity, and you choose to play the hand differently
Speaker 2: in some weird way than it better worked out well
Speaker 2: or if not, we have the right to criticize you.
Speaker 1: So there's another award that comes a little bit later,
Speaker 1: but I'm going to reference it now because I think
Speaker 1: it's very Germane and it's an award that we're borrowing
Speaker 1: from the podcast The Town, So thank you very much
Speaker 1: The Town. And it's the second Haters I was write award,
Speaker 1: and that Nate, I'm going to give to one of
Speaker 1: the decisions that you've been talking about all year, which
Speaker 1: is she should have chosen.
Speaker 2: Shapiro, should have chosen the Shapiro.
Speaker 1: So I actually I went outside of politics sort of
Speaker 1: and I said the worst fold was anyone who ended
Speaker 1: up selling bitcoin at the beginning of the year, during
Speaker 1: the bear market in January. Yeah, I think that that
Speaker 1: was the worst fold, Like the people who were, you know,
Speaker 1: like all in on bitcoin and then we're like, you
Speaker 1: know what, I changed my mind, Like this is bad,
Speaker 1: Like it's down to forty k Like shit, I bet
Speaker 1: those people are not very happy right now. So I
Speaker 1: think that and I don't think that it was. I
Speaker 1: think that it was pretty obvious that they should not
Speaker 1: be folding, right because you know how sicklical this market is.
Speaker 1: You know how the bear bull cycles work, Like, if
Speaker 1: you know what you're doing, you do not sell at
Speaker 1: a bottom right there. But yeah, so that was that's
Speaker 1: who I gave the the Worst fold of the Year
Speaker 1: award two, so I think we can we can both
Speaker 1: give out one.
Speaker 2: Next up we have Cooler of the Year who had
Speaker 2: a great hand but still lost.
Speaker 1: So here I went outside of our usual purview, right,
Speaker 1: we were normally kind of very politics business, some sports
Speaker 1: heavy here decided to go to Hollywood, and I am
Speaker 1: giving this award to Greta Gerwig, who was the writer
Speaker 1: and director of Barbie, who just got completely shut out
Speaker 1: at the Oscars, losing everything, losing even some nominations. She
Speaker 1: wasn't even nominated for directing and she lost for writing.
Speaker 1: And I think that she was just like completely she
Speaker 1: had a great hand. I think Barbie was a great
Speaker 1: movie that did incredibly well, and for some reason she
Speaker 1: was just like completely shut out of the Oscars this year.
Speaker 1: That happens every year, you know, there's always someone, but
Speaker 1: this one, I feel like, yeah, I felt a little
Speaker 1: bit personal about it because I think, you know, she's female,
Speaker 1: she's talented, she's great, And I actually did not like
Speaker 1: Oppenheimer at all. I thought it was a horrible movie.
Speaker 1: I thought it was really boring. I did not think
Speaker 1: that it should have gotten all the awards it got,
Speaker 1: so like I actually disagreed completely. This is from a
Speaker 1: personal thing, but these are our awards, so they get
Speaker 1: to be personal. That was my worst. That was my
Speaker 1: cooler of the year. How about your name?
Speaker 2: Maybe the New York Yankees son off your baseball fan,
Speaker 2: Juan Soto, this amazing young outfielder who is kind of
Speaker 2: like the Ted Williams of his era, signed with the
Speaker 2: crosstown rival New York Mets for almost eight hundred million
Speaker 2: dollars the Yankees offered him. So when I'm sixty million
Speaker 2: after making their first World Series run since two thousand
Speaker 2: and nine, I guess because apparently the Yankees were just cheap,
Speaker 2: like George Costanza for the Yankees and Seinfeld where like
Speaker 2: they wouldn't give one so to a suite. They apparently
Speaker 2: like harassed his family and his driver, and so he
Speaker 2: was like, fuck you, I'm actually going to Steve Cohen
Speaker 2: and the New York Mets. Pretty rare to see a
Speaker 2: crosstown free agency move like that.
Speaker 1: All right, up next, Tilt of the Year. So what
Speaker 1: was the most emotional decision of the year do you think?
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm going back to politics here, politics. Yep,
Speaker 2: Joe Biden deciding deciding Aid to run for reelection and
Speaker 2: that he was indefatible. And then the then the pardon
Speaker 2: of Fial Sun Hunter. Yeah, I've got.
Speaker 1: The pardon as mine. So let's uh, let's unanimously give
Speaker 1: the tilt of the year to Biden for making some
Speaker 1: very emotional decisions. The deciding to run and the pardon
Speaker 1: of Hunter. I think that that is absolutely you know,
Speaker 1: that was tilt. The definition of tilt is letting emotions
Speaker 1: into your decision process, right that you are no longer
Speaker 1: evaluated things based on their expected value, based on their
Speaker 1: actual kind of decision matrix. You are letting emotions that
Speaker 1: are incidental and not integral to the decision into the decision.
Speaker 1: And that's exactly what Joe Biden did.
Speaker 2: Gto call of a year game theory optimalist call for
Speaker 2: the most balanced, mathematically sound decision of the year.
Speaker 1: Okay, so this one I went outside of politics. I
Speaker 1: went into the business side because this is so incredibly rare.
Speaker 1: I wanted to kind of compliment Apple on abandoning their
Speaker 1: fora into electric vehicles, because most companies, after spending billions
Speaker 1: on something, don't have the foresight, the knowledge, kind of
Speaker 1: the perspicacity to say, you know what, we're not going
Speaker 1: to be competitive here, it's not working. We're just going
Speaker 1: to write it off and move on. And the market's
Speaker 1: rewarded Apple. Actually, even though some people were like this
Speaker 1: is insane, like, right, how can you step away from
Speaker 1: a multi billion dollar investment? So I think that that
Speaker 1: was Actually that is what gto is right, is actually
Speaker 1: being able to make those types of really really tough
Speaker 1: decisions because you realize, you know what, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: We already spent that money and we can't get it back.
Speaker 1: And if we realize we're not competitive, like I'm going
Speaker 1: to fold my hand right and I'm gonna and I'm
Speaker 1: going to walk away, and that's going to be okay.
Speaker 1: And most companies are not capable of doing that. Most
Speaker 1: CEOs are not capable of doing that. So I want
Speaker 1: to reward Apple for a really good decision.
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe I give it a little shout out here
Speaker 2: to Dan Campbell, the head coach of the Detroit Lions.
Speaker 2: The Lions nearly made their first Super Bowl ever. Blew it.
Speaker 2: That probably saved me. I don't want to even say
Speaker 2: how much it is going to save me on it
Speaker 2: last like a super Bowl trip. But Campbell's very aggressive
Speaker 2: about going for it on fourth down. I'm making other
Speaker 2: aggressive play calls which the GTO says is correct and
Speaker 2: didn't work out. But they trust the system. And now
Speaker 2: the Lions are the best team in the NFL so
Speaker 2: far this year. So maybe I'll be spending my hard
Speaker 2: earned dollars on a trip to New Orleans instead in
Speaker 2: the Super Bowl.
Speaker 1: Great, I'm on board with that, all right. How about
Speaker 1: the Danny Kahneman Memorial Cognitive Bias of the Year Award.
Speaker 1: What cognitive bias best explains twenty twenty four? So I'm
Speaker 1: going to say that the bias that best encapsulates twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four. And we're going back to politics. Here is
Speaker 1: the sun cost fallacy, which is the inability to walk
Speaker 1: away from sunk costs. And I think that the Biden campaign,
Speaker 1: which is something that is going to you know, will
Speaker 1: be feeling the repercussions of that for years to come
Speaker 1: suffered from the sun cost fallacy. Right, the fact that oh,
Speaker 1: you know, I am already I said, I'm running like
Speaker 1: I'm not going to turn back on it. I'm going
Speaker 1: to keep putting good time and good money after bad.
Speaker 1: After it was becoming more and more clear that he
Speaker 1: shouldn't run again, that he should step away, and the
Speaker 1: sun cost fallacy I think literally cost them the election
Speaker 1: because they you know, he did not step away. We've
Speaker 1: talked about this so many times, but you know, the
Speaker 1: fact that they didn't pivot, the fact that they kind
Speaker 1: of didn't take the risk and take on the new
Speaker 1: strategy and realize, you know what, we're only hurting ourselves
Speaker 1: by continuing to put good time, good money, good energy
Speaker 1: after bad. I think that that was the death the
Speaker 1: death knell of this of this campaign. So to me,
Speaker 1: the sun cost fallacy is the decision error that best
Speaker 1: encapsulates this year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe I'll go with good old fashioned group think.
Speaker 2: I suppose it's like also contained to the Democratic Party
Speaker 2: where and inability and look, I think it's fundamentally and
Speaker 2: kind of writing an article about this now, I think
Speaker 2: it's kind of amazing, But Democrats adopt this velosophy they
Speaker 2: kind of claim to be working on behalf of like
Speaker 2: all these oppressed minorities, and then all the oppressed minorities
Speaker 2: shift a long way toward Trump. And I think what
Speaker 2: that is is that you actually look views among other elites,
Speaker 2: and Democrats have kind of lost touch with with how
Speaker 2: people outside their group think and what messages are appealing
Speaker 2: and which aren't. And so I we you know, I
Speaker 2: don't want to deter this too much, but I'll kind
Speaker 2: of broadly give it to the Democratic Party. And how
Speaker 2: capture among all the you know, cognitive elites actually can
Speaker 2: be a problem in some ways makes sense. Here's a
Speaker 2: fun one Djen of the Year. This is one of
Speaker 2: the most prestigious awards.
Speaker 1: It is, well, I'm giving it to Epay Musuhara millions.
Speaker 1: I don't think it doesn't get more DJN.
Speaker 2: Can we call it the Epay Musahara Memorial Djen Award
Speaker 2: of the Year in the future.
Speaker 1: I think in future years, I think that's what we
Speaker 1: need to call it. And for people obviously who who
Speaker 1: can't immediately put that name to a face. That was
Speaker 1: Otani's interpreter who pleaded guilty to making at least seventeen
Speaker 1: million dollars worth of sports bets gone wrong and using
Speaker 1: Otani's accounts to cover those.
Speaker 2: And the Knit of the Year. Do you have a
Speaker 2: good one for this? Harris okaymal Hair, Yeah, these are two.
Speaker 2: The Kamala Harris memorial.
Speaker 1: Yes, I got that.
Speaker 2: She refused to distance herself from Biden, even though they
Speaker 2: didn't campaign on Biden's agenda either. They just said, oh, well,
Speaker 2: let's help people ignore this and and yeah, the risk
Speaker 2: a version of this campaign. And by the way, how
Speaker 2: much is this her versus her campaign managers? I'm not sure,
Speaker 2: but like that's the.
Speaker 1: Campaign right at the end of the day, it's her campaign,
Speaker 1: and if she disagrees with her campaign manager, she needs
Speaker 1: to be like, no, fuck this, I'm not going to
Speaker 1: be in it. So at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: it's on her, just.
Speaker 2: Like the campaign agrees with her. They're like, yo, yo,
Speaker 2: you got you're shitting gear Kamala exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: So it seems like you agree with my Djena Knit
Speaker 1: of the Year picks.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, these are pretty easy ones.
Speaker 1: I think.
Speaker 2: The Risky Business bracelet. Who had the better which of
Speaker 2: the two hosts? This is an easy one. They're only
Speaker 2: two answers had the better poker, had the better poker year.
Speaker 1: I don't know, n it. Are you up or down?
Speaker 2: I have I'm definitely down in tournaments, and then I
Speaker 2: have a quite good year in cash, and so I
Speaker 2: don't actually know.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, the bracelet, I think we should do tournaments, right,
Speaker 1: since bracelets.
Speaker 2: Are Yeah, it's very it's very fiable, right, Yeah, it's verifiable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I'm up in tournaments, So I guess I
Speaker 1: get the bracelet for this year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm down a fair bit and I'll need to
Speaker 2: have a good series here at the Wind, but the
Speaker 2: cash is gone. I'm trying to think of myself as
Speaker 2: more of a cash players some ways.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's wonderful, and I look forward to seeing you
Speaker 1: on some big cash streams. And we can change this
Speaker 1: from the bracelet awards to something else so that we
Speaker 1: can just say poker prowess, whether cash or tournaments. I
Speaker 1: don't know. So now we've got two awards that are
Speaker 1: being taken from another podcast, The Town, which gives awards
Speaker 1: the Mia Cool Pie I Was Wrong Award and the
Speaker 1: second Haters I Was Right Award. So these are for
Speaker 1: I think personal decisions, you know, personal things that we've done.
Speaker 1: This is where I said that you should be the
Speaker 1: second haters. I was right. I didn't have one for me,
Speaker 1: but I had it for you, which was that she
Speaker 1: should have gone for Shapiro. I think that that's I
Speaker 1: think that you get that award, and uh, the Mia
Speaker 1: Coolpie was Wrong award. I actually so, I think that
Speaker 1: I was wrong when we had talked on the podcast
Speaker 1: about kind of how important crypto was to the election,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, it's a tiny percentage, it doesn't really matter.
Speaker 1: I actually think that it ended up mattering a lot
Speaker 1: more than I thought it would. And you know, and
Speaker 1: especially kind of given the amount of money that was
Speaker 1: donated given kind of some people who I think came
Speaker 1: out and became single issue voters for Trump because of
Speaker 1: his take on crypto. I actually think I was a
Speaker 1: little bit wrong on that. I think I underestimate at
Speaker 1: the cryptov.
Speaker 2: I'll give myself an award for nearly betting on with
Speaker 2: Keith for boy who was a venture capitalist on the
Speaker 2: ulcome in Florida, where Keith claimed he lives in Miami
Speaker 2: now very proudly so that Kamala Harris would lose Florida
Speaker 2: by eight points or more, and at the time she
Speaker 2: was down only three points in the polling average, got
Speaker 2: in a spat on Twitter and offered to bet one
Speaker 2: hundred k, and actually kind of tried to facilitate this
Speaker 2: and sent an email to a mutual friend saying, Hey, Keith,
Speaker 2: if you want negotiate terms, here's person why who can
Speaker 2: confirm this? And he didn't respond for four days, right,
Speaker 2: and then the some morning a New York Times pull
Speaker 2: comes out and has Harris down like thirteen or fifteen
Speaker 2: points in Florida, and I'm like, fuck this. You know
Speaker 2: you don't have a free option to make this bet whenever,
Speaker 2: So the offer is rescinded, which he agreed it was
Speaker 2: too late to accept the bet, certainly not recognizing the
Speaker 2: complete collapse the Democratic Party in Florida and being lucky
Speaker 2: to be able to pull out of that bet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I think that's a good one. And
Speaker 1: the second haters I was right? Do you like my
Speaker 1: choice for that?
Speaker 2: I have a lot, I mean, all the Biden related stuff,
Speaker 2: like actually feel.
Speaker 1: Like I was right about everything.
Speaker 2: It hurts, I know, the Biden debate stuff where I'm like,
Speaker 2: actually the debate might go so bad, yeah, that he'll
Speaker 2: have to pull out, Like people, that was kind of crazy, right,
Speaker 2: I would not have given like more than like a
Speaker 2: fifteen percent probability of that, but I kind of put
Speaker 2: myself out there with at least raising his chance and
Speaker 2: so all the Biden stuff, Yeah, I felt like, was my.
Speaker 1: You definitely put yourself out there, and I think and
Speaker 1: I think you ended up being right about a lot
Speaker 1: of it. So yes, I'm there for it all. Right. Now,
Speaker 1: We're going to have two individual awards for us to
Speaker 1: give out, So mine is the Maria Kanakova Award for
Speaker 1: the Biggest bluff of the Year, and I am gonna
Speaker 1: I'm going to get a lot of people mad for
Speaker 1: this one, but I'm giving it to Sam Altman and
Speaker 1: open Ai for bluffing about the mission and the non
Speaker 1: profit nature of open Ai and getting you know, saying
Speaker 1: how it was all about, you know, just just being
Speaker 1: for the good of the world and then raising money
Speaker 1: and saying, actually we're going to be for profit and
Speaker 1: all of this stuff that like, obviously it was going
Speaker 1: to be a business and obviously like this is where
Speaker 1: it was heading. But I think a lot of people
Speaker 1: believed his initial bluff, and this is something that's going
Speaker 1: to be really important and open. Ai is you know
Speaker 1: how Sam goes about it. I think this is an
Speaker 1: important thing to track closely. So I think it's good
Speaker 1: to realize that this is someone who is incredibly good
Speaker 1: at bluffing, incredibly credible at bluffing, and bluffs a lot.
Speaker 2: I agree, I think. No, I think I think that's
Speaker 2: a great pick. Maria, thank you. I mean he is.
Speaker 2: I don't know if. I don't know if he's convincing
Speaker 2: everyone necessarily, but but but he knows how to see
Speaker 2: their bluff through. I'll say that much.
Speaker 1: Yes, he does.
Speaker 2: The Nate Silver Award for Raverian of the Year. The Raverian,
Speaker 2: of course a term from my book for this group
Speaker 2: of I don't know the general kambling types. I think
Speaker 2: you have to give it to our boy, Elon. I
Speaker 2: just think you have to. He made this very big
Speaker 2: bet where he was kind of in more of a
Speaker 2: blue linen cultural space and has obviously gotten like red
Speaker 2: pilled in various ways. But look, he bet two hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty thousand, or people are still counting Abe's three hundred.
Speaker 2: Excuse me, he bet like several hundred million dollars of
Speaker 2: his own money. On Trump went very all in on
Speaker 2: this movement and now has been rewarded with heading a
Speaker 2: government or a quasi governmental agency named DOGE and getting
Speaker 2: this guy he wanted elected. You know, it's a little
Speaker 2: bit like this thing we said before, where if you
Speaker 2: kind of make that hero call and not like the
Speaker 2: odds were that bad. I mean, Biden was evidently in
Speaker 2: trouble very early on. But I think you have to
Speaker 2: like and again, I Elon is not my favorite representative
Speaker 2: of the river right, even if you were such a conservatives.
Speaker 2: You know, someone like Jay Bonicharia, who was an early
Speaker 2: Stanford professor who was skeptical from the COVID lockdown stuff,
Speaker 2: now named director of the n I h like he
Speaker 2: is someone who I would personally like rather get a
Speaker 2: beer with or something. But Elon's the obvious choice. I'm
Speaker 2: not going to deny him his good year.
Speaker 1: Well, this was this was a lot of fun. I like,
Speaker 1: I like the riskies, and I like our renaming of
Speaker 1: some of the awards.
Speaker 2: To the award.
Speaker 1: UH pay for Djon UH Forever More.
Speaker 2: We'll be back in just a minute to talk a
Speaker 2: little bit about how the poker is going so far
Speaker 2: and answer a listener question, M.
Speaker 1: M Nate, you are beautifully backlit by the Lovely Win Hotel.
Speaker 1: So we are both in Las Vegas for the WPT.
Speaker 1: I've been playing a few more events than you. You
Speaker 1: came in and went straight into the three K, three
Speaker 1: thousand dollars one day event yesterday. How did that go good?
Speaker 2: I finished thirteenth place for ten thousand bucks or nine
Speaker 2: nine hundred something. I think technically, I know for tax
Speaker 2: reasons are what they do it that way? Yeah, always
Speaker 2: great to start out with with the decent sized cash.
Speaker 2: In your first event, it was a very turbo event.
Speaker 2: If our listeners don't know what that means, it means
Speaker 2: that the blinds increased very fast. They start the event
Speaker 2: at one they're trying to get it wrapped up by
Speaker 2: two am, and with like two hundred players or whatever,
Speaker 2: two hundred and fifty, I forget what it was. Then
Speaker 2: that means you all of a sudden are playing for
Speaker 2: very high stakes relatively amount of ships that you have,
Speaker 2: and so requires hitting some big hands early and then
Speaker 2: being aggressive and winning some coin flips. Being aware of
Speaker 2: how the dynamics change in terms of we've talked about
Speaker 2: ICM on this show before with the independence goals, independent model,
Speaker 2: the goals to win money if you have it, not
Speaker 2: not just maximize your first place chances, right, And so
Speaker 2: I had to be I had a medium sized stack,
Speaker 2: and I had to be a little bit cautious for
Speaker 2: parts of the tournament, which is kind of which is
Speaker 2: kind of no fun. But that's that's you know, I'm
Speaker 2: plan booker to win money, not to not to make
Speaker 2: friends and influence people. Well maybe that too. So we
Speaker 2: were a little bit idiot times. I'm wound up getting
Speaker 2: quite a few pay jumps to thirteenth place.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well that's important, especially because you were not in
Speaker 1: for one bullet. You were in for multiple bullets, right,
Speaker 1: So you needed Maria.
Speaker 2: You have to you know, there's no record of that
Speaker 2: on Handed Mob. Yeah all right, two bullets. I came in.
Speaker 2: I came in aggressively, as one tends to do on
Speaker 2: their first day in Las Vegas. Made it a big.
Speaker 1: People to know that you were not in it. Your
Speaker 1: first bullet was bluffed off, So so you were you
Speaker 1: You put in a good show of not being in
Speaker 1: it first, and then you did it.
Speaker 2: I do think for like these one day. I mean,
Speaker 2: I think it is worthwhile to like look a little
Speaker 2: bit at like your life philosophy, right, and like what
Speaker 2: your alternatives are, Like I don't want to like if
Speaker 2: I bust out of the tournament before the dinner break,
Speaker 2: then my partner's in town. You're in town, can go
Speaker 2: get like a nice dinner somewhere and have relaxed night
Speaker 2: in Vegas, and so like, I think there is something
Speaker 2: where like increasing your variants a little bit in the
Speaker 2: early stage is where you get a big stack or
Speaker 2: not is a good life strategy. And also in this
Speaker 2: tournament you kind of need a big stack or else
Speaker 2: you're just or else you're just. I mean, the blinds
Speaker 2: increase so fast that you're kind of have to play
Speaker 2: very defensively or get very lucky. And so I think
Speaker 2: it's actually worth in like these one day events. It's
Speaker 2: not a slow structure. It's worth kind of saying I'm
Speaker 2: gonna ether have a big stack, or go get some
Speaker 2: go to a show or something funny.
Speaker 1: Yeah, go big or go home. I totally get it.
Speaker 1: But in all transparency, so the series has not started
Speaker 1: off well for me. I have played so far three events.
Speaker 1: So I played the opening eight hundred dollars event, which
Speaker 1: was actually a fourth thousand dollar event for me, so
Speaker 1: people can do the math in terms of re entries,
Speaker 1: I did not cash. Then I played the Mystery Bounty,
Speaker 1: which is a sixteen hundred dollar event, again full transparency,
Speaker 1: it was only it was only a thirty two hundred
Speaker 1: dollar event for me. So that one I managed to
Speaker 1: sneak by with only two bullets and I bubbled bubbling
Speaker 1: once again for people who don't know, is I busted
Speaker 1: very very late in the night, basically when we were
Speaker 1: about to reach day two and the money. So that
Speaker 1: was not fun, and that was you know, that was
Speaker 1: just a cooler hand. And I started the Prime, which
Speaker 1: is the eleven hundred dollar event yesterday, and I ended
Speaker 1: up busting. You can only rebuy once a day, so
Speaker 1: i busted both of my bullets yesterday and I'm going
Speaker 1: to play again today. As soon as we finish recording
Speaker 1: our podcast, I'll make my way to the wind to
Speaker 1: see unit where we can both try to find a
Speaker 1: bit bag.
Speaker 2: I'm going to get a lot. I'm going to come
Speaker 2: in after lunch. And I met at Looser.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I get it. Get a little lunch, but there's.
Speaker 2: Lots of stuff. There's like a the main K tent.
Speaker 2: The main ten K event starts next week.
Speaker 1: I guess this weekend, this coming weekend.
Speaker 2: This weekend, there is a free roll for.
Speaker 1: I did not get a seat into the free roll, Nate,
Speaker 1: did you?
Speaker 2: Perhaps?
Speaker 1: Nay? Yes, I did not win a seat into the
Speaker 1: free roll, and I'm not running well this series. So
Speaker 1: they have if you enter, they have this promotion where
Speaker 1: you join you know, Club WPT Gold or whatever kind
Speaker 1: of the same thing that the free roll is advertising,
Speaker 1: and then you get to draw from all of these
Speaker 1: possible prizes, including a McLaren you know, two hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty thousand dollars car, and all of these other amazing prizes,
Speaker 1: including entry to the free roll. I drew a fucking hat, Nate,
Speaker 1: A hat, yeah, And I had to be like, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: you can keep the hat.
Speaker 2: I can't take I bought. The hats are kind of
Speaker 2: expensive there. It costs like forty bucks or something.
Speaker 1: Oh, Nate, I should have given you the hat. I
Speaker 1: should have taken the hat.
Speaker 2: I didn't know.
Speaker 1: I didn't know. I turned my nose up at the hat.
Speaker 1: I was like, I got the lowest value price oh,
Speaker 1: there were also cash prizes. You could go into this cash.
Speaker 1: There were so many good prizes, and I drew the hat.
Speaker 1: I am not running well this tournament series so far,
Speaker 1: you know, down almost ten thousand dollars and a hat.
Speaker 2: Turn out around, let's turn around. I you know it happens.
Speaker 2: I look my second leg of the World Series this year,
Speaker 2: it's all kind of a blur. There was so much
Speaker 2: politics news, but just brick everything right, So, oh, I
Speaker 2: forget what it was over twelve or thirteen or something probably,
Speaker 2: And that's very normal. The chances of that, if you
Speaker 2: do the math, they're like quite a bit higher than
Speaker 2: you might expect or want intuitively.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, And I've had a very good year, so I'm
Speaker 1: not complaining. I just want people to realize that there
Speaker 1: is a lot of variance in this game. You know,
Speaker 1: just like in life, you go through you go through
Speaker 1: these periods where you know, things just don't come together,
Speaker 1: and it's hard to forget that. It's hard to remember
Speaker 1: that when things are coming together right, like when you're
Speaker 1: running well, when you're cash and you're like, oh, this
Speaker 1: is easy. Poker's easy. Life is great, And I think
Speaker 1: that's true of life in general. Right, when things are
Speaker 1: going well, you're like, yeah, this is good, this is
Speaker 1: how life should be. But you do go through periods
Speaker 1: when should hits the fan, when things do not go
Speaker 1: as well as planned. But I hope I turn it
Speaker 1: around and that some of your three k you know,
Speaker 1: success rumps off on me so that I do not
Speaker 1: have to then go and play the prime yet again,
Speaker 1: because this is a one K event that's very worth
Speaker 1: playing the maximount of times since it's probably the largest
Speaker 1: one K event of the year. So it's exciting. It's
Speaker 1: an exciting series. I'm looking forward to the rest and
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to running a little bit better, and
Speaker 1: I hope both of us do. Let's take a break
Speaker 1: and then let's take a listener question and talk about bilingualism.
Speaker 1: We had a listener named Ed who had a question
Speaker 1: about language learning. So should you learn a second language
Speaker 1: or not? And he maintains that as a primary English speaker,
Speaker 1: the ev for learning a second language is hugely negative,
Speaker 1: that it's a time suck. English is common. There's no
Speaker 1: obvious second language to learn that is better than any others,
Speaker 1: you know. He talks about Spanish, Amandarin, that they're both
Speaker 1: commonly spoken, but how often will he go to a
Speaker 1: place where he'll only have that and no one to
Speaker 1: broker communications, doubly so with internet translation. So yeah, he
Speaker 1: just wants to know, is are there situations that make
Speaker 1: it marginally positive for a not for a native English speaker,
Speaker 1: assuming you're not living with bilingual parents and getting your
Speaker 1: second language as a free.
Speaker 2: What are your what are your second language status is?
Speaker 1: Maria, Russian, French, Spanish, Italian and Persian.
Speaker 2: Jeez, okay, so you clearly you clearly don't agree with
Speaker 2: a listener, Then no, I.
Speaker 1: Don't at all. I actually and I think that there's
Speaker 1: a ton of research on why you want to learn
Speaker 1: a second language that has nothing to do with, you know,
Speaker 1: traveling over the world and having it be you know,
Speaker 1: a you know, basically how to communicate with people that
Speaker 1: I think, by the way, is incredibly important. I actually
Speaker 1: think it's great to be able to speak the language
Speaker 1: at least a little bit of the place that you're visiting.
Speaker 1: It helps you appreciate it more, It helps you get
Speaker 1: a different experience, and you will, you know, I like
Speaker 1: going off the beaten path, right like I like going
Speaker 1: to places that are kind of in in the back
Speaker 1: alleys and like the local hidden places where oftentimes people
Speaker 1: don't speak English. And I think that I think that
Speaker 1: you just you gain a lot from life for being
Speaker 1: able to speak the language. So I disagree with that,
Speaker 1: but that's a matter of you know, opinion, right, And
Speaker 1: I don't want to be like an obnoxious tourus because
Speaker 1: if you think about it, basically everyone else in the
Speaker 1: world is bilingual and they've learned English to help the
Speaker 1: idiot Americans who refused to learn a second language, Like,
Speaker 1: if you meet someone from the Netherlands, they're going to
Speaker 1: speak English. If you meet someone from France, they're going
Speaker 1: to speak English. And you know they they I think
Speaker 1: are a lot richer for it because they have acquired
Speaker 1: that second language. And I think that it's just it's
Speaker 1: great to be able to do it as well. But
Speaker 1: if we talk about the research, there are actually a
Speaker 1: ton of benefits for your brain for for learning more
Speaker 1: languages that actually I was wondering just before we get
Speaker 1: into that, do you have kind of do you have
Speaker 1: other languages and kind of what's your just high level
Speaker 1: take on this.
Speaker 2: No, I look, I they took Spanish in high school
Speaker 2: and learned just enough to pass out of my college
Speaker 2: Spanish requirements. So I you know, I can listen at
Speaker 2: like forty percent comprehension and read at sixty percent comprehension.
Speaker 2: You know, restaurant menu stuff. I mean, in general, is
Speaker 2: a foodie I can read. I actually prefer to read,
Speaker 2: like I'd rather see an Italian menu in Italian than English,
Speaker 2: because I trust my abilit of like a know the
Speaker 2: original terms or translate more. But yeah, apart from apart
Speaker 2: from that very limited basis, no, I look, I am
Speaker 2: sympathetic to the research you're setting for a couple of reasons, right.
Speaker 2: One is, I do think that like if you look
Speaker 2: at like large language models, they suggest that like any
Speaker 2: given language, whether it's English or Spanish, or French or Russian,
Speaker 2: or whether it's computer language or mathematical language, is like
Speaker 2: an incomplete representation of like the kind of implicit to
Speaker 2: sound pretentious implicit vector space of human thought. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: so having a wider like literal vocabulary that's not just
Speaker 2: English based and interesting. I mean, the analogy I sometimes
Speaker 2: make is like there are poker concepts that are hard
Speaker 2: to translate if you haven't specifically played poker. Right, The
Speaker 2: notion that like if you're indifferent between two decisions, that
Speaker 2: like small factors make a difference. I mean it's kind
Speaker 2: of legible in English, but like, but yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: and sometimes I'm thinking a lot about poker, like programming
Speaker 2: or things like that. It feels like it's improving some
Speaker 2: other types of cognitive recognition, where if I'm really deep in
Speaker 2: like doing some static coding or something, it's hard to know.
Speaker 2: I mean, the question is kind of what are the
Speaker 2: realistic trade offs? I mean, maybe if you did learn
Speaker 2: programming language, maybe you did learn a craft deeply. I
Speaker 2: you know, I think there is a lot of metaphors
Speaker 2: in art and literature that I think are probably somewhat
Speaker 2: parallel to language. Of course, you can read some of
Speaker 2: those texts earlier easier if you have. If you have,
Speaker 2: but yeah, I don't know. I like, where are you
Speaker 2: making a big better or a small bet? Right? Like
Speaker 2: should I do in my spare time take do a lingos?
Speaker 2: So if we're at the EPT Paris next year, I
Speaker 2: can kind of make half sentences or not right or
Speaker 2: shout to go all in. I mean, where do you
Speaker 2: line up there?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I think that that's a very personal decision. But
Speaker 1: I think so. One of the things you mentioned, I
Speaker 1: think there is a lot of work on which is
Speaker 1: that our views of the world really are expanded by
Speaker 1: having the proper vocabulary for it, right Like being able
Speaker 1: to express your thoughts, emotions, kind of having the words
Speaker 1: for things actually helps you, you know, figure out what
Speaker 1: they are, helps you think more rationally, more logically, make
Speaker 1: better decisions, and they're you know, sometimes I have a
Speaker 1: Russian word for something that doesn't exist in English, and
Speaker 1: it's a nuance. It's a distinction that I wouldn't otherwise have.
Speaker 1: And we know that this is true of like just
Speaker 1: physical perception of the world, right You people who have
Speaker 1: who are artists, who have larger palette of colors and
Speaker 1: know all the different hues, they actually are able to
Speaker 1: distinguish more colors when you give them kind of a
Speaker 1: color wheel. Where someone might be like, oh I see
Speaker 1: red and green, they actually see more colors, right, Like,
Speaker 1: their visual experience is different because they know what the
Speaker 1: words are, and different languages have different words for things,
Speaker 1: and I think that's really important. I think that that's
Speaker 1: actually really cool. Like I love these learning learning kind
Speaker 1: of even languages I don't know, learning words to express
Speaker 1: certain concepts, certain states, you know, certain parts of the world.
Speaker 1: But there are also other benefits beyond that. So first,
Speaker 1: cognitive control, which is executive control, which is really important,
Speaker 1: is better in bilinguals. So all of those cognitive functions
Speaker 1: tend to be enhanced by having kind of the control
Speaker 1: to switch between languages. Right, having all these different things
Speaker 1: co exist in your mind, especially if you learn it young.
Speaker 1: But right now, let's not talk about that, because that's
Speaker 1: not what the question is. Right. He actually tries to
Speaker 1: exclude people who had it as a freebie. So like
Speaker 1: Russian for me is a freebie, but English is not.
Speaker 1: I actually grew up modelingual just speaking Russian. I learned
Speaker 1: English in school when I was already you know, when
Speaker 1: I was five years old, so it wasn't quite a freebie,
Speaker 1: but I was still a little kid. So let's just
Speaker 1: call it a freebie. And then the other language.
Speaker 2: If you're Russian guys discussing poker at the table, do
Speaker 2: they assume you don't know what they're saying.
Speaker 1: Sometimes when they don't, it's amazing because they'll say horrible
Speaker 1: things about me, assumptions about me, or things about their hand.
Speaker 1: And I've actually learned a lot of information. More and
Speaker 1: more people realize I speak Russian these days, but a
Speaker 1: lot of people still don't know. Yeah, so that is
Speaker 1: a lot of fun. But the other thing that I
Speaker 1: think that our listener would be very interested in knowing
Speaker 1: is that it seems like people who speak more languages
Speaker 1: actually age a lot better and their brains are protected
Speaker 1: a lot longer and more strongly from dementia and cognitive decline.
Speaker 1: So on average, people who are bilingual or or more
Speaker 1: but let's just say bilingual, if they experience signs of
Speaker 1: cognitive decline over four years later than people who aren't,
Speaker 1: that's huge, right, Like, think about that, Like.
Speaker 2: Sotimes, we know this is not how do we know
Speaker 2: this is not just selecting for higher socio economic status
Speaker 2: and or education.
Speaker 1: So these studies are pretty well done with those types
Speaker 1: of controls, right, So that's super easy to control for
Speaker 1: you just put in a control for socioeconomic status and
Speaker 1: you see does this still have an effect? And in
Speaker 1: general it seems like it does. Now, this work is prelimited,
Speaker 1: Like we all of these types of things are incredibly difficult, right,
Speaker 1: These are really really hard things to study. So we
Speaker 1: have a good sense that this that this might matter,
Speaker 1: and we know that you know with like with dementia,
Speaker 1: where you where you actually see Alzheimer's where you can
Speaker 1: see kind of the plaques, et cetera. And then you
Speaker 1: can just see like when did people you know, after
Speaker 1: they die, like when did they start exhibiting signs? You
Speaker 1: end up seeing that people who are bilingual exhibit signs
Speaker 1: much later, so they're able to kind of compensate, right,
Speaker 1: because you have different parts of your brain, you're able
Speaker 1: to compensate for the loss in a much better way.
Speaker 1: And I think that that's really interesting. Oftentimes there's a
Speaker 1: lot of clinical evidence and it's quite quite interesting. But
Speaker 1: when you have a stroke, you know when when something
Speaker 1: goes really wrong in your brain, oftentimes people who are
Speaker 1: bilingual switchlan like you forget one language but you retain
Speaker 1: the other somehow. It's really cool. Yeah, there's some really
Speaker 1: really cool stuff where your brain is much more flexible
Speaker 1: and you have much more cognitive capacity to deal with
Speaker 1: bad shit happening. And I think that that's something that
Speaker 1: everyone should want, right, Like you want to think and
Speaker 1: be sharper and have kind of those reserves for as
Speaker 1: long as possible, so to me, it's just an absolute
Speaker 1: no brainer for no pun intended for a lot of reasons.
Speaker 1: But I think that all of these different areas of
Speaker 1: research are interesting, Maria.
Speaker 2: Since we both have some poker to play and in
Speaker 2: my case also lunch to eat. Do you want to
Speaker 2: wrap up there?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that sounds good to me. I hope, dear ed,
Speaker 1: that we've convinced you to learn a second language, that
Speaker 1: it is actually plus ev for you for a number
Speaker 1: of reasons, even though most people you encounter will be
Speaker 1: able to speak English.
Speaker 2: If you have a listener question, dear listener, email us
Speaker 2: at Risky Business all one word at Pushkin dot fm,
Speaker 2: and maybe you will have the chance to be on
Speaker 2: the air and to have let us have some fun
Speaker 2: with your question instead.
Speaker 1: Risky Business is hosted by me Maria.
Speaker 2: Kannikova and byb 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.
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