Speaker 1: But knowledge to work and grow your business with c
Speaker 1: i T from transportation to healthcare to manufacturing. C i
Speaker 1: T offers commercial lending, leasing, and treasury management services for
Speaker 1: small and middle market businesses. Learn more at c i
Speaker 1: T dot com put Knowledge to Work. Hello and welcome
Speaker 1: to another edition of the Odd Lots podcast. I'm Joe
Speaker 1: Wisenhal and I'm Tracy Alloway. Hey, Tracy, remember our episode
Speaker 1: a couple of months ago with Peter Borish about investing
Speaker 1: in trading. Of course, it was a great episode. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was a really fun one. But there was something
Speaker 1: he said that really stuck with me. I mean, it
Speaker 1: was a fascinating conversation, but one of the things that
Speaker 1: has really stuck with me in my mind that he
Speaker 1: said when he was talking about the great hedge fund
Speaker 1: traders of all time, whether it's people like Orge Sorrows
Speaker 1: or Paul Tutor Jones, he said, what they really had
Speaker 1: in common, even more than some sort of uncanny knack,
Speaker 1: was just a real discipline about survival, real instinct for
Speaker 1: risk management, not getting blown up, not destroying themselves. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember he said, specifically, the worst thing that can
Speaker 1: happen to you is basically if you lose all your money,
Speaker 1: because then you're you're dead right, You're out of the game.
Speaker 1: You're out of the game, exactly right. And so a
Speaker 1: lot of the people that we call legends these days,
Speaker 1: that we venerate are people who primarily have survived this
Speaker 1: long and somehow they figured out a way to not die,
Speaker 1: not blow up, and of course in market, uh, pitfalls abound. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would broadly agree with that. What's the point today?
Speaker 1: Our guest is someone else who has done an extraordinary
Speaker 1: job of surviving, of not blowing up, of risk management,
Speaker 1: bank roll management, except um, they're not are not a
Speaker 1: trader per se. Okay, I'm starting to get a little
Speaker 1: bit nervous. Who is it? You should be nervous because
Speaker 1: I know we're gonna be talking about one of the
Speaker 1: one of the topics that which you feel um at
Speaker 1: which you feel the least at ease. But I'll just
Speaker 1: jump right into it. Today we're going to be talking
Speaker 1: to one of the most successful World Series of Poker
Speaker 1: participants ever. He's a phil Hell you youth. He's won
Speaker 1: fourteen bracelets at the World Series of Poker across multiple
Speaker 1: tables um. He has made fifty four final tables and
Speaker 1: in his poker career. According to an a m A
Speaker 1: he did on Reddit last year, he's made eighteen million
Speaker 1: dollars playing poker. That number is probably higher since that
Speaker 1: was a year ago. And I think anyone who has
Speaker 1: had this much success in poker clearly has something to
Speaker 1: teach people about risk management and bank roll management and
Speaker 1: discipline and keeping their emotions in check, and many of
Speaker 1: the skills that a poker player or that a that
Speaker 1: A eight or need to survive. So, Joe, I'm totally
Speaker 1: on board with the analogy, but let me say in
Speaker 1: all honesty, due to my complete ignorance of the game
Speaker 1: of poker, as well as the fact that I looked
Speaker 1: up Phil's bio online and saw that he's called the
Speaker 1: poker Brat, and then I made the massive mistake of
Speaker 1: watching a YouTube video featuring his top five table side explosions.
Speaker 1: I'm a little bit nervous about this one, but I
Speaker 1: trust you. I'm sure it'll be a good conversation. Well
Speaker 1: hopefully we won't be at the receiving end of any tirade.
Speaker 1: Phil Holmia, thank you very much for joining us. Okay,
Speaker 1: first of all, those tides have tons of millions of
Speaker 1: you so that's a good thing. I think, Uh well,
Speaker 1: I don't walk around like that every day. So they
Speaker 1: and in this this day and age of televised poker,
Speaker 1: I'm sure it doesn't hurt to have a reputation as
Speaker 1: being one of the more one of the more colorful
Speaker 1: players that I watched those it's like a train wreck,
Speaker 1: but I think traders can kind of you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: you're you're in a great position and everything, all indicators
Speaker 1: could be the best position you've ever seen, and then
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, for some reason, I don't know,
Speaker 1: there's a forest fire in your stock. The direction I
Speaker 1: would I would be throwing a tirade at that point.
Speaker 1: So so that's the interesting thing is that you do
Speaker 1: have this reputation for throwing tirades. As Tracy mentioned, your
Speaker 1: nickname is the poker brat, but you're obviously very successful
Speaker 1: at poker, and so those tirades don't seem to translate
Speaker 1: into terrible play. In fact, you played quite well. So
Speaker 1: the popular term is you go on till you start
Speaker 1: getting emotional, you start making you know, bad bets that
Speaker 1: are driven by emotion. It doesn't seem like your tirades
Speaker 1: lead to bad bets. Well, that's true. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think I get rid of a lot of the emotion
Speaker 1: in the moment and the past in my twenties when
Speaker 1: that happened, I would definitely get on tilt. And I mean,
Speaker 1: of course, there's huge similarities there between trading and you know,
Speaker 1: and poker and getting emotional, and you know, even more
Speaker 1: analogies when you're talking about when you're buried in poker,
Speaker 1: when you're stuck the same thing in trading. You know,
Speaker 1: when you've lost a lot of money in a particular day,
Speaker 1: you might make some bad decisions near the end of
Speaker 1: that day. When you're losing a lot of money in
Speaker 1: a poker game, you might make some bad decisions, you know,
Speaker 1: near the end of that game. And it's there's some
Speaker 1: definitely similarities there. Interesting. As I was hearing you guys
Speaker 1: open the show, I was thinking, Um, I was thinking
Speaker 1: that a lot of the guys that have been around forever,
Speaker 1: both in your industry and somebody like a Warren Buffett,
Speaker 1: all kind of share the same thing, and that's not
Speaker 1: to risk too much of their money on any given day.
Speaker 1: And that's something that you know, I've been made fun
Speaker 1: of a criticized it in the poker world, especially by
Speaker 1: people that don't understand. So the criticisms is not fair, um,
Speaker 1: because I wouldn't risk enough a higher percentage of my
Speaker 1: net worth choosing instead to be staked. For example, there's
Speaker 1: a series of six poker tournaments I'm about to enter
Speaker 1: and I needed to raise six hundred and six hundred
Speaker 1: sixty seven thousand, two very specific number. UM. I emailed
Speaker 1: my friends. I raised it in four hours to play
Speaker 1: poker tournaments. Now it's a very high risk investment, including
Speaker 1: a three K. But you know, I'll probably get criticized
Speaker 1: because you know, I'll probably have of myself in those tournaments,
Speaker 1: opting to look a little bit more like a hedge
Speaker 1: fund and taking you know, fifteen percent free role and
Speaker 1: then putting some of my own cash in. Joe and
Speaker 1: I have spoken about this on this podcast before, and
Speaker 1: that's the idea of a mathematical formula that basically dictates
Speaker 1: the ideal of ount of money that you should bet
Speaker 1: on each trade or each hand a poker, and that's
Speaker 1: the Kelly criterion. Is something like that something that you
Speaker 1: would use when you actually play poker. Kelly criteria is
Speaker 1: very interesting. Um. You know, we've discussed us for a
Speaker 1: long time in poker as well. I I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: probably even more conservative than that. So you know, I've
Speaker 1: understood for for a long time. Um, you know, I
Speaker 1: was married. I've been married and have you know, kids
Speaker 1: for forever. Basically my sons are not and twenty three.
Speaker 1: And you know, I couldn't if I made one bad
Speaker 1: decision at the table, it could really affect my life.
Speaker 1: And I had a wife and two kids depending on me,
Speaker 1: and I couldn't make those decisions. I remember playing poker,
Speaker 1: remember strolling into a poker room in l a And
Speaker 1: around two thousand four, and you know, I kind of
Speaker 1: kind of feels like all eyes are on me when
Speaker 1: I walk in a poker room. I feel like a U. S.
Speaker 1: President when I'm an the World Series of Poker, everybody
Speaker 1: staring at me, and you know, and I remember walking
Speaker 1: in and sitting down at like a hundred two hundred game,
Speaker 1: and there was an eight and six hundred game, and
Speaker 1: there was a four and eight hundred game, and there
Speaker 1: was a three and six hundred game. And here I
Speaker 1: sat in this game and everybody's watching me, and I
Speaker 1: know they're all judging me. Home I got Phil's playing
Speaker 1: a hundred two hundred, and it was a real it
Speaker 1: was a real uh you know, kind of hurt my
Speaker 1: pride a lot. And I said, listen, you're doing this
Speaker 1: for your wife and your kids, and you're just being
Speaker 1: really smart. And you know, if people want to, you know,
Speaker 1: judge you, that's fine, be judged you know, um. And
Speaker 1: so you know, I was willing to do things like
Speaker 1: that rather than rather than risk too much money on
Speaker 1: any given day. So I think this is this is
Speaker 1: really interesting. A few things here. One is maybe a
Speaker 1: lot of people don't realize this, but tell us a
Speaker 1: little bit more about how it works. The idea of
Speaker 1: being staked. So you're entering these six tournaments, people are
Speaker 1: of essentially in did in you there you're playing with
Speaker 1: their money. Explain how that how that works. Well, I've
Speaker 1: been lucky to have some really amazing friends who have,
Speaker 1: you know, wanted to invest money in me. And I've
Speaker 1: been extraordinarily lucky in that over the years, I've probably
Speaker 1: had fifty people invest money, and there's one or two
Speaker 1: that are losing and maybe they've lost a combined total
Speaker 1: of seventy. On the other hand, I've made four or
Speaker 1: five million dollars for everybody else. So you know, I
Speaker 1: try to invite anybody who's lost into my next deal.
Speaker 1: So as time has passed. Last year, I put together
Speaker 1: my first fund, and I wasn't sure how it would go.
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh my god, I need to raise five
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand dollars. You know, can I do it?
Speaker 1: So I designed a fund where I would get a
Speaker 1: ten free roll and I'd put up the first ten
Speaker 1: percent myself, so I'd be playing. And you know, the
Speaker 1: nice thing about this versus traditional traditional deals are deals
Speaker 1: where you would have make up. In other words, I
Speaker 1: would have someone staking me, and if I lost a
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand dollars straight, they would get their
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty off the top. So theoretically I'm a
Speaker 1: great poker player, I'm eventually always going to end up
Speaker 1: making that person money, but they might have to carry
Speaker 1: a three hundred thousand dollar loss for a couple of
Speaker 1: years and so you know, but in this case, it's
Speaker 1: just much cleaner just just just have your friends put
Speaker 1: in a bunch of money. So last year was my
Speaker 1: first kind of fund. My friends put in five fifty
Speaker 1: I hit for one point six million right away. And uh,
Speaker 1: and I was a little bit unlucky to not hit
Speaker 1: for more. Now for them, imagine this is beyond like
Speaker 1: the Kentucky Derby, the Kentucky every Last for two minutes.
Speaker 1: They were actually able to watch me live on television
Speaker 1: for three full days in a three hundred thousand dollar
Speaker 1: buying tournament. And if I would have gotten there in
Speaker 1: the other two events, I would have been on a
Speaker 1: live stream where they could have watched me. So it's
Speaker 1: kind of fun when you have ten of somebody in
Speaker 1: your rooting for him to be able to watch for
Speaker 1: three straight days if you want to. And so it
Speaker 1: was pretty cool. And and this year, of course, last year,
Speaker 1: I was surprised my fund sold out in like twenty
Speaker 1: three hours, and of course this year four hours. And
Speaker 1: and I could have raised a million dollars and four
Speaker 1: hours if I wanted to. And of course that will
Speaker 1: all go away if I'm not successful. So there's a
Speaker 1: lot of pressure on me because I took my friends
Speaker 1: money in for the latest fund. So and it's only
Speaker 1: six or seven events, I think, so Phil forgive me
Speaker 1: if this is a really simplistic question, but what happens
Speaker 1: if the worst occurs and you do lose all your money,
Speaker 1: and you do lose your bankroll, then what's like the
Speaker 1: next step for you? If I lost the fund um
Speaker 1: and then several of my friends would lose sixty six
Speaker 1: thousand dollars or whatever, it's okay, they're all super wealthy, um,
Speaker 1: But it's not really okay because I really want to win.
Speaker 1: But I think next year, if I tried to raise
Speaker 1: six million dollars and four or five hours, I would
Speaker 1: be able to do it again. So I think for them,
Speaker 1: it's just really fun and they want to support and
Speaker 1: they want to be involved, and they know how much
Speaker 1: money I've made my other friends, So it feels like,
Speaker 1: you know, it feels like I'm good for a while,
Speaker 1: unless somehow I my poker skills suddenly mysteriously disappear. For
Speaker 1: me to lose all of my money is almost unimaginable,
Speaker 1: I'd have to you know, I'm just way too conservative
Speaker 1: to to put all of my money at play, or
Speaker 1: even you know, ten percent of it right off the bat.
Speaker 1: In our conversation, we talked about and I said, it
Speaker 1: was interesting how you have this reputation for these tirades
Speaker 1: at the table, but you don't go on tilt. You
Speaker 1: don't let those tirades turn into a string of bad decisions.
Speaker 1: And you mentioned that when you played poker in your twenties,
Speaker 1: you used to go on tilt. Explain what happened. How
Speaker 1: did you plug that leak in your game, so to speak,
Speaker 1: How did you how did you turn it around and
Speaker 1: avoid this sort of mental mistakes? Really give us some
Speaker 1: of the details about how you work. Okay, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: answer that. I'll also say that. I'll also say that,
Speaker 1: you know, with my autobiography, Poker Brat, I'm also launching
Speaker 1: my next book, So Poker Brack comes out August onet
Speaker 1: and I'm doing this book right after that's called Positivity
Speaker 1: and Positivity I'm really excited about. It's kind of like
Speaker 1: my how to Achieve Great Things in Life book. And
Speaker 1: so the number one principle as we're all in the
Speaker 1: right place at the right time, which I think is
Speaker 1: really interesting. You know. The second principle is hate hurts
Speaker 1: you and I have some you know, five amazing principles.
Speaker 1: But let's go back to your question first. For you know,
Speaker 1: as far as as far as being able to control
Speaker 1: yourself at the table, I do think that getting rid
Speaker 1: of all that negativity in the moments, in other words,
Speaker 1: kind of going on a tire rde How could you
Speaker 1: do that? What were you thinking? Blah blah blah blah blah. Um.
Speaker 1: It seems like that kind of got rid of it
Speaker 1: rather than I think some people keep all of those
Speaker 1: internalize all those bad beats, and then you have the
Speaker 1: new generation which plays literally two hundred hands per hour
Speaker 1: at sites and take bad beats all the time, and
Speaker 1: so they just think nothing of it. They think my
Speaker 1: behavior is absurd. How could it matter to you? Feel?
Speaker 1: I played a thousand hands today in five hours, and
Speaker 1: I took four bad beats and I just didn't even blink.
Speaker 1: So um. But for me, what I try to do
Speaker 1: when I'm really emotional is I try to take stock
Speaker 1: of exactly where I am and exactly how many chips
Speaker 1: I have, what the blinds are. So after a really
Speaker 1: horrible beat, if I'm really on my game, I can
Speaker 1: count down my chips. Okay, I have ten thousand, four
Speaker 1: hundred left, Okay, what are the blinds? Two hundred four hundred? Okay,
Speaker 1: how long till the break? And it's three or four
Speaker 1: questions like that that just kind of puts me back
Speaker 1: in and I realized, oh, you know what, you're still
Speaker 1: all right, you still have a chance to win this,
Speaker 1: and the three or four questions you know, post tirade
Speaker 1: that and then and then hopefully there are years where
Speaker 1: I don't have very many tirades for a couple of months,
Speaker 1: and you know, of course that's disappointing to the sands
Speaker 1: and the players at the table. They all want to
Speaker 1: see that, and it's kind of like the John McEnroe
Speaker 1: show war. I just want to say, when when I
Speaker 1: was talking to Tracy earlier, I said, oh, he's kind
Speaker 1: of like the John McEnroe of poker. So I already
Speaker 1: got when we were having a conversation earlier, I got
Speaker 1: that in all right, we're going to take a short
Speaker 1: break for a message from our sponsor, but knowledge to
Speaker 1: work and grow your business with c I T. From
Speaker 1: transportation to healthcare to manufacturing. C i T offers commercial lending, leasing,
Speaker 1: and treasury management services for small and middle market businesses.
Speaker 1: Learn more at c I T dot com. Put Knowledge
Speaker 1: to work and we are back phil. Before the break,
Speaker 1: you mentioned briefly the idea of some players nowadays playing
Speaker 1: like multiple rapid fire hands on online poker sites. And
Speaker 1: I have to say, in my extensive research of poker
Speaker 1: before we started this podcast, I did come across some
Speaker 1: online players who seem to suggest that they don't really
Speaker 1: like you. They don't really like the way that you
Speaker 1: play poker. They think you make mathematically incorrect decisions. Um,
Speaker 1: what's your response to that? No, I really I do
Speaker 1: love that question, um, because it opens up a whole
Speaker 1: kind of fun can of worms for me. So you
Speaker 1: have to understand that these guys are some really great
Speaker 1: UH players out there that are completely mathematically based, and
Speaker 1: they come up with amazing elegant theories, and it's it's
Speaker 1: kind of fun to watch and see. But I can
Speaker 1: read their elegant theories and about ten minutes, Oh, you're
Speaker 1: doing this for this reason, that for that reason, and
Speaker 1: you can dig in a little bit deeper. Maybe it
Speaker 1: takes a couple of hours to fully kind of grasp it.
Speaker 1: But for a as a professionals studied his whole life poker,
Speaker 1: I see their theories in about ten minutes and then
Speaker 1: and then but what they can never have? What I
Speaker 1: have they can never have. You can't buy it, you
Speaker 1: can't you know, it's not for sale. And that's you know,
Speaker 1: great reading ability, which you know I sometimes term as
Speaker 1: white magic um only because the black magic just sounded
Speaker 1: like it was so negative. Um, I didn't want to
Speaker 1: be known as some wizard that you know doing black
Speaker 1: magic um. And and it's like one of the one
Speaker 1: of the really great young players. I was trying to
Speaker 1: explain to him why folded a hand and I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: I thought he was really strong, and He's like, what
Speaker 1: what He couldn't even understand that I was using what
Speaker 1: it would call reads white magic, you know, understanding what
Speaker 1: your opponents have understanding. You know, last night or a
Speaker 1: couple of nights ago, was playing poker and my my
Speaker 1: reads kind of kicked in and it was great because
Speaker 1: sometimes they're not there all the time, or I'd probably have,
Speaker 1: you know, twenty eight world championships. I mean, fourteen is
Speaker 1: great and and I've got you know, there's three people
Speaker 1: with ten that are chasing me for all time history.
Speaker 1: But I might have twenty eight if my reds were
Speaker 1: all there. So yeah, poker's a very um it's just
Speaker 1: not encompassed entirely by mathematics. It's impossible, and so you
Speaker 1: can come along ways with just math and poker, but
Speaker 1: you still have to steer somebody down, you know, And
Speaker 1: when when when anybody's trying to bluff a million dollars,
Speaker 1: they're giving away signals that they're bluffing, And when I'm
Speaker 1: at my best, I read those signals better than anybody else.
Speaker 1: And so I think that's kind of the explanation. If
Speaker 1: you want to be great, great grade at hold them,
Speaker 1: um and nolamit hold them. You have to be able
Speaker 1: to bet at all and not let them detect your bluffing.
Speaker 1: And you have to even more importantly, be able to
Speaker 1: determine when they're bluffing all of their chips and then
Speaker 1: make a great call. And sometimes that create creates crazy
Speaker 1: situations where you know, I'm calling like three million dollars
Speaker 1: with bottom pair, you know, because really really weak holding.
Speaker 1: You know. Yeah, sure it's nice when you when you
Speaker 1: have you know, four of a kind and someone bluffs
Speaker 1: all in, but you know, oftentimes you're caught in these
Speaker 1: really weird spots. And so if you can make that
Speaker 1: amazing call, then you're going to win the tournament. And
Speaker 1: if you can't, you won't. So the World Series of
Speaker 1: Poker is coming up, you mentioned you're in the lead.
Speaker 1: You have fourteen bracelets, more than anyone else. People are
Speaker 1: trying to chase you. How do you prepare it for this?
Speaker 1: And for people who don't know, the World Series of
Speaker 1: Poker is not just one tournament, but many, many tournaments,
Speaker 1: and you enter several how do you prepare for what's
Speaker 1: coming up? What are you doing right now? Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, so I make a lot of appearances, um,
Speaker 1: and I do you know, I work for a lot
Speaker 1: of companies. Uh, you know, I have pieces of you know, Chemo, Sabbi, Me, Mescal.
Speaker 1: We were the you know, uh, we were official spirit
Speaker 1: of Self by Southwest. I'm involved with music Headphones. We
Speaker 1: signed Michael Jordan and Drake and Kevin Hard. I'm on
Speaker 1: the advisory board of that. So I'm a little bit
Speaker 1: it feels like I'm a little bit busy. And then
Speaker 1: writing the book, for God's sakes, I was writing words
Speaker 1: a day for months. I mean it was just so grueling.
Speaker 1: You're just not sleeping, well, you're always thinking about the book.
Speaker 1: And so and then I made a bunch of appearances.
Speaker 1: I had to go to the East coast, Vegas, and
Speaker 1: so about five weeks ago, I said, that's it. I'm
Speaker 1: shutting it down. And so basically I was trying. It
Speaker 1: might sound funny to you, I was trying to get
Speaker 1: myself into a state of boredom almost so the first
Speaker 1: two two and a half weeks, I just didn't do much,
Speaker 1: but I felt like I was sleeping eleven hours a day,
Speaker 1: you know, just kind of getting caught up from a
Speaker 1: lot of intensity. And then you know, three or four
Speaker 1: weeks in, I was a little bit bored, which I
Speaker 1: think was great. And um, and you're just resting because
Speaker 1: I know that the World Series of Poker. For example,
Speaker 1: I go to Vegas Thursday, okay, and then I'm not
Speaker 1: leaving Vegas again until June twenty. I'm gonna do a
Speaker 1: bunch of live you know. Um, I think it was
Speaker 1: announced that ESPN is going to be doing the World
Speaker 1: Series of Poker today. It was announced, and so either
Speaker 1: I'm going to be playing twelve days straight at the
Speaker 1: World Series of Poker or I'll be doing the commentary.
Speaker 1: So that's live on ESPN every day. It's a very intense,
Speaker 1: long stretch, and so I try to rest up as
Speaker 1: much as I can. It's really funny that it seems
Speaker 1: like working out has been backfiring. I worked out in
Speaker 1: thirteen and sixteen and then my worst series, So I'm
Speaker 1: trying to instead of exercise this year. You know, it's weird,
Speaker 1: doesn't make sense to me. I'm like, this can't And
Speaker 1: I was stupid because I just worked out for six
Speaker 1: weeks straight every day or whatever every other day, just
Speaker 1: saying this couldn't possibly be hurting me. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes you know, there's mysterious reasons and I'm not fully
Speaker 1: you know, a tune as to why that could happen.
Speaker 1: But this year, you know, I'll be doing a lot
Speaker 1: of walking instead of working out. And then you know,
Speaker 1: for me, I also spent twelve fourteen days in February
Speaker 1: blank poker every day with kind of like maybe three
Speaker 1: or four of us talking about hands every day. I
Speaker 1: put in a huge amount of effort. I improved several
Speaker 1: of my games just by studying and playing, and I
Speaker 1: won two tournaments just messing around, just trying to learn
Speaker 1: and get better. And uh, and so I put that
Speaker 1: working in February. I feel good about that and I'm
Speaker 1: well rested, So I think it's just going to be
Speaker 1: a lot of fun. But you know, when you're in
Speaker 1: Vegas May eighteenth through July third. That's a long time.
Speaker 1: It's pretty hot there too. It's a desert man, Phil.
Speaker 1: I'm just curious, if so much of your skill set
Speaker 1: is about reading people, then when you prepare for upcoming tournaments,
Speaker 1: do you try to study the individual people that you
Speaker 1: think you'll be competing against, or does reading people like
Speaker 1: are there basic things that apply to everyone, or do
Speaker 1: you try to seek out specific weaknesses of your opponents.
Speaker 1: That's another great question for me in this case. What
Speaker 1: I was primarily trying to focus on two things. The reads.
Speaker 1: The reading ability is it's a naturally there and it's
Speaker 1: a very strange thing. I think of it as like
Speaker 1: a baseball player. So sometimes you have to cover off
Speaker 1: the ball and then you go into a slump, and
Speaker 1: if you look at it, it's kind of like a
Speaker 1: sign wave right up down, up down, and and maybe
Speaker 1: that sign wave lasts over months. And it's great for
Speaker 1: me when the World Series of Poker happens to be
Speaker 1: at the top of one of the biggest sign waves
Speaker 1: where I'm really reading people. Well, beyond that, I spend
Speaker 1: you know, we play say six different games. Okay, so
Speaker 1: we play hold them. We also play oh Maha and
Speaker 1: Seven Cards Stud and you know, Seven Cards Stud Low,
Speaker 1: and um, so I spent a lot of time playing
Speaker 1: the other games learning and that's that's basically, um just
Speaker 1: what hand should I play? When should I play? And
Speaker 1: so I learned a lot and so after you know,
Speaker 1: kind of in Texas hold them. I have twelve world Championships. Well,
Speaker 1: the next closest guy has three, So I'm so far
Speaker 1: out in front it's kind of scary and hold them.
Speaker 1: And so I've kind of been you know, hold the
Speaker 1: Master for a long time. But all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: out of nowhere, I started playing Seven Card Low and
Speaker 1: I won two bracelets in a second in the last
Speaker 1: five years, which is the best record in history in
Speaker 1: that game. And so I'm like, you know what, why
Speaker 1: can't I have the best record in history in all
Speaker 1: six games. I'll just have to work really hard and
Speaker 1: just keep learning and absorbing and getting better. And so
Speaker 1: now you know, I'm kind of hoping to win bracelets
Speaker 1: and other events and really do something special in the
Speaker 1: poker world. Do you avoid getting bored by mixing up
Speaker 1: your games and by setting new challenges and games where
Speaker 1: you haven't previously been as successful or played as much. Yes, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: I think, and you know, the last week has been
Speaker 1: really fun. I've gone to a bunch of Warriors games
Speaker 1: and I sit with the owners on the lore. I
Speaker 1: haven't been bored the last few weeks as we've also
Speaker 1: been playing some high stakes poker games in my neighborhood. Um,
Speaker 1: so that's been fun. I call that the Masters of
Speaker 1: the Universe poker game. I talked about that in my
Speaker 1: book a lot, and I think last night I won
Speaker 1: seventy four thousand dollars, so it was a good So
Speaker 1: I mean it's not well, I guess I'm something too
Speaker 1: much time bragging. Let me switch switch directions here and
Speaker 1: answer your question and say, in order to learn new
Speaker 1: things in this game, in order to hit the next level,
Speaker 1: it's not just about reading books, because you can do
Speaker 1: that and not learn enough. It's about talking to the
Speaker 1: best players in the world. So I think that, you know,
Speaker 1: I think that Mike the Mouth Mattaso is the best
Speaker 1: almost eight a better player in the world. And so
Speaker 1: I spent some time with him and another great player
Speaker 1: kind of learning some new things. And so to me,
Speaker 1: I have access to the greatest poker players in the world,
Speaker 1: and they're all willing to give me information because I
Speaker 1: just want to ask me questions about hold them and
Speaker 1: and so there's a quid pro quo there and and
Speaker 1: so yeah to me. And then you also have to
Speaker 1: be in the heat of the moment, because if you're not,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter, right. So that's why playing tournaments every
Speaker 1: day for fourteen days in February and just studying with
Speaker 1: the best in the world at each specific game was
Speaker 1: extraordinarily helpful for me. When you look to the future
Speaker 1: of poker, do you think you know in person table
Speaker 1: games are here to stay or do you think increasingly
Speaker 1: it's going to be dominated by online players. Well, see,
Speaker 1: for me, very interesting. So when you when I, when
Speaker 1: I came up in poker, the best players in the
Speaker 1: world were great at reading people. So the bunch of guys,
Speaker 1: I mean, I wouldn't use the word psychic, a bunch
Speaker 1: of guys that were just great at reading people. And
Speaker 1: they just kept making great moves and rising up and
Speaker 1: winning all the money in poker. And then all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, a blessing for me. Really in oh three,
Speaker 1: oh four, oh five, we had literally a hundred million
Speaker 1: and people throughout the globe start to play poker. And
Speaker 1: it turns out that the guys that the group that
Speaker 1: rose to the top did not have great reading abilities
Speaker 1: and was not great at disguising themselves when they were betting.
Speaker 1: In other words, they were just sitting there playing two
Speaker 1: hundred three hundred hands an hour. I have great skill sets,
Speaker 1: they don't get tired easily, they don't go on tilt um,
Speaker 1: but they didn't have great reading abilities and they couldn't
Speaker 1: disguise themselves. And so then all of a sudden, all
Speaker 1: these guys made you know, millions and tens of millions
Speaker 1: of dollars and flooded into the poker world. But to me,
Speaker 1: they were all super easy targets. Oh my god, here's
Speaker 1: a guy that can't read me, so I can just
Speaker 1: bluff him at will, and he's not even looking at me.
Speaker 1: And then here's a guy that here's a guy that
Speaker 1: every time he bluffs like his less finger shakes or whatever.
Speaker 1: You know. So it went from a very kind of
Speaker 1: sophisticated reading game two more just jammed up with math,
Speaker 1: and so for me it was a bonanza. And so
Speaker 1: you know, I just made tons of final tables. I mean,
Speaker 1: we'd have, you know, one tournament I wanted players, another
Speaker 1: one at players, and it was just a matter of
Speaker 1: just beating the players at your table over four days
Speaker 1: and so you know, and I started, So it was
Speaker 1: it was great for me. And now there's been just
Speaker 1: a little bit of a shake up because these you know,
Speaker 1: these kind of online phenomens and talents have gotten better
Speaker 1: at reading and but there's still a huge percentage that
Speaker 1: that's really not into basically what poker really is. And
Speaker 1: and so it's still good for me. But can you
Speaker 1: imagine then for some reason all of the people who
Speaker 1: were great at reading people, some of them switched to
Speaker 1: online poker and they and they couldn't compete with those guys. Well,
Speaker 1: I just stayed in the real world for the most part.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, I like competing against uh that. Now,
Speaker 1: of course, there are a bunch of great young airs
Speaker 1: now that that have both rights, that that just know
Speaker 1: the math in and out and have great reads. So, Phil,
Speaker 1: I think you know, I'm gonna wrap up. I want
Speaker 1: to ask you one more question. I know you want
Speaker 1: to talk about positivity, and so let's wrap this up.
Speaker 1: I mean, we all get into modes, whether we're at
Speaker 1: a poker table, whether we're trading, whether we're at work
Speaker 1: or something else. You get negative, You make bad decisions.
Speaker 1: They feed on each other. You dig in, you burn out.
Speaker 1: I do think it's very interesting that you know, your
Speaker 1: your focus on positivity does seem to contrast with your reputation.
Speaker 1: But real quickly, how do you snap into a positive mood?
Speaker 1: How do you maintain that? Because it's so easy to
Speaker 1: lose it? It is, and and you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: of course I'm great at losing it too, you know, Um,
Speaker 1: obviously my nickname is the poker brat, right, Um, But
Speaker 1: I mean the positivity stuff for me, it's really important.
Speaker 1: You know. It's some little tricks like you know, writing
Speaker 1: down on your bathroom, your your blessings really important. And
Speaker 1: I can tell you if you think about it a lot,
Speaker 1: you'll always put at the top of your list your health.
Speaker 1: If you have great health, that's always the number one thing.
Speaker 1: It goes above family, it goes above everything. Help. If
Speaker 1: you don't have health, you really don't have anything. So
Speaker 1: having a list, and and you know my list on
Speaker 1: my bathroom mere great health, you know, great wife and
Speaker 1: children and great health for them. And then fourteen World
Speaker 1: Championships and then the best selling New York Times bestsellers
Speaker 1: and all the other stuff. But you have to have
Speaker 1: that's a really great thing to have, you know, a
Speaker 1: list of blessings on your mirror. And next up, I
Speaker 1: have a list of goals. And so you know, when
Speaker 1: I'm brushing my teeth, I can see my goal list.
Speaker 1: And that's for that year, two thousand seventeen. Goals, you know,
Speaker 1: when three World Series of poker bracelets, you know, make
Speaker 1: sure that Poker breats and New York Times bestseller, you know,
Speaker 1: make sure that I write positivity and get it out
Speaker 1: by the end of the year. You know, just some
Speaker 1: of my goals. And so I think when I look
Speaker 1: at that bathroom mirror and whether I'm consciously or unconsciously
Speaker 1: seeing it, number one, it's shifting my mood towards Wow,
Speaker 1: there's a lot to be thankful for. And this is
Speaker 1: what I want to accomplish today. And you know, it's
Speaker 1: just some of the tricks that I use to kind
Speaker 1: of keep me, you know, positive, and um so yes,
Speaker 1: staying positive, I think is huge. And of course you'll
Speaker 1: probably see me on television whining way too much, acting
Speaker 1: like a poker brat, but those that that's really about,
Speaker 1: you know, one percent two percent of my poker life
Speaker 1: is like that, maybe three and it's you know, one
Speaker 1: tenth of one percent of my regular life. But the
Speaker 1: poker brat has been very good to me, you know,
Speaker 1: being the bad boys a lot of perks. All right, Phil,
Speaker 1: this is a great conversation. I think people listening to
Speaker 1: it will come away not thinking you're a brad at all.
Speaker 1: Really appreciate you coming on, and of course you wish
Speaker 1: you good luck in the upcoming world series. Thanks guys,
Speaker 1: all the traders out there risk class of money. I
Speaker 1: love that perfect ending. So, Tracy, I know you went
Speaker 1: into that conversation feeling nervous, but how do you feel now?
Speaker 1: I have so many questions, Joe? What is no limit?
Speaker 1: Hold him? Oh no, I'm chuffy now. Um. I thought
Speaker 1: it was fascinating. He wasn't nearly as bradish as I
Speaker 1: thought he might be. And I think some of the
Speaker 1: things he was talking about, you know, when it comes
Speaker 1: to playing humans versus playing mathematically oriented competitors online definitely
Speaker 1: applies to modern markets. Right, Oh yeah, absolutely, Because I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously people could take a quantitative approach and on a
Speaker 1: day to day basis um that quantitative approach might work fine,
Speaker 1: but eventually you get into a position where there's some
Speaker 1: extreme maybe you're looking at a potentially huge lass, or
Speaker 1: there's a huge run up in market, and it just
Speaker 1: seems unavoidable that emotions are bound to take over the markets,
Speaker 1: and so the ability to sort of read where we're at,
Speaker 1: to sense the emotions that are coursing through the markets
Speaker 1: out there is it's hard to imagine that I'll ever
Speaker 1: really go away. Yeah, And I thought it was interesting
Speaker 1: what he was saying about the influx of people who
Speaker 1: started playing poker online and then the idea that they
Speaker 1: all tried to move into the real world and he
Speaker 1: was able to take advantage of them. And I think
Speaker 1: there are some people out there now who would look
Speaker 1: at markets and say, so much of it is quantitatively
Speaker 1: driven right now, and valuations have gotten so far out
Speaker 1: of whack with some fundamentals that maybe we are nearing
Speaker 1: the point where human beings that are taking a sort
Speaker 1: of fundamental analysis could come in and perhaps make some money.
Speaker 1: It is encouraging that there's still a role for humans
Speaker 1: and just in generate for humans, for us, for us
Speaker 1: mirror humans. I loved what he said to about, um,
Speaker 1: how to avoid going on tilt. So the idea of
Speaker 1: asking yourself a few questions, because I mean I've played
Speaker 1: poker at low stakes with friends and even losing very
Speaker 1: tiny amounts of money had the ability to really mess
Speaker 1: you up mentally and cause bad decisions. So the idea
Speaker 1: of having a routine getting back into the sort of
Speaker 1: analytical framework by asking yourself a few questions. Um, I
Speaker 1: don't know. The whole thing I thought was very interesting
Speaker 1: and definitely I think there's more to fill than just
Speaker 1: this sort of poker bread image that you see on YouTube. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and now we also have a good excuse to go
Speaker 1: to Vegas. Right, We're going to do add thoughts poker
Speaker 1: episode from Vegas. Yes, that's the plan. Oh, we should
Speaker 1: do like all the different games. Maybe that would be
Speaker 1: a fun one. And I love that thing at the end,
Speaker 1: risk less money. That's like a great it's a great motto. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I mean it goes back to exactly what Peter
Speaker 1: Borish was saying about the fact that the people who
Speaker 1: stay in the market are actually relatively conservative, even though
Speaker 1: you think about them as these massive risk takers, Right,
Speaker 1: their survivors. Alright, Tracy, at some point we do need
Speaker 1: to play poker, though. I will see you in Vegas.
Speaker 1: This has been another episode of the Odd Lots podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Joe Wisenthal. You can follow me on Twitter at
Speaker 1: the Stalwart and I'm Tracy Alloway. I'm on Twitter at
Speaker 1: Tracy Alloway and Fills on Twitter at Phil Underscore Helmet.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. Put knowledge to work and grow your
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