Jamie Gold: Jamie Gold on Winning WSOP, Beating COVID, and Changing Poker Forever | DSH #1435

I don't know if you've heard, but a lot of us have gotten robbed and jacked and right.

So we're just targets.

And also the airlines now,

they don't look kindly upon traveling with cash.

They will take it from you and you have to sue them to get it back.

And good luck with that.

They call it civil forfeiture because you could potentially be a drug dealer.

You could be, you know, laundering money, whatever it is.

Okay, guys, got Jamie Gold here in town for the World Series.

You've been playing a lot of poker lately?

Yeah,

I've played five, I'm sorry, 10 World Series of poker events, you know, major events.

I cashed in five of them, so I'm having a good series.

It's really all about the main event, but

I had one big run.

I got really close on one of them.

And so, you know, playing the cash games almost every night.

Having a blast.

I love it, man.

It's cool to see you still have the same love for poker as you did when you won that title.

I do.

And I think I enjoy it more because there's no pressure.

And poker comes along with a lot of stress and pressure sometimes.

And I just don't have that anymore where it used to, I used to put

so much

emphasis on the winning as opposed to the process.

And now finding myself becoming a better player every year, I'm learning from everything I do and and growing.

I'm finding so much pleasure in that and being able to help younger players who

may or may not

have the right path and understand that there's so much more to poker than simply the cards.

That

I'm very into the diet, sleep patterns, the hydration,

all the aspects that can make it

when we're playing 15 hours a day for 10 days straight sometimes.

So much of it has to do with your sleep and your diet and hydration and everything you're doing right outside the table.

And so so many people forget about that part of it and they think it's just about the cards.

And of course that's important, but there's so much more to it when you're playing in these

mental and physical marathons that people used to think I was nuts because I would talk about hyperbaric oxygen.

I would talk about peptides and far-infrared sauna and

ozone therapy.

And now I'm doing total plasma exchange, you know, at Fit9 in Atlanta, where it just hasn't been available in the United States, but it is now.

I haven't heard of that one.

Yeah,

total plasma exchange.

So, what they do is they hook up both of your arms.

They take, it looks like a reel-to-reel, remember the old reel-to-reel.

Yeah, yeah.

And they put your blood through this machine and they clean all of your blood.

So if we're living in America, but really anywhere in the world, we're exposed to microplastics and mold.

If, you know, I lived on the beach for 25 years, I was exposed to mold and the food and air that we're breathing, right?

And the water that we're drinking out of, sometimes out of these plastic bottles that the microplastics, everything that we're exposed to in life now is so toxic that you can actually fully clean your blood.

Now, a lot of people will say, well, how do you know that it's working?

I felt amazing.

That was one thing.

I had some really serious medical issues from COVID.

I was one of the earliest, really harsh.

I flatlined twice

during that time.

I was supposed to be gone.

Holy crap.

Yeah, I was supposed to be put on a ventilator.

I don't know if you heard when they were putting people on the ventilator.

Everyone that I saw go into the ventilator never came back.

You know, we all became friendly in the hospital because we were all stuck there for so long.

So I refused it.

Somehow got lucky.

I also had to refuse the vaccine.

It's not that I didn't believe in vaccines in general.

Like, you know, as a child, having the vaccines, that there's a lot, you know, it's not a simple yes or no as a vaccine.

Okay, some of them are, some of them are not, but rushing this one.

And now what we found out about it, I, I mean, I told my mother to take it.

So it's not like I would never take anything.

It was just, but I think that was a mistake.

And I got lucky that I was in such a bad spot that I said I couldn't take, you know, whatever they called it,

I had pre-existing conditions.

But everything that I've now done and everything that I'm now doing, it was really because of my best friend, Grant Haas,

has always been

ahead of the curve and, you know, maybe 10 to 15 years ahead.

We were talking about stem cells 15 years ago.

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It's sleek, portable, and honestly, I don't go anywhere without it.

I go.

And again, people thought we were a little nutty.

And so we have hyperbaric oxygen in our home, you know, in

each of our homes.

And so we take all of this very seriously.

But what I've now been doing with total plasma exchange is

it cleans your blood completely.

So I took a blood test before I went.

Oh, I also was eating way too much sushi, parasites, right?

And heavy metals.

So

just on here, one example is my heavy metal poisoning, especially from mercury.

It was, let's say, a normal number is 10.

You'd want to get it under 30.

I was at 350.

Oh, my God.

Yeah.

But I was eating, you know, I eat at Nobu almost every night.

A spicy tuna.

Exactly.

And so now I'm eating much less raw fish.

You know, I still eat at Nobu all the time, but I just, I just don't do the same diet that I was doing.

But, but, so we checked all of the medical issues that I was concerned about in my blood tests, you know, metabolic testing, not the 10 things that every normal doctor does.

I'm talking about 200 things that you can test.

All of those markers went down, a lot of them by 90%, but they're all better.

And as you can tell, like I'm not having any issues.

I'm not having any medical issues.

I'm playing almost every day, 15 hours a day.

Wow.

Really focused.

Sometimes I get a little tired, but

when you hit 50, you're going to get a little bit tired.

A lot of time.

And so there's only so much you can do,

but I feel amazing.

And I feel so fortunate that I've been exposed to this.

And most people don't even know, like you hadn't heard of it, but you're interested in these kinds of things.

They don't even know that it's available.

They've been using it, by the way.

This is not some new technology.

When you're on your deathbed, sometimes in a hospital, they will then prescribe a total plasma exchange to try to save your life.

Wow.

But it can actually help prevent and cure so many things.

You don't have to be dying in order to take this.

And so it takes a couple of hours,

but no, no pain, no stress.

They make it really easy, really simple.

And yeah, it's the one place that I've known that I'm so comfortable going where they have everything.

Nice.

They have peptides.

They have the hyperbaric.

They have the far infrared sauna.

They have the cold plunge.

They have everything there at Fit9 in Atlanta.

I've just been so lucky to

have been introduced to them.

Yeah.

So when you had that near-death experience, were you super unhealthy at the time during COVID?

I mean, no, not compared to the average person.

I've, for the last, let's say, 30 years, I've been eating, you know, I don't eat fast food.

I eat as clean as possible.

I like to know where my food is coming from.

I'm probably a little more annoying about it than,

you know, than my friends would have loved.

You know, I only go to certain restaurants

and I do like to find the best meals every night that I can find.

And, you know, I've trusted Nobu as one of those, especially here in Vegas.

I just went to the Virgin one the other night.

Oh, how was it?

Good.

Shout out to Nobu.

They got a few in Vegas, a few locations.

They do.

They do.

And I lived right down the street from the one in Malibu for 25 years, 20 years since they were there.

And then the one in New York, I grew up on 57th and 6th, and that's Nobu 57 right there.

And so it's just been in and around my life.

I've always loved

those restaurants.

But so I've been eating clean,

and I don't really drink much alcohol anymore, but I used to.

have a little more fun than I should.

But I would say that on the scale of, you know, one to 10, 10 is the ultimate and one is unhealthy.

I was somewhere in the eight and nine range, and so it's you know, I wasn't like I'm not working out every single day, I'm not doing everything that I can, but relatively, metabolically, um,

my health was pretty good until COVID.

And in December of 2019, I got the worst version of it.

I stopped breathing, I turned, I don't know what you want to call it.

My mom said it was gray.

I was visiting my parents.

I was visiting, sorry, my mom mom in New York.

And two days before, if it had happened two days earlier,

I would have been gone because she found me when I wasn't breathing, got me to a hospital.

And I was living by myself in L.A.

And I just happened to be visiting my mom.

Otherwise, I'd be gone.

Then it happened again, you know, a short period later where I flatlined and it would have all been over.

But this one doctor said, I know exactly what's going on with you.

They sent me home twice.

They said I had pneumonia.

Then they misdiagnosed and said I might have, because my arms stopped working, my legs stopped working.

They said, you probably have MS, you probably have ALS, you probably have Parkinson's.

It was all, I went to seven different really high-level doctors.

It's not their fault.

They had never seen anything like COVID before.

Remember when the blood clots were covering everyone's lungs?

And that's what was happening to me.

It was blood clots.

That's why I stopped breathing.

And they had no idea.

How could so many blood clots come up out of nowhere?

But it was all based on the earliest version.

I had the December 2019.

And then by March, April, they were talking about COVID.

But I think what happened is

I was visiting a friend in Miami,

and he said that a lot of the people around us had gotten sick and that they had traveled from Italy or Asia.

And I guess, you know, sooner or later, it just kind of spreads.

And so I was one of the first patients that any of my doctors in New York had ever seen.

And it was really scary.

And people usually ask me, all right, so did you see the white light?

Did you, did, did anything happen when you died?

Nothing.

Wow.

No life flash.

I did not see anything.

But what I do know is that I was fighting to live because I am sure, I'm convinced that if I gave up, if I said, all right, I had enough because I was, you know, struggling and not well,

I'd be gone.

Wow.

But I tried my hardest.

I did not want to go.

You felt like you still had more to give?

Oh, yes, absolutely.

And I just felt like my life should not be cut short at 50, you know, or whatever I was, maybe 48 then.

And so

I just, I fought.

And I know that for sure that had something to do with it.

And, you know, most scientists and doctors that I've ever spoken to about it said that has a lot to do with it because you can give up.

You can just let it go.

And when you stop breathing, it's all over and you just don't care.

And, you know, if somebody's, let's say you're 95 and you're in a lot of pain and you're going, you might just let yourself go.

I've heard so many stories of like grandparents wanting to see their kids one last time.

And then as soon as they see them, they pass away.

Yes.

I've heard so many stories of that.

Yeah.

So I believe that that's what happened to me.

But what I've learned from all of it and how many people now I've been able to help, and it was all because because people were helping me.

You know, one of my, my dearest friends, Dori Zuckerman, introduced this spray to me, which is all natural.

It's a zincum iodatum spray.

It's not on the market yet.

But I still, even once I survived, I was having a all day, every day, I couldn't catch my breath.

Long COVID, right?

Exactly.

I had long COVID.

And I was in a group.

They had these Facebook groups back then, you know, and a Facebook group was the only place we were all just saying, what do we do?

How do we help each other?

And I hope you guys are enjoying the show.

Please don't forget to like and subscribe, it helps the show a lot with the algorithm.

Thank you.

There were maybe 10,000 people in it, and within a year, there were over a million.

Holy crap, in one Facebook group, yes, that's insane.

And long COVID was the theme, and it or people just suffering, not knowing what to do.

And so,

my friend Dory had come back from Italy with the worst version of COVID that she could imagine.

And she took this spray that was created 30 years ago for SARS.

And within 24 hours, I was basically cured from all of my bronchial, my breathing problems, everything.

And then they found that they were giving it to COVID patients.

And it was curing COVID.

And then it was stopping COVID.

So if you take it before now, I won't go anywhere without it.

If I go on a plane, I spray.

And then people told, you know, my friends who were on the plane with me said, I don't believe in any of that.

Okay.

And then they all got sick.

I was the only one who didn't get sick.

This has happened so many times.

Can you imagine a poker table?

We're all passing chips and cards around and people coughing on each other.

I heard the World Series, everyone gets sick.

I have not.

Wow.

And I'm sure that because

they've given it to thousands of doctors, this is how they're testing it.

Doctors that are usually, you know, either medical or naturopath, you know, alternative.

And the doctors are seeing COVID.

This was during heavy COVID.

We're seeing COVID patients all day.

None of them got sick if they were taking.

And the ones who didn't take it who said, yeah, I'll try it.

And then they reported that, yeah, I didn't try it, but I got sick.

It,

it stops people from getting COVID.

Now, does the, you know, do the, uh, do the drug companies want this out there or do they want everybody taking vaccines?

But I'll send you some.

Please, because I had nasty bronchitis and

pneumonia.

Anything that has to do with

your

lung function, any kind of cough, any kind of viral infection, things like that.

This will stop it, prevent it, or actually help you heal much faster.

Again, it was created for SARS.

It's a form of zinc and iodine, but it's a different form of it.

It's all safe.

They've never had any side effects.

I just want to get this out to the world.

And so I believe that

we're going to be able to.

There are some large-scale companies that are really interested.

I didn't create it.

I just want to be able to tell people about it because it saved my life.

Thanks for doing that.

I know you're big on giving back.

You're big on philanthropy.

You've had hundreds of events, right?

Charity events.

That's so cool that you're doing that.

The fact that I can,

I've been so lucky.

you know i

i'm pretty good at at the production side of things and so if you can put on a live event and you have relationships with

thousands of influencers and celebrities and people that other people want to come and play with

you then just need people who have the means to spend the money, right?

So it's basically investors and people of wealth and means that can afford to come to a charity event.

And those are really the three things.

And then relationships with brands that are willing to sponsor these events.

So yeah, I've been really lucky that I could put on these events and then incorporate all the companies that I have invested in or I've worked with or that I care about or that are just generous and philanthropic themselves.

I hope you'll be able to come to I'd love to come to one.

I'd love to have one with you because I do have a sizable network of people.

Absolutely.

That'd be cool.

So yeah, the next one that we're doing is on July 23rd.

We take over, this is 13 years now.

We take over Paramount Movie Studios.

Wow.

It's a Hollywood kind of one, but it's so much fun and it's just a blast that it's always sold out.

We can only have about 800 people,

but it's always oversold.

We can't, you know, that we can't accommodate all the people that want to come every year.

But it's right where they shot The Godfather and all those legendary movies right under the arches.

And they give us this incredible red carpet space.

And it's so much fun.

And it's a casino night so that people who don't play poker can also have fun and win, you know, prizes.

And

it's beautiful.

And so many people will step up.

You know, we all just donate our time.

Nobody's being paid for any of it, no matter what people think.

That's one of my favorite parts about poker.

It brings people together.

It really does.

People have no idea how

and kind and philanthropic the overall poker community is.

Of course, there are some bad actors.

Of course, there are some people who aren't.

But in any group of millions of people, you're going to find a few negative.

But in general, the poker community is so giving and so caring.

And,

you know, this is what we call our summer camp every year.

And so for the last 19 years,

except the few years during COVID,

it feels to me because, you know, when I got lucky and won, that was my first time ever playing the main event.

And so for me, next year will be my 20th year that I've been

playing poker tournaments in any way whatsoever.

Some years I don't play any and some years I'll play 10 of them.

But I try to just focus on the larger ones.

And, you know, I've had a decent amount of success.

I've been very fortunate.

And so, you you know, a lot of people think I just played one poker tournament and then disappeared, but it's not the case.

You said you got lucky in one.

Like a lot of people would think you got lucky.

Does that annoy you?

No, no, not at all.

Because it's, first of all, there's, you know, we're talking about such a wide range of, let's say there are.

Couple hundred million, if you count Asia, 500 million people in the world that really, that care about poker in some way or another.

And in America let's say it's 60 to 80 million people

so of all of those people

a lot of them don't really understand what we do when we play a main event poker tournament meaning it's 15 hours a day 10 days straight

you're playing thousands of hands

and so when they and back then when they only now they'll show you you know like let's say you know 50 hands in a row or 100 hands in a row back then they were just showing one out of every like five hours.

So they would show, they maybe showed 10 clips of what I was doing.

And they would show the most exciting hands when I, you know, had these huge hands.

And so a lot of people thought that was, that I was getting, you know, what we call the nuts, that I was getting the perfect hand every single time.

They didn't understand that there were hundreds of hands leading up to each one that they saw where nothing was happening, where you had to make something out of nothing.

So when people tell me, oh, you got so lucky, first of all, you have to get lucky to win, to beat 9,000 people and to win a major poker event.

There are going to be moments of luck, no matter what.

Coin flips, right?

So, absolutely, I got lucky.

Um, but was it just pure sitting down and winning the lottery, not doing anything?

No, yeah, um, there was a lot, I worked very hard to be able to, you know, to be able to hang.

I knew I couldn't compete with the best in the world, so I had to figure out, you know, a way, way, a style

that was working throughout LA with a lot of the best players in the world were in L.A.

at that time.

And so I was testing out with Johnny Chan and Barry Greenstein and Darl Brunson and, you know, so many of the great players at that time, Chris Ferguson and they were in L.A.

And so L.A.

was the capital of the poker world back then.

Now it's Vegas, but back then there were more poker tables than anywhere else in the world were in LA.

The two biggest poker rooms are still in L.A., the Bike and the Commerce, where they have hundreds of poker tables in one place.

Wow.

You know, in Vegas, it's like, you know, you're lucky if there are 20 to 40 in one room.

And so

I'm in the capital of the poker world.

I'm playing these tiny little tournaments that, you know, they didn't keep records back then of these tournaments, but I'm winning them consistently.

And the guys who were running the hustler, for example,

said, you know, do you realize how difficult it is?

There are only maybe 300 people in a tournament, but to win them, I think I won 11 out of 20 that I played within a year.

And they just said, You have no, and I didn't understand.

I was like, Oh, big deal.

They said, No, you, this is a big deal.

You're going to go and you're going to have a really good shot at winning.

Now, why was that happening?

It's because I was talking people in and out of their hands, which nobody had ever done before.

It turns out that now it's illegal to do do that.

There's a rule called the, you know, they call it the Jamie Gold rule, but I don't think it's officially called that.

It's just what people happen to call it because I hear about it all the time.

But,

you know, I just knew that that was my best shot.

So I would do what we would call like the Jedi mind trick.

And I also just decided poker players are known for.

not telling the truth, right?

They're trying to deceive their opponents.

So I just basically told the truth and I would tell people if I had the nuts or I had absolutely nothing reverse.

They would never believe me.

And, you know, it really just works one time until people figure out what I'm doing.

You know, on a big stage, it was working all the time in LA because people had no idea what was going on.

But,

you know, this one time, and it was Johnny Chan, who was kind of like my, you know, one of my poker idols.

had just said, listen, if you go to the World Series of poker and nobody has any idea how to play against you in this style.

I don't know what to do with you.

So, nobody else is going to know what to do with you.

Just do your thing, and you're going to have a really good shot.

Wow.

I love that.

He inspired me, and it all worked out.

You know, at the time, I was like, Rounders was my favorite poker movie.

And so, you know, being able to hear that from Johnny Chan telling me that I think you're going to have a really good shot.

And then once I made it to like day three, day four, he goes, you're going to win this whole thing.

Yeah.

And

thankfully, he was right.

But did I get lucky?

Of course I got lucky.

And I was so fortunate that, that things that I, when I would get it in good, I didn't get unlucky, right?

You also have to not get unlucky, right?

It's not just getting lucky.

It's not getting unlucky.

True.

Because no matter how well you play, even if you're an 80% favorite, 20% of the time, you're going to get unlucky and maybe get knocked out of the tournament or be so.

short that, you know, you then have to make decisions that you, every decision that you make is, is based on all the prior decisions.

So poker is never really about the, people tell me, well, I had this last hand and I had to shove it.

Yeah, but what led up to all of that?

Right.

What were the decisions?

Just like life, right?

I compare poker and life all the time, that the decisions you make in life will compound to then, so that you're making a decision today based on all the decisions that you made prior.

And so many things that we say, well, we had no choice.

But did we?

You didn't have a choice in that moment, but because, yeah, you had no, in poker, you had no chips left or in life, you had no money left or you had no health left or whatever it was, and you were desperate.

In poker, you get to a desperate place where you have to make a move.

But what led up to all of that?

And could you have made better decisions along the way?

And I know that so many tournaments where I bust out, it's never about that last hand.

Right.

It was all about the things that led up to all of that.

And that's great advice because people always focus on what happened at the end, whether it's poker or business or whatever.

Everything is always about, well, look, what happened to me?

And then I said, well, let's think back and tell me everything that led up to that.

And I said, well, if you didn't make this decision, it might not have put you in it, or you didn't partner with this person.

You might not have been in a toxic relationship that then created, right?

And you wouldn't have been depressed because what was depressing you?

You were in a bad relationship.

And then that made you clouded your judgment for the next, right, for the next choice.

And so

I'm on a path of constantly learning.

I'm getting, you know, I'm getting better as a poker player.

I'm getting better as a human being.

I'm, you know, I just, I try to be as impactful as possible.

But, but let me say one, I'm a huge fan of yours.

It's so impressive what you've been able to create in a short period of time.

I know you've put out like 24 million episodes.

You're just constantly working.

You put in so much time and so much effort.

And most podcasts I find are working for themselves.

They want to be popular because they want to make money.

And of course, you have to make a living.

But what I find that you're doing different is that you're providing value to your listeners.

Every time I listen to your show, I feel like I'm learning something.

And it's not always from one side of a political spectrum.

You offer, you allow guests to come on from both sides.

And you listen to people who maybe some people think they're crackpots, maybe some people think they're geniuses, but you're still giving them a microphone and you're giving them respect and you're allowing them to share.

And there is so much value that your listeners are gaining just by listening to the episodes of this show, you can, you can, you know, enhance your life.

And there are very few podcasts, there are some, but very few podcasts do that.

Most of them are just promoting themselves.

Agreed.

I appreciate that.

I really do.

Cause I see how the advice has changed my life and my health is on a whole nother level.

My mindset is rock solid.

Like my business has taken off.

Like it's just helped me in so many ways.

So I can imagine the audience is benefiting as well, which is awesome.

I'm glad that you said that because so many people think that it's when they, you know, I try to mentor and help as many people as I can.

And

when they come to me with a problem, it's very rarely that problem.

It's that they weren't healthy physically in the first place, which then put them in this position to have this problem, right?

So if you are fixing and really caring about your health, which is all that really matters in the end, right?

If we don't have health, we have nothing, right?

And all the money in the world

and you're suffering and you're sick.

Yeah, it doesn't really help you very much.

And so, you know, I really appreciate that,

you know, you're doing something to not only help the world, but you're helping yourself, which then allows people, a lot of people are even so generous and empathetic that they only think about helping other people.

But if you don't help yourself first,

which my parents always used to tell me, and I did not listen until I got much older, help yourself first.

Stop caring so much about everybody else's dreams, everybody else's needs, everybody else's wants.

Worry about yourself because the better you are, then the better you can be to everyone else.

Right.

Right.

You can impact more people.

Exactly.

And so, you know, you have such a huge future.

And I can't imagine what you're going to be able to do, whether it's this or not.

You're just going to be

successful in whatever you do because you take all of these things seriously.

And so, you know, there are so many young people that were just taught that the minute they were born, they were great and they didn't have to do anything in order to be better because their parents just told them how amazing they were.

They don't have to, if they were competing in sports, doesn't matter if you didn't play well, you're still the champ.

It's a good thing to give young people confidence, but to give them the idea that they don't have to do anything, that they don't have to work hard, that they are just automatically going.

If you're born into a billionaire family, maybe, but most people are not.

You have to work in life.

You have to provide for, you know, and the way to do that is to learn and to constantly work on yourself.

So you can then be a value to people.

Some of the advice that I like to give people when they're starting out in business, offer your services for free.

Everyone, there's this sense of entitlement that I find a lot that young people, it's not their fault.

Their parents told them, you should get a job being paid a million dollars a year because you're the greatest.

Well, good luck with that, right?

You've never done anything.

So you, so why would anybody pay you for because your parents tell you how great you are?

So what I tell them, and I followed this, is that work for free.

Find what you want to do.

I was an intern over the period of four years while I was going to college.

Every summer, my Christmas breaks, my spring break.

I went on one trip during my college years.

But otherwise, I worked all the days that I could for a famous talent agency so that I had a job waiting for me.

When I was 20 years old, I'm out of school.

I had a job waiting for me.

And other people felt like, wow, it's so difficult to get a job.

Well, not if you work for free and prove yourself.

And then they thought that I was special.

But how are they going to know how special you are if you don't offer your services when you have no value to an organization?

Provide value.

And then you'll get, even if it's just a recommendation that you're getting, that changes everything.

When somebody sees a thousand resumes, a recommendation from a valued

professional in your industry means everything.

So if somebody wants to do what you do, they should try to come and work for you for free.

I love that advice.

When I was first wanting to get into social media, I emailed Gary Vaynerchuk.

I said, I'll work.

Perfect person.

I said, I'll work for you for free.

He never answered, but I share your

he's a very difficult.

I've had a very difficult person to get in touch with because the whole world is after him.

He's such a

number one.

He went to like 2016.

And he probably got 10,000 of them.

And so it's not personal that he didn't respond to you.

It's, I've had dinner with him.

I think he's one of the most extraordinary, smart, sharp, brilliant, sees the future kind of people

that I've just been honored to, you know, to dine with.

And that would be a perfect kind of person, but you, you, you know, you do it to a hundred people in that position.

That's where I'm going to be.

Yeah, I put all my eggs into them.

But the mindset was there.

I was willing to go there.

And I think you have to be when you're starting out.

Right.

Get out of your own ego.

Take away all those thoughts that maybe, you know, these helicopter parents are just all over you telling them how special you are.

Yes, you're special, but so are 10 million other people, right?

Or 100 million other people or a billion other people.

And so, you know, just get out of your own way and offer those special services so that somebody can understand if you never get to do the job, you're never going to get to do the job.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Going back to talking during poker, though, do you think they should bring that back?

Because

I used to love watching old videos of you.

There's that Vira one of you and that kid.

I forget his name.

Yeah, I, you know,

we have to forgive him.

He was young and

didn't know what he was doing.

And there's a lot more to that.

I, I find that, that people think that I just got upset and got into it with someone who was maybe being a little bit rude.

But there were people, we were having such a nice, fun kind of, there's an energy and a flow to every table.

And it was, I don't remember exactly, but it's day four, five, six, seven.

One of those, you're deep.

And there were two people at our table that were 70s, 80s, you know, older.

And you could tell that, and we all became friendly.

And they made it clear that this was their one bucket list time.

And they never thought they would get this deep.

And

they were timid and just trying to survive.

And they were just sweet and kind.

And he came in and just started berating them and kind of yelling at them and making like, you know, you old piece of shit, you know, that like stuff really inappropriate.

And people would say, well, you talked all the time.

First of all, I was just trying to make people, I was trying to make it more fun.

Of course, I was trying to win, but if I ever insulted anybody, if anybody ever got up and they said, can you please stop?

I would instantly stop.

I never made it about trying to be rude or mean or ruin someone's time.

I was trying to make it more fun because, you know.

Sometimes 15 hours a day can get a little bit boring.

And so you try to make it, but you also don't want to, I never wanted to take over the table.

When we got to the end,

I did want to put on a show.

And, you know, for a lot of different reasons,

I did want to make it the most fun that it could be.

And there weren't really anyone else.

It wasn't really anybody else speaking.

And so I felt like, all right, so it could look like I wanted to make it my show.

It helped that I was knocking everybody out.

You know, if you knock out eight of the nine people at the final table, then, you know, it's going to be your show, probably.

But, but it was, it was, it was that he was going after the nicest, kindest people who were just trying to have a good time.

And yes, I probably cared more about everybody else than I should.

I should just be all about trying to, you know, knock everybody out.

But I was also just so excited in my first World Series book, I couldn't believe.

And he comes in and just kind of destroyed the time.

Now, again, they weren't showing all of that because they weren't filming the whole time.

They came and showed only when we really got into it.

So, one, I think people should give him a break.

You know, he was very, very young.

Let's say whatever the minimum age was, 20, 21 years years old.

And so he made a mistake.

I'm sure he knows that he was out of line and being rude to people.

But somebody had to shut him down and no one was saying anything.

And so I just felt like, all right, I'm just going to go at him and I'm going to make it my job to take him out so that he can't do this to anyone else.

So that's when we started going at it.

And so I was already kind of like, if he did the littlest thing to me, I was just going to be.

You're reactive.

Yeah.

And I felt like it was on behalf of everybody.

I felt like everyone's protector, whether I was or not.

I felt like it was my responsibility to

kind of, you know, shut him down.

Yeah.

So that's what happened there.

But with the rule, no, I think it, I, I think it hurt poker a lot that

it was so much fun back then.

And we used to have characters.

Right.

Right.

And for, for the last like, you know, I don't know how many years, 15, 18 years,

it just gets more and more kind of boring on television.

You need storylines, you need characters, even love me or hate me, you still cared, right?

And it's not just about me, I'm just using myself as an example.

It's not like I'm so exciting, it's that you have to let people speak.

And if they don't, how many times can you watch Ace King versus Queens?

It's not that exciting, right?

And also, you know, these kids, these young kids who are unbelievably talented and so sharp and mentally focused, and they're incredible, but but they don't necessarily have social skills right right they were brought up not playing outside with other kids you know i understand it's a whole new world they're just focused on a device or in a computer yep and so they come to the table

That's not great for television.

Not at all.

Right?

You need some of the old school excitement and love them, hate them, whatever it is.

But these storylines, and also, how can you create new stars?

There's a reason why,

however many of us, five, 10, 20, whatever the number is, are still really famous around the world.

Like anywhere that I go, I still, I get so much kindness and love.

And, you know, one out of a hundred is, is a hater, and that's okay.

No problem.

And, you know, they think something happened that, that I didn't pay a backer, that I never had backers.

And so it, it was just so odd, you know, during that tournament that, that,

you know, people will misunderstand a lot of it.

But I love the opportunity to explain to them.

I said, listen, this is all public record.

You can go online.

It's not my opinion that I didn't do anything wrong.

Also, would the World Series of Poker still be supporting and behind me and promoting and working with me if I had ever cheated somebody?

If I stole money from somebody, would I still be part of the whole production and all of that?

So it just doesn't make any sense that people don't use logic when they hear rumors about people.

And so, you know, like I know there's a new something going on.

Mark Cabral or something.

Well, yeah, that, but, but also, you know, something about the chip dumping.

Oh, was that the million dollar winner?

Yeah, something.

I know there's something going on, but I, people asking my opinion, I can't have an opinion on it.

I wasn't there.

I didn't see it.

I don't know exactly what happened.

And they will find out and they will figure it out.

But even after they figure it out, people will only remember what they heard about the rumor.

I heard someone cheated.

Well, what if they find that he didn't?

Are you open to the possibility that maybe he didn't maybe i didn't maybe yep you know so that it's just so funny that all my friends and family they know me as the most generous and kind and i would never cheat somebody i would never steal from somebody one i don't need it but even if i did i wouldn't go there and they just laugh and they say it's so funny how so many people have this opinion now when we say so many people let's say it's a million Well, thankfully, there's a hundred million people that don't think that.

It's ironic because you have all these charity events and you're like one of the most giving guys.

Oh, thank you.

You know what I mean?

So

I'm also not doing that to cover something.

You were doing that before, though.

Yeah, it's just the way that I am.

It's my life.

And so, you know, it's interesting, but, but I do believe that it hurt poker a lot.

And it wasn't because of me.

I just brought it all out to light that they said, we're going to enforce this rule.

That rule existed before.

It just wasn't being enforced.

And so, you know, nor should it have been.

It's a collusion thing that they're trying to stop.

But I believe if we're allowed to speak heads up, not when it's multi-way, because you can affect other people's action, but when it's heads up, if I want to turn over a card or I want to talk to you, or I want to talk about my hand, it's only affecting the two of us.

And if we do anything that's colluding, you've now got us on, you know, you've got us because we spoke about the collusion.

So now you can give us penalties or ban us or whatever you want to do.

Oh, is that why they removed it, the colluding?

They believe, yes, they said that because they could then allow people to tell people exactly what they have so that they'll go farther in the tournament.

I understand it.

They're not wrong.

I could see that.

I didn't even think about that.

They're not wrong.

But I think there's a middle ground that we can

now make people feel like they're not allowed to say anything.

You should be able to make it fun without

going against the rules.

So I try to do whatever I can without breaking the rules.

And, you know, I've still gotten a couple penalties here and there, but not at the World Series of Poker,

But at the Commerce last year, they gave me a penalty because

the action was already done.

The guy was all in, and I was thinking and thinking.

And I don't like to waste time.

I play very fast.

One, I like to play fast, but also out of respect to all the other players.

I think there should be a shot clock, by the way, in every poker tournament because people tanking is so bad for Martin Cabral.

And Martin's a whole other character.

But

I just had something.

Oh, right.

So that when we're playing heads up,

that

there are ways that we can play that can still make it really interesting for the viewer that are not, you know, that's not taking away from any kind of legitimate play and that, you know, that couldn't be collusion.

So.

So, yeah.

Yeah, I hope they bring it back.

I really do too.

And I know other people like Danny Negran who are very vocal about it, that there's got to be a way that

we can serve both sides.

And also, I do believe that poker

has so much potential.

It's getting bigger and bigger every year.

People think it's getting smaller because most of the content is behind a paywall.

And PokerGo does a fantastic job at creating and producing and sharing content, but not everyone in the public is, you know, is a die-hard fan willing to pay the monthly.

So remember when it was on ESPN, it it was so much fun and people could see it all the time.

And so I believe that it's, it's necessary.

It needs to be on Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, you know, the big streamers or

ESPN or some type of, there's so much room for content and also sponsorships where they don't realize how big this, you know, people who play golf.

There's 20 million people in America that play golf.

There's 60 to 80 million people that play poker.

It's so much easier.

You don't have to buy the clubs.

You don't have to be a a member.

It's not so expensive.

Anybody could sit down at a table and it's all democratized.

We're all equal when we all sit down at a poker table together.

And so for brands and for

content,

it's a wide open world that I don't think that they've taken advantage of, which I believe that they will.

And it will get the content's going to get better.

There's going to be more of it.

More brands will realize we have this massive game now that sports betting is legal as well over most of the country, and poker is going to be legal again in most of the places in the country, and casinos are everywhere.

I think that there's going to be a whole resurgence of content sponsors with brands, and people are going to realize what a massive opportunity that they were missing because there are characters in poker, and there are things that we can do to make stories and create entertaining poker-related and gaming-related content.

There's so much more that can be done.

Exciting future for poker.

And this whole live streaming era seems like it's another boom, too.

Absolutely.

There's so many great vloggers and bloggers and live streamers, and there's so much going on.

And I don't think that the mainstream understands how big poker is getting bigger and bigger.

I know I said this already, but it's if you look at in any metric, there are more people playing tournaments, more people playing in cash games, more people playing online than ever.

It's not, oh, let's look back at the boom.

Yeah, back then,

I had the biggest one ever, main event, right?

That was 8,773,

8,773 people.

It's now gotten up to 12,000, 13,000, whatever it is.

It's so much, that's just the main event.

Then there are these events that would have like 5,000.

Now they have 10,000 people.

People have told me the Irish Open is breaking all their events.

They're in all over the country.

Titan's killing it too.

Right.

Everyone is just growing, growing, growing.

This game is not going anywhere.

And just because you don't see it every day on television doesn't mean that it's not booming and getting bigger.

And so all the money and sponsorship that goes into golf, no offense to golfers, but we deserve five times that in poker.

That's just my opinion.

Well, good luck in the main, Jamie.

Hope you make a deep run.

Oh, my God.

Thank you so much.

You know, if it's okay,

I'd love to talk about for a minute.

Yeah.

I have these incredible sponsors, companies that I've been working with now for some of them a really long time, like BBO Poker Tables, which is the greatest poker table maker in the country and around the world.

They are so generous and so kind.

I mean, we donate 50% of all the profits of my personal poker table that we sell, but they donate to all of the charity events that I do.

They'll bring these custom tables that we can all sign and auction off.

BBO has just been unbelievable.

And then I'm also, besides, you know, a poker player and a business person,

I'm also a professional sports batter.

I've been doing it for 20 years.

We just had to keep really quiet about it because it wasn't legal.

And so it was hard to, you know, we had to find bookies and things like that.

And so

one of the companies that I'm working with now called Rhythm, which is R-I-T-H-M-M-A-I,

I used to have to spend.

like six hours to go through all the games and all the players.

And right, it's so much, if you take sports betting really seriously, it's a 24-7 job if you really want to get into it.

And I have a group of 30 people that we all share information, but it is amazing how this rhythm AI has created an algorithm.

The two partners started it at MIT.

They could have done anything they wanted with their life, but they came into sports betting to show the inefficiencies in the lines.

If people understand sports books, they're sharp, but the lines are still off, right?

And so the public can make lines move and the sharp betters can make lines move, but there are inefficiencies in the market.

And so imagine having an AI program that will tell you exactly who to bet on.

They're not giving you the picks, they're just showing you where all the inefficiencies are so that you understand that against the lines, here are your percentages, and you see everything.

You know, AI is changing the world, obviously.

And so imagine having all of that in your pocket for sports betting.

So I'm just, I'm so proud that I'm, you know, I'm a part of this company now.

And it's, it's brilliant.

Yeah, it's, it's, it's really amazing.

And then EdgeBoost

is the only dedicated Visa debit card for gamblers.

And what they've done is I used to have to travel with a couple hundred thousand dollars in cash to, I mean, think about one event costs $10,000, but I'm playing in.

you know, 10 events and then you're playing cash games and you're playing.

So let's say the minimum I would bring is $100,000 to this.

And we're targets, right?

We get, I don't know if you've heard, but a lot of us have gotten robbed and jacked, and right.

So, we're just targets.

And also, the airlines now,

they don't look kindly upon traveling with cash.

They will take it from you, and you have to sue them to get it back.

And good luck with that.

They call it civil forfeiture because you could potentially be a drug dealer.

You could be

laundering money, whatever it is.

So, I now never have to travel with cash again because all of my money you can deposit to up to $250,000 a day, and you can withdraw up to $250,000 a day.

So, you know, those crazy ATM limits, like you can't get $10,000 out of an ATM.

And if you try in your credit card, you're lucky if you get three grand and they'll charge you $600.

Yeah, fafi.

So, yeah.

So, so the things that it's changed for me, and you get cash back every month,

it's changed my life.

So, you know, that's, I'm wearing the EdgeBoost hat.

We'll link those companies below.

Yes, thank you.

I'm very proud to be a part of it.

And so,

the final one is My Standard.

And what they're doing is they're doing the ultimate World Series of Poker contest.

So what My Standard is, is I'm sure we all feel this, that our data is being used and monetized without us, stolen from us, basically, that we talk about something and all of a sudden it pops up on your phone, an ad, right?

Yeah.

They're just, which is creepy in and of itself.

But we are, our, our data is being monetized and used.

So what My Standard has done, they've been building this for three years.

They're about to launch.

And they are an app that lets you own and control your data so that you decide if you want your data to be used and you can get paid for it.

So I want to watch this commercial from this, or I want to listen to this artist, or I want to, and they'll pay you for it.

Nice.

So you can earn on your own data and then say, I only want ads from cars, casinos, and you know, and music.

And you get to decide, right?

What a great idea.

And so

they put together this contest, the ultimate World Series of Poker and Health Contest

with

my other sponsors.

And so we have 91 labs and

what we're doing is giving a Fit9 package.

So you get to, we fly them out, we put them up, we bring them to Atlanta.

They get to do the full plasma exchange.

They get to do the Ebu oxygen, ozone.

They get to do the cold plunge.

They get to do the hyperbaric oxygen, the far-infrared sauna, the peptides.

So it's a whole health package.

But then we fly you out for the main event.

We buy you in for $10,000.

I give you coaching before and then throughout.

So I'm not going to play the day that the winner plays.

So I can coach them on every break.

Now you can't talk to them while they're playing, but on the breaks, when they use the bathroom, we're allowed to coach during the breaks.

So I'm going to coach them throughout the entire main event, give them the best shot of winning.

you know, minimum 20,000, but they can also win over 10 million, depending on how many people are in it, if they make it far enough to cash, which is top 15 get paid but i'm going to give them an experience for a lifetime i'm putting them up at the world series of poker hotel where i'm staying we are we're taking them to dinner we have a limo picking them up at the airport we fly them out we're paying all the expenses and um sick yeah and then they're a second place you get a bbo poker customized table for your home or office we got to get one in here i'd love to get one here we do

um

and um and then everyone who signs up, it's free to enter.

And anyone who signs up, you know, you have to tag three friends who play poker.

And anyone who signs up gets

tokens.

So

we'll link it below.

Oh, thank you.

Yeah.

So everyone gets something

for signing up for free.

Thanks for sharing that, man.

It's been a fun episode.

Thank you for having me.

Good luck in the main again.

You're fantastic.

Check them out, guys.

Check out the family.

Appreciate these and the sponsors.

Peace.