Poker Legend Exposes the Hidden World of High Stakes | Daniel Negreanu DSH #688

Well, I think one of the worst ways we can spend our time is to have back and forth on Twitter with people who are not actually trying to have their mind changed.

Nobody is.

They're just trying to make you change yours.

So it ends up with

this endless stream of, I'm going to send you this article, read this, I'm going to send you this, I'm going to send you this, I'm going to send you this.

And then you realize you just spent 13 hours wasting your time, like banging your head against the wall.

All right, guys, we got Nebranu on today.

Poker Legend, thanks for coming on, man.

Absolutely.

No problem, man.

How was your World Series this year?

So good and bad, right?

I won, like, the most prestigious mixed game event you can, the one that I want to win.

It's called the Poker Players Championship for like 1.2 million.

So that was the good news.

The bad news is I played some other big ones and I actually didn't even make money.

But yeah, but I'll still take it because, you know, winning that one was fun.

Yeah, that's huge.

I saw that one.

Congrats.

How often are you profiting on the World Series every year?

So most of my life I profited, but I had like three, well, last this year was very small, but I've lost like three years in a row.

Wow.

Because I I don't think people don't understand what poker is like.

It's a small sample size, right?

You're only playing like 30, 40 events, and you're more often than not, you're going to have a losing period of 30, 40 because the way it's structured, right?

You rarely come first, second, or third, and that's where the big money is.

When you do, it more than compensates.

So let's say you won like one out of every three years.

You probably could still make money doing that.

And do you think since players are getting so good now, that that's also a part of it?

It definitely makes it more difficult because your edges are smaller, right?

Like 20 years ago, you know, luck wasn't as big of a factor.

But let's say you and me are equally skilled.

Let's say we're dead equal, right?

Well, luck is going to make it look like in some cases I'm way better than you, right?

Because I'll be up like, you know, a million on you.

And then all of a sudden, you know, it comes down because of just like distribution and luck.

So at the highest levels,

I think it's a lot more difficult for people to discern like who's the best.

It isn't like, you know, golf where like, okay, he shot the lowest score.

He's the best.

He played the same course as everybody else.

Poker doesn't work that way.

So it's more like who's hot that day?

Well, you know, people go through streaks, right?

So there's these situations that come up in a poker tournament, right?

Where like my equity is 50%, your equity 50%.

Whoever wins this pot has a very good chance to win the tournament now, right?

And it's totally 50-50.

If you go through a streak where you win a lot of those, like you win 80% of them, you're going to all of a sudden everyone's going to think, oh, he's the best, right?

Whereas if you go the other way and you just lose like 80% of them, people think, oh, that guy is not very good.

He never wins.

It's like, they don't understand that so much of like what separates at the highest levels, the difference between the best and like the ones underneath, will never really know

because of luck.

Like we have, you know, your peers say a lot, right?

Like sometimes your, your peers will look at a certain player and be like, this guy's really, really good.

But it's very difficult for people to separate how they play, the decisions they make, and the results that they have.

But the results actually, especially in the short run, don't tell you much at all.

They can deceive you, right?

Like you might play a poker tournament.

and you win and you think, oh, I'm so amazing at it.

When everyone around is like, this guy's terrible.

Wait till wait till reality sets in you know yeah well i'm digging a phil hellmuth when you talk about that because all the all the professional high-stakes guys say he's like average or whatever or like good but not like the goat you know what i mean so the way i always describe phil is simple right and he hates it because he can't i don't know why he wants me to acknowledge him anymore i'd say look he has the best track record in the world series of poker history ever the most bracelets you know great roi he's done so for years now That doesn't make him the best player, especially now.

There was probably a period of time where he was, you know, and, you know, was dominant.

That's not the day.

That's not today.

It's like, it's almost a little bit disrespectful to say to these young kids who work their asses off 12, 15 hours a day studying that like you at 60, you know, who are not studying anything are better than them.

Right.

You know, and the only way to really know, well, there really is no way to know, is you got to play against them in the high stakes events.

He doesn't.

He shies away from that.

You know, he just says he's better than them and he's better than these people, but he doesn't actually play against them to prove it.

Right.

Because the best people are in the high stakes ones, right?

Basically, yeah.

Like it's a different animal.

The World Series of poker, you get random Yahoos, small tournaments, $1,000, $1,500.

But then you got this high circuit, you know, which is like Triton Series over in Europe.

Right now, the super high roller bowl, 300K buy-ins and stuff like that.

He doesn't really, even during the World Series, we have big events, 250K, 100K buying.

He doesn't play those.

He usually just stays in the mid-stakes.

Right.

If you made the final table below the main event, who would you hire as your coach?

Well, I probably wouldn't specifically hire a coach.

Oh, yeah?

Yeah, not anymore.

The ones on the edge watching?

I would definitely have people like

I would talk to for sure.

Like just the group of friends that I already do, maybe Phil Ivey would be one of them if he's willing because he's just really good at certain specific things.

But there's a small group of people I talk poker with.

And I would have people just telling me what's been going on, right?

More so than say, like, here's what I want you to be doing.

I just want to know what they've been doing and I'll figure it out for myself.

Got it.

But I'll definitely have like a group, you know, I've gone through that route where I hired some young guys to, you know, coach me on how to use these tools because it's like, listen, I'm 50 now and i saw like these solvers i'm like i don't even know how to turn the thing on i was like

so i needed help you know but uh now i feel like i have a decent grasp of all that and use it to my advantage yeah and this year there was a solver at the final table yeah that was a mess that was just like such a mess because

so we call that what do we call that uh laptop gate i don't know if i guess what they're calling it like there's all the thing is the last 10 years there's always been laptops at the main event because you know people are watching the stream and they want to tell the guy hey here's what this guy had this hand or whatever.

So they've said quite clearly in the announcements, like, you're not allowed to use any of this stuff in this room, right?

So you're not allowed to use any of this stuff when you play online poker.

They're all banned, right?

So it was really disheartening to see that it was used and nobody said anything.

I think like a lot of people put the onus on the World Series of poker, but like, how can they go up to your laptop?

Like, it's like if you had it on your phone, I'm like, let me see your phone.

You can't, that's like, that's not, that's like Gestapo type stuff.

You can't really police it that way.

But

they they broke, frankly, they broke like Novata gaming laws.

They're very clear.

But they're not going to do anything about it.

Yeah, nothing happened, right?

No, they're not going to do anything about it.

Nor do I think anything should.

But the response from one of the guys who was in charge of it was so obnoxious.

Everyone in the poker community is like, bro, it's a bad look.

This isn't good.

And he sort of stuck both fingers up and double down and triple down and

kind of made a nasty thing.

I didn't see that.

Yeah, it was all over, you know, Twitter or X or whatever the hell we call it.

Poker guys love Twitter, I noticed.

Poker guys?

Yeah.

yeah i think that's like the main spot where like discussion happens instagram i find to be i have an instagram account i find the app frankly from a userability perspective

i've always thought it was terrible yeah like the font is small i can't follow replies i don't know what's going on there and tick tock i just i've never gotten i never set one up so and facebook i don't use so for me i'm like twitter exclusive basically or x x exclusive yeah elon would be mad if you said the t-word i mean the woody though because it's like nobody calls it x do they No, I've never met someone.

No, it's, it'll always be Twitter to me.

Yeah, it'll always be, and I think he's fine with that.

Like, I mean, listen, when you go to twitter.com, it still takes you there.

Yeah.

So you just turned 50, the big 5-0.

I did.

Any life revelations?

To be honest with you, nothing specific.

It was actually just like a day, like any other.

But what I would describe, sort of the last 30, 40 years of my life, looks something like in my 20s, I cared what people thought about me, very much so, right?

In my 30s, you know, you don't think you care, but you still do.

Then, when I got into my 40s, I really give no fucks.

I really don't care.

Like, this is me.

If you like me, great.

If you don't, that's fine too.

I'm going to have opinions.

And listen, you're not going to agree with all my opinions, and that's totally okay.

I might not like some of yours, but that doesn't stop me from saying we could have a beer or me look at you and say you're a bad person.

We live in a society now, I think, where people are so quick to judge someone.

It's like, oh, look what he said in 1997 about these types of people, right?

It's like under a different barometer.

Like I use the R word.

Like, okay, who cares, right?

Is that even like the R word?

I don't know.

Do you know what that is?

Yeah, I don't want to say it, but you know, I'm going to say it.

I used to say it growing up.

The word has a function, you know?

The word retarded has a function, okay?

You know?

Yeah, anyway.

No, I used to commonly say it growing up.

Yeah, so did I.

I mean, if you watch TV, you watch Californication, for example, which has been off the air for maybe six, seven years.

That's like very commonly thrown around.

So it's all recent.

You know, the sort of like demonization of specific words evolves over time.

And that one sort of like that one and the other, there's another one too that I definitely won't say.

G-A-Y?

No, it starts with an F.

F.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because like there's a South, okay, so there's a South Park episode about that, how the F word is not actually used for the prominently for people that you would think the F-word is for.

It's for people that are just jerks or assholes or the ones that's how I used to use it.

Yeah, you cut me off in the street and be like, what up, you know?

Yeah, yeah.

But it was never meant in that way.

But I can understand why that word specifically is charged for people that are from that company.

I will say, because I've been following your career for probably 10 years now, you are a lot more outspoken, especially on politics recently.

I noticed you're tweeting a lot about politics.

I always have, like, frankly.

You know, I, I, I've always sort of never been shy to share my opinions on things and like common sense.

And I think it's funny because I think a lot of people are like, oh, look how much you've changed.

You're changed.

Your position's changed.

I'm like, actually, no.

What position have I changed on in the last 10 years?

What happened was both extremes, as far as as I'm concerned, went absolutely bonkers.

Like I don't identify.

Like I've always been like a center left liberal with common sense ideas.

Okay, let's make sure people have health care.

You know, gay people want to get married, go for it.

You want abortion?

Do your thing.

You know, it used to be quite basic.

Rich people got to pay taxes, whatever.

All the new stuff.

that's sort of like the far progressive left has adopted as like being really important is in a lot of ways absolutely insane and crazy.

So I don't, I don't, I feel like more and more like i by by default they've pushed me to the right where i didn't even move it's like that meme you've seen elon where he's like he's here and then you know the line moves and over this way you know that's what happened to me too yeah i grew up democrat yeah i mean listen i literally became a citizen so that i could vote against donald trump wow into that's like literally the reason that was your main reason that was my key like that was one of the main reasons i wanted to be able to vote and contribute and have an opinion that was one of the key reasons and like fast forward now and they throw kamala at me right?

And you're literally saying, What the hell?

It's going to come full circle?

Am I really going the other way?

And again,

it's about priorities and what you prioritize.

And I'm not a fan of either choice.

I'm really disappointed, frankly, in the idea that sort of Democrats decided we have to like save democracy by doing the most undemocratic thing possible, which is to anoint someone who won zero delegates.

got zero votes, who weeks before the election,

everyone was talking about replacing her because she's the most unpopular VP to all of a sudden gaslighting us into going, rah, rah, she's the best.

She's made.

I'm like, what the hell?

Just because Meg Staniel, Meg Stanley was shaking her ass at a concert, now we're supposed to be like all gung-ho.

It's kind of a bizarre

flip in such a short period of time.

Pretty wild.

So are you even going to vote this year?

Well, I'm either, I'm not voting,

I can say that I'm actually, I was considering RFK.

He's no longer an option.

Yeah.

So I'm still like an undecided, but one thing I've decided is I cannot like, I listen, a lot of Kamalasi's policies that she just recently released, she wouldn't get anything passed.

It's literally like the sick, you know, the sixth grade kid who was running for class president saying, I want to give you free cake.

Everyone gets lollipops and pizza for lunch, breakfast, and dessert, and everyone's going to get a thousand bucks to spend on toys.

Yeah.

Right.

It's all baloney, but it's pandering to people who don't know any better.

Like a lot of the things she's supposedly, you know, trying to implement.

But some of them I find just frankly scary that she would even consider going down this route of like, you know, equity versus equality.

The idea that you want everyone to end up in the same place.

Do you know what that is?

My parents grew up in communist Romania.

Everyone's in the same place with breadlines because there's no food on the shelves and everyone gets to the same place.

Like, and she said this multiple times that, you know, the difference between equality, you know, she doesn't believe in equality of opportunity.

She believes in equality of outcome.

So no matter how hard you work, everyone ends up in the same place.

And I don't like that, obviously.

That seems huh?

I'm not a fan of that.

No.

Yeah.

Capitalism is has its bad sides too, though.

Of course.

So like, you know, I think who is it that said this?

The capitalism is like,

is a terrible system, but it's the best one we got.

Like, is there a better one?

Has there ever been a system that has worked more efficiently than capitalism with some checks on it, right?

You can't have unfettered capitalism where, you know, things get out of hand and that's fine.

You have regulation for stuff like that.

But the idea that there's another system, like, can you name one?

I can't.

I can't.

Yeah.

That's the thing.

So, until somebody comes up with anything better, right?

And it's certainly not communism.

It's been tried many times.

Yeah.

Usually ends the same way.

Breadlines.

And people, it never benefits the people, these ideas.

Have you been back to Romania since you left?

I've been to Romania a couple times.

Things were better.

When I went there originally when I was 10, it was under communist rule at the time.

And I remember just like being in a restaurant, and I was 10, and I was going to tell a joke about Ceaușescu, who was the leader at the time.

And I said his name, and my mother and the ladies with me just

shut me up.

They were genuinely afraid, and I sensed it.

Wow.

Because they don't know who's listening.

And, you know, you're not allowed to have that sort of free speech, much like what you see in the UK now, which is people that are shit posting or sometimes saying things that are totally vile and inappropriate, but they're saying it off.

They're retweeting a Facebook post and then they end up in jail for two years.

That stuff scares me too.

It is scary.

Is it still like that there?

Because I'm going there later this year.

In the UK?

In Romania.

Oh, Oh, no.

Romania's great now.

I mean, yeah, they're liberated.

It's a lot of fun, frankly.

I really enjoyed going back.

I went back a few times since.

Nice.

But yeah, and it's evolved, obviously, from where it was when I was 10.

But I remember being 10 and driving by areas, and there's literally like

three, four-hour wait for whatever loaves of bread we're in the store.

Because there's nothing else.

Wow.

There's nothing else.

One of the precepts of communism, and this is why when people talk about price gouging or price controls,

first first when I saw this, I'm like, it instinctively made sense to me, right?

If the government tells a grocery store how much they can charge for a cucumber, right?

Most you can charge is a dollar.

Okay, well, I'm a cucumber farmer.

Cost me about 45 cents.

I got labor costs.

I got fuel costs.

I got all these other costs associated with it, right?

So there's a margin.

Cool.

We make a little bit, you make a little bit.

Well, what happens when my fuel costs and labor costs go up?

And I say to the grocery store, listen, I need to charge you 65 cents.

And they're like, we can't afford it.

So what happens?

Either one, the government has to subsidize the farmer, which the the taxpayers pay for, or B, there are no more cucumbers.

They don't make cucumbers.

There's no more profit margin for cucumbers.

Wow.

Right.

So it's like, it's a small thing.

It sounds like, you know, nice to say, oh, yeah, groceries are too high.

They are, right?

People feel that.

But the idea that the government is going to decide they're going to be the arbiters of what price gouging is based on what parameters that we don't know, it's just like a very vague thing.

That's kind of scary.

And that's, again, that's like the precept to kind of communist ideals.

Yeah, it is pretty high right now.

My grocery bill is looking pretty ugly lately.

Yeah, I saw a guy, I saw him do this.

He said he had like, you know, on Amazon, when you like, say you do a Whole Foods order or whatever, you can like reorder.

You just click the reorder button.

So he's like, I'm curious.

He had an order from like three years ago.

And he's like, I wonder what that would cost now.

So he clicked reorder and it was like three times more.

Wow.

It was like 80 bucks and now it was like 240.

That's a lot.

For the same exact order.

In three years?

Yeah.

In three years.

Holy crap.

Yeah.

That's nuts.

You came here at 10 years old, you said, from Romania?

No, I was born in Toronto.

Oh, you were born in in Toronto.

Yeah.

I visited Romania when I was 10.

Oh, got it.

Yeah.

And you have an older brother, right, Mike?

Were you close with him growing up, playing a lot of poker with him?

He didn't play any poker.

He's very different than I am.

He's like the tall, big, you know, guy who can fix things with his bare hands.

He can build a house from scratch.

I'm not that guy.

He never got into poker.

But he was always like my protector.

He was like six foot in the sixth grade.

Wow.

He was a big man.

Not as tall.

Oh, yeah.

He was a basketball player.

No,

he didn't play sports either.

It was like, if I had his height, bro, I would have been something, you know, but I remember like distinctly when I was in the first grade, I had a really big mouth shocker.

You know, he was like in the sixth.

And when like, I remember one time these kids in the third grade were picking on me.

It didn't last long.

My brother literally just picked them up and just bounced them against the wall and said, like, you know, don't leave my brother alone.

And that probably garnered more like confidence in my ability to talk shit because I'm like, yo, you want to mess with me?

Yeah.

I got big brother right here.

He's going to take care of me.

I love that you bring that to the game of poker because a lot of tables these days are just quiet.

Yeah, I think it's a different vibe, right?

Like a lot of the younger players, when you think of poker, sometimes you don't necessarily think of like aggregarious personalities now.

You think of people who are like into math, into games, very methodical, and they've sort of followed a pattern of the younger player, which kind of fits that demographic, right?

And they're afraid to give anything away, so they're very stiff, wearing a scarf, you know, and a hoodie, and all this kind of stuff.

So, from that perspective, I think it makes it a little less entertaining.

We've done stuff to improve it, which is, for one, we put a shot clock in for all the high rolls.

Right.

So you get 30 seconds, you know, but still, some guys will just stare at the wall for 30 seconds before acting.

It's just like, it is what it is.

Yeah.

You know.

You've been in the space for 20, 30 years now.

Would you recommend being a poker player to like up-and-coming people?

I would recommend people do whatever they're passionate about.

And if poker is what they're passionate about, understand one thing.

You're going to have to work hard.

It's not as simple as like, oh, poker.

I know poker.

I'm going to go in the casino and make some money.

You know, you actually have to study.

You have have to work hard you have to like take your lumps and i would suggest for anybody who has like a day job already um supplement with poker first before you make the switch make sure that this is something that you can handle emotionally because when you get a paycheck every month you know like you're gonna get your rent paid right well if you have rent and you have bills and you play poker your paycheck may be negative this month So like if that happens a couple months in a row, what do you do then?

So there's like risk.

And for a lot of people, you know, they're comfortable when they're not under financial pressure, but as soon as they are, they no longer pull the trigger on moves that they should.

So for example, there's a slate that says this spot, they should be bluffing for like 10,000 bucks, but they're like, oh shit, if I lose this pot, I don't have money to pay rent.

So they don't do it, right?

So they end up costing themselves EV because they're playing scared.

And when you play against people that are playing scared,

it's quite easy.

You can pick them apart, right?

It's just easy.

Yeah.

You know, if you play scared, you just know they're going to have it.

Right.

There's not a lot of people that are still around from your era, man.

No, No, no.

Very few people

made it, if you will.

Yeah.

For me, I think the reason that I'm still around is: one, I love it.

I just love to play and I love to compete.

And I always like being doubted.

It fuels me.

I love haters.

Thank you so much for all of you.

Like, you really drive me.

Because I've heard so many times, how many times I'm washed up and it's like, oh, baby,

I'm going to prove them wrong.

I love it.

It's super fun for me.

I don't care.

Like, I really don't.

It's just kind of fun for me to be able to say, I told you so.

But one of the key reasons I think that that I've been able to stay relevant at the high stakes is because of two things.

Self-awareness, like always being honest with myself about where I stand against my opponents.

Like,

are there things they're doing that is just like outplaying me?

Are there things that I can improve upon?

And then the humility to like take on knowledge from younger people that haven't been there yet, right?

So combining, you know,

my 30 years of wisdom in playing poker with also the new technology and the new sort of techniques and things that people are using and sort of figure it out that way rather than like just poo-poo it and be like, ah, these kids, they don't know better.

You know, that's kind of what my buddy Phil Helmute does.

He's like, oh, they don't know.

Nobody knows how to play.

He always says these things.

He's like the most fun guy to play with because he's always talking about how they don't even know how to play.

Nobody knows how to play except you, Phil.

Got it.

I love it.

Have you ever been at a table where you felt like someone was just way better than you?

It happened.

So here's what I look at.

I look, probably happens every couple years where I sort of like take a refresher.

Okay, where am I at right now?

Is the stuff I'm doing working really well?

There was a Poker Masters, which is a big event here.

I was playing against some German players, one guy named Stefan Sondheimer.

He was very, very good, right?

And he was talking about poker in a way that I didn't even understand what he was saying.

He was talking about combos.

So I don't know what that is.

I'm a professional.

I should know, shouldn't I?

And there were a couple specific spots that he really just outplayed me in.

So that was like a wake-up call to go, oh boy, you got work to do, right?

So that's when I started down the path of like getting more up to to date on modern theory, you know, using solvers and things like that and really trying to drill it in.

And I'll be honest with you, when I started, it was intimidating.

I felt like it was above me.

I couldn't figure it out, but you know, I'm motivated.

And I started, once I got it, I started to go, okay, now I see, now I see.

So I'm going to use this computer, this AI, to sort of figure out how it thinks and why it does the things it does.

Not a memorization technique, which I think a lot of people misuse them because they think, I'm going to memorize what the computer would do in this spot.

No, no, no, no, no, no, that's not what you want to do.

You want to use the solver to sort of understand,

you know,

why it chooses certain strategies that it does and then implement that.

And then I know when I play against players that are studied, I know what they study.

So I also know how they misapply it in some ways.

So I take advantage of them that way.

The idea between being like a game theory optimal is that you can exploit.

the person, right?

But no human being will ever be able to do that.

It's not possible unless we get Neuralink or something like that.

But there's just no way that you can replicate what a solver does.

Wow.

So it's like a game within a game because you know they know GTO.

So you're thinking, oh, he's thinking this and you're trying to counter that.

In a way, sure.

So like, I guess a good analogy, and I've used this one before, but I'll use it again.

It's like you play rock, paper, scissors.

Okay.

So

let's say, for example, I notice that you're playing rock every time.

What should I do?

Paper.

How often?

Every time.

What would happen then after about 10 in a row?

They would switch the rock, right?

Well, they would know, right?

So I'd wake you up.

If you're playing rock every time and I play paper every time, you might go, hey, wait a minute.

He keeps playing paper every time.

So now you're going to switch your strategy.

So what a better play might be is for me to like play rock 60, 70% of the time.

So you don't know that you're, and then you leave thinking, oh man, I was just unlucky, right?

Where in reality, I just was like...

taking advantage of you, exploiting you without you even understanding what was happening.

Wow.

Right.

That's interesting.

Are there still any hands or games you think about that haunt you, or do you come to peace with everything that happens in the past?

Yeah, there's always ones, you know, there's always ones from way back when and like, I think the year 2000.

Damn.

Yeah.

That's why.

Well, you know, there's always those ones where you look back and you're like, what if, right?

Right.

But the bottom line is this, like, I'm at a place where I'm like super happy in life.

So I don't live with regret ever.

Like I really don't regret anything I did.

Now, that doesn't mean I wouldn't go back and do things differently with the knowledge that I have.

But if I regret things things that I've done in the past, then, you know, that would mean like I'm unhappy now, but I'm not.

So all the mistakes I made led me to here.

So who knows?

Maybe if I would have not made those mistakes, maybe I wouldn't have been here.

You know, who's to say?

Right.

Because on my research of you, it said you came to Vegas at 22 and went broke.

Oh, many times.

Yeah, many times, man.

I was up.

That didn't stop you.

No, I mean, losing money stopped you, but like luckily by that time, I sort of

developed a group of friends who knew that I had talent, but I was a little bit, you know, overzealous with my bankroll.

Like I took shots that you're not supposed to take, but listen, when you're in, how old are you?

27.

Yeah, so you're young, right?

Like the way I looked at it back then was, okay, if I have a thousand bucks, if I lose this, that's rep, you know, I can replicate that.

I can get a thousand dollars again, right?

That evolves and changes once you start to have like a million-dollar bankroll or something.

Now that's not as easily replicable.

So when you're young, I think that applies to business and all sorts of things.

It's okay to take shots because worst case scenario, you're still at your mom's.

Right.

She's still cooking for you and all that sort of thing.

So I took a lot of chances that were probably too aggressive when I was young.

But again, I look at those mistakes as learning opportunities.

And that's the interesting thing with poker because I know some phenomenal players you do as well, but they're broke.

Oh, yeah.

It's pretty common.

Yeah, and I'll tell you, it used to be even more common in my day, right?

Today, a lot of the younger players are a lot more methodical and they're much more calculated with their bankrolls and they're safe and they sell percentages and they get staked and all this stuff.

But back in my day, you just often had guys who either were playing high-stakes poker,

too high for their bankroll, or in addition to that, had leaks, whether it be drugs, alcohol, women, or other forms of gambling, whether it's sports, craps, all this sort of stuff.

So like you could be the best poker player in the world, but if you're gambling at all these other games in the casino and stuff, you end up broke.

And there was a lot of guys who were really great players that were getting staked.

because everyone knew they're great, but they also knew they had no discipline.

Stu Unger was a perfect example.

Like he was a phenom.

You know, he was back in his time, he was just like next level, but he had so many demons and made so many other mistakes that

other people would be able to make money off of him.

Absolutely.

When you play, are you sober every time?

Yeah, I am.

But I mean, listen,

here's the thing, okay?

And I don't recommend this, but if I do drink a little bit, I'm actually like deadly.

Really?

Yeah.

There's like a line.

There was a guy named Bill Smith.

He's a world champion many years ago, like the 80s or something.

They used to say about him, when he was sober, he was the weakest, tightest,

easiest player to be.

When he was drunk, he was a sloppy mess.

But when he was a little drunk, he was the best player in the world.

Wow.

Yeah.

There's something about alcohol that there's like, but there's that little period in between that loosens your inhibitions,

allows you to sort of trust in what you just know.

You play on feel and you feel things.

But again, it's very difficult to stay within that realm of like not too drunk.

So I don't use it.

Also, as I got older too, alcohol, when I do drink, which is not that often,

I'm like, I'm feeling it the next day.

You know what I mean?

Like when I was your age, we drank, no big deal.

Go out again, you know, when you don't drink it often.

And then all of a sudden you do.

Cause here's the thing.

I don't drink as often as I used to, but when I drink, I drink.

Like I still drink like I would have if I was 25.

But my body's like, nah, bro, you should not be doing this.

At big 50, did you have a little drink?

I drank.

Yeah.

I had some wine.

I felt okay.

My wife, she's like, she's she's stopped.

She used to party like crazy.

Yeah.

She was like Hollywood.

She was a Hollywood girl.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

And she used to party and all that kind of stuff.

Now she doesn't drink anything.

Nice.

No.

She's a changed woman.

Well, it's not even that.

It's just that it makes her sick, you know, because you get older and, you know.

Yeah, so it's almost like you got to micro-dose it to have the full effect for poker.

Well, alcohol?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Again, that's difficult.

And listen, like I said, it's not something I recommend.

I mean, especially when you're playing like a five-day tournament.

Okay, so let's say I'm on day two and I, you know, I drink.

Well, now I got to play day three.

How am I going to start day three, you know, with my, like, without all my wits about me?

So, we were talking about this off-camera, but there's so many clips of you calling out specific cards, even the suit and the number.

What do you think that is?

Is that just intuition?

Is that something spiritual?

What do you think that is?

I'm a big believer in

we don't know what we don't know, right?

Like, we just don't.

Like, have you, you know, have you ever had like a premonition or like a feeling of deja vu or who knows?

I don't know, but I tell you what, over the 30 years of poker, and a lot of people are going to just say, oh, it's just your mind playing tricks on you.

I've had many moments where I could feel everything in my body like an anxiety about what card's about to come.

And

the percentage of times where it's actually right is astronomical.

Like, I wish I would have documented it throughout my history.

So, who's to say?

I don't know.

Like, my mom used to take me when we were young to like those Tarot card readers.

Yeah.

And they would read my cards and stuff like that.

And I've always had a fascination with cards.

And I felt like some sort of connection to

the deck energy, if you you will.

And like I said, I don't know, we can get goofy, new age-y, like universe stuff, but like, who the hell knows, man?

We don't know.

We could be in a, literally, it could be as simple as like, we're in a sim, right?

Somebody's playing me as a video game character, and every once in a while, they let me in on what's about to happen because they want me to do something different.

I don't know.

It could be possible.

Who knows, man?

Were any of those tarot card readers accurate?

Yes.

Really?

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

When I was eight.

Well, my mom took me to one of the coffee cup readers.

Coffee cup reader?

You know, like, you never seen that?

I've seen it in movies.

So there's this thing where you drink a Turkish coffee and I was like eight, and they made me drink a Turkish coffee.

And then you turn the coffee cup upside down, right?

And then you just let it sit for a while.

Okay.

And then what you'll see is you'll see a bunch of lines in the coffee cup.

And then the lady will read your lines.

She said,

she basically said, I was going to be famous and I was going to be very, she says, I would be wealthy.

I'm going to be famous.

I mean, sure, you could tell that to a lot of different kids.

But she sort of hit on those, you know, basic points of like the type of person that I was.

So she had no idea your potential.

So that's the, I mean, I was eight eight in middle class home.

Like, again, maybe she told all the kids that, you know, I don't know.

And just happened to get lucky with you.

Just so you come back later to pay her, right?

Yeah.

Or maybe like she said that and I was like, you know what?

Okay then.

I'll, you know, then I'll do it.

Yeah.

Hard to know.

But yeah, I've had some interesting,

I also had some bad ones, man.

There are some bad apples.

No, I had some like bad readings.

Oh, really?

I think it was the same one, actually, the coffee cup lady.

I think she also told me that you're going to be in love three times, okay?

But they're not going to love you as much as you love them.

And you're going to end up alone.

I was like, what the hell?

Why would you tell an eight-year-old that, first of all, right?

And I remember years ago, you know the show Millionaire Matchmaker?

Yeah.

So I did that show.

Oh, okay.

Okay.

And I remember telling Patty Stanger that story.

And so she got like one of these numerologist guys to come and read my numbers.

Okay.

So he's there reading my number.

And he's, and I told him that story.

I was like, I kind of spooked out by people like you.

And he's like, okay, well, what that person told you was true, but that chapter's closed now.

And now you're starting this new, now you're ripe for a relationship and all this stuff.

And I was like, okay, cool.

I don't know how much I, you know, sock I put into it, but,

you know, yeah.

It's just like, why would you tell an eight-year-old that?

I was traumatizing that.

Jeez.

You still playing chess?

I'm terrible at chess, but I still play like every day I'll play a few games on chess.com.

And you're a 1300, right?

I was.

I saw your Instagram story.

Yeah, but I'm not anymore.

Oh, you're not?

No, I'm not drawing.

Well, what are you?

I'm a 1450.

Oh, you kill me.

Yeah, Liv Beret's a 1300.

She is?

Okay, yeah.

I got worse.

Really?

Yeah.

I mean, when you don't play regularly and stuff, I played their Pog Champs thing.

That was a lot of fun.

Yeah.

With some, I remember that was actually a fun moment for me, the Pog Champs.

They asked me to do it.

And I was like, I don't know.

Am I like too big time for it?

I actually genuinely was thinking, am I too big time for this?

Then I played this person named Pokemon.

Yeah.

And I'm like, I didn't know who the hell this person was.

And then I got like 100 million followers, right?

And I'm like, all these people that I don't know, this young generation of streamers and stuff, I'm like, they have like massive followings.

I think we live in a time today where there are more famous people in the world that you've never heard about than ever in existence.

Absolutely.

There's like niche people, like for me, you know, people are going to know me if they know poker, but your, you know, young streamers play video, they don't know who the hell I am.

Yeah.

You know, so that was an interesting experience.

And they had logic played.

And who won?

I don't, I think, I don't remember, but I think it was Dwight from the office.

Dwight from the office.

Yes.

I think he won the whole thing.

He was a ringer.

I think he was too good.

I need to look into entering the next one.

I've been proud.

You should.

Yeah.

You should.

Absolutely play it.

It was fun.

Yeah.

Would you do chess boxing ever?

How does that work exactly?

You play, I think it's a 10-minute game of chess,

but somehow you're boxing like in between.

And if you knock them out while you're boxing, the chess game ends and you win.

But if you checkmate them, then the boxing ends.

Okay.

I think I saw Andrea do that.

Yeah.

Right?

Looks kind of fun.

I mean, I would probably do that.

Yeah.

A million dollars versus Justin Bonimo in chess boxing.

You would do that?

No, because the guy's much bigger than me.

He's just taller and younger.

Like, that's not a fair fight.

Even if he's completely uncoordinated and a terrible boxer, like, I mean, I'm not like some freaking Mike Tyson over here.

You know what I mean?

Let me have somebody my own size.

Have you made amends with him or is there still some?

I just, I ignore his existence.

Whoa, it's that bad.

I've always done that.

Like, I find him to be loathsome in some of the things that he said and the positions that he's taken.

Wow.

So I don't have, like, whenever, you know, he's at my table or whatever, I don't engage with him.

He tries to engage with me occasionally.

On Twitter, I don't block him.

I let him

put his propaganda on my feet.

I don't mind.

I'm all for free speech clearly right but i don't engage with him directly because i'm not interested you know it's just like beating your head against the wall but like there was one moment one thing that he did that i found so vile there was that uh soldier i can't remember his name that like burned himself alive oh i saw just poured gasoline over himself just clear nobody saying does this okay this isn't about you know moral conviction this is just you you've been you know, indoctrinated, you've like lost your mind, right?

Nobody does this.

So he burned himself alive, you know, on video.

It's crazy that you can watch this stuff today.

And he talked about how brave it was.

How

I couldn't be that brave, you know, but that was such a brave act.

What you're doing is you're glorifying suicide.

You know, to a wide audience.

And like people see that.

What if it sparked somebody to say, you know what?

I want to be brave.

I'm going to do the same thing.

I'm going to needlessly kill myself.

Aaron Bushnell or something was his name.

Like, what did that do?

Like,

what did he help with?

It didn't make a difference over there.

It's just a needless, you know, suicide.

And to glorify that, I found that repulsive.

That is a wild take.

I didn't see that.

Brave.

To call that act brave?

Yeah.

That, you know, you don't glorify stuff like that because there are plenty of people who deal with all sorts of different mental illness, right?

Who you don't know what small trigger will trigger them to do something crazy.

You really don't.

We can't know.

So you somewhat want to be mindful of that.

And when you do that, especially if you have a platform and you sort of throw that out there that, wow, this guy is now being glorified and people look at him like he's heroic.

What if, you know, you want to experience that or feel that?

And you don't put two and two together that, well, you're going to end up dead.

So you're not going to actually going to get to experience it.

You know, what I would, yeah, I just found that to be

there's other things too, but that was for me like the whoa.

You've really, you've gone so deep that there's no redeeming qualities left.

Like you can't come back from that.

Yeah.

You know, I find it interesting that the further left, the further right you go, right?

You go to the either extreme.

the horseshoe theory, you end up agreeing on the same group of people are to blame for everything.

Like both ways, you know, like if you go in either extreme, and you see that playing out when you see like Dan Blazerian and Justin Bonamo agreeing on one specific thing, that the Jews are to blame for literally everything.

Oh, yeah.

Dan's been going hard on that.

They both do, though, right?

Not NC Justin.

Well, they're both like literally at the other spectrum, other end of the spectrum.

Dan Blazerian's massive Trumper.

You know, Bonamo's like Jill Stein, you know, like left of left, right?

But they agree on this.

He's talking, you know, he's talking about how, oh, Dan's spitting fire right now, right?

Wow.

It's the one thing that they can come to agree on is that all the problems that exist in the entire world and that have ever existed are all because of jewish people man they're getting attacked right now i've never seen well they are because they're they're they're really well especially with dan like he was asked in the podcast that he did you know like is this something that you've always looked at he's like no it's recent i'm like yeah no it's recent because you literally read a meme of like a Talmud and you're like, you took it at face value as being like accurate without doing any deep research.

It's a very complex situation over there, obviously.

I looked into this five years ago in depth.

I spent hundreds of hours researching both sides of the conflict and what the needs are on both sides to make my conclusion.

So October 7th was, by that point, I already had a deep understanding of the conflict and what's going on over there.

And then to see on October 7th, you know, a bunch of innocent people being killed at a concert and then, you know, old people in a you know in a little village being murdered and slaughtered.

Like on October 8th, before any bombs were dropped, you already had people in the streets marching, not marching saying,

we pray for your dead.

Instead, they were, you know, they were, they were like the

free Palestine protesters the day after.

No bomb had even been dropped then.

That tells you it's more than just about, you know, what people want to say that it is.

Yeah.

So did you publicly like pick a side?

Oh, I have.

Many, yeah.

I mean, like I said,

when I was doing my research years ago, I was empathetic to both sides and I understood both sides.

Ultimately, I landed on the side of the one free democracy in the region, the one place where if you are LGBTQ plus one A L S 2 Cess, whatever, then you can go in Israel and you can be in a pride parade.

You can't do that in Gaza, right?

Justin Bonamo, if he went to Gaza with his boyfriend and his girlfriend and was walking down the street, right?

What happens next, generally speaking, or often, is he gets tied to a bike, is dragged through the streets and paraded through the streets right before he's up on the roof.

And when he's up on the roof, maybe in that moment, he would start to feel like, oops, maybe I'm, you you know, and then, you know, you're thrown off the roof after that.

So, I mean, that's, I don't make that up.

That's crazy.

Like, that's, that's a thing, right?

So when you think about democracy, and you think about, frankly, a lot of the values that supposedly like the progressive left stand for, women's rights, gay rights, all these types of things, like, that's Israel.

Like, they're an open democracy there, right?

That's not the case, you know, in Gaza.

You know, they don't have that sort of freedom under Hamas.

Right.

But you and Justin have had beef for a long time, right?

That just sparked it or ended it, I guess.

Well, I've never, yeah, it's been many years since I've ever, you know, wanted to engage with him directly because I find him, I thought he, it started with like his obsession with microaggressions, like, you know, saying to a woman that you like your hair, you know, and that being sexist and misogynist and all this kind of stuff.

It was like, bro, you know, so it started with that small thing.

It ended up to like full jihad.

You know, it's like, it was quite a stretch from there.

But yeah, no, he sort of went down the quote unquote, and I'll use the quotes because this word sort of has evolved in its meaning.

Like he went like super woke, right?

He went down that path hardcore.

And I said this in a tweet the other day, but I'm a believer that if you are 100% in agreement, in agreement with any platform, right?

Then you're doing no critical thinking of your own.

It's near impossible for you to say, I agree 100% with what this party says or this party.

If you do, What are the odds that you're actually thinking for yourself versus just taking in what you're being told to think?

Right.

Yeah, it's almost impossible to agree with.

There's so many policies.

I mean,

and there's like literally not one I've ever seen in the last whatever where he doesn't fully side with the most extreme view that you can possibly have.

Of Democrat.

Even he doesn't consider himself one.

He's like, no, left of that.

Left of that?

Yeah.

I didn't know there was a left of that.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Jill Stein.

Wow.

Yeah.

Jeez.

So you don't think there's any middle ground with you and him?

No, I don't, like I said, it's not worth, you know, I've talked about him more with you just now than I have in a decade.

Wow.

Right.

I don't, I just don't acknowledge it.

Like he's like, he lost cause to me.

You know, some people are too far gone.

Yeah.

And I don't think there's any point.

Like, I think one of the worst ways we can spend our time is to have back and forth on Twitter with people who are not actually trying to have their mind changed.

Nobody is, right?

They're just trying to make you change yours.

It never works.

So it ends up with this need, this endless stream of, I'm going to send you this article, read this, I'm going to send you this, I'm going to send you this, I'm going to send you this.

And then it's this page, and then you realize you just spent 13 hours wasting your time talk like banging your head against the wall yeah pointless now some may argue and there's truth to it that like well there's other people that read that you know and so you can influence them to some degree or whatever but i just don't think it's the right form yeah you know even though we can make longer posts now on twitter it's still not the appropriate forum i think this kind of situation right you talk to someone in person notice how different the interactions are versus online.

100%.

People are so much more brave online.

I can't tell you how many people I read them talk so much mad shit about me on Twitter, right?

Yeah, they're talking mad then they sit at the poker table and be like, hey, how's it going?

Like, bro, I saw what you said last week.

You know what I mean?

Now you want to be my buddy?

What kind of shit is this?

For real?

People try to look tough on the internet.

Oh, exactly.

You know, and again, there's like, there's also a characterization of people.

It's easier to demonize people when you just read their words versus like actually have the conversation.

Like you take two people, you could take a Trump supporter, Kamala supporter, you put them here, right, at a table, let them talk.

You'd notice that the conversation is going to be a lot more civil and respectful than it it would be behind a keyboard.

Absolutely.

I've never engaged with a hater online.

That's smart.

I get a ton of hate.

I would do it in person if they want to come on the podcast, but online, there's no point.

Yeah.

And but here's the thing, though.

In some ways, it's a lose-lose.

I always tell people this because I have a lot of experience in this arena.

When someone's lying about you, right?

They're literally just flat out lying about some things you did or said or whatever, right?

You have two choices.

One, defend yourself, right?

And get into the cesspool back and forth.

Or B, you, I said one or B.

Or B, just let it go.

The problem with both is this.

Number one, you start going back and forth.

People say, well, why are you defending yourself if you know it's not true or whatever like that, right?

And then you're in the cesspool and you're in the back and forth and it's just a negative energy situation.

The opposite option is don't say anything, but then it becomes fact to people.

They just assume that this is true about you.

Right.

Right.

So it's a lose-lose either way you go.

100%.

Yeah.

And those types of videos get a ton of views.

Yeah, exactly.

When they're hating on you.

So they can characterize you and they can start labeling you.

I saw this teacher recently.

He did this whole, he got fired as a teacher.

He was on X and he did this thing about J.K.

Rowling or something.

And he had a student in there and he was teaching the kid critical thinking.

And the kid was saying things that are like, well, she's transphobic.

And he's like, well, what makes you say that?

Like, give me an example.

But so often, once somebody's labeled something, and this is what they do, you know, if you have a thought that, well, maybe COVID came from a lab, I don't know, you're a far right-wing fascist.

I'm like, whoa, whoa, what?

Am I?

You know, like on Twitter now, and I'm kind of proud of this, I still get called like a libtard, and I also get called like a right-wing fascist.

I'm like, oh, boy, I like when both of you hate me.

Then I know I'm in the right place.

Do you think part of the reason why there's a lack of critical thinking these days is the public education system and the way they teach kids?

I don't know so much if it's that.

That obviously plays a role, I think, too, especially, you know, when specific teachers can come in within a specific agenda, right?

Where they're not just trying to teach, they're trying to teach ideology.

I think it's more of a problem in higher education, you know, in like universities, where this, you know, universities and colleges used to be a place where,

you know, there was diversity of thought.

Like people could have different ideas and discuss them, where that was quelched.

Like, oh, you know, like if a Jordan Peterson or a Bill Maher want to go to a college, they get picketed and, you know, they don't let them speak.

It's like, all right, you don't have to go listen, but maybe other people want to, right?

And it's almost like monolithic in terms of what you're allowed to believe.

And if you don't, you're kind of an outcast, right?

So I think that's problematic.

I think the bigger problem, though, with the tribalization of both sides is just social media in general.

You know, the algorithms themselves, and this lynn, I'm not an expert on this, but there's no question that the more time you spend on a specific topic, the more of that you're going to get.

Yeah.

Right.

So as a result, you're going to constantly be fed things that.

confirm your beliefs.

Right.

You know, and for me, I actually think I'm one of the few maybe who think the platform of X has improved because

it's more neutral.

You know, people say it's more right-wing, right?

I see a lot of that on X.

Yeah, more right-wing.

But then when you look at the balance, right?

Like I think Elon said something to the effect of I think 97% of the people that worked there were Democratic donators.

So it was already

far left.

So then those people.

when they see anything that doesn't align with their beliefs, they, you know, they call it right-wing extremism when a lot of it is just moderate common sense stuff.

A lot of the things that you believe, maybe your eyes are open to the fact that, like, oh, that wasn't even true.

I'm embarrassed to say this.

I'm genuinely embarrassed to say this because I was fooled myself.

When Trump said there was very fine people on both sides, I took it as what they said.

All the media said, well, he's talking about white nationalists and neo-Nazis are fine people, right?

Then I listened to it a couple months ago and went, oh my God.

He wasn't talking about them at all.

In that same video that they don't put in the thing, he says, I'm not talking about white nationalists or neo-nazis.

He says that exactly.

He's talking about, and this part is true, there are fine people.

They were taking down monuments of like whoever, you know?

And some people were for taking them down and some people were against that.

Okay.

Now, I'm sure some of those people on both sides were fine people, not the neo-nazis who happened to come this way.

But then you, I read on Twitter, because I said this recently, and everyone's like, well, if you're marching on the same side as the neo-Nazis, then, you know, you're on the wrong side.

It's like, listen, they have nothing to do with me.

You know what I mean?

Like, just because they believe something has nothing to do with me, you know, if I'm aligned with them or something, that's not how you evaluate whether people.

But, but again, just the DNC, this last little bit, I saw them repeat the lie.

Right.

Like, it's like you just keep telling the same lie, and it's like, opens your eyes to like, they don't even care.

Like, every reporter reported on that knew that they were spinning at the very least, distorting and lying about his position.

You know, that's it was like just

blatant.

They've weaponized the media.

Kamala Kamala won't even do any interviews.

No, and that's probably, here's the thing.

It's so bizarre to say, but it's probably smart for her.

You think so?

Probably.

Like strategically, I get why they're doing that is because when she does, when she's off the cuff, like if you watch like her Trump's, her speeches, they're like word for word.

She's just reading a teleprompter.

Don't most of them do that, though?

No.

I mean,

not really.

No, like they have their different Trump speeches.

They have their speeches.

They have like bullet points and things like that.

But like Trump, I mean, his rallies are just, whatever.

He just says stuff.

You know what I mean?

He goes off.

But like with her, you know, when she's gone off the cuff, she ends up in these word salads where she'll speak for two minutes without saying anything.

She'll say, you know, I can see what can be unburdened by what has been, you know?

And the significance of the passage of time is significant because the passage of time

is significant.

And you're like, wait a minute, you literally just spoke for 90 seconds without saying a damn thing, right?

She's quite, she's quite good at not answering questions in that way.

But I think like for that, from their perspective, they're curating her image.

They're trying to completely do a 180.

Because, as I said, weeks before she was the nominee, anointed nominee, not voted in by the people, not democratically voted in.

They were talking about getting her off the ticket as the lowest rated VP in history.

And now they're like sort of

just completely whitewashed or just changing the narrative in that, you know, like she's, she's like the next coming or something like that, based on what exactly?

Like what flipped?

What changed all of a sudden.

And it really just was as simple as the machine getting behind her.

And the only reason she was put in this place, flat out, is because there was $240 million locked up in the Biden-Harris campaign that only she could use.

If they had their choice, I can't imagine they would choose the one who, when she ran, got less than 1%, didn't win a single delegate in those primaries.

And frankly, Tulsi Gabbard ended her career as far as I thought, or ended her campaign in 45 seconds.

Should have.

It was it.

Well, she was done.

And then, you know, then Biden says, I'm going to have a woman as VP,

which is, by definition, a DEI hire, right?

It's like, so DEI is a thing where you're like, people get offended by that, right?

Like, well, why are you offended by something if you believe it's good?

If you believe in DEI, then why wouldn't you be supportive of this, right?

But whenever you mention that Kamala was a DEI hire, they get offended with saying she's not qualified.

Now, understand this.

You can be qualified.

Absolutely.

I'm not suggesting that because she was hired that she wasn't qualified.

I'm not suggesting that based on that alone.

What I am saying is when you say, I'm only going to choose from this demographic of people, and you weed out all the other possible candidates simply because of their race or gender, that is DEI higher.

You're literally saying there are no white people, or not white people, there are no males that can possibly have this role, even if they're perfectly fit.

What do you call that exactly?

Right?

And I get it.

Politicians do that.

They try to hit a specific demographic.

When Trump ran, he's like, well, I want to win, you know, the Christian right.

I'm going to bring on Mike Pence, you know?

So they do that.

But when you break, when you just flat out openly say so, that I'm literally going to hire, I'm only going to have a woman in this role, and then you do it, and then people say, well, that's not a DEI hire, then what exactly do you think a DEI hire is?

Yeah.

Did you see the DEI debate between Mark Cuban and Vivek?

I didn't see the whole thing.

Okay.

But I should.

Mark Cuban was defending DEI.

He's a fan of it.

Yeah.

And Vivek was against it, but it was interesting to me.

I think I saw some of the effect of then, why don't you have any like five foot nine Asians on your Dallas Mavericks basketball team, right?

You know, if you really want to be diverse,

you know, and then when you think of like the problems with DEI, there's a gentleman by the name of Coleman Hughes.

I'm not sure if you're familiar with him.

He wrote a great book called The End of Race Politics.

Now, this is a black male who's been liberal most of his life, independent thinker.

And he wrote this book, essentially, pointing out, frankly, that DEI actually ends up hurting the communities that it's supposed to be helping because of a couple of reasons.

Number one, if you went to a doctor, you have a choice between a doctor or a lawyer, right?

And you can pick anybody, right?

If you choose somebody who's a person of color, there's that extra element of wondering, okay, did they qualify based on their merit or were they a DEI hire?

And when you bring in that doubt, you offend those very people.

What if I was a black man who worked my ass off?

I'm an amazing doctor.

doctor right but because of the fact that this process happens people question and go eh i don't know i'm not going to take my chances here i'm going to go with somebody else just in case you know you were like lower on the bar in terms of you know and you know you were inserted into the top group because they needed uh diversity yeah it never made sense to me race and gender i've hired both men and women race never mattered to me it should it's all performance based for me well what the thing that really I mean, this is no longer allowed, but I'm wondering how they do this.

One of the ways in which they were trying to deal with sort of this idea of inequality in race in school, in a higher education, was to help more black and brown people get into school by doing what?

By specifically

being racist against Asians.

If you're an Asian male, right, trying to get into one of the premier schools was incredibly difficult.

Super hard.

You couldn't get in.

I mean, you could have SET scores and you could have more qualifications up the wazoo, but because there's a quota, right, you don't just get in.

And it's like, I'm just a big believer in merit.

I believe there are ways in which you can help,

you know,

minorities and stuff, but that comes from education system.

That comes from like revamping that and setting themselves up, not based on like this idea that we are going to make these policies based on race.

What you should focus on is socioeconomics, right?

Instead of saying, you know, we're going to help this specific race of people.

We're going to say, how about this?

Let's help poor people.

Let's help disadvantaged people.

And whoever falls in that group, that's disproportionately already going to help the people that you want to help.

But it does so in a more honest and fair way.

It gives the white trash kid from Alabama who lives in a trailer just as much chance as, you know, another kid.

Like you shouldn't do it based on race because that is racist.

Oh my gosh.

When I was applying to college

my senior year, so I'm half Asian, half white.

If I said I was, I said I was white on the application, because if I said I was Asian, I don't think I would have got in.

Oh, no, you know.

Because the average SAT score was like 2,000 or something really high.

Yeah.

So yeah, they're essentially doing this.

It's like you are battling just the cream of the crop, if you will.

You know, just a fact that Asians test higher, they do better in these things.

So you're being tested against.

You're being like compared to them rather than the whole.

And there are people below you that don't necessarily need to be as qualified that will get in.

That just seems unfair to me.

Yeah.

It's it's a weird system, dude.

I'm not a fan.

And I don't think I'm sending my kids to college.

I don't blame you.

I actually have a close friend.

I won't name him, but he's like, he keeps telling me to to hurry up and have kids because he wants to build a school because he's far too afraid of his, you know, his daughter going to school and then like when she's 10, coming back and now he's got a son or something like that, you know?

I don't know.

Oh, man.

You want kids, though?

Yeah.

I mean, you know, my wife and I have talked about it.

We're looking at adoption.

We're looking at possible surrogacy, stuff like that.

Because you've held out for a while.

So that's.

Yeah, I still feel young.

Nice.

You got young energy.

I do.

Yeah.

The kid poker.

You know, kid rocks, what, like 60 and he's still kid rock?

I'm going to stay kid poker forever.

You got to rock that name until you're 80.

Yeah, exactly.

You think you'll play poker the rest of your life?

I don't see why not.

Wow.

You know, it's one of those things where I think, like, especially as you get older, using your mind, plenty of studies have shown that, like, you know, people that play games, people that exercise the brain,

avoid dementia, avoid like, you know, just losing.

It's like anything, right?

If you don't work out, you don't use your muscles, they deteriorate.

Well, if you don't use your brain to, you know, think, like I look at Doyle Brunson, who passed away recently, was 89 years old, still playing the highest stakes games in the world, and had his wits about him.

I swear, he was like, I played with him about a year before he passed, and he was doing new stuff.

Wow.

I'm like, bro, you're 88, and you're doing new stuff now?

It was pretty wild to see.

But I think, like,

as long as I can physically perform, you know, I'm always going to want to play, play this game because I love it.

And I also, I don't play all the time.

Like, I play now.

quality over quantity, essentially, where when I feel like playing, I go out there and I give it my all.

And then I take plenty of breaks.

Like, I played hard this summer and I haven't played at all in like the last month.

Oh, wow.

Okay.

So you don't have that,

I guess, you don't have that itch to play.

I do have the itch, but here's what happens with the itch.

I know it's time to play again when the itch needs to be scratched, right?

So after a long series of seven weeks, I'm just dead.

I got no energy, tired.

I don't want to play at all, right?

Give it a couple weeks, all of a sudden, a couple more, and I start to see a little poker.

And I'm like, oh, yeah.

And I see tournaments going on.

And now I get excited about it again.

I think like when you become successful and it's not about the money anymore, you can be complacent if you don't focus on playing when you actually really want to.

Because if you just go through the motions, you're not going to be at your best and your results will, you know, will show.

Yeah.

What do you think of poker in terms of the new way it's shown on television with these streamers now?

You got the celebrity poker tournament.

It seems like a new era, right?

Of content.

Yeah, so I think it's really important that like poker has new ways in which it's like absorbed, you know, and but we have so many new media opportunities today that didn't exist when I was around.

When I was around, if you wanted poker to be on like a scene, you had to put it on TV, right?

Now you can create shows that you live stream on YouTube.

You can stream them on Twitch, whatever the case may be.

And there's so many different angles in which people digest it.

I think one of the most innovative ways in which poker was shown was the game of gold.

If you haven't seen it, watch it.

You will love it.

It doesn't matter if you're a poker player or not, because it sort of creates the element of reality TV with poker, right?

Which I think was really cool.

I do think it's always important to

reinvent how it, how it's done.

Celebrity poker has its niche, right?

Like some people just love seeing people that they know, you know, playing poker and shooting the shit, and they seem to have fun with it too, right?

If you're a poker purist, those broadcasts are probably not for you because it's like the level of poker is going to be what you'd expect from a bunch of non-pro celebrities, right?

But they have their place for sure.

What's next for you and where can people keep up with you, man?

Well, me, listen, I'm on, my main thing is like, you know, I'm on Twitter, Real Kid Poker.

Um, I also got a YouTube channel where you know, I do vlogs, I do daily vlogs throughout the entire summer, and I'll be doing them again this winter during the Bahamas series.

Um, and then I, you know, I throw some podcasts and videos up there once in a while, just like a passion, like a hobby, nothing I'm like, I'm not trying to like make money doing it, I just you know, enjoy it.

Yeah, well, we'll link below next phenomenon, Daniel.

Hey, you got it, guys.

Yeah, cheers.

Thanks for watching, guys.

As always, see you next time.