How Phil Hellmuth Turned $15K Into Millions! | Phil Hellmuth DSH #600

World Series main event, 10,000 people again this year.

That's insane.

How much luck is needed to win that one?

It's become an endurance test.

So what I'm saying is I can't win the main event anymore.

Really?

And people are like, what do you mean?

Phil thinks he can win anything.

And the reason I can't win it has nothing to do with poker skills.

It's 10 days.

You have to play nine days in a row from noon until one in the morning.

Wow.

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And here's the episode.

All right, guys, we have one of the best spoken players in the world on today, Phil Helmuth.

Just turned 60.

Happy birthday.

Yeah,

yesterday, as a matter of fact.

Crazy.

Any life-changing thoughts come to mind when that happened?

You know, I put something out that morning saying, hey, it would be amazing if I could win this $25,000 buy-in tournament on my birthday or maybe a couple hours after.

And

so it turns midnight.

And

I played really, really, I played great.

And unfortunately, you know,

sometimes the cards don't cooperate.

And then

I felt safe the whole time.

And then all of a sudden, 18 get paid.

And there's 19 left.

And fighting to get paid, it's 52,000 for 18th, but nothing for 19th.

And so at least I cashed.

But it was, you know, a bit frustrating.

So, you know, the story is I cashed at 12.07 a.m.

on my birthday.

Then my wife flew in to surprise me anyway.

She was going to fly in if I made it.

And we went to dinner, and I tried to just run the bill up because it's my 60th.

And I...

go to pay the bill and they're like, that guy paid it.

It just doesn't happen as much that people pick up my bill.

In the old days, the restaurants would pick up my bill in the 2008, 2009, 2010,

and rarely an individual.

And so, you know, it was pretty cool.

Wow, that is cool.

And so, yeah, it was just like, thank you.

I did a video with him.

But I mean, so it felt kind of auspicious.

And then my wife and I went to play, we don't play casino games.

She never plays.

I dragged her over to play some baccara.

And I said, honey, I know you want to to leave.

Why don't you just give me three winners in a row?

And she said, player, player, player.

And I bet big.

And so it was kind of, it felt like a bit of an auspicious birthday.

One of the stocks, Rush Tree Interactive,

that I'm involved in and, you know, made a nice move too.

Wow.

A lot of good things happening.

Yeah, and I'm a dragon.

So, right.

I mean, if you have a 60th birthday this year, then you're a dragon.

So it's also the year of the dragon.

So I was expecting more as far as

like a better world series of poker yeah you didn't win a bracelet this year right did not and lots of deep runs and played great happy with the way i played but

you know and then the temptation is to is to tweet out all the bad hands you lost i can't believe da da da da da da

and i used to do that in the past and then always within 20 minutes i'd say oh but my life is blessed so i just decided to skip that step and uh and not

and you know and then and realize how blessed i am right like i'm very wealthy.

I'm famous.

I've been given so much.

Yeah.

I have the perfect wife.

Amazing to find her.

We've been together 35 years.

Wow.

We have very healthy children, great children.

And so there's so much to be thankful for.

In 2021, I made seven final tables.

So I had a few cards then.

Incredible.

So you are a believer in that astrology stuff, though?

Astrology?

I try to use whatever I can.

That's the Chinese

calendar.

I try to believe whatever gives me positivity.

So,

you know, it's like, if it helps me, then I'll believe it.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

That is your username on Instagram, Philhelmuth Positivity.

Yeah.

And you were known for raging in the past.

Oh, well, absolutely.

Still will rage.

Yeah, people are like, I don't understand the disconnect.

It's Philhelmeath Positivity.

I wrote a book called Positivity.

Tony Robbins loved it, gave me a great jacket blurb.

Sheryl Sandberg loved it, and she wrote just a really sweet write-up for me.

And I had Draymond Green also give me a jacket blurb.

Wow.

And so that book is eight life tips.

And I'm very proud of that book.

And it's changed a lot of people's lives.

And so, sure, I'm a poker player, right?

But I discovered I started inspiring people in 2002.

And then you can think of like watch.

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Watching Tiger Woods hit shots that only he can hit.

That's inspirational to people.

Watching Michael Jordan do things only that he can do, like the defensive intensity.

you know that he had and everything else and i'm like all right i'm i'm performing at the human the edge of human limits you know uh I'm the greatest holding player in the world by far in 04-05.

I think I still am.

And so I'm making laydowns no one else could make.

I'd have Ace King, it would come Ace 4-4, and I'd just fold it.

And everybody's like, what?

That's impossible.

So it started like that.

And then

I always wanted to teach people the eight life tips that I learned.

And so, you know, so I wrote a book, Positivity, and to have Tony Robbins tells people to buy my book

is an advanced seminar.

Yeah.

It's crazy.

That's the goat right there.

He's telling people to buy my book, Tony Robbins, is advanced seminars.

And I'm just like, wow.

So he believes in it too.

And I think it's truth.

You know, I think of,

I'll just segue to one thing and I'll let you ask some questions.

I think of truth as being kind of an amorphous blob.

I almost think of it as being green in color, like lime green.

It's this blob, right?

And Tony Robbins comes from this direction.

And then, you know,

other like other really smart people that are motivating people come from this direction.

I come from this direction.

But it's all truth.

So teaching the world truth and teaching the world to think bigger, to achieve more, to be greater.

Yeah.

And so, you know, that's an important mission for me.

Very important.

You mentioned you still think you're the greatest at 60 years old now.

Do you feel like as you've gotten older, you've gotten better?

Because I know with

chess players, they actually peak in their 20s.

I didn't know if poker was a similar thing because there's a lot of mental in the game.

Yeah, I've gotten gotten better.

I mean, you have to like,

so you have no limit hold'em,

which I've dominated for a long time.

And now the new generation is like, oh, he doesn't play a lot of tournaments with us.

But then they have to, they have to kind of bend their knee a little bit because the tournaments I do play, I just keep getting there.

I've won two bracelets

and no limit hold them in the last four years and had a second place in other final tables.

And I'll even play as many no-limit tournaments.

So that game I kind of mastered early.

I was way ahead of the curve, just dominating for decades.

Now, some people have caught up with me, or at least I think they're close.

And so people will say, oh, this guy's better than you.

There's only one or two or three in the world that can say, this guy's better than you.

Phil Ivy.

No, no one says.

I mean, no one's saying he's better.

Ivy's better than me at Holdham.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

No, I mean, he,

Ivy's an amazing player.

Don't misunderstand but we're talking about Texas hold him he doesn't have a bracelet yet and hold him got it I have

16 right 12 and 12 or 13 or 14 and hold him

so but yeah but there's a couple players out there Adrian Mateos and a couple of others and everybody's oh he's better than you

but we we don't get to play in the same tournaments very often so I think I think if I went and played those tournaments that these Tritons and whatever I think that I'd show these guys how good I am.

But, you know, I'm trying to make a billion dollars, right?

So you have Philhelmuth,

the poker player,

and

then you have, you know, and the positivity stuff is important to me.

I've also read a New York Times best-selling book.

And then the business guy, right?

So I advise, I think I'm about to sign my 27th advisory deals.

Wow.

So that means I advise 27 different companies.

What does that look like?

10 hours per year.

That's it?

Yep.

And they'll give me 2% or 3% of the company.

But imagine it as a sheet of paper.

Here's a sheet of paper.

I'll connect you to these eight people.

No one can get to these eight people.

I'll connect to these eight people.

And

the first conversation, I see their business so clearly.

And I see the future with it clearly.

I'm not.

I mean, I think I'm really good at that.

And I'm like, have you thought of this?

And sometimes on the first or second phone call, I've thought of things they haven't thought of.

And they right away, they're like, oh, my God, Phil gets it.

And I want him involved, and he has great energy, and he's fun to be with.

And so, so, yeah, so I'll connect with these eight people to help raise money.

What does that really mean?

I'll connect them to 24 people or 32 people.

The one-hour a month thing is meant to be, my power is at the beginning of these companies, right?

When can I help?

Can I help ATT right now?

Can I help IBM?

Can I help Amazon?

No, I mean, maybe I can wear their logo on television.

But they have experts, you know,

guiding the ship already.

What I can help is I can help the young founders.

And every one of them will tell you that I've been a great cheerleader for them, too.

So cheerleading,

connecting to celebrities, connecting.

So I took on a deal recently called Nutcase Milk.

Oh, I've seen that with Ninja, right?

Yeah.

And so she came to me, Joelle Winand, and she's fantastic.

We'd only hung out like 10 times lifetime.

And she's like, all right, I'm starting this company.

I want you as an advisor.

And I'm like, that's cool.

And her husband is, you know, I just want to say, I'm not going to mention his name, but he's number three at Shopify.

Wow.

Yeah.

So, you know, the people watching the show know Shopify.

And so, you know, I felt kind of honored.

She came to me.

And I said, okay, this is what I want to do.

I'll help you.

I'll connect you to all these people to raise money.

My vision for the company is we hire ninja to drink the product on stream.

And then I reach out to ninja and I connect him.

And

so that was my

idea.

That's worth 2% in my eyes for sure.

Of course.

So now Ninja has a big piece of the brand and he's promoting it.

It's a great brand, nutcase milk.

It's cashew milk.

And so that's one where I really helped a ton.

Yeah.

Did I earn my 2%?

Yeah.

Did I earn more than that?

Just kidding, Joelle.

But no, I feel great about that.

And so these are the kind of things that I can do.

You know, companies come to me and they say, hey, I'd like you to put me in touch with Shamath, Polyhapati, my best friend, or

some of the Chicago billionaires, some of the New York billionaires.

And it's crazy that I know all these people, right?

All through poker, right?

Yeah, when I signed this deal, I said, oh, well, I can put you in touch with,

I know, I can, I can you know this is a this is a coin right karate combat karate combat is a coin it's also a fight league so the the coin owns the league got it so the poker players all love this one they didn't like my last one as much and so I told the founders hey

you know

Brian Armstrong who started coinbase and Bill Lee who's you know Bill Lee was

maybe it was Bill Lee's idea to start Coinbase, you know,

and

came on early.

And then, so yeah I have Brian I can connect you to Brian Armstrong I just gave the Winkle Voss I just gave Tyler and Cameron poker lessons

when I was in New York at their apartment it was really fun I like those guys a lot and and so I'm connected to all these people they're on my speed DAO and so you know is that helpful well yeah Brian Armstrong runs Coinbase we want to get listed great

you know the Winkle Voss brothers of course they have their own Gemini correct and so and so you know, not to mention all the other people I know.

So, so that's why this deal came to me.

And so it's just, it's very, I'm having a lot of fun, I have to say.

And now, you know, you're catching me where I have just spent seven weeks thinking about nothing but poker.

Now, I've had some of my founders fly in the last week or two, and I've tried to make time for them.

But it's been, it's been, it's been really intense.

Now, I just busted four hours ago from my last tournament.

So, you know, I'm kind of now switching back into business mode, taking a look at a lot of different stuff.

And that transition is fun, but that's a fun life for me.

Yeah, that is cool.

And I can make a billion dollars advising companies, making investments in companies.

I can't make a billion dollars in poker.

It's very capped.

What can you make?

Two million, three million a year?

So,

you know,

so yeah, so it's just fun for me.

And I don't know, you know, I'm also a guy that, you know,

guards his time very, very, very,

I'm very guarded.

You have to be at your level.

I let myself sleep in every single day of my life.

Texting me, you don't wake up until what, too?

Yeah.

A lot of days I don't wake up until noon.

That's crazy.

I like that.

And so for me, sleeping in is super important and to longevity.

I just turned 60.

I know I don't look anywhere near 60.

And so, but it's fun for me to

help the founders see energy that they have, you know?

And I invest in founders, not their ideas, right?

I I mean, if their idea sucks, I'm not going to do it.

But, you know, I'm about to meet with a new founder

who's doing Fast Break AI.

It's a really cool company.

And I was talking to him the other day and he just blew me away with what he was saying.

And I'm like, oh, my God, you know?

And so these, these, you know, and he really seemed to like me.

You know, he had a theory about, you know, he had a thesis about,

you know, stock market bubbles are pretty accurate.

They're on to something, but it takes a few years before they actually hit.

So anyway, just so I'll meet him tonight.

And then,

and my wife's in town.

She flew in for my birthday.

So

and then tomorrow, crazily enough, I really wanted to go visit some friends in Montana.

And

I said, I'm not going to reach out to them until I'm done with the tournaments.

I woke up and they texted me today.

And so their plane leaves at noon tomorrow.

And they have this incredible compound in Montana.

So boom, I'm off.

Beautiful.

So you actually make more money outside of poker.

Oh, yeah, a lot more.

Wow.

Because most poker pros, poker is their main thing, right?

Well,

you make your money in poker, and if you're smart, you deploy it, right?

So I'd like to think that the greatest poker players in the world

can deploy capital using their chips in an atmosphere, right?

In an atmosphere where there's other players at the table.

So that could be, you could imagine those other players are opportunities or companies or whatever.

I think that the greatest poker players in the world, I've had this thesis since the 1990s, the greatest poker players in the world can all become billionaires.

Because if you can manage yourself and your money at that table and the strategies of the game, you should be able to do it off the table.

Wow.

So

I went public with this thesis in the 1990s.

And then a bunch of poker players did almost become billionaires with full tilt.

Really?

Has anyone done it yet?

Well, okay.

Yeah, sure.

Susquehanna.

I'm sure you've heard of Susquehanna.

Susquehanna.

No, I have.

Susquehanna is this massive company.

It was three professional poker players that all quit right before I came into poker.

Wow.

They said it's capped.

And now they're billionaires.

I think one of them is worth 35 billion.

Damn.

Professional poker players that said, oh, man, life's too easy.

Well, why should we grind here playing poker?

And they went out and did it.

So look up Susquehanna, the people at home.

A lot of people know what that company is, but those are three guys that they became billionaires.

It is a grind.

It seems like a very stressful lifestyle to be a poker player.

Yeah.

I mean,

you really have to, yeah, you really have to like, just imagine that you are

having a bad day and you're off.

In my profession, a professional poker player, you can lose all of your money in one day.

Jeez.

Jeez.

And this happens until you have millions of dollars.

Even when you have like 2 million, we've had guys that lost their whole 2 million in one day.

Yeah.

What?

Well, maybe they get drunk.

Maybe they're on drugs.

Maybe they're just on life tilt.

I mean, we've seen some crazy things happen in this world.

And so the first thing you have to do when you're a professional poker player is look inside you and understand yourself.

What are my strengths?

What are my weaknesses?

What do I have to protect against?

You know?

And so right away, professional poker players are very intuitive.

They really understand themselves well, the greatest ones.

You know, I know my strengths, my weaknesses.

I know it all like the back of my hand because

literally for 15 years, I could lose all of my money in one day.

And so you learn what's a good idea, what's a bad idea, what to avoid.

You know what I mean?

Did that ever happen to you where you lost everything?

I was very close.

Wow.

It was very close.

It was probably 1995.

So early on.

Well, I mean, mean, it wasn't that early.

I already had a wife and kids.

And we had just moved to Palo Alto and

Northern California.

And

we had sold our house in Madison and they sent the check to me in Vegas.

And I was super tired and super on tilt and wasn't paying attention.

I started playing in a high-stakes game.

And I'm like, oh, well, I can use some of the house money, right?

Whatever.

It's not a big thing.

And so I, Bobby Waldwin sent us this check good for $160,000.

I said, yeah.

Well, my word was good enough.

So he passed me $160,000.

I think I was down to $15,000.

Wow.

Yeah.

It might have been $12,000.

But, you know,

and we're playing $1,000, $2,000.

And back then, that's crazy.

And

I'm just one, you know, one like...

Yeah, that's like five big lines.

I'm almost gone.

Crazy.

I'm almost gone.

And I'm down 220,000 or whatever.

And it's almost like something woke up in me, you know?

But I don't care if something wakes up in you.

You could still go broke.

But something woke up.

It's like I influenced, I don't even understand it, but something woke up deep inside me and said, my God, you've, you know, and just boom, I just went on a massive run.

And

I called my wife and I, you know, I had a cell phone in 1989 when they first came out.

And I sent that check home immediately and said, all right, you got away with it.

This is your one time.

You got away with it.

Something saved you.

The atmosphere, your own whatever, something powerful emerged and you were saved.

Never do this again.

And I never did it again.

Never got close to risking all my money again.

Started getting staked by people.

People criticized me.

For getting staked?

Yeah, I was the first player that was worth a million dollars, poker player that was getting staked.

You just felt like it was less risky to do that?

What was the mindset behind that?

I had 1.3 million, I figured was my net worth.

And I said, if you get down to a million, you're getting staked.

Because,

you know, like if you lose all your money, now you have to play in a small stakes game.

Now you have to like, it's hard, right?

You lose all your money.

Now, what are you, who are you going to borrow from somebody?

And so I'm like, fuck that.

I'm just going to short circuit that.

I'll just, when I hit a million, that's my broke line.

So I'll get staked.

And I got staked.

And I remember Ted Forrest staked me.

And, you know, we got

probably 170,000 loser at one point.

Damn.

And my agreement was he was going to send me 10,000 a month.

Maybe it was, sorry, he was sending me 8,000 a month to pay my bills or 10,000 a month.

And it was a pretty, pretty intense.

But I also spent a lot of time at home because once you're 300,000 loser, you don't really want to go try to grind out 10,000.

And then boom, one World Series of poker, 0-1, I won three bracelets or so, or two bracelets and cashed for $500,000, got him out.

Wow.

And I'd learned a lot of lessons during that two or three years that he staked me and said, okay,

but I was still worth a million.

I wasn't going to lose my house.

It wasn't after to go play a small stakes game.

I could do what I wanted to do.

And so I thought that was,

I was pretty proud of myself.

In fact, when we hit the million-dollar line, I remember I was with my wife in in San Francisco.

We had a few drinks at this really nice hotel an hour from our house, but we decided to stay there for a break.

And I started going, yes.

And she said, why are you celebrating?

And I said, well, because we hit the million dollar mark and I'm going to get staked.

And she said, that's nothing to celebrate.

I said, I'm not celebrating the fact we went to a million.

I'm celebrating the fact that I'm going to get staked and it's going to...

it's going to make our lives easy the rest of our lives.

And she didn't understand it at the time.

She gets it now.

I love that.

Yeah, you've always been good with your risk mitigation.

I've seen some criticism about you where you don't play the high roller events, like the super high buy-ins, but I never understood that.

Yeah,

that's funny because they're like, oh, Phil's afraid to play with us.

Yeah.

Not afraid of these fucking guys.

None of them.

None of them.

Not even a little bit.

But do I want to go to Philippines?

Do I want to raise $700,000?

Go to Philippines and play tournaments?

What for?

What am I trying to do?

Let's just say that I think that I'm

as big a favorite as anybody in the world in those things.

How much are you going to make?

What am I going to make?

A million a year?

1.3 million a year?

So I go play the high rollers in the Philippines and I go play the high rollers in the Caribbean and I go play the high rollers in Monaco and I go, you know what I mean?

And say I'm a favorite to make 1.8 million a year.

So I have to spend all that time away from my wife and kids, you know, that my kids are grown up.

I have to to spend all that time away from my wife to try to pick up 2 million a year.

And you fucking people think I'm afraid of you?

Not afraid, not even a little bit, you know?

Why don't they have those events in the U.S.?

Is that like a law or something?

Even the U.S., sometimes I'd skip, but I'm a lot more in tune.

Now that the tournaments are at the studio, and I own a piece of the studio too.

So, you know, it makes a lot more sense for me to go and play there.

Plus, it's Vegas.

It's an hour flight.

The ARIA has a free suite for me.

And it's easier.

But yeah, yeah, I mean, that makes sense.

Yeah, the risk to reward isn't there for you.

Oh, he's afraid.

Oh, Phil's no good at hold them anymore.

I mean, it's ridiculous.

They started that shit in 2012, and then they started it in 14, and they started like,

it's ridiculous.

And I just keep winning world champions.

I just keep winning bracelets and hold them.

I want a bracelet.

I want a...

event at the studio.

And so, and then someone's like, oh, Phil's a lifetime loser at high rollers.

And I said, what what are you talking about?

1.7 million.

Just look.

Oh, yeah, I guess he's right.

But there's no public correction of that, right?

So,

you know, but that drives me a little bit, right?

Negranyu

has been a big critic of mine.

He's lightened up a lot because I just keep winning.

And you also beat him heads up.

That might have helped.

Smacked him three times in a row, heads up.

And

I think he still is critical of me,

but never personal, never never attacks him, never says I do anything wrong.

He's attacked the style of play that I use, but I just keep winning and winning and winning and winning.

And they keep attacking because they don't understand what they see.

They watch me on television.

They don't understand.

When I move in with nine deuce, they don't understand it.

And I'm like, how can you not understand?

I knew he couldn't call.

That's why I moved in.

And so it's like almost the lost art of reading.

Right, because you don't follow the solver algorithms.

You do your own data.

I've never looked looked at a solver.

I've never studied.

I spent one like four hours looking at GTO once.

I won a bracelet the next day because I finally realized they're floating me on every flop with nothing.

And so then I just bombed every flop and bombed every turn and bombed every river and I had a bracelet.

Wow.

And so, I mean, that's what they're doing.

It did, it took me a while to figure that out.

So, yeah, I love my life.

I'm also, you know, I love, I have really good friends in Palo Alto.

You know, Chamas, my best friend.

And, you know, if he ever moved from, if he ever moved from California, I guess I'd have to try to drag one of his podcast hosts just tweeted out he's moving.

Did you see that?

Jason Kalkanis, yeah.

He told us a week ago that he he's moved to Austin area.

Yeah, I don't know why, but that's that got a lot of traction on Twitter, I believe.

A lot of people are moving out of Cali, right?

Yeah, and you know, I mean, I was hoping Jason wouldn't move.

He's he's a good guy, and he's

he attacks me more in person than anybody I know.

Really?

Oh, yeah.

At the tables.

But

you grow to realize the guy has a good heart, and I'm going to miss him.

And so he's like, oh, I'll be back a lot.

I mean, it's a weekly poker game, and it's just so much fun.

And, you know, we've lost some of the people.

Our Bill Gurley moved to.

Austin as well, you know.

Yeah, Austin's nice.

I just got back from Austin.

A lot of podcasters out there, business people.

My guy Bill Lee moved to Austin.

Elon is down there a lot now.

Elon Rogan.

Bill's out there, right?

The poker player.

Billionaire guy.

I forget his last name.

Although, I think he spends, I think he's half Houston, maybe.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Shout out to Austin.

There's a good, doesn't Doug Polk have his thing out there, too?

He does.

He does.

Yeah.

And my friend built a beautiful poker room down there right on Lake Austin.

I still haven't played in his place.

I have to go to South by Southwest next year.

Yeah, that'll be fun.

For some reason, so I'll see those guys.

Do you like cash games more than tournaments?

No, I love tournaments.

I love, but I love World Series of poker tournaments.

That's where I come in.

That's where I, if you want to criticize me, criticize me on my World Series of Poker record, but no one can.

That's where it's important to come in and win bracelets.

World Poker Tour is important too, but it's still harder for me to like, you fly all the way to Connecticut to play one World Poker Tour tournament

and you bust out and now it's 5 p.m.

and you can't get a flight.

You can't get a flight from the East Coast.

I mean, there's no flights until the morning.

So you're like, oh my God, anywhere I go, it's 6 p.m.

I can't get out of here.

You're stuck in Connecticut.

Or New York or wherever the tournament is on the East Coast.

And Florida is such a long flight.

And so, you know, I miss a lot of World Poker Tours.

I've played a lot less than all the other guys that are going after WPT titles.

Do you think any current players can catch up to your 17 World Series bracelets?

Listen, you know, Phil Ivy won his 11th.

Daniel just won his sixth or seventh.

Seventh, I think.

And, you know, Ivy is just a great, great, great player.

He and I were both there

two nights ago.

Yeah.

Yesterday was the 16th.

The 15th.

He and I were both there

with

18 left in that tournament.

And either one of us could easily have won that horse tournament, the 25K.

Wow.

And Scott won three this year, Scott Seaver.

Seaver's incredible.

I mean,

he's funny to me.

He's like, well,

I finally applied myself.

That's why I won.

And then I'm like, all right, Scott, we'll see.

We'll see next year playing the same way.

If you, you know, I mean, I don't care how good you are, you need cards.

Yeah.

Right.

And so,

you know, so give Siever credit.

He's one of the best players in the world.

But, you know, going public with a statement, I text him and I'm like, okay, well, you're winning just because you're applying yourself.

Let's see what it looks like next year.

Yeah, he's been going off on his Twitter lately.

It's been funny to watch.

World Series main event, 10,000 people again this year.

That's insane.

How much luck is needed to win that one?

It's become an endurance test.

And so

I hate to say it.

And my sister's like, I read this, you said this, and it's so negative.

And I said, well, that's not really what I meant.

So what I'm saying is I can't win the main event anymore.

Really?

And people are like, what do you mean?

Phil thinks he can win anything.

And the reason I can't win it has nothing to do with poker skills.

I can win any tournament on the planet, but it's 10 days.

You have to play nine days in a row from noon until one in the morning.

Wow.

So I'm not an endurance guy, right?

We said earlier, know thyself, right?

Know thy strengths and weaknesses.

I've been gifted with this ability to play all these games basically

at a world-class, higher than world-class level.

I've been given this great gift of seeing what to do.

And then, you know, if if you want to talk about it, I think curse is a bad word, but I get tired.

I get tired easily.

I can blow a tournament.

I need lots of days off.

And so

that tournament in particular, it's just too many days.

Yeah.

So

it's an endurance test.

So I don't, you know, and I don't think it's a poker tournament anymore.

I just think it's an endurance test.

And probably 40% of the field can't win because they can't deal with the fatigue.

No, I can see that.

And I know Foxon got a lot of criticism for that hand she played,

but she was playing for nine days straight.

People don't think about that.

It's really rough.

And

my world poker tour, my sorry, my world series of poker tournaments that I win, maybe I'll start on day two even, or I'll start late on day one.

So I'll play three hours.

Then day two is one until one in the morning.

You know?

And then now day three is one until it used to be like three, four in the morning.

Jeez.

And at the end of that, if I finish first, second, or third, I'm completely out of energy.

Wow.

Completely out of energy.

And so I've learned that I need to take at least two days off.

And,

you know, and so and so, yeah,

that's my weakness.

And I think a lot of people suffer that same weakness.

Yeah, that's why my first question to you was, do you feel like you've lost a step or do you feel like you're still getting better?

Because I feel like with age, that's something to keep in mind.

Well, I mean, if you want to, if you you want to, is my endurance the same as it was?

Probably not, but I always had an endurance issue.

But you have to understand, in 2021, all of a sudden I mastered two more games.

So we can continue to learn, right?

Why can't we learn?

And so in these mixed games,

you know, I'm very lucky that the best player in the world of a specific game in another specific game gave me advice.

Wow.

And all of a sudden, I'm like, Potlamma, Omaha, boom.

All of a sudden, could never get there.

And all of a sudden, I'm just there all the time.

Triple draw, boom.

You know?

And so, you know, this advice came from, you know, someone who just happens to be the best in the world at these games.

And then all of a sudden, the light is turned on.

Right.

And so what you find is people improve at poker and they improve in poker.

They improve at poker.

And so the game becomes a little bit tougher all the time.

But

but yeah, no, I've just gotten better.

So boom, 2021, when I'm 57 years old, all of a sudden I mastered two more games.

So I have all that.

So I mean, like, this is a game where you can continue to get, this isn't chess.

You know, this is a game where, you know, where you have to master nine different games or eight different games.

And if you can play them all at a world-class level, you're going to win a lot of bracelets.

I love it.

You're also good at heads-up.

You planning any heads-up matches anytime soon?

No, not really.

There were some challenges out there.

One guy in particular was a little loud.

But no.

Which guy?

Oh, let's not talk about that.

Oh, God.

Okay.

Can't give everybody a platform.

I feel that.

Yeah, a lot of people call you out.

You're very controversial, right?

Not that many people have called me out for heads-up.

It's been kind of quiet since I won the first three matches against Antonio and the first three against Daniel.

I think that shocked a lot of people.

Well, yeah, it shocked people, which is funny to me.

No, I think it did.

Antonio's like, I'm a four-to-one favorite.

And I said, he has no fucking idea what's going to happen here.

I'm a four-to-one favorite.

I was laughing on the inside.

He's saying it.

And he came back and he said, now I'm a two-to-one favorite.

And I was fucking laughing.

And the last one, he said, well, I'm a three-to-two favorite.

I was laughing.

People don't understand

what I do.

You know,

all of my reading, when I'm playing somebody heads up, all of my reading abilities focused on that one person.

And if I can understand that they're weak or they're strong 30 times in these matches, we're playing 30 hands an hour.

We're playing six hours, 180 hands.

If I can just 30 times know if they're weak or strong and make a decision based on that, I have a huge edge.

And so the reality is in some of these matches, I might be four or five to one favorite, but no one believes that.

They all think everybody's three to two, this, three to two, that.

Maybe I opened a few eyes

when I crushed everybody.

Yeah.

Next one you play, I'll bet on you, man.

It was funny to me, though.

These guys saying I'm a big favorite.

I'm like, that's crazy.

So that means you're better in person, right?

Online, you're not able to read people.

Oh, yeah, much better in person.

That makes sense.

So that's your skill.

It's kind of an old school skill to have, right?

I mean, it's an any school skill to have, being great at reading people.

It turns out that in poker around 01, poker was, I'm going to not say dying.

It was heading down a little bit.

I remember 2001 at the bicycle casino or 2000,

one of those years, and we only had like 35 players for the main event.

Wow.

And

I was just like, man, this isn't good.

And the best players in the world were great at reading people.

There were like four or five of us that were great at it.

And then, boom, the next year, the World Poker Tour.

So now, and it was like maybe a 5K buy-in.

Now the World Poker Tour comes into town.

I walk in.

There's four news trucks in the parking lot.

Ben Aflak is playing.

All these superstars are playing, right?

And it's like 700 people.

So we went from like 35 or 40 at 5K to 700.

Damn, what caused that?

The World Poker Tour.

Just because they launched, that's it.

No,

what happened was people could understand how poker really, how easy Holdem is.

It's a game that takes five minutes to learn a lifetime to master.

When there's no whole card showing, people are confused.

Now they see the whole cards.

Everybody at home is like, oh, this is an easy game.

It's a simple game.

Call, call, call.

Fold, fold, fold.

They're screaming at their televisions, you know?

Right.

And so all of a sudden, the whole world said, oh, my God, this is an easy game.

It's fun.

There's great characters.

And I just remember, you know, they said Sports Illustrated needs five minutes.

And I said, no.

I said, what am I saying?

Because I'm used to saying no to the press on these big days.

And I'm like, Yeah, Sports Illustrated gets five minutes.

You know, they were a big deal back then with the magazines, Sports Illustrated.

Yeah, Sports Illustrated was my favorite magazine.

They just went out of business, though, right?

I don't know, but that magazine I read religiously through the 80s and 90s.

Loved it.

I used to love that as a kid.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

So poker, oh, the World Poker Tour super boosted it.

Seeing the whole card on camera is what changed everything.

And yeah, just that you just look at the like 35 people in a quiet room to 700 people, four news trucks, Ben Affleck, who was going out with J-Lo.

Wow.

Him and J-Lo were like arguably the biggest stars in the world.

And if you told me they're number three, I'd probably argue with you.

But they were massive.

And he's playing in the tournament.

And these other super, these other stars are showing up.

Jason Alexander, all these other stars.

I mean, how big was he?

You know, I mean, in Seinfeld, you know?

And so

it was just a super boost.

And then we came out with,

you know, then we came out with Celebrity Poker Showdown,

which I hosted for a year.

Yeah.

Poker After Dark, right?

Those shows were lovely.

Poker After Dark.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's cool.

Now it feels like there's another boom with these content creators.

Super.

We lost all of the people between, say, the ages of 27 and 34.

But now,

I mean, it's bizarre.

The last three years, I get stopped in the airport and I just, Phil, I'm your biggest fan.

And I'm just like, how old are you?

20.

I'm like, well, you're not my biggest fucking fan.

You only know I exist for a year or two, but I don't say that.

And 19, 20, 18, 22, 23, 24, 20.

And I'm just like, oh, my God.

And what happened is, you know, in 2020,

people went back to poker.

You were stuck at home for months, most of us.

And so what did you do?

Well, you could play video games or you could play poker, which is more interesting for a lot of people.

And you can play for money.

And all these people that had left the game, they came back in and they discovered they're a lot better because now they're more mature, right?

So these guys in their 20s that were bad at poker, but love the game, all of a sudden they're in their 30s.

And all of a sudden, they're playing a lot better.

They're more mature.

They're more in control of themselves.

And so all those people came back.

And then all these new people came in.

And so it's crazy how big poker is for the kids between 18 and 26.

And so we own that demographic now.

And

I think it's kind of crazy and great to watch.

And now you have Power Poker, you know, which has educated 120,000 random women on how to play.

Wow.

They go all over the country and they educate women on how to play Texas Hold'em.

You know, Jenny just started that.

You know, this billionaire that nobody knows exists.

one of the most badass women in the world as a businesswoman, Jenny.

She decided, no affiliation with poker.

She just decided that

women aren't risk-averse enough.

And so she said, I'm going to teach my 16-year-old daughter to play.

She had a poker night.

The first night,

everybody was whatever, a little unfocused.

The second night, you could already see the difference.

Wow.

All the girls just paying attention.

So she launched this company.

And so now, I mean, it's 100,000, you know, kind of random businesswomen that have suddenly been interjected, injected into poker.

And so, you know, and for me, since November, I've made it a priority for me to, you know, to

have, to, to, to prioritize making sure that more women play in the game.

Yeah, it is male-dominated right now, right?

And I can do that by filming with women.

So one show we had a, we had a hand between, you know, Jennifer Tilley and Arden Show.

And Arden Show had her own show partner track, and she was on that werewolf show or whatever.

Teen Wolf.

She was on Teen Wolf, and she's really cool.

And her and Jennifer Tilley played this pot where they flopped set over set, and Arden hit quads.

Jeez.

And there's like 100, there's going to be 100 million views of this hand.

And so, and I saw more women winning tournaments at the Commerce Casino in May.

And then, so it's really, it's amazing to see.

And I saw more women at the World Series of poker this year than I've ever seen before.

That's cool.

And it's so cool.

People People are comfortable.

You know what happened is

some woman gets the courage up to go play

in a casino.

For men, it's the same thing, gets the courage up and shows up.

And then some asshole gets drunk and makes some comment about them, right?

And they're like, what the fuck?

I didn't sign up for this, you know?

And so a lot of women were driven out of poker by.

you know, kind of assholes.

It's all dudes.

When I go to a casino and I look out who's playing poker, it's all dudes.

Not anymore, baby.

Yeah, it's changed.

Oh, yeah.

The changes are.

And I think with the change in Fox and Seep Run, it's going to inspire some more.

Man, we needed her to make the final nine.

I wanted that so bad.

That would have been a New York Times front page, you know, and so bad for poker, but

I think that the women in poker are just going like this, and they're going to continue to do this.

And I wouldn't be surprised, you can quote me on this, 2028, I wouldn't be surprised if we have 30% women

versus like the 5% or whatever it it is.

That'd be cool.

Phil,

what do you got going on next and where could people keep up with you?

Next,

yeah, you know, it's

like I was saying earlier, I've had

seven weeks of playing poker every day.

So now,

and I got lucky and I'm hopping going to Montana tomorrow and

spend some time up there with some friends for three, four, five days.

We'll see, maybe a week to just chill.

I'm planning on going to Barcelona for the Poker Stars tournament there.

Barcelona is near the top of the places I would like to go that I haven't been.

And so Barcelona is August 27th, probably through September 8th.

And

I think that's going to be fun for me.

We'll probably film the big game when I'm over there.

And,

you know,

I'm in talks to host a television show called Celebrity Poker Showdown.

Nice.

Which

I hosted it the last season.

It was in existence, like 2004.

And so I'll probably end up hosting that show.

That's going to be fun.

And,

you know, in 2020, I was supposed to host five television shows.

Holy crap.

And then COVID happened.

Yeah, COVID happened.

And it was good for me to be able to rest.

And my wife and I got a lot of time and realized, hey, we're going to be together forever, which is great.

You know, you don't know.

She's a busy, she's a doctor, she's busy.

I'm traveling a lot.

I'm busy.

And we were forced to spend a lot of time together.

Like, yeah, this still works.

I love the old clips of you

talking to her at your poker tournaments.

Honey, honey,

honey, they forgot one thing.

I can dodge bullets, baby.

Iconic.

Phil, it's been a blast.

Thanks for coming on, man.

All right.

Good time.

Yep.

Thanks for watching, guys.

See you tomorrow.