Life After Poker (with Vanessa Selbst)

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Welcome back to Risky Business, a show about making better decisions.

I'm Maria Kanakova.

And I'm Nate Selper.

Today on the show, we have a very special guest, Vanessa Selpst.

Vanessa and I first met when we were both poker stars team pros.

I was just starting out playing poker and Vanessa was just getting the hell out of there.

And Vanessa remains one of the most impressive people I have ever met in or out of poker.

Yale undergrad, Yale Law School.

Only female poker player ever to have reached number one on the GPI, that's global poker index rankings, overall.

So both men and women, like just number one, period, but only female to have ever done that over 11 million in earnings, three World Series of poker bracelets, and then left it all behind, left that glamorous life behind to join Bridgewater Associates and go into the hedge fund world,

after which she went to Jane Street Capital, which is where we find her today.

Welcome to the show, Vanessa.

Thanks, Maria.

Thank you for that intro.

It's

definitely more than I deserve, but I appreciate it nonetheless.

And Nate, how long have you known Vanessa?

I think I knew her kind of about the time, maybe when she quit.

Maybe I reached out and I'm like, oh, you know, if you've kind of left poker for other things, I don't know, sent some stupid cold email, I think, and we wound up becoming friends and we have a lot in common.

And so I'm a huge admirer of Vanessa as well.

That's not right at all, Nate.

We met at a really awkward,

what my wife was joking was like a really awkward date.

You don't remember this in Aussie Millions and like Aussie Millions.

Okay.

2012 or 2014.

I don't even know what year it was, but like, I don't know.

The people at Aussie Millions were like, Nate Silver wants to meet you.

I was like, oh, I want to meet him.

And then we went on like, like, had dinner, but it was just like super awkward and funny, but like, it was a good time.

I had super funny.

I had to marry.

And then, so that was when we first hung out, but then we didn't really start hanging out till a few years later.

So I just didn't know.

That was a very special uh one of my awkwardest dates that i've ever had so i i guess it was more meaningfully awkward to me but that's okay it was it was a good time so i actually i remember the first time i met you was in monte carlo um it was my first ever poker stars stop um and it was my first ever major kind of major tournament period.

I knew, you know, I had known nothing about poker and kind of

there I was and Eric Seidel introduced us.

Eric Seidel, obviously, you know who he is, and listeners of the show know who he is, you know, one of the greatest players of all time, became my coach.

And he was like, I want you to meet Vanessa Selps.

She's really, really impressive.

And I was like, I don't want to meet Vanessa.

She scares me.

Yeah, that's funny.

And then, and then we met.

And at first, I was like, I don't think she likes me.

And Eric's like, no, no, she likes you.

And then we became friends.

And I realized that you were actually pretty amazing.

Well, thanks.

Yeah, it was great, great to meet you at the beginning of a a great friendship.

You know, it is funny that you say that because there is this thing where there's this like,

you know, not to get too like

whatever serious about kind of a light-hearted anecdote, but it's like there really is this thing where you're on TV and you're, or you're just playing poker in general, not even on TV, where, you know, you're like, you have your game face, you're like in the zone and I get really intense when I'm playing and I'm like really concentrating and I'm also often like playing pretty aggressive.

So there's this like weird like crossover between your poker style and your personality, right?

And so, I can come across as like really intense, and I get really intense sometimes.

Like, I'm really in the moment, and I think sometimes it would just be like really intense, and people would be like, Oh my god, who is this person?

But you're you're very self- I mean, you're very self-possessed, and I never want to make assumptions about someone's inner confidence level versus how they project outwardly.

But did you feel like it was an advantage to be on TV?

Um, oh, like, like, was it an advantage that I got to be on TV playing poker?

Like, absolutely.

Do you felt like you played better

on TV relative, or, you know, maybe everyone plays worse because there's more external factors to deal with, but did you, like,

if you are told I'm at whatever day of the World Series main event, right, you're the feature table, are you happy about that or not?

Oh, man, that's a complicated question.

That's a good question.

It's a complicated question because I didn't actually like the act of like being on TV, if you will.

I just like, I definitely had an advantage over my competitors at a random World Series tournament where I've been on that stage a million times and they haven't.

Um, and I'm gonna make better decisions and stuff, but I just didn't like it on like a visceral level.

Um, but being on TV was actually a huge advantage for me.

I kind of like utilized that.

Um, basically, what I mean to say is, like, I got a reputation.

The first time I was ever on TV, I made this like really crazy bluff.

I four-bet all in with 2-5 suited.

It was a thing that happens now occasionally.

It's still considered a reckless play, but at the time, it was 2006.

And no one had ever seen anyone do that or like had any idea.

You know what I mean?

You re-raised with like pocket aces, maybe ace king if you were feeling like bluffy, you know, at the time.

And so when that happened, I got this reputation as being like the craziest person in the world, you know, in poker.

And by the way, you managed to run into aces in that hand.

I did manage to run into aces.

And I don't know if that was a coincidence, having just explained that most people that three-bet usually had aces.

So

the point just being like, it was this crazy play and everybody kind of took notice.

You know, they're like, I don't look like your typical poker player.

I wasn't playing like your typical poker player.

Like, who is this person?

And I think that stuck out in people's minds so much that I just instantly got this reputation for being this like crazy, crazy player to the point where I would play games and I, you know, I would end up in like

a thousand big blind pods, meaning, for the average viewer, meaning pods that were like way bigger than your average pot, like just a giant, giant giant pot and i would like go all in on the river and i would get called by like ace high and you're just like how do i end up in a situation where there's like a thousand big blinds in the middle and i'm being called by ace high and so anyway to get back to the original point of what i was saying like i was just this crazy player and i was never going to shake that image and so it it's honestly part of what led me to retire from poker because it was pretty boring i like really just couldn't bluff nearly as much as your average person like every story was like so i knew they had third pair so i just gave up um or like you know or i decided I was either going to put in, you know, my entire stack or give up.

And so

what I ended up doing was realizing I was like, okay, I literally, I get the most action of any player ever.

So I just have to play tight.

This is the most profitable strategy by far.

So whenever I went on TV,

if there was ever a close decision between like make an aggressive action like bluff or raise or just like folder call, I always took the aggressive action.

And sometimes even when it wasn't a close decision, you know, like when I, you know, five bet shove shove with Jackson and suit or whatever, I wasn't trying to light money on fire, but it was this really weird, real thing where it was like, I would give up a little bit of equity or a lot of equity sometimes to just kind of maintain this crazy image because, you know, and I can say this now because I don't play poker anymore, but it was like a decade of me just like playing.

I would say, I mean, post-flop, I was pretty aggressive, but like pre-flop, I was probably tighter than like 90% of the table, honestly.

Because I could never shake that image anyway.

So I was just like, let me use these like TV time as a way to kind of keep up my reputation.

And people just believe what they see on TV.

And that was just the most profitable way to play.

Yeah.

So I think you're raising a really interesting point, which is that, you know, when you're talking about, you know, we, we love poker on this show, not just because we all play poker, but because it's such a great way of looking at decision-making.

And I think you, you're raising a really important point, which is that no decision is made in a vacuum, right?

I have a very different reputation from yours,

but, you know, I've been a bounty in big events and I hate it because you can't bluff, right?

It's kind of the same thing.

We have this funny thing.

We're like, we'll talk up.

So you've said, I think, a couple times, Maria, we're like, okay, when you make a big shove or a big bet on the river and an opponent tanks, and if you're not a poker fan, that means they're waiting, you know,

at least half a minute to several minutes to make a decision, right?

In my experience, when they tank against me, they fold two-thirds of the time, right?

And you said it's the opposite.

For me, they call, right?

For me, the longer they tank, the more I'm like, okay, motherfucker, just call already, right?

Like, you know, just, just stop, take me out of my misery.

And, and it is, you know, it is so incredibly, you know, there's, I think that's one of the interesting things about poker.

And I'm curious, you know, how it, how you see it both in poker and outside of poker, kind of that added layer to it, right?

That there is, it's not just the math, right?

That every single risk assessment, every single decision is so dependent on the player, on the situation, on the dynamics, on all of those things.

The math is there, right?

The math matters,

but there is so much more going on.

100%.

And I think your point about like the longer it takes, that being the key point of divergence is like a really

great perception because I think that is like we have all these kind of emotional biases.

And, you know, like if you usually your brain is kind of leading the charge for the first like, beginning of your decision making, right?

And then eventually it's like the emotional, the monkey brain or whatever takes over.

And that's what I used to say about, you know, to go back to that story about how people would call me with these crazy, crazy hands.

And it's like, there were hands where the only way it's a correct call, if I'm like bluffing with a part of my rate, like we're in spots you're supposed to bluff like 15%, they would have to have assumed I was bluffing like 80% to make the call.

And it's like, okay, you see a person who's had like very good poker results.

Could I be like the 1.01% luckiest person and just a terrible poker player?

I i guess it's possible although like from a bayesian perspective like probably like if you the other prior is that like you're wrong about my range like probably that should be a stronger prior but like hey never mind so you know people would make these calls where i'm like okay the only way that this call could be correct is if I'm just a terrible player and getting lucky all the time.

Like there's no way that I could be a successful player and be bluffing the frequency that it needs to be.

But it didn't matter.

Like it was just like, I've seen you on TV.

I call, you know what I mean?

Or like i'm not going to be bluffed by you i'm not going to be bullied by you um

and it was truly incredible because it if you really just thought about it from a from a logical decision-making like rational perspective it would just be an absurd way to play against anyone so but i'm curious so you think when people take longer to make a decision that they get more emotional because people would say well i'm going through all the all the different combinations and thinking through things carefully you think that like actually kind of like i think mostly they're they yeah a few people are thinking through the combinations, but even if you're thinking through the combinations I think like even in a really complicated way it takes you like max 30 seconds to get like 90% of the way there like I just think that time is allowing so much more emotional stuff to creep in that it's just like the the ratio of like yeah math to emotion is just like definitely going down over time.

Totally agree.

If you so you

were kind of playing in the era before solvers became quite so ubiquitous.

I don't think think they existed at the beginning when I

never used a solver before.

And a solver, if you're not aware at home, is a product that literally solves the Nash equilibrium for a poker.

Not literally, since it doesn't actually exist, but yes.

Wait, what do you mean?

Well, there's a.

Are you a Nash equilibrium truther?

No, but because poker is an unsolved game, it approximates a solution, but it's not actually a problem.

It just breaks down.

That's true.

Wow.

Wow.

Sorry.

But it's true.

Technically.

Actually, you you know, I feel like when you need that meme.

I'm a literally truther.

So

how would you play differently today?

Do you think you'd try to be more

quote-unquote GTO driven or even or less so or this or the same?

That's that's a great question.

And so my goal is just to make the most money, right?

It's not to like play in a way that makes Jane Street look more like a reasonable place and not make crazy bluffs, right?

So

okay, just under that premise, I would say, I think,

I mean, so in in my career, I'm a trader, like poker player, trader, whatever it is.

Like, you think about where does your edge come from?

And

it's certainly for me, not in playing GTO better than anybody else at this point.

Like, I've literally never used a solver.

I've never studied it.

I'm also very unpracticed from the game.

And so.

I don't even remember like what the lines that I'm supposed to take in various spots are.

Like, I used to come close enough to what the solvers would say if I had used them.

It was actually like pretty cool.

I would ask my friends and I'd be like, oh, I kind of got there, you know, just from understanding the theoretical underpinnings of the game.

And I'm pretty far from that because I really play maybe once or twice a year at this point for the last almost decade.

So,

you know,

I would have to play less GTO.

My strategy back then was to put people, you know, people that were trying to play GTO that I thought were just kind of like memorizing.

And like there was, there's this class of poker players that was like successful because they were good at memorizing things and not

that great at thinking through things.

And so I was like, okay let me sacrifice a little bit of EV on an early part of the hand in order to get them into a spot they're very unused to uncomfortable with and just outreason them in a spot where the pot is much bigger

and I would just do that repeatedly and kind of through doing that I would you know kind of figure out where the population where most players were making the most mistakes and you know and so I think I would just do that, but even more because I think my edge there is probably still similar to what it is now.

You know, it would take me a while.

I probably wouldn't be winning at first doing that because I think part of the reason that was such a successful strategy for me was like, I would just see the same thing over and over.

I would be like, you know, I don't know, not to make it too pokery, but I'd be like, oh, I checked the turn in a spot that no one would.

And then I would like raise small and then, you know, whatever, like some weird line that no one takes, but I would take it a lot.

And so I would see how people would react.

um over and over again but i think like whenever you're making any decision and i think this applies to trading way even more than poker, is just like thinking through really,

really carefully, like, where does your edge come from?

Where does my edge not come from?

Where am I getting outplayed?

And so that would have to be the answers.

No, I would much rather play against like a

GTO

perfect player than like Vanessa.

I think it's such a smart strategy, both in poker and in life, to put people in parts of the game tree where they're not as familiar, right?

Get them out of their comfort zone.

And I've been on the receiving end of that when I was just starting out.

There are some people who are very exploitative players.

I still remember a hand I played against someone you know, Vanessa Joe Chong.

And he defended the blinds.

I was a pre-flop raiser.

He checked.

I bet.

And then he led the turn.

And I was already planning to bet that turn.

It was a perfect barrel card.

And he led it.

I was like.

What the hell?

What are you doing?

And it really, I messed up.

I ended up busting the tournament on that hand.

And he's probably done that a bunch of times, but now he kind of understands how people in their first time reacting to that react.

And, you know, the mistakes wind up being way bigger.

Yeah.

He's making a conscious decision.

You know, it's really interesting.

One thing I have heard that, once again, I don't know anything about this.

So if I'm might be speaking on my ass, but I think you can like do things like node lock.

So if you make some like assumptions about, you know, the way your player will react in a certain spot, you can like, you know, that's different than GTO.

I think you can node lock and then you can like kind of go back back and say, okay, like conditional on them reacting a certain way,

what is my GTO play?

And like, that's what GTO is about.

It's not, or that's what, like, just, I guess, solid strategy and anything is about.

It's not, like, supposed to be this rigid thing.

It's supposed to be a way to say, okay, conditional on these assumptions I'm making about the world, what is the best course of action?

The problem is that GTO, pure GTO, the assumption that it's relying on is that everybody else is going to play perfectly.

And then if you condition on different assumptions, it's going to tell you like different things.

And so that's pretty cool.

And we'll be back right after this.

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You have a unique background for

people who went into the world of poker.

And I mean, I think something that unites a lot of what you've done is kind of the competitive edge to it, the love of games.

But you went to undergrad, you studied political science, right?

And then you played poker after that.

But then, even though you were ridiculously successful, you didn't go pro, you went to law school.

And only then after law school did you did you go into professional poker.

Can you talk us through that and how kind of

how that thinking went and kind of what the strand, whether the strand that I have picked out, kind of the competition and kind of the game aspect of it is correct or not?

How did that all work out?

It's not that deep for me.

It was mostly me trying to convince myself I'm not a degenerate when in fact I am a degenerate.

So yeah, that was, I mean, honestly, it was a lot of like, oh, this isn't actually what I'm doing for a career, right?

Like, that's not a real career.

And so it was much more like a hobby.

And honestly, it kind of always was a hobby for me.

When did you start playing?

In like, well, I mean, I started playing in high school, like when we watched Rounders.

Oh, wow.

My friends and I loved to play.

Yeah, old school.

And so, yeah, my friends and I used to play in like the lunchroom.

But I started getting more serious at Yale.

There was a, like, a game where like a bunch of people were like getting pretty serious about the game and i discovered two plus two and i started going to foxwoods every week and you know so the story goes um

and then so i played for a few years and it was okay but then i don't know i just like thought i don't know you know like you're from like a upper middle class jewish background you're like you know you're taught like education blah blah blah like i'd done well in school i thought that was kind of just like the path i thought this was just kind of like a fun sidetrack thing for me um

and so yeah I took all my money offline when I went to law school and I was like, I'm not, I'm not doing this.

I'm not going to like fall into playing pokering or my studies.

This is like a great opportunity.

That's what I'd always wanted to do.

And you'd always wanted to be a lawyer?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I thought I did.

I mean, you know, there's like, you know, you don't know what careers actually are available to you when you're younger.

But it's kind of dumb that they make you pick when you're young.

Yeah, I know.

But

yeah, so I had no idea.

So, so, so I thought I wanted to be a lawyer.

Um, and I just ended up falling back into poker because I just ran like hotter than the sun in law school.

Like there were these four tournaments that I played

like two, there was one tournament at Foxwoods and one tournament at Mohegan both years.

And I played some like,

it was like, you know, a 3K, a 3K, there was a main event or something.

And I just like won three of them and got third in the other one.

Casually.

Casually.

Yeah, it was really dumb.

I mean, a part of it was probably like I was not being in my own head anymore about, like, I was still not far enough removed from poker that I was still pretty good at it.

Everybody else was terrible at that time.

And

I was just like feeling it.

You know what I mean?

I didn't care.

I was just playing my game and stuff.

So I obviously I was also running hotter than the sun.

And so I kind of just fell back into it at that point.

Have you seen 21, which is a movie adaptation of Bring Down the House, right?

Oh, yeah.

They like fly back from like

Vegas with like tens of thousands of dollars in their pockets, right?

And they have to like go out of their fucking like Monday morning classes.

Were you feeling like I am cooler and or smarter than these people?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, not cooler or smarter.

That definitely wasn't.

Smarter was definitely not up there, but I was like, definitely like,

honestly, I would bet you know what I mean.

I felt like on top of the world for sure.

It was always really fun.

So how long were you kind of doing the whole poker tournament live world travel scene?

I'm like, just because like not many people do that, right?

And I'm interested in you because you're not somebody, I think if you, you know, you have a lot of aptitudiness at a lot of things.

A lot of things.

So you might not always find your way into this, but like, what's it like for someone like you?

Young, openly gay, very bright, has, you know, is interested in politics in the world.

What's it like kind of being on the poker scene for a few years, the kind of grindiness of it or the glamour of it?

Yeah.

Honestly, I like never really

felt like a poker pro.

And I know that's weird to say.

To answer your question, I played, I would say it was like

as close to full-time as I ever was from 2011 to 2017.

So that was kind of like the main part of my poker career when I was mostly not doing other things, although I still dabbled,

dabbled in law.

Cause I think I was still always trying to convince myself that I wasn't really a poker player or something.

But

yeah, because honestly, it was hard.

It was like, I think it can be really fun.

You know, you, you know, like it, it's, you know, you're playing poker.

It's the ultimate lifestyle.

You're seeing the world.

I mean, I don't want to downplay.

Like, it was, it was really great and it was really fun.

You're, you're seeing the world, you know, traveling from country to country or whatever.

You get to play a game pretty much all day, every day, if you want to.

If you wake up and you don't feel like going to work, you don't go to work.

Like you, you know, you're in ultimate control of everything.

And at the end of the day, it's really fun.

You're meeting really interesting people from all over the world.

I did find it hard, I guess, to kind of stay informed and stay kind of doing things that felt like meaningful.

I think a lot of poker players struggle with that, like finding meaning, like when you're just playing a card game all the time.

It's like, kind of, what is the point of this?

You know, when I was doing law, my goal was to be a civil rights attorney, but I just,

you know, my brain is built in a certain way.

And I tried being a lawyer, but it was horribly inefficient.

And just like, I just couldn't do it.

Like, it just felt really slow and not like fun.

And I think poker and trading is the thing that like gets me really excited in terms of the strategy.

Like you're constantly making strategic decisions like every second of the day.

So for me, it was just sort of like an evolution of my understanding of self that I knew this is what like made me happy.

And then what do I have to do to make meaning for myself in the world?

And so being in the poker world, it was just like hard to kind of be more well-rounded, like have interests in different places.

It was like, you know, when you're traveling, there's this weird disoriented thing of like being your physical environment kind of dictates like what you're thinking about or what you're focusing on.

And so for me, it's like, now I have a boring routine.

I have kids.

I wake up.

I like have my boring commute.

I like go to the office.

You know what I mean?

Like, I just kind of like understand what life is.

If you have a big trade on, do you enjoy the sweat of that?

What he's asking is, are you still a D-Gen, Vanessa?

Am I still a D-Gen?

Yeah, no, for sure, I'm still a D-Gen, much more so than anybody else.

I'm like, for sure, I like to, you know, sweat the outcome of trades and stuff, but you're, you know, but much less than poker.

You know, it's not like the most D-Gen exciting stuff.

Okay, so you're playing poker.

I can imagine a very, very particular

skill set.

I don't know if I want to stereotype people.

I i can imagine a very particular type of person has like poor social skills and is very undisciplined right for whom like poker is a maximizing amount of money but for for 97

of good players then you can probably make more money doing something else if you still want to be a degen then you can go work for a hedge fund or something but like i mean but when you shots fired how did you get into this industry that i mean this you you you quit and literally the new york times wrote about you that's pretty cool yeah

Did you find Bridgewater or they found you or you found them through friends or how did this relationship come about?

Yeah, it was just Galen, like Galen Hall, another really successful poker player.

Like, I didn't know anything about finance.

I, I kind of thought of it as like, you know, the Wolf of Wall Street kind of situation, you know?

So

Galen was working at Bridgewater and he was like, oh, yeah, this place, like, they'll hire you.

They have a really good kind of like education program.

And so I was just thrilled that, you know, I had heard about finance and like kind of how it was similar to poker and my mom actually had been an options trader when and an avid poker player that's amazing by the way what year was that how did that happen

um yeah she played poker uh like basically to put herself through college um which i guess was in like 73 or 72 and then um was an options trader like in the 90s yeah um on the american stock exchange yeah it was pretty crazy um the only woman i think i was gonna say say, there must not have been married money.

It was basically just her.

And so, so I'd heard about it, but I, but I didn't know much about it.

And so Galen was like, yeah, they'll teach you and whatever.

So I was just told someone was like willing to give me a job.

But yeah, ultimately, it wasn't like the right fit.

They're like kind of more,

they do like kind of like long-term investment strategy stuff.

And so

it...

It felt more like a think tank.

Like I would try to get people to gamble with me on stuff and they were just like, no.

And I'm like, what?

Like, what?

You know, don't we work at a...

like I would finally get people to gamble with me they'd owe me like you know seven dollars and sixty cents because like that's what they were comfortable gambling for and they were like or like whatever and they're like okay can you pay me and I'm like yeah like let's just flip until it's like a hundred or zero and you'll actually like this story literally I'd have debts of like $13 that I would have to pay and so I'd be like okay let's just flip like let's roll a hundred sided die and you you know I'll take 13 number or you can take 13 numbers and you know if you get one of them I'll give you a hundred bucks and they're like no

I'm just like

they're like I don't gamble like I I can't deal with this.

So what I,

I went to the bank and I got a lot of rolls of pennies and some nickels.

And I unrolled them all, a lot of them, like 100 rolls of pennies and like 100 rolls of nickels.

And I put them in a bag under my desk.

And anytime someone wanted me to pay them a debt.

in a in a number that wasn't a round number, I used to just sort through my bag of pennies and nickels and pay the debt that way.

That is amazing.

That is the best story.

Yeah.

And when I left, actually, my old coworkers met up at some point, like a few months later, and they were like, oh, we found this like bag of pennies under your test.

Did you want that?

Like,

so you worked with a bunch of nets, Vanessa, is what you're trying to do.

I was totally saying.

I was like, literally, do you guys remember that this?

But anyway, so

it wasn't the same kind of fit.

But luckily, that's where I heard about Jane Street, which is a much better fit.

So

do you feel like poker has kind of enabled you to excel in that kind of environment?

Was it transferable?

Or were both of these things that you kind of carried with you both to poker and now to Bridgewater and then Jane Street?

Like, is it what you're bringing to it?

Or

did it impart knowledge that you're now using as well?

Oh, I mean, like, of course, like, it's a completely different sphere.

Like, there was a ton to learn.

There's still a ton to learn, like, I'm learning all the time.

It's like such a complicated, complex like world.

But poker, I mean, i didn't realize like just how much it mattered like how much um whether it's just poker or just general strategic thinking like i think the way that poker players think is

the way that traders think like just thinking about things and expected values but also just like thinking about uh the different players in a game and your motivations because if you're trading someone else is on the other side of the trade and particularly i trade options and options are like really complex things where there's like a lot of different kinds of risk and different like kind of distributions of returns and whatever.

And so you really have to think through like the different possible situations, the probabilities of them, what's someone's motivation, the whole concept of average selection, who am I trading against, what is their motivation?

It really does feel like being in a poker game.

And

it's a reason, like a lot of, you know, there's a lot of poker players at the firm that are anywhere from casual poker players where there's always poker games going.

We have poker tables in our like main cafeteria.

And so there's always a poker game after work.

And then, you know, even at the World Series, a couple of the guys always always go out.

And one of them actually, I think, got like second or third.

I don't actually remember.

And one of the events last year.

So there's like some serious poker players here.

And

it's not a coincidence.

There's a huge amount of crossover skills.

Do you find it hard to play against coworkers because of like the office politics dimension of it?

No, no.

Only office politics.

I love how you said that.

Competition.

No, no, no.

It's like, it's actually like amazing because I think Jane Street is really good at this of like, it's, it's really competitive in the sense of like everybody comes from a place of like being, having a really competitive background.

Like a lot of, a lot of the people that get hired are people that have a history of playing games or math competitions or, or whatever it is, like,

you know, a lot of people with like really.

competitive personalities.

But Jane Street is a place that is very collaborative, like out of all of the different,

you know,

trading firms or whatever, like, just for a lot of reasons.

Like, it's just like a very collaborative, like, congenial place.

So, it's sort of like a great mix where we're like super competitive with each other at the poker table, but just in like a fun way, you know,

um,

a place where people just really appreciate when someone like outplays someone else and just like, oh, yeah, props, like, that was awesome.

Like, everyone just wants to outplay each other, you know,

and play really well.

And, like, that's that's the joy of it is just like finding the best play and figuring it out, you know.

And we'll be right back after this break.

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Is that a GPI award that I spy over your shoulder?

Is poker still?

It's a bookend.

It's a bookend, yeah.

But it is a GPI award.

I'm using it as a bookend.

You're using it, no, but don't skirt the question.

You're not.

I'm not using my Nobel Prize.

It's a bookend.

It's so important to me.

I guess it is, yeah.

Actually, I just know you'll like this too.

I just finally cleaned out my garage after four years.

I'm renovating the basement and we moved here four years ago.

I'm in Montclair, New Jersey.

And we realized I hadn't really unpacked.

So

I finally found all of my old trophies.

This is now sitting in my office.

It's my old

Bartouche poker tournament.

This is the biggest tournament I ever won.

It's covered in hay.

This is amazing.

Let's see if we can find some hay.

Here you go.

There's like a whole bunch of hay everywhere.

I don't know if you can see.

Yeah.

My wife decided that it was a good idea to purchase lots of different bales of hay and keep them also in our garage.

So now all of, because, I don't know, you have to decorate for fall.

I don't know.

There's like a lapse.

She's very into decorating and there's apparently a lapse between Halloween and Christmas that involves lots of barrels of hay.

But anyway, all of my old trophies are now covered in hay

and have like lots of cracks.

So I got to figure out what to do with them.

Maybe like some kind of weapon.

My kids were trying to use them as weapons.

So partouche was the biggest tournament you ever won?

Yeah, and the biggest trophy.

That's amazing.

Vanessa, were you at the partouche with the cheating scandal?

Or was that not your year?

Oh, yeah, that was my year.

Yeah, that's a good, great memory that you remember that.

Well, I'm writing a book about cheating right now.

Oh, awesome.

So for people who aren't familiar, since you were there,

this is a great story and involves journalism or faux journalism and a lot of different things.

So, Vanessa, do you want to tell us a little bit about your partouche victory and this crazy moment?

Yeah.

So, well, from my perspective, I was a tripler going into the final table and it was the delayed final table, which was crazy.

So, we finished the tournament in September and played down to the final table and then played the final table in November.

So we had like two months to stew on it.

So I'm having like literal nightmares that I'm like trip leader.

My equity, it was the biggest tournament I ever played.

First prize was almost 2 million, you know.

And, um, and I was having nightmares that I would like bust out ninth.

So when I get there and they're like, oh, congratulations, everyone's got at least eighth.

I was like, okay, cool.

I'm going to win this now, you know, like basically all of my nightmares were no more.

But yeah, so when I got there, they were like, yeah, you're all guaranteed eighth.

We're like, what?

They're like, oh, yeah, one of the guys was just like cheating the whole time throughout the whole tournament and also on the whole poker tour.

Yeah, he had these like, like journalists, I guess, with this like fake website that had nothing on it.

I think it was like, I don't remember the name of the site, but he would just have like fake journalists stand behind people and like fake report and then just like give signs to this guy.

Ali, what was his name?

His name was Ali Tekantamgak.

Tekantagak, there you go.

Yeah.

That's a pretty good fucking cheat.

Yeah, so he would just give them signals on like what they had.

He was like looking over people's shoulders.

It was so old school.

There's no devices.

There's no like, you know, poker's gotten a lot more sophisticated.

Like we've gotten poker cheating solvers now, I feel like, you know, that are just

like, that is not the GTO way to cheat.

Like the GTO way to cheat with this strategy would have at least involved having a legitimate poker blog that had some words on it.

But

yeah, so he was finally discovered.

So you can't trust, you can't trust journalists, see?

Well, it was one of those things where when I heard that story,

I was like, oh, wow, like you really need to learn how to protect your cards.

Like,

just, you know, it's crazy that cheating, I mean, cheating has always been a part of whenever there's money, even when there's no money, there's, there's cheating.

People cheat on trivia nights.

But yeah, I just remember that he had the fake journalists who would look at people's cards and just hand signs, completely old school.

And you think about all this stuff.

Do they have like the press hats and stuff like that?

Yeah, all of these things.

It went on for like a year and a half or something crazy.

Like it was, but like the number of cheating scandals that you've read about and been like, wow, if you were just a little less greedy, you could have gotten away with this forever.

Absolutely.

No, I mean, I think that's the case with most of them, whether or not it's poker.

That if you just cheated a little bit smarter and, you know, got out a little bit faster,

we would not know about it.

And some of the biggest cheating stories in poker, they did get out.

And so

you have to be a nice teaser for your reputation.

You have people's reputation that is more or less intact.

Really?

Are you going to uncover some of this in your book?

I will have to have some allegedlies in there.

I will tell you that one of the people is no longer alive.

So you could probably put two and two together.

But yeah, that's my favorite guy.

Might he have been from the southern United States?

Yeah.

Nate's accents, Nate's accents, man.

So are you

now, you know, now that you're kind of settled down,

do you how do you feel about poker?

I'm actually just curious.

You know, we obviously know it's a big part of your life because you have your GPI award in your Zoom background and you've got your part.

No, you're not.

You've got your part.

I mean, I've got it.

Is that World Series poker carpeting, I think?

No, I'm just kidding.

Wear your bracelets, Vanessa.

But I mean, it is, it is actually, it is remarkable that,

and, you know, there's a numbers game.

A lot of things have changed in the game since you've left, but a lot of things haven't.

This year was a record low number of women in the WSOP main event for like, you know, it just, it went

down.

I didn't realize that.

It's just like low enough that it's just very,

yeah, exactly.

In terms of like the last, you know, when people have been tracking this,

there's still, so when I won my first bracelet this year,

I was, I think, woman number 10.

I don't know you won a bracelet.

Wait, what?

So I was woman number like 29, I think it was.

I don't remember.

It was under 30 women who've won open bracelet events since the beginning.

What did you win?

How did I not know?

I really don't follow poker at all, but congratulations.

That's incredible.

Thank you.

It was

88, 888, Crazy Eights.

Oh, my gosh.

So that was fun, but it was a, you know, women are still not really winning open events.

Like, so if you don't count the women's events and you don't count seniors,

it's still under 30.

Like I said, I think I was number 29.

I don't actually know.

Hey, do you feel embarrassed to be in the presence of two bracelet winners?

I am.

I fucking guess.

Second a couple years ago.

I mean, we're going to grind this year, though.

We're going to grind

the schedule hard this year.

So I'm curious kind of how, you know, given your legacy and that you're, you're still, I mean, if I were to say like, who is the person I most look up to in the game, it would be you, honestly, because

of the, of what you've accomplished.

And it does, it does, you know, it means a lot like where you came from and, you know, kind of what you've done.

And I don't know who's number two, right?

Like you're kind of in a category of your own.

So how do you, you know, how do you think about your your legacy you're still very much alive and still playing but like how you know how is that a part of your life other than you know being a part of your zoom background oh man i don't know um

what's weird i i was just never one to think that much about that kind of stuff like

you know i don't know it just wasn't me like i didn't like all that that the attention about it and and the pomp and circumstance of it and all i don't know that's that's you know look kristen bicnell is probably gonna like

win a bunch more money like this year.

She's going to overtake that spot.

And then I'll just be some random has been, you know?

I don't think.

And that'll be good.

No, you'll be the, you'll be the deuce five into aces.

Never, exactly.

Never.

Never the random has been.

You know, the.

Go ahead.

Yeah.

Oh, I was just going to say, I do feel like I'm in a spot where, like, for a few years, I felt like I want nothing to do with this game.

And I find myself like coming around, like, remembering why I love the game.

Like, you know, I really had like a love-hate relationship followed by like a hate-hate relationship with it towards the end.

Like, you know, we would hang out and you'd be like, my friends at the end of my poker group, my friends would be like, so we're going to go play the tournament.

I'm like, no, I'll see, I'll see you later.

Let me know when you bust, you know.

But, um, but now I feel like whenever I'm playing, I'm having fun again.

And I don't feel like burdened by all of the different stuff that came that came with the, I don't know.

So, um, so I enjoy playing again.

If you're at a random dinner party, you don't know somebody super well, right?

Um, was it more awkward to introduce yourself as a poker player or as a hedge fund employee?

Miranda, actually, my wife has this funny joke because I used to go around, you know, and people would talk about it all the time.

And I was used to getting all this attention and stuff.

So I would just be like, oh, like, you know, whatever.

I play poker, you know, and I would try to change the subject.

And now I like go up to people and I'm like, they're like, what are you doing?

I'm like,

I'm a trader, like in finance.

And they just look around.

But I used to be a poker player.

Like, I'd be like, so bored by the time I finish the sentence.

I'm like, no, no, no.

I swear to God, I'm a little more interesting.

So the grass is always greener, I guess.

So, so, what's next for you?

What does the future hold for Vanessa?

I don't know.

What is it?

I mean, who knows, really?

I mean, I love my job, so hopefully, I'll do that for a little while at least, and

kind of play it by ear.

Honestly, I don't see myself like reinventing myself again, but

I think some combination of trading, poker, hobbies, spend time with the kids.

Like, you know, my kids are a really fun age.

they're uh almost five and almost so time time to start them playing poker yeah i know no it really is my my my um older one felix his friend um is really into poker and so i keep trying to be like let's go over to clark's house and like let's go play poker um but um yeah so some combination of that stuff like i think probably my guess is like when i'm retired or something and maybe who knows 10 years or 10 15 years like just poker much more recreationally you know i'll have to get you guys to like start a regular home game.

That will be fun.

We'll make the

hardest home game in New York.

Seniors League poker.

It will be fun.

Well, Vanessa, this has been such an absolute pleasure.

I am so glad that Eric introduced us and that I got to meet you.

And I don't know, you know, I think you have made my life richer.

And I hope that all of our listeners will have learned something from listening to you today.

Thank you.

Well, thank you guys so much for that.

Thank you so much, Vanessa.

We appreciate you spending this time with us.

Let us know what you think of the show.

Reach out to us at riskybusiness at pushkin.fm.

And by the way, if you're a Pushkin Plus subscriber, we have some bonus content for you.

We'll be answering a listener question each week.

That's coming up right after the credits.

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For just $6.99 a month, what a nice price.

You get access to all that premium content and add-free listening across Pushkin's entire network of shows.

Risky Business is hosted by me, Maria Konakova, and by me, Nate Silver.

The show is a co-production of Pushkin Industries and iHeartMedia.

This episode was produced by Isabel Carter.

Our associate producer is Sonia Gerwitz.

Sally Helm is our editor, and our executive producer is Jacob Goldstein.

Mixing by Sarah Bruguer.

If you like this show, please rate and review us so other people can find us too.

Thanks so much for tuning in.

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