Millionaire Playboy Genius Reveals His Secrets

For you today, we are joined by none other than Alan Keating. He's stopping by talk all kinds of different stuff from the world of poker. His new influencer channel we got going here on YouTube with some excellent content. I'm actually. I'm actually really excited for what he's putting out there. We're going to talk this giant pot that he played that we covered here on the channel. We're going to talk about the million dollar game. We're going to talk about all kinds of different stuff from the world of poker as it pertains to Alan. But before we jump into that, I want to let you guys know I'm currently in a $100,000 challenge where I've managed to lose $40,000. So we are heading the wrong direction, but I'm giving away $100,000 regardless of how I do. All you have to do is head on over to Club WPT Gold and deposit using Code Doug, and you're in there. So we have a couple of weeks left to go in my challenge. Hopefully things turn around, and I hope you guys tune in to watch it. Also, one more thing before we get into it. Upswing Poker is having its March Madness sale. We have 25% off all cash game courses on, and Code Doug will get you 10% more. This is the largest discount we've ever run. Upswing. So if you want to improve your poker game, then head on over there today. And with that, we bring on today's guest, Alan. Thank you very much for joining us.

Howdy.

Howdy. Howdy. So we. It's a word that works. So we actually, for the viewer, we almost did this live in Austin. It was this close. We were right there. And I know you. You were in town for a little bit here, so unfortunately, it didn't really, really work out. But happy to do this online, live, wherever, works for me, man. Thank you for joining us.

By a little bit, you mean like 14 hours I was in town, basically.

But yeah, I was like, hey, you want to do a podcast? You're like, oh, I'm in Austin. I'm like, should we do this live?

Look like a good idea? I'm looking forward to it in the future. Oh, hey, I've got to ask, why are you losing in your up your challenge? Aren't you, like, one of the best players of all time? Like, what's going on here?

Well, I appreciate that. Apparently not. No. So. So I think. I think it's a mixture. I have not really played online in a while. Really? Since I played Negreanu. So I think there was a good amount of rust, right? Like, just shaking it off. And so, like, I would say that there's a good amount of mistakes that I made, and then I've also just run really, really bad. I mean, it's just. It's. It's frankly kind of hilarious. It's like, right when I. It's like, gets worse and worse and worse, and finally I get all in with aces and get stacked by queens, and then it's just, like, over and over and over. So I don't know, like, a mixture of bad play a mixture of run bad.

But we're gonna ask the audience, does this sound like the best player in the world? He's talking about running bad. He's bringing up one hand. Like, I think I had this conversation in, like, a smoky card room, but not with the best player of all time, no doubt.

I keep having ace king, and it keeps missing.

Yeah, it's unbelievable.

I mean, what do you do with Jax?

You know, kings are ace magnets. That's the problem with them.

I mean, I've. I think I've had some kings and the aces. This challenge, too, we've had. We've had the whole thing. We've had all of the fun stuff, but we've actually had a couple small wins. I think it's. I think it's turning a little bit, and. Well, we're actually doing a maneuver that you're going to approve of, which is I keep asking the site to make the stakes bigger so I lose, and then I'm like, okay, well, can we do 25.50 now? Okay, I got you, Doug. So I don't know where it's ultimately going to end, but at least for now, I still have some outskirts.

I like the degeneracy. You really impressed me.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay, well, let's go ahead and jump into it. So I want to start off with this. We're talking about your YouTube channel. So to start off with, I love the packaging on some of the videos that you've already got up here. The one you released recently, the. Was it, like, secret poker game at a billionaire's house? Whatever the title was, or whatever. It feels very Mr. Beast looking to me, and it's very, like. It piques the interest of the viewer, where you're like, what am I in for here? Like, what am I gonna click on this and see? So I think right out of the gate, it seems like you have, like, a really good team behind you to create these what's your creative process like for your channel?

Creative process. So this is all brand new. Yeah, I do have a really good team, people that I'm impressed by, and they give me good feedback. Um, you know, it's kind of funny because when you're playing this content game, which is brand new to me, it's clear that you have to create like a thumbnail that gets attention, right? And, like, my biggest nightmare was being the guy with, like, his mouth open and he's like the shocked face and like the cheesy stuff in the background. Like, here we are, you know, like, the algorithm is the algorithm and it's like this, this whole, like, internal battle. You know, they send me options for, like, what the title can be, and I'm like, this, this isn't. I can't do this. And then I wrestle, like, wrestle with it for an hour. I'm like, all right, fine.

You know, that's the thing. I think everyone realizes when you start doing content, it's no matter what you come in with, your preconceived notions of what it should be or what you'd like it to be, the reality is that certain things convert and some things don't. Like, I remember some of our initial emails at Upswing where we would write them, and I didn't like the idea of kind of like, really markety emails. I wanted professional clean. And then so we would, we would split test it. We'd try, like, language I liked, that looked really professional. And then we tried, like, hey, there, there's a gift in the PS for you. And like, you know, we, we, like, check both. And. And mine's just losing. And so I'm thinking to myself, well, if. If it's worse, I'm not. I'm not going to, like, take a stand here and do the thing that's worse because I feel better about it. I think part of the system is as long as you think what you're doing is fair, then I think it's all within the game. And part of that is going to be some shocked faces from time to time.

I'm going to stop short of shocked faces. But, yeah, like, I've definitely decided that the net output of the channel will be something positive for the viewers. So I do want it to reach as many people as possible to share that with. So I got a compromise in some ways. But, yeah, like, the first video with the 97 hand that featured the 97 hand, I remember the title I wanted to go with compared to the one that did was Put that in your solver and smoke it. But apparently that doesn't hit any of the searchable words or whatever, right?

Because really what you want is to reach a wide audience, right? That's the goal. And so that's why I took a helicopter to a secret billionaire's poker game is an excellent, excellent title because anyone they see you in the, in the helicopter with like a mansion on island, anyone that, that sees that whether they're a poker player or not, can be like, this is gonna be interesting, right? Like I'm gonna peek behind the curtain here. Whereas put it in your solver and smoke it. Now they have to know what a solver is. Now they're not gonna, they might not know, you know, I'm saying. So it's like, it's like too many steps down the road.

Definitely let me know if I go too far with it. But I enjoyed that episode and I was really thankful for the response to it. I was thinking it wouldn't get too much attention because the channel's brand new and most people don't know I have one now. And it's also not really poker focused the episode. And it leads into more of the stories that I'm more interested in, the different businesses I'm involved in or different friendships. People I want to highlight that I think deserve it. This episode kind of showed there's an interest in that sort of thing. So it got me really excited about what's coming next.

Well, that's very, very interesting. I do wonder what's coming next. But I have a question here. So you know you've basically done like two real videos, right? You have a couple like smaller clips, but so. And one of them, it's more of like the hand breakdown, obviously. Get a little behind the scenes, talk a little bit, that kind of stuff, but. And then, and then the other one, it's like almost no poker yet, like a reenactment of, of the game through your mind, which I found very interesting. And I feel like a casual person could watch that and enjoy it. Are you. How pokery are you going to go? Because I think like a trap that a lot of content creators in poker get stuck in is if you don't go poker heavy enough, then you lose the, like, more dedicated poker audience. And then if you go to poker heavy, then you lose the ability to cross over into a wider, into a wider stream. And, and very few people have managed to kind of navigate that successfully. I mean, I guess you could say Bazerian is probably one of the few who kind of rode that line, at least for some period of time. What's. What's your goal? Like, how are you going to balance this demand for. Look, like, when a lot of people, they see a poker video, they want to see Pocket Aces in there at some point. Right. But a casual person that just is on YouTube might not. So how are you planning on trying to, like, balance those two sides of the game?

Well, I'm getting a lot of good feedback in the comment section. I'm really genuine and asking, you know, what people think about when they watch it. And a lot of it is, you know, from that episode was, let me show me some more poker. I want to see more poker. And. But then from the poker one, it was, you know, I want to see more about what your life is like. Right. So, you know, I take everything into account, but I don't. I have a vision for the story that I want to tell, and I'm kind of focused on that. So I have, like, a vision and I'll deviate and adjust. But there's a plan.

Can you tell us more about your vision?

Well, it will be kind of opening up about how I spend my time and the people that I spend it with. And what we do, a lot of that as a lifestyle, is all about, like, startup investing. So we just had. It was a board meeting in Seattle for this company that I invested in. It's. It's a fun story. It's kind of really moving up. You know, they just raised, like, 70 million bucks, and we're sending satellites into space and all this, like, crazy stuff.

Right. That's sick.

It's really fun and exciting, and it's what gets me really excited. But it's also, I'm doing it with people I really like, and so I hope people enjoy that. But I'm aware that if there's an audience and people are enjoying that, there's sort of a flywheel effect wherein some of the businesses that I've invested in will benefit, whether it be someone who wants to invest in it or someone who wants to work with the business or something like that. So there's kind of like a reciprocal idea of going into these businesses or relationships and events and trying to figure out how to tell a story that in the end, like, people benefit from the viewer and the people that we're showing.

Yeah. And I think when you are able to spotlight cool stuff that you're doing or you're involved in or, you know, people that you think are doing a good job in their lane, or in their field, Obviously, that can provide value both ways. And so I think that's, like, it's cool to have that as sort of like a. It's like an anchor, you know? Like, it's like. It's like somewhere you can always go to. To create value. And when you have an audience and you have a platform, then you're able to do that. So it can only really create value for you if you do a good job.

Yeah, I'm excited about that. Like, even in this episode, you know, we talked with Emile Hirsch, and that brought up the movie that he was on. You know, I didn't have much involvement, and I was just like an extra in the background. But because I felt involved, I wanted to do something to help them back. Right, right.

Yeah. That's very cool. How many. Have you been in many films before?

No, no, I think I've now invested in, like, three small, like, independent films, and that's kind of a fun thing to do.

How do you end up investing in small independent films? Like what, What? What? How do you end up there?

Well, the first time, it was a documentary about my friend's family and their restaurant. Really interesting story. And a filmmaker reached out to him and said, hey, we really like to tell this story. And my friend brought it to my attention, and we split the cost to make it. So it was exciting for me that his family would have this film that they could keep forever telling the story about how things came to be. I was happy about that.

Okay, so that's kind of like a personal side of it too. Right? But I guess to get involved in investing in that lane just feels, like, so different than where poker players are. Right, but poker players are like, okay, it's either like Bitcoin or Ethereum or maybe the stock market, but it's probably Bitcoin. Ethereum. Right. So it's like to go from that to being like. Or maybe they're investing in a promising upstart poker club. Regardless. Yeah, use code, Doug. So. So it's like, to end up in, like, investing in startups and an angel investing in that kind of thing. Did you find it scary to end up there? Because how I would feel in a lot of those situations is like, I know my lane. I know. I know, like, the core, you know, basics to my industries, to my businesses, to the things I like to invest in, but to step outside and really try. Like, you're talking about, like, big league shit. You know, you're talking about investing in the real world and real companies trying to do big things. Did you find that scary, making that transition out there?

No. What you're saying makes a lot of sense. Most people have an experience, if they get into it, where they stab at a couple things, maybe invest too much into one thing, things take longer than they expect, and ultimately end up with the position that, hey, I'm only going to invest in the things I can either control or know a lot about. Right. But my thesis from when I was young was kind of surrounded. I wanted to get into building companies. That's what I'd seen growing up. But, you know, I thought poker was a perfect way to get some liquidity and meet some interesting people. So this was kind of always part of the plan was to get into poker and then get into. Start investing.

Poker is a good stepping stone, right? To then build skill sets, build networks, and then figure out what you want to do. And poker, I think, is a really good way to go from having no money to having, like, you know, a few million. And then maybe, if you're lucky enough, more than that. But, like, for the average person, if you make a few million playing poker, it's going to probably be kind of hard for you to get into some of the games you might need to get into for it to make a lot more than that. But I've always felt like poker is a really good, like, first stepping stone into other things. And it's weird looking around nowadays, man. I look back like, dude, you're actually. You were one of the first people I met in poker.

Yeah. I fondly remember meeting you.

I will never forget that. I will never, ever, ever forget that.

You were a hot shot coming in.

Yeah.

You know, okay, so everyone, like, they were dirt. You're like, I'm going to run over this game. So I said it out loud. It was like, it was so much fun. You come into this place, I'm gonna have to fight you back. Right.

So I walk into the Bellagio. I am 21, so it had to be exactly 15 years ago. I have a backpack full of money, and I'm ready to go. And I. And I'm like, going table to table, challenging people to heads up. This is really normal behavior. And then someone goes, hey, maybe that kid will play you. And he points over at you, and you're on the stairs like, that goes up to, like, the little, like, higher living area.

Yeah.

And I walk over and I'm like, hey, man, I heard you might play. Heads up. And you look at me, and you look at me up and down. You Go. You don't interest me. Do you remember that?

Yeah.

Like, you, like, look. I'm like, what the is that supposed to be?

That sounds like the best line I ever had.

I was like, damn, that is crazy.

Did that pause you. Did that make you, like, reevaluate what you're doing?

I'm just like, I don't know how to respond to that. Oh, my God. Yeah, that's crazy. We look back now, it's like, that's so many years ago. It's like, it's. It's interesting. That kind of where we came from. And obviously, it's great to see that you've been successful and in your own way. And. And our paths have been similar, but different, you know, in the way that, like, we've kind of gone about it,

but we were always juxtaposed because you. You were online and, you know, very theoretical, and I was just in the moment and only play in person.

Yeah, yeah, we. We actually never really played that much. We played like. Like once once in Bobby's room, I kind of remember. And that might be it, man. We were playing another time. Other than that.

I'm sure we will maybe at the lodge.

Always welcome, man. You let me know when we'll have cards in the air as you walk in the door.

You're doing a great job with that, by the way.

Thank you.

Congratulations on your award.

Thank you very much. Yeah, actually, I took the production team out for dinner a couple days ago or a week ago or something just to celebrate, and it was a good, heartfelt dinner. Everyone stood up and said what the lodge meant to them. It was very cool. We have great people. We're really proud of our show, and it's been cool because I feel like when you don't have a poker show, I'd watch these shows and have all these ideas for things like how you do it, you do this, that, and the other, and then when you actually sit down, you're like, okay, we're making one of these. Like, how do we do it? And then you kind of go step by step and you get all the right people in the right place, and you find, like, you have to find kind of your stride. Right? So we're very proud of our show, everything that we've done. Especially because you think about it, Austin's not the same thing as being in Vegas or LA for poker shows where you just have, like, this infinite list of poker players, you know, that would want to go play. Particularly. Particularly LA. LA is sick. LA's got, like, you know, five times. Many people. Yeah, but for what? For. For being where we are and for kind of. I feel like we've kind of put Texas poker on the map a little bit, at least, you know, domestically. So we're proud of our show, and, yeah, we're trying to do cool stuff, man. Trying to do cool stuff.

What part of this whole process gives you the most satisfaction?

Oh, man.

Is that what's happening?

Oh, I mean, you're welcome. I'm happy to field questions.

What's making you really move on this?

I think when you recognize that the business makes a real impact for the people that work there. There's definitely a culture of a family at our card rooms, and, yeah, you want to make sure that people have good opportunities. Right. And then as far as, like, the actual poker playing goes, I think, like, actually just caring about poker and wanting to be good games and wanting it to be run appropriately and wanting it to be fair. And it's not just, like, these are people where you're trying to nickel and dime them for every last dollar. Like, I feel like happens in a casino, right? We're not a casino. We're a card room. So I think, like, caring about poker is cool and being able to have fun events, and it is a little bit weird where it's like, oh, let's do this crazy idea, and you realize that there's no one really stopping, you know, like, you can just do whatever. So, I don't know. I guess, like, just trying to do fun stuff and capturing that on with the show and the people you meet along the way. There's. There's so many great people here. That's actually the thing I think kind of stands out to me the most. And I think part of it is because poker's not grinded down here yet. You know how, like, you go to some parts of the country and you meet poker people and you can feel it's kind of grinded down a little bit.

Sure.

I feel like poker only really kind of was popularized here in the last five to 10 years, and so people still have this zest for the game and this joy to be part of the game. And there's just so many great people that. Yeah, we're very. We're very lucky to have, you know, both the employees we have, but also our members are good people. So, yeah, a lot of different aspects. It's.

It's criminally misunderstood how focusing on the people in and around your business is actually the way to succeed. Right?

Yeah. I mean, it's Almost like. It's almost a little bit cliche. Right? But it's about finding good people. You find good people and the rest works out. Also the. Generally speaking, the tips are pretty good here, so it helps get the better people, I think. But yeah, it's a win. Win. But going back to this. So just a couple more things on this YouTube channel, then we'll change gears a little bit. I have to ask, how much are we spending on this channel? Man, I'm seeing. I'm seeing a lot of flying around. I'm seeing a lot of production. I'm seeing this look.

This seems like $170,000. Videos.

Two videos. What? Oh, my God.

I. I have the receipts.

Oh, my God.

We have.

We.

I think we have like seven episodes in the chamber, but.

Oh, wow.

Yeah. I really want. I've got an excitement for it that I haven't had in a while, so I'm really excited about it, almost approaching it like I would a startup. So we're testing things out. You know, we're being flexible. It's pretty fun so far. A lot to look forward to. We're gonna be going down to Brazil here in a couple weeks, spend some time with Neymar, go out to a game, go to his office, meet his dad, talk about, like, investing in us and that sort of thing, and play some poker. And we're going out to New York for Ryan Garcia's fight. That's in, like, Times Square, which is just going to be such a amazing thing. It's never been done. You know, we're going to be telling a lot of fun stories just kind of going around.

So you said you have seven episodes,

like, recorded, like, done, not done. They're like, brought to a certain level. I'm not sure what the term is, but in production. Yeah. They need some more editing. Yeah.

Okay. Oh, but film. So you filmed them be.

Yeah.

Wow. Okay. So you're ready. You're really committed to this. That's a serious, serious commitment to already have that many ready to go.

I'm already actually storyboarded out, like, three seasons.

Seasons. We're doing seasons.

Yeah. I don't know if this is really done on YouTube. That's why I'm thinking about it differently. I'm gonna portion things into seasons and allow a little bit of a break and then shift what we do and reevaluate and try to approach something different each season.

So normally with YouTube, it's just kind of a continuous story. Right. But I could see trying to do it in a way where you. Are you going to have, like, a specific release schedule then for these videos?

Nope. Nope.

So you're just going to stay flexible with it?

Pretty much, yeah. I don't want to get into a spot where I'm anxious that I, you know, a deadline's coming and I'm rushing something out. I want to work back from, like, what's the story? And maintain the best, like, value I

can, you know, so there's two. There's two schools of thought there, and one of them is what you're saying. But the other one would be that sometimes when you have to make something, it, it. It gets you in this. In this sort of, like, rhythm where, like. So the best example of this are the south park guys because they do an episode every week during the season, right. And they. They don't know what it's going to be going into the week. There's a really fun documentary. I forget what it's on, whether it's on HBO or Netflix or what, but it goes through, like, what goes in the Making of a South park episode. Yeah, yeah, it's. It's incredible. It's. It's so impressive. But so, but they. They're like, the getting used to that rhythm of creating those episodes in that way has made it so that, like, the pressure is baked into where they don't really feel it that much. They're just doing their thing, and then that lets them shoot really high volume.

Right.

I mean, there's. There's been so many south park episodes, and obviously there's incredibly good. So I guess, like, the. The only downside to doing it where, you know, you don't want to pressure. Have time pressure, is that sometimes things can start to lag because there's a lack of time pressure to, like, make you have to post it. You know, it's like a hard thing to balance sometimes.

Yeah, it's something I probably overlooked. Maybe I could do some hybrid situation.

The good news is that the YouTube algorithm is pretty easy going with. If you post good content and people watch it, it's going to show more people and your numbers out of the gate. And these first two videos are nuts. I mean, that's just. You're just smashing it. So it seems like you have a great team, you're putting out great stuff. If the audience hasn't checked it out, definitely go watch them. But I'm excited to see where you go with it. And if you ever want me to be a cameo in there, man, I'm down to jump into some Mr. Keating videos.

I would love to do stuff with you for sure. Actually, I need your advice. The next two episodes on the channel will be like almost pure poker. It's day two and day three of this high stakes poker filming. You know, the nine seven was from one day and we have two more days where there's more Peter violence, so to say. I'm looking forward to telling those stories, but what I'm worried about is will I get put into a corner of the algorithm where it says this is a gambling channel because you're seeing poker stuff and then it doesn't get recommended or gets, you know, like sort of like shadow banned or something.

So it's a little tricky because there's been a couple of waves of YouTube channels and you probably need to find somebody at YouTube. There was a guy like a few years back that helped out several channels. Avoid that. Like, so my, my channel is like whitelisted or something. And so. But some of the newer channels are not. And so they do have problems with gambling links and stuff. It probably would be better. This is probably a better off air conversation. But yeah, I mean, I'm happy to like see if we could either reach the person that helped us out before or get you, get you in touch with someone that can help you. Because I do know, I do know that for newer channels they, they struggle with some of the gambling stuff. That could be, that could be a cause of concern.

Yeah. So I'm just preemptively, I'm gonna try to break up the two days and do like two, one, two, lifestyle wise. It's kind of fun because I know what the one in between is going to be is this warriors charity tournament I went to.

Oh, I think, I think I've heard about this. Hellmuth goes every year, right?

Yeah, he's the mc. He has the same jokes every year. But so every year it's somehow still.

Oh my God. No fresh material.

It's great actually. You know, someone gets all in. He pauses the table, he grabs the microphone and he's like, hold it, dealer, hold it. You have queen, nine, top pair. You have ace, jack, flush, draw. You have.

No, no, no, no, no, no.

15 outs. That is. No, no, no, no. 44, dealer deal the cards. Oh, that's great. It's like every time it's so funny.

I, I actually think, I, I think Hellmuth would be an excellent MC for an event because he's, he's great. He's absolutely a showman. 100% a showman.

Well, what's Going to be surprising out of this episode is I'm playing with Stefan Curry at the table, and we were talking a little bit, like, really, really good guy. And you hear this, like, kind of buzzing going around the room. And, you know, one of the other players, like, stands up, yells at Stefan, and, you know, he's stands up, and they're all kind of looking at each other, and they're like, is this real? And it was when Luca got traded, so.

Oh, my God.

Yeah, we're all there. So I'm sitting right in front of the team. You know, the team comes over behind Steph. They're all, like, you know, talking to their agents, asking each other, like, laughing at, you know, the wrong side of the trade. You know, it's like kind of a cool moment.

It'll be.

It'll be exciting to show.

Oh, that. Yeah. That's a sick moment to have captured, because that's probably the most shocking NBA trade ever. Maybe even sports trade ever, really. Just. Just a baffling. A baffling decision.

The general manager is gonna have to, like, move somewhere else when his career.

Yeah, man. I mean, like, so. I mean, I'm in Texas, so I get. There's some shrapnel over here in Austin. Obviously, we're not Dallas, but we don't have an NBA team, so there are lots of Mavericks fans here, too. And it's. I've never seen a fan base be as devastated as the Mavericks fan. It's the number. It's devastating. They're gutted. I mean, they were. They were rioting. They're picketing. They're. I mean, it was. It's. They're bringing coffins to the arena. I mean, this is some crazy shit. Yeah.

Imagine being a fan for so long, like, waiting for. You know, you only get a guy like that every 15, 20 years. Right. So, yeah, if you're lucky, let one go in the primary career.

Dude, he's not even in his prime. He's 25. He's like. He's entering the. He's. He's not even his prime yet. That's sick.

Yeah. The criticisms, what. They're, like, always out of shape. It's like, you were in the finals, like, three months ago.

Yeah. You just made the finals, and now we're doing this. Yeah. The fat comments are kind of funny. It's like. It felt a little bit to me, like, when a couple breaks up and then, like, you start to hear the rubber mill on the other side a little bit, you know?

Yeah.

He was also kind of fat.

It's like, what. Why he drank beer. You're right. I guess he can't win a national championship and have an affinity for beer.

There are some funny beer Luca clips, though. Like, there's this one where after a playoff game, he's, like, having a beer in the tunnel, and, like, someone runs. Have you seen this? Yeah. Somebody just, like, runs up and snipes it. And he just, like, looks at this guy, he walks away with his beer because it's like, you're not supposed to have your beer right now, but, yeah, it's okay. So putting sports to the side, actually, you. You created a good segue here, because the next topic I want to talk about was this 900k pot, which I broke down on my channel. You actually messaged me about it, so I think you. You enjoyed my review of this one.

I love your review. It's good.

Okay, cool. I'm glad to hear that. So it. It's a crazy hand because everyone has so little. Like, no one really has anything. And the pot is just so unbelievably gigantic. So what. What was going through your head here? I mean, obviously you covered on YouTube, so we're going to be rehashing this a little bit, but at some point, like, did you just decide, like, this guy just doesn't have it or, like, like, what was going through your head to put in that much money? Because we're talking about putting in, you know, almost a half million dollars with third pair. So, like, at some point, what was going through your head?

You know, I'd like to say reads. Actually, this is one of the pieces of feedback I really took. Someone said that I should have gone into more details about why I played that hand that way might actually do that. But if you look closely, when I raise him back, he looks confused, kind of like shake his head around and isn't quite sure what he wants to do. And I thought that if he had the hands, like pocket sevens or a seven, that he would know exactly what he's going to do. Right. Like a seven, he's going to be like, you know, calling and, you know, calling every. Every car that isn't a spade for the rest of time.

Yeah.

And, like, pocket seven. So, you know, he might raise back or call. I don't know. But, like, if you just look at them, I want to pull up the video and be like, does this look like a man with sevens?

All right, let me pull it up here.

Let's pull it up.

Let's do it. Let's do it. Let me. I can share this, I believe. I think we have the technology. It's on the side. All right. And I will share your.

Here we go.

Okay. I think you should be able to see this. Alrighty. Think so. Yeah. So this is from your video. Yeah.

Go even before then. Before I raise. Right. So.

So actually, where are we going here? That's right here, right?

Yeah. Just play without the audio.

Yeah.

Let's watch his mannerisms a little bit.

Preflop or on the flop.

No, no, once. Once he raises. It's interesting a little bit. Right. There's a bet here. Should be against. It could be against aces, kings. But you're raising, you know, just to take whatever hand it is that c. Betting out of it. That isn't one of those hands.

Right, Right. Okay. Yeah. I mean. Yeah.

And so it's like a typical situation. Look at his behavior. Right. Like, not a lot of, like, interesting stuff's going on, but as you go to the turn or go to the. Keep playing. When I raise, just watch his mannerisms. In my mind right here, this isn't checking out like this. In my mind, this is always spades.

Yeah. So in this situation, it's a little bit weird, Right. Because Peter is a relatively aggressive player. Right?

Yeah.

Maybe even very aggressive. And so. And so, like, how many hands can call pre flop that hit? This flop is. It feels like a pretty low number of hands. Like a seven. Feels like the one that I would be scared of if I had to

be scared of one. A seven king, seven sevens. But I'd also noticed that he re. Raises a lot with suited aces pre flop. He's got that, like, pro.

Yeah.

Where people seem to be doing that a lot.

So here you think he looks like he doesn't know what he wants to do. Yeah.

Yeah. Just watching.

Look at it.

Kind of stunned. Why am I getting raised here? What's happening? You know, I don't. I don't feel like that's fake.

It does. It does look pretty stunning. It is pretty stunning to get raised here, right? Yeah. Interesting.

Now, ask yourself, if you had pocket sevens, would you make that face? I would be. You know, Christmas bells are going off. You're. You're like, do I raise or do I call? Like.

Well, I guess for me, I just try to be, like, balanced with it. Right. So I guess you're asking, like, in a scenario where you're someone that kind of more wears your heart and your sleeve, are you making that face? And I mean, poker players can lie, man. Like, they can like, be. They can be misleading. Sure, I guess. So I played a similar. Obviously not that similar, but I put a head versus Peter where he had top and bottom pair or something. And he actually played it a lot more conservative than this. Which, which makes.

Yeah, there is, there is an argument for calling with king, seven and a seven. Right. Because Steve can keep bluffing with his, you know, straight cards, queen, jack or something. And you also, like, don't lose as big of a pot if he actually has ace, king or kings.

Right? Yeah.

So this is. You kind of take away a lot of those and then throw in like all the spades. And at that point in the hand, we'd been playing for a while. So you kind of like throw in like jack, five of spades and stuff like that, right?

Yeah, those make a lot of sense. So on the turn, what's your thinking with this? With, with like the turn spot? Because it feels like I understand the logic on the three bat and the flop, but now on the turn, if you bet, like what, what, what are you trying to have happen?

You know what I'm saying?

Like, like, like, what's the goal of this? Because, because like, if you think, if you think you're good, I get that. But like, if you think you're good, what the, what the hell are you trying to get value from?

I'll tell you exactly what I was doing, which I know is not like good poker theory, but I was going to bet and then check, call all non spade rivers.

Okay, so you're trying to charge a flush draw.

Basically, I was thinking I would play the hand where, like, it looked like I had a flush draw that gave up and let him bluff his bad flush draw to pulled out my, like, good flush draw. Okay. Does that make sense?

Yeah. So basically you're trying to give him an opportunity to bluff with Ms. Spades.

Yeah.

Okay.

Shorter, more concise way to say it.

So. Right. I've been doing hand reviews for some time.

I haven't talked hands, like in 15 years.

And also actually there is something with how you play on where I feel like you have like a really good. I'm going to use a term, it almost is going to sound like a joke, but I'm serious. You have like some white magic, you know what I'm saying, where it's like you can kind of like feel spots somewhat.

Yeah.

And I think. But I think you're not someone that is used to verbalizing those things.

No.

And so I feel like sometimes when, you know, even here you're trying to like analyze this hand, to break it down. Like there's something happening at like a, like an almost subconscious level that you're picking up on that you're trying to then like find the words. Does that make sense? I. I feel that way from you.

Yeah, absolutely. I've never, you know, I don't have a friend that I talk poker hands with. I try to forget them just as fast as they happen usually. Oh, certainly I'm not comfortable breaking down a hand, but. So it's a fun exercise, especially you know, with you where you can point that out.

Yeah.

This, this raise. What did you think of that? That was a great raise by him.

Well, it's, I mean, so it's, it's, it's a pretty, it's a pretty aggressive maneuver. I mean, like, you're. The size seems weird, right? Because it's like it leaves only about 230 behind when you make it 175. So it feels like probably should either be smaller or all in, I imagine. I also think this is the kind of raise where. And I've seen this with some players actually. This is actually a pretty good, Pretty good just note for the audience. But a lot of times when I see a raise like this, it's like overly big and kind of commits people. I feel like they have like some kind of draw that doesn't want to get forced off it if you face a jam, you know what I'm saying? So if he makes it 175 here and you jam, he's gonna have to call for the two whatever. But he has a parent of flush dress, so he can feel kind of good about it. I don't know what.

100. He's not gonna love it with one card to go.

Yeah. So like when people have good hands, they tend to either trap or raise really small or raise really big. But when they went to that middling size, I just see a lot of hands sort of like this. That said, I would never be able to. I would never be capable of doing what you do here. So it's not like I'd be like, ah, the pair in the flustra.

It's, it's. Well, it's one thing to have the idea and it's the other one to call the 1750001 Kaido Film. Right. I'm not sure it's a good idea to make a habit of making big pots out of position with third pair.

But he still has a lot of equity in the turn.

Yeah, yeah, it Feels like you're either making your 50, 50 with against a hand or you're just murdered. Right? So.

And one more question here. So you definitely give him a little bit of a stare here. You're trying to like figure out what this guy's up to. I feel like you're a pretty non confrontational person, right. When it comes to like poker table demeanor. So, like what do you do? This is actually more for my own curiosity. I had this thing where if I'm watching someone and they look at me, I always look away because I don't want to do the whole like, we. So is that what you do? If he looks at you, are you going to look away? Are you like.

Probably. You know, I played this tournament in the Bahamas that's also an episode, by the way. And this, this guy Fox and Alex Foxen, I've never met him before, but he's like superstar tournament player, right. We're playing a tournament and he like raises before the flop. I call and it's heads up and he's just like staring right at me the whole time with just like. I'm like. I'm not used to this. This is weird. You want to like look at the flop or. Can we talk about something? Yeah. I don't know. There's some people that are comfortable staring and I get, I don't know. This, this like day of poker was kind of like a serious day, you know? Yeah. But then it turned serious and I feel like that's the most exciting part of a game. You know, initially you're kind of messing around and then stacks get deep enough that interesting stuff happening and the game had just like flow wise turned and took that turn.

Yeah. So I think like, I think that with specifically high stakes poker there is a little bit different of a dynamic. Right. Because obviously the stakes are high, the stacks are huge. It's, you know that every hand on these, the show is going to be, it's going to be big. It's going to be well viewed. I mean, I think my most famous hand was on high stakes poker and I'm yours is now for sure.

Is that the one where you folded a straight?

Yeah, to Hellmuth.

That was amazing. That's so funny.

Now, you've played a lot with Hellmuth, right?

Yeah.

So what do you think of the fold?

It's the perfect fold. I'm just stunned that he isn't more upset about it. Like if someone folded the second best possible hand to me when I could have any other hand and not Even be bluffing. I just have to have the exact like straight, you know, I, I would be like slowly walking away from the poker room, like wondering why I'm spending my life doing this, right? I'd be like, and why am I here? You know, I would have these existential wanings, you know, for like weeks.

But so after that hand happened and I don't think it made the edit because they, because they edit these, it's not like, it's like a stream, right? And I, I don't think it made the edit, but he, he looks at me and so after what I folded, he quickly threw his cards in the market. Dealers, dealer, Turner river. Because he's like trying to make it

seem like he voted up with his.

So then, then there's like an awkward silence for a bit and then he goes, that's the best fold I've seen this year. And there's another. That's the best fold I've seen in the last two years. And then he goes, that's the best one in the last three years. And then there's a pause and he goes, yeah, three years. Which means that there was a fold four years ago. It's like he's cataloged all these hands away by year and he's like cross referencing the fold verses. Oh, the great fold of 2016's got you pipped. But up until it's like, what, what's going on?

What are, what are the chances that that fold wasn't made by him?

Oh, oh, you think it's his fold?

It has to be. In order to have beaten yours.

It has to be. I did not think of that. I assumed he met someone else's fold, but he was going through his own fold. Wow. Wow. We're getting, we're getting a glimpse into Phil Hellmuth here, Alan. We appreciate the insight. That's. That's a good one.

Had to be.

Oh, I like the, the cold open with Hellmuth in your episode. That was great too.

I'm not like a outspoken person. I'm mostly pretty private. We're pushing that, you know, nowadays. But I don't want to be out there saying, you know, we're at a high stakes game with a decade billionaire, but I appreciate when Phil says it so I can put it at the

front of Phil, Phil, he'll take all those spots for you. He's got you. He is not afraid to say them.

Right. It's really great.

What did you see the thing with Phil hum you that recently. He's not going to play the main event this year. You see that?

I did see that.

What did you think about that?

There's still a few months until the main event.

Oh, you think he's gonna play then?

Yeah, of course. How could he not, right? Could be his year.

So he's bluffing.

I'm gonna call the bluff.

Okay. What's his goal? That he's trying to get him to change the format or something?

Good question. I think there is some pushback from some of his friends or our friends and some other people that, hey, these hours are like brutal, you know?

Yeah.

And we could also start earlier, right?

Yeah.

I'm not too interested in playing a tournament because the experience I find soul. Soul crushing. But so there, there could be some adjustments to be good. But. Yeah,

I think you embody the exact opposite of playing tournaments is. Is my take on you. So probably, Probably a, probably not a good, A good spot for you anyway. All right, so I'll tell you, I

went down there to that Caribbean thing real quick and I, I think I bl. I. I lost three buy ins or what have you. And I looked at my last buy in and I was like, this is such dust. Like, I need to do something else with this. Right? And I see Corey. Corey Iring, you know, playing. I think he was playing 2, 5 or 1, 2. I'm like, Corey, you want to play this thing? Like, put him in and.

Oh, shit.

We went, we went 50, 50. And I was having so much more fun, like, you know, reading or doing whatever and just like checking in on how he's doing, honestly.

Yeah, the sweat aspect to having action, a poke trim is nice. You like, get the chip updates. Yeah. You're doing. Yeah. You don't have to do any of the tanking or staring.

I was so happy when I got knocked out. You wouldn't believe I was. I just felt like a new man. You know, you walk through the casino, it's like you can go to the restaurant without a reservation. No one's there.

Right.

Just. It's just nice.

I would say any tournament you play where you're looking forward to losing, you probably shouldn't be playing. But. Yeah, that's, that's definitely, definitely nice. Some freedom. All right, so then I guess just to end this hand and then we'll. We'll go back to being full screen here for a moment. So on the river, it. It's. It's not even like a total pure blank here. Like we have some connectivity. We. There's the 8, 5 space.

I was worried about 8, 5, and 5, 3. The, like, two hands I was worried about. But you know what? He just, like, pumped it all in so fast. I was like, you know, I. I think if you're in that spot and you have the eight, five, five, three, or sevens, you're gonna take a second. He's probably gonna, like, sell a little bit. Should I bet this or should I not? But he's just snapped off.

So you're. So. You're into, like, into some of the timing stuff and, like, the way people.

Yeah, the whole story, it's more fun. I don't. I don't want to study, like, numbers. It's more interesting to me. But I will. I will confess that I was calling the whole time, but I just wanted to torture him a little bit, hold

on to it, give you a little bit of hope.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

In the moment, you know, it's also like, you know, I think I said, you either, Gene, you look really smart, really dumb. Something like that. But I was so excited to show that it was just a seven. On the river, though, this.

This might be the greatest televised poker hand ever. Do you guys. That. It's in the conversation. It's like, clearly, like, top five or 10 or whatever, but it. It's just so insane. Hands, like. Hands like this, you know, people. Because I don't know if you get this right, but sometimes people say, hey, so is that real money?

Oh, yeah, I've seen that in the comments. They're like, oh, don't worry. It's. It's like 10. Like, they all chop it in the bathroom. Like, what are you nuts?

What. Why do people ask that so much? I. That. That happens all the time. Like, oh, is it fake? Yeah, man, we got nine people together, so we could play pretend poker.

Pretend poker. Just to make it make sense for some people. But, no, this is. This is real Life. This is $911,000 with a seven.

It's crazy, dude.

Like, what are the best hands? And, like, it has to be for significant stakes, right? Can't be, you know, a really small state game. It's got to be on, like, a big stage, right? Cameras, pressure, that kind of thing. And I feel like it's also got to be. It can't be. The hand can't play itself. It can't be, like, aces versus kings or, like a royal flush or something. Like, you're with me on that, right?

Yeah, yeah, of course. His. His reaction, too, by the way, when you show your hand. Yeah, it's just great. It's just great.

I made one mistake in this hand. If you remember, like last million dollar game, I was barreling away with this straight draw and I rivered this straight.

Oh, yes, yes, I do remember that.

Peter called me and he turns his hand like the cards and like points at the 5. I'm embarrassed that I didn't have the awareness pointed at the seven, you know.

Right. Tit for tat. Yeah, totally tit for tat. All right. And then of course, guys, also, this is his channel, Mr. Keating over here on YouTube. I'm more. You guys subscribe over here. Alan, I'm in there.

Awesome, thank you.

All righty. Okay, so going back to full screen, just us here. What. So thinking about like best hands, I think in the conversation is that, that Brad Booth Ivy bluff, you know I'm talking about. Yeah, that's got to be up there

where he showed the 400,000 40s.

Yeah. With like the bricks. That, that, that's, that's a very iconic hand. I would say.

I, I would say what it has going for it is it was like the right time where everyone's getting into poker and everyone's watching the same show and there's this mystique about, you know, Phil Ivey. Right. And so all those things

all at play. The other Ivy hand, where he was heads up in a tournament and the, the, the flop came out and it was a paired. It's terrible quality. Right. It's like, it's like this is the start of poker content. Do you know the hand I'm talking about?

Absolutely. Where it's just going, raising back and forth. That was great.

That hand is insanity. This is like neither. They were both like, you don't have it. And they just went to war. I'd say that one's up there for me. Other best hands, I mean, I don't know what else, what else kind of springs to mind. I'm sure there's some, I'm sure there's a million dollar game hands.

I'll put like some kind of boundaries on it. And I'd say it has to be almost certainly has to be a cash game because it has to be deep stacked to be truly interesting.

Oh, you know what? I have a good one. Jack 4,

the Hand World. Oh, my gosh. I remember where I was. I got like a dozen texts and just right out there. And I remember I called my buddy Chamath. I was like, yo, take a look at this. I think this is the like most significant moment in like poker right now. And it ended up being a big deal.

You could feel it, you could feel it when that was happening, that there's

no, there's no like, rationale for how she played the hand other than cheating or thought it. It was a three and misread the hand. Right.

Yeah, it's. It's one of those.

Which one you think it is?

Yeah. What do you think? What do you think about Jack 4? I don't know if we ever weighed in on that.

I think she misplayed it. I don't know. It's. It's impossible to say. That's.

You don't want to weigh in on this one. You don't want to weigh in on this one.

My way in is that there's no argument for playing that hand that way.

Right. Okay.

I don't see any. A fair argument for like the call. It doesn't make any sense. Right. So that was concerning. You know, I'm going over to this place, I'm playing every once in a while for like real money, you know,

Same, same. I, I've also played some. But if they're pretty big game too. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's. I, I think though, I really think that it was not happening. So first off, I said before, I, I feel pretty confident it's cheating, but I, I don't think that it was at like the high level in the company. Like, I think it was Baldman.

Yeah.

Even with Virtucci. I don't think Virtucci was a cheat. I, I don't believe that. You know, and it's, it's not a great time to stick up for Nick for two. She. So obviously I'm. But regardless, I think that it was one of the workers with the filing cabinet that was blocking the camera, which you heard about this, right?

No, tell me because. Okay, I know some of the workers took the chips from her stack, which was like maybe the most damning thing of all. Right.

It certainly, certainly up there. So I, I forget if I was going to LA or if I went out after this happened. I think I was already, I already had trip planned. So I go out there and I'm just like, you know, doing some investigative journalism. And I'm like, okay, let me see the scene of the crime, or rather let me see your studio or see your production room. So we go back there and I'm like, well, where are your security cameras? It's like just one right there. And I was like, okay, so then why is this filing cabinet here blocking the view of this Seat and like, oh, oh, Brian moved that there, like, two weeks ago. And I was like, he moved it there so no one can see him on the cameras.

Yes.

I'm like, and why? Like, oh, he said it should be over here. I'm like, and then that was the guy that got caught stealing the chips off the sack.

Help me understand. The filing cabinet blocked other people's view of the guy who may have seen the video.

The filing cap, they only have one. One camera. The filing cabinet cabinet blocked the one camera's view of him. So you cannot see him on the security footage, what he's doing. His desk, and it got moved there recently. And the reason was generally unclear.

Yeah.

And so he can see cards and sit in the seat and do whatever. And so pretty clearly in my mind, there was something with that. And then. And then when they found they sold chips off the stack, it made it even more like, what the hell, man? Like, I mean, I just writes a book.

If I did it, you know, if

I did it, here's how.

Yeah,

that would actually sell a lot of copies of poker.

Yeah, maybe. That was a scary moment, though, because anytime there's, like, integrity questions around a game, it's really sobering because we're all having fun playing cards, Right? Like, yeah, point. And then you're like, oh, no, it's a little sobering moment. What's. What's really going on here, Right?

Yeah. Because if you think about it, it doesn't take a very high percentage to get cheated where you're just going to lose infinite money. Right. Because if you are getting cheated, it's for. It's for a ton of money. And I know that they take security more serious there now. I think they're doing a better job with things. And I do trust Feldman to do. To do a good job with the show. You have to be vigilant with the way that you handle things, which is why I think we were one of the first shows to. To go to, like, no whole cards in the back. Yeah, maybe even. Maybe even the first show, I don't know where just like, we don't have your cards, guys. And by the way, there's some moments where that's really tough because, like, for example, Juan won hand of the year last year, and it happened at the lodge. It was a hilarious hand. It was much smaller 6 than this. But basically, I feel bad for one of our members. He has to relive this moment over and over again. But basically, he folded the nut flush in a spot where two people Went all in, and it was like top pair versus aces, and he just folded the winner. So she jammed aces and got a worse hand to call and a better hand to fold. So it's like absolute perfect hand.

Right.

But where I'm going with this is when we're trying to capture the moment in the comments, people are asking, hey, you have the wrong camera on the wrong person. Like, I want to see this guy. It's like, we don't know the cards. We don't know who has what. You know what I'm saying? We can't zoom in on. They don't know who has what as a security thing. And the viewers are used to always having the camera on the right person because the production knows who has what cards. But if you don't have them live, you can't do that. So it actually does hurt your show to protect your players like that. But I still think it's the right thing to do because the number one most important thing has to be the money. Pokers for money. And you have to protect that at least, I think. What's your take?

Yeah, obviously, I mean, you can't. You can't sacrifice anything when it comes to integrity and poker. Right. So I agree. But it is kind of a shame, the limitation you're talking about where maybe the camera's in the wrong place. That kind of sucks.

It's disadvantage.

Yeah. I'm excited about some of these other streams. I'm excited that all that stuff is growing. I think a big factor I look for is, like, audio quality. Some of them, it's hard to hear what's going on, but I think there's a lot of ways to innovate in this space. Have you. I'm sure you got future plans, but there's a lot more we could do, right?

Yeah. So there's actually a couple of great different ways we can go with this conversation. I want to just jump on the first thing you said, though. Like, all the different streams coming up. Obviously we have, you know, life of the bike, move to the commerce. We have the Venetian one coming up. We've had. I feel like we're seeing more and more streams. Here's my question to you. Do you feel like there's really enough out there to support all of these shows? Because it's starting to feel a little bit to me like it's going to get hard to create unique and compelling content when we have so many studios doing so many different shows. And how many games can we really support in this ecosystem? Like, are we reaching a critical mass here where we have too many shows. What do you think?

We are not reaching a critical. We do not have too many shows. Maybe we have too many shows that are too similar. I think that if you were to take it, if you were to apply a different take meaningfully to how you show the game and namely spend more time developing characters, telling stories before and after and building that stuff up, I think the lane's like, wide open.

Yeah, well, so with building characters, because I hear that take from people and, and I, I would say, I, I guess I agree, but my, my problem is I feel like in poker, what's compelling about people's storylines is, like, who they are and that gets told through them playing in games. Like, how so, like the best example. Think of all the guys that were like the generation before us, right? You know, the, the Ivy, the, the, the Hellmuth, the. You could say he's two generations, I guess, but Ivy, Helmuth, Negro, all these guys, they, they really benefited a lot from the TV boom. Poker boomed. They were in every big game. So what, what made their storylines and their characters wasn't like someone being like, this is Daniel Negrano, he's from Canada. Then this is Phil Hellmuth. He's like, what made their journeys was like the bracelets they won, the high six cash games they played, like their actual accolades and appearances, not. Not like explaining who someone is. So in your mind, how do I, how do I. How do we. Rather, I suppose, how does the person, poker world find these characters? Not just through the playing of the game itself.

That's, that's a great point. I mean, to develop a character in the first place, you got to like, move over time, right? Surely of your introduction, but you got to experience them going through things over time. And so having some of the same people play with each other as I think gives a chance for, like, rivalries to build. And if you look at the market, the Berkey airball heads up situation, you know, they're coming to blows in Bobby's room almost.

That was great.

I was dying. That was like, you know, that was an amazing moment. So that's the market telling you, you know, we do want these, these rivalries, these showdowns, you know.

Well, I mean, like, so at least from my perspective, I think me and the grand. It was probably like one of the number one beefs, if not the number one. I mean, still, it's. Still, it's got like 6 million views on Poker Go. It's like one of their most Popular View videos ever. Friends is too strong. We're, we're, we're reasonable. We're.

Oh, boy.

I feel like it's one of those things where it's like enough punches have been thrown where like we're gonna just move on for forward here together.

You know, we're, we're adjacent to friendship. We're.

Yeah, if I, if I, if I can hit up Daniel and we can have a good conversation about stuff and that's cool, but that's like, you know, I can invite him on like my channel. Like, you know, last time, last night.

Yeah, we talked to you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was great. People love that, by the way. That was a good balance.

That was fun.

But I wouldn't say, I wouldn't say Friends. That's probably, probably too strong. But where I was going with this is poker needs. This is a good topic actually. Poker needs more villains, okay? Because we have a lot of heroes, but we really need more villains because in order for heroes and villains to have their ARCs and to have their, their triumphs and their defeats, there needs to be a compelling reason why. And I actually think, I think Nick Airball is really good as a villain because he is loud, in your face, brash, shit talking. And when I think about what poker needs and people might find this to be controversial, but I think we, more people like that, that make it interesting, you know, that make it, make it like more dynamic.

I couldn't agree more that we need more villains and I agree that Air Ball's a great candidate for that. But I disagree that we have a lot of heroes. You know, you have to slay a dragon to be a hero, you know, not just because you're likable or nice. There has to be some sort of conquest.

Yeah, well, so like, so I mean like looking at some of the major poker stars, like, I think most people would view them all as heroes, right? I mean like more or less like top like five or ten famous people. I don't think any of them are really going to qualify as a villain. And I guess, I guess Helmi is probably the closest, right, where he's just like ranting. But even then it's not, it's not in like, it's not in like a really, it's not like a mean way, you know, it's in the. And it's in like a kind of pathetic way.

Well, what about Eric Person? Was he.

He's a villain. Yeah, I think you think he's top five, 10 most famous poker players though, like I wouldn't put him in that.

No. I'm just thinking of other villains.

Yeah, I would say he's one for sure. Yeah. There's some great ones. The double middle fingers to Hellmuth. Oh, my God. One of the most brutal moments of all time, like. Like, this is, like, top. Whatever brutal moments is when he stacked Mr. Dr. Batman in a game that was clearly very big for that guy. And then he said, welcome to the big leagues, kid. That was so good. Oh, my God. It was devastating. It was a devastating blow. Imagine you stack someone in, like, their biggest game ever, and you say, welcome to the big league skit.

Didn't he, like, disappear after that for a while, too? I mean, the guy was on. On the show for, like, a few weeks straight. And then that hand. Yeah.

Yes. I'll give you some backstory. He actually ran it up at the Lodge. Like, he came out to the Lodge and he won, I want to say, a couple hundred thousand dollars or a few thousand dollars. And he went on this gigantic heater. He was stacking everyone. It was insanity. And then he flew out to LA and. And I think, you know, at least on the show, he lost it. I don't know how it all worked out. And he actually. He stopped by my stream the other day and donated a little money to the stream so that, you know, he's still in the mix. He's still. He's still texted me the other day.

I'd like to see more of them.

Yeah, he is a character. He's definitely a character, but. But I would not have the heart to do that to someone on, like, a big show. You know what I'm saying? Like, to do that, to say that to someone. I mean, and I get. He was being really annoying, like, tilt cards, and it was. He. But that's kind of his shtick or whatever. But, yeah, he's. I would say that's a good example of another villain, but it's a short list. I mean, like, it's a short, short list Who.

Either Villains need more. Maybe we'll get someone to convert or even reveal themselves. Yeah,

I guess for two. She's probably a villain at this point. Probably in the. What did you think about how Hustler handled. Handled that situation?

That's not a situation I would want to be in, you know? Right, Right. Like, I guess I'm thinking from the position of Feldman, it's. You got to be, like, really disappointed about it, and there's gonna be, like, a series of steps that he has to take, and none of them are gonna be fun, easy, or you're gonna be criticized for them. All right. But I don't know. I don't know what else Feldman could do. You know, he looked into it, as far as I can tell, and, you know, let the process played out, and they made a decision to part heart. So.

Yeah.

Yeah. Basically just kind of sad. You know, it's almost just like the. You know, anytime, like, something's cheating, it's like, we're having fun here. Let's. Let's all do the right thing and just keep having fun, you know?

Yeah, I. I think. I think Feldman handled it well overall. And. And I do think that the new partnership with Gigi Poker will be a huge improvement for their show. Like, I imagine they can get some new people out there. I imagine. I imagine it's gonna.

We need to drag that Negronu into a real cash game. I want to see if I was like, you know, there's some rumors about how good he is, how good he isn't. Oh, well, to me, it's.

It's.

It's kind of a lot. Maybe a lot of people disagree, but until you've played, like, deep cash, to me, you're, like, unproven. I'd like to see him battle it like he used to 20 years ago.

Well, that. Those games did not go well for Mr. Negrado. If you remember how some of those pots went. There were some boats, there were some quads.

So your opinion is that he would struggle at a deep state cash game?

I. I didn't say that. You. You heavily implied it, but I. It depends on the lineup. It depends who's in there. It depends what's going on. I'm sure there's player types that he does better or worse versus, you know, I think he. He did an interview where he said that. I think he's open to coming on it now. That gg.

Yeah, that's what I'm looking forward to.

Yeah.

Like, what I'd like to see is some of you said you nailed. There's different generations where there's big names, right? Like, let's. Let's bring them into the deep cash waters. Let's see who. Who can hang.

Deep cash is pretty sick because you get these individual moments that are just so giant and how you do over. Honestly, sometimes months can matter on, like, one hand, and the sickness to just, like, have to stomach that is really something else entirely.

It's lovely.

I guess tournaments are similar, right, in that you get an all in at a key point in A tournament. And if you brick, you might not even cash, but if you win it, you might win the tournament. So you got some sick stuff in tournaments too. Poker is a sick game.

It is, right? Yeah, yeah, I, it is a sick game. I don't have any more to add. It's very sick. I'd like to see some of these people that play tournaments come into the cash. I suppose a lot of them will just be extremely tight and

well tournaments you usually have to play looser than cash because the ante is so big. I guess if you're playing like a good format, then it'll be the same in either one. But I think like the, the tournament player pool. So I played, I played a Triton a year and a half ago and I was just like playing with some of the regs and I'm like, I'm such dead money in this. Like I, I don't know, I don't know any of my ranges from anywhere. I'm getting berated by people and I'm like, I'm trying. It's just like because the, the bar is so high now in those high stakes tournaments, I'm sure you, you listen

to how, how you feel and think about what the implication is for the future of tournaments. Right. Where is it in its life cycle if the former or current best heads up poker player of all time, you know, walks into a tournament and thinks they can't win? Seems pretty late stage to me.

Well, so obviously I agree with the premise. The problem is it's just become who spends the most hours.

Right?

Right. It's not, it's not about. And that's probably why you like the deep, really deep set cash stuff is because no one is at home running like, all right, here's my 700 big blind strategy. Like that's not a, that's not a

thing people are doing.

But for sure people are doing that for 15, 20, 25, 30 bigs, whatever it might be. Because there are, there are really good ways to train right now out there. Shout out to lucid poker. I gotta quickly do the quick plug. But yeah, so I mean the point is like there are really good ways to play and trade now. And so it's kind of more than ever come down to who's willing to spend those hours. And that just doesn't feel right to me. I don't think poker should be like who's going to spend the most hours memorizing. It doesn't feel like we should be

doing as an exercise. You're, you're basically saying who can best emulate a computer.

Yeah.

And there's no sport or glory or, you know, for me, no interest. If, if that's your pursuit.

I think it would be really great if people were more open to changing up game formats. I think that would be awesome. I, I think it's not likely to happen because most casual players just want to play their one game type that they like and if you have to teach new games, maybe they won't do it. But I think like, let's just get crazy man. Let's just make some shit up. Like let's make some shit up and let's just battle it out and someone's gonna get stacked in a really stupid way and they're gonna be like, oh shit, that was a mistake.

Well, there's those, there's iterations in cash, right. Like the small blind kitty, which is genius. It's a, it's a progressive sort of jackpot wherein the person on the small blind has to add to it every hand and only the person in the small blind can win it.

Oh, I know what you're talking about. Yeah, I've seen that. I like that. Because then the small blind has to.

Yeah, of course it's the toughest spot to win the hand out of. Right. And you put the most pressure on it. It's, it's fun.

I remember when I, when I used to play online, looking at my like sample of hands and I was always like the worst ever in the small blind. I'd like look at my results and I'd be like, yeah, if you just fold every hand, you would have done better than this that you tried to do here. It's like you can't, you can't call. You have to play super tight. It's, it's just, it's just a horrible position. So anything to make that more playable I think is a great idea.

Yeah.

Also like the stand up game, I think, you know, in all the different forms it's been in, I think it's great.

Yeah. I think seven, if you add on to it, right. Like if the showdown goes to the last two people and people are adding buttons, it gets more and more painful for them. It's just.

Oh, progressive. Yeah, the progressive one. Yeah. You can get really sick with how much people can lose in that. Because the thing, the thing is too, it's like while you're losing the stand up game, you're trying to win pots, you're losing the money in the pots while you also lose the bounties. And then they're going up. It gets. It gets incredibly expensive.

Expensive, yeah. It just adds a dynamic spawn.

But going back to the poker shows thing, because I think. I think there's some interesting stuff to talk about with that. So I do think that we have a little bit of maybe too much overlap on shows are doing the same thing. And it's important to always try to deviate and create new concepts. But I think the big. The really tough part is the average viewer just wants to see poker. And so what do you think shows could do better to maybe, like, have a little more widespread appeal and kind of make themselves unique, but at the same time not lose that baseline of interest for people that just want to watch poker? Because that's the tough part.

So that's a tough question too.

It is. It's a tough question.

If you. If you say the average person wants. Just wants to watch poker. I think a better way of. That way of saying that is the average person wants to watch people they know or have a feeling towards positive or negative play poker.

Very true.

Right? Isn't that a better way to put it?

Yeah, yeah, that's very true.

So if you're. I think the. If I were to approach answering that question, I would think about how to stimulate the viewer's reaction to people so that they care about watching them play. And I think out of that, you develop characters.

I think that there's some. It kind of goes back to the compelling characters that people want to follow. And that is what makes games interesting if it's not just high stakes. Right. And I think there was a good example of this with what GG poker did with Game of Gold, where I think they kind of missed the mark a little. Like, so first, I think it's great to try stuff like that. And I think it did generate a good amount of interest. And I think that there's a concept there that is good. But it felt like it slightly missed the mark in that it got a little too pokery, you know what I'm saying? Did you watch Game of Gold at all?

Loved it. Yeah.

Okay. Okay, cool. So I felt like the best scenes were like, jungle in the back or like David Williams blowing up are like. Like all the best scenes was that kind of stuff. Right. They're like, oh, you gotta check the turn here stuff, which is kind of like it. It just felt like if the goal here is to try and bring poker to a really wide audience and make it interesting, it needed to have like 30 the poker, and it needed to be you know, 200, the jungle man, sleeping in the back or whatever the hell is going on. You know, I don't know. I. I thought. I thought that, like, that was a cool idea, and I think the company should do more stuff like that. But there was an equal, an equilibrium point that we kind of got to try and try and suss out.

Yeah. So let's talk about some of the things they did. Did, Right. I agree with you. I think we can agree that poker, just watching people play poker has reached sort of its limit for viewership. It's not growing. The amount of people that want to watch poker are watching poker oscillate. So getting outside of that and attracting new viewers, I thought Game of Gold did some things really, really outstandingly. Like when. When one player needed a seven to hit a straight, right? They went to someone saying, oh, you know, if he hits a seven, we're good, and the seven comes out. And I was like, boom. Like a big graphic, right? Like, you know, it's. It's fun for the viewer. Simplify all those things, for sure. And I was like, compliment them on that. And they also had that layer that you're talking about where they had their teammates watching the poker from, like a rooting interest. Right. So the viewer was almost like one of the teammates where they're rooting for one of the two players and reacting with their team. Right. This, like, extra layer where it kind of coached you, you know, how to respond to stuff. And if you're new to poker, all that stuff is. Is really important, right?

Yeah, I guess it depends on what the goal is. Is the goal to try and teach people or is the goal just to bring people into the sphere? And I think it's the second thing. I think it's like, well, it should

be to entertain, right?

Yeah, to entertain, exactly. Yeah. And then while being entertained, now there's an on ramp into poker where they could be like, oh, let me learn more about this, or look up something, or whatever it might be. And I think, like, I think finding, like, here's a good example, right? The movie the Queen. The. The Queen. Queen's Gambit or Queen's Gambit. That movie just completely revolutionized chess. It probably, like, doubled chess viewership and interest and maybe even more than double, maybe, maybe two or three. It was. It was this gigantic boom. And I know it was a perfect storm because it was right when Covid happened. And so people had all this extra time. Poker was kind of like this too. Covid was actually really good for poker, but you know, that movie, in conjunction with COVID just blew Chess off the map in terms of its resurgence into popular culture. And I feel like it's because you made a movie that is compelling for people, no matter who you are. And then now if someone wants to learn about chess, they find chess. I feel like poker needs to do that. Like, I'm not saying it's going to be the same thing. I don't know if we need rounders too out here, but there's. There's got to be something where the content is. Is entertaining and captivating in a way that brings new people in. I think that, yeah, I agree with that general premise.

I, I had a conversation about this recently where I, I made it into an analogy wherein if the show is like a dinner party, poker should be no more than the utensils. So all the interactions, all the character development, all the interactions. I think poker is the utensils, and that's my vision for the channel. And I hope poker community supports me because it's not going to be all poker.

I think that's brilliant. I think it's a really succinct way of putting it, and I think it's absolutely the right approach. So I think that's awesome. That's a really cool way of looking at it. Yeah, see, time will tell. All right, let's get to a couple other topics here. Moving forward. We talked about this.

Thank you for reaching out about this. It's fun.

Oh, yeah, dude, for sure. Honestly, like, it's kind of cool in a way, just to be able to sort of kick it with people you've known for a really long time. And it's always like this with Joey. Whenever me and Joey do a pod, it's like, I just. I feel like we're just hanging out and then there's an audience, which is cool. Joe's the nut, Joey's my guy. We've gone back for so many years, too. It's been. He's a great dude. Absolutely great dude. But, yeah, so, like, it's always nice just to be able to have these conversations and these are things maybe we would talk about, obviously in a bit. A bit different if we're in person, but things we would talk about anyway. So it's kind of a win win when you can do it and also create. Create some. Some content. So let's talk a little bit about. About the Hustler stream. So you're going to be playing an Airballs return to Hustler. So we already talked a little bit about airball. I know you play with him a little bit in the past. I think maybe you played with him in the Million Dollar Game, one episode if I remember correctly. But are you excited to see airball back out there? I know he's not been on the show over at Hustler for like a year or something now.

You're talking about the king of la.

The king of la, yeah, of course.

I mean, Hustler definitely benefits from, you know, airballs presence. He's got some amazing lines, he's got great energy. I think at one point he was kind of pushing up, putting out some stuff that people found maybe poor taste, but as far as like, you know, overreacting or getting mad or whatever. But I'm not like a really sensitive person when it comes to these things. And I love, I love the character that is air ball. So I'm looking forward to it. It should be a good game. Should be a good game. And then we got the Million dollar game coming up. Are you gonna play or no?

I don't think I'm gonna play this year. I don't think I'm gonna play this year. It was, the last year sucked. I, I just, when I got there to my day, it was like five handed. The game's on the ropes. There's one wreck. He's really angry. I'm there. I'm just like, this sucks. Like I did. You can just not invite me, like I can just not show up. It's fine. And so it's like my day lasts for just like, you know, a few hours where during the game everyone's like, can we leave? Can we leave? And I'm just like, it's just really shitty. And then the year before was way better, you know, it was, yeah, that game was pretty good. That was a pretty legendary game actually with Tom Dwan and her Albus came in late. Rob, what's up?

I loved it. I loved it. Yeah, you're right. You know, I guess this, this is something I'm passionate about, but I have no role in it. Right. I guess some of these conversations have had happened in the last couple days about being more involved on Lion. But I do want to see more innovation that gets, you know, the Million Dollar Game and all these events, you know, more exciting, more, more anticipated, more dynamic. So unfortunately, million dollar games in like a month and a half or something. But I'd like to see Hustler come up with some new ideas to change it, make it more interesting. Because stakes alone don't make a game Right. Like, yeah, just because it's a million bucks, you can't, you can't rest, rest on that. You gotta keep going.

Yeah, I think, I think I, I could be wrong. Maybe someone can correct me that it's possible I may miss something along the way. But I'm pretty sure that the, the million dollar game I played on was the peak viewership of that game has had and I think it was because there was so much going on. Like, not, not only do you have like a lot of well known names, you also have lots of drama. Like obviously Tom Dwan. I haven't seen eye to eye on a lot of issues over the years. And then you also have the stakes.

Maybe you're a villain. Have you thought about that?

Am I a villain?

Issues with Tom Dwan, you know, you're, you're telling off Negrean. You heads up, go downs, you're, I mean, wow, maybe you're the next villain.

I don't know, man. I guess like if you call people out that steal money, is that, does that make you a bad guy? I guess maybe that's, maybe that's possible.

Well, everyone, every villain has the human qualities. Otherwise they're just.

Okay, maybe, maybe I'm just a complicated character, you know?

Yeah. When I look at you, I think complicated or in other words, in other words, you don't interest me.

But yeah, with that game, you had like the drama, you had the stakes. And, and I also, when I, when I got to that game, I was like, I was like, I'm gonna fire. Like I'm getting my first shot in here. I'm blasted. I just immediately barreled off that missed straight draw. And then, and then Tom had the boat and so it was like hour one.

And wait, hold on. He tanked for like five minutes with the boat.

That was crazy. What the hell was that?

Razor knot. I guess that was crazy. I remember I was watching, I was screaming at the tv, it's like, what the hell's going on? I want those five minutes back.

It was a brutal spot.

We had some really fun moments in poker. Right? Like, I think Rampage had a beautiful moment where he, you know, did that check, raise, bet all in on hands with. You know, most people may know this or not, but I thought that was a pretty epic hand.

Yeah, that was, that was, I mean, one of the best hands from Million Dollar Game. I thought he, he ran it for a million dollars on this guy and, and got it through it. It was, it was a versus top set. I mean, it was a, it Was a really spectacular play, and it worked out. And. Yeah, no, that was a very cool one from Ethan.

I guess he picked the right guy

because

some people might have called with three queens. You know, you.

You put in the call there.

Well, it's just kind of interesting. You're. He's just. It's. It's weird that someone has a hand that they're. They're saying they only have one hand. Ace, K in the boards. Queen, jack, time, doing all this raising. They're saying they have ace, king. It's. It's kind of funny, the hand. He's trying to convince him the whole time he has ace, king. And it's just rare that someone's, like, adamant, like, on three streets, like, trying to tell you I have ace, king, unless they don't have ace, king.

You know what I mean? Okay, so you're saying. I see. Okay. Sorry.

Go ahead. Yeah, but, like, I think, you know, sometimes the dollar amounts or the pressure of the moment, because it didn't seem like hands thought about calling.

Yeah, it was.

You have ace, king.

He folded. Yeah, folded relatively on the quick side. I do think there's a bit of a dynamic in that game where some people just think that the money is too much for people and they might not be willing to just kind of run it for so much money, you know? And I had my own nightmare spot where some guy ran it on me, and I had aces. See that hand versus a Hank. You know what I'm talking about? I had aces, and I bet three times on a queen high board, and he jammed the river over my river bet. And I said, like, oh, okay. So I bet the river. He jams. And I was trying to think what I should do, and I was like, okay, I'm gonna just, like, randomize this. And I was like, if I pick the ace of spades twice in a row, I'm calling. And then I picked the ace of hearts and fold. Then he just. He just tabled ace high in my face for miss flush draw.

Let me. Let me ask you, like, why. Why randomize stuff? Like, don't you want to, like, live with the outcome of your choices? Isn't that, like, the spirit of life?

Wow. I mean, how do I. How do I respond to that?

You get into the biggest pot of your, like, televised career, and you're like, you know what? Those 20 years of playing poker, I'm gonna throw that all away. Let's see what the coin has to say, you know, like.

Well, I guess it kind of comes from a Place of. I think, I think deep down somewhere when I've like over my heads up career has been like, you have to shut down people from bluffing you, you know, like, I mean, it's okay. They're gonna bluff you sometimes, of course, but like from frequently bluffing you or else you get run over. And so whenever I'm in a spot and I face aggression, I think, like, what's the lead? What's the, how much do I have to call here to prevent them from running me over? And that is so built into me and how I play. And like, I'm going to shut you down. So even if that means my ass gets stacked for a $2 million pot with one pair, if I think I have to call one of four times, I will do that because I will not let you run me over. And that's just kind of like core to my identity. Does that make sense?

I've never thought about poker that way. That's interesting. Yeah, I'd never thought about it that way.

I think it's, it's, it's almost certainly a flaw in some ways, but in other ways it's very strong because it makes it so that you're able to hang in there with kind of anyone. Yeah.

What you are saying is there's ways to exploit me and I kind of almost like giving up, throwing hands in the air. Like, I'm gonna take. Let. I'm gonna do something suboptimally to prevent you from exploiting me more that way.

The way, the way I would word it is when you start to go by your instincts, then you're going to be exploitable. So if your instincts are good, then you'll be okay and you can take your pair of sevens all the way to showdown. But if your instincts are bad, and I don't really trust my instincts in full ring, like, heads up. I have instincts. I had this hand the other day, if people were watching my. My challenge, and I had ace high and this guy bet the river and I was like, this is the most piece of nothing I had. Like, I had ace, deuce. It was like 6, 5, 4, and I had a missed flush draw. And I was like, hell, no, hell. And I just call. This guy's got like, you know, I didn't already have like jack higher, queen high or whatever. He's just like trying to bluff and I'm just like, I know you're bluffing. So in heads up specifically, yeah, I'm willing to step out there and make my reads because I have A lot of experience, but I don't. I don't really have a lot of experience with ring. I mean, I've played a little online. I put a little streams here and there. I. I think I've lost money lifetime in ring poker. I don't feel like I'm. I don't feel like I'm a particularly. I'm really good at heads up. I don't feel like I'm. I don't feel that way about rings.

So I think there's a lot for people that you don't want to think on their feet and make reads. There's a lot for people to pick up on that they're not currently. And I'm excited about this because one of the comments was, you know, you're not really sharing how much. What you're really thinking too much in these hands. And partly because I've got a compose these thoughts, you know, after the fact, and it's kind of awkward. I don't want to, like, claim that I had some crazy read when I didn't. But when we were in the editing room for this last poker episode, we were kind of saying, what's the storyline for this today? Like, what's interesting? And then going through with the producer and the editor. And I've got like the pause button, start, stop. And every so often I would point out, like, pause. You see how he did this, right? Like, would he do that if he was bluffing? You know, look at his mannerisms. Isn't that interesting? And then I looked at the reaction to the things that I was pointing out, and the producer and the editor who aren't poker people were like, really into it. So. So I, I think I've just kind of like, uncovered. I'm excited about it. If we can get more into the. The reads and the observations, I'm looking forward to that. Yeah. Full ring. Yeah. I think they're more important than heads up, right?

Yeah. Cool. Because in full ring, people are going to be way weaker too. I think also some of it probably comes from your background, who you play against. Like, I had to come up playing all the toughest people, so I was obsessed with making sure you couldn't run me over. Just like obsessed with it. I. I'm. I'm gonna wake up every day and just like everything I can to fight you in every single pot. That's probably a different experience than you've had at poke. I'm just guessing. I'm not, I'm not saying it is. I'm just saying likely Your games have been different.

I. I've had that experience. When I first started playing, I was so scared. Like, so tight. I remember the first time I went to a casino that was.

Oh.

Oh, boy. It was in Canada. I was, like, 19. And, you know, we. We have some gambling in our family, so I grew up, like, being told never to do it.

Okay. That kind of gambling.

Yeah. Yeah. And I'm walking to the casino, and I'm walking. You know how the walkways are kind of convoluted? They make you walk through a bunch of stuff because they want you to stop at the slots or stuff. Right. I kind of, like, feel these bodies, like, in the casino, and I'm, like, walking around the slot machine so that, like, no one sees me in case, like, someone knows my family tells them that I'm the Windsor Casino in Canada. But I go and play this game, and I. It was great. I get aces. I mean, it's pretty early. And I raise preflop. It's $1, $2. Make it $7. Goes, like, nine ways of the flop board comes like, jack, jack, three, jack, jack, something. I bet this guy raises me, and there's, like, five people behind him. Like, he clearly has a right. But I'm so nervous. I short circuit. I'm like, I'm all in.

Oh, no.

He, like, snap calls, and I turned an ace.

Oh. And that's how it started, ladies and gentlemen. That's how it started.

But getting to, like. Does that happen to you? Like, if you think 20, 15, 20 years ago, like, it was just trying to make sets and get paid. That was like, right. People were playing too many hands, and then you. You make a hand and you get paid. And that was my. That was. That was what I was doing. I wasn't very good. But there was this one guy that would come and play, and you drove a truck for them. And he was so talented at poker. It was wild. He understood that basically, if I did all this raising preflop, I had to have a good hand, like, aces, kings, or right, whatever. The board would come like, 6, 7, 8, and he would just check, raise me every single time. And I'm just like, it. I mean, it took me longer than I'd like to admit to realize he was bluffing me. I was like, how does he always have it, you know? But he was, like, an exploitative player before, when the trend was just to be, like, tight and make hands. And so I had definitely have had the experience of being run over. And like, you, I just chose once I kind of picked up on it. I was like, oh, there's another way of looking at this. I don't like how this feels. And, like, I have my own strategy. You know, I'm not used to talking to people about, like, how to play poker, but it's somewhat derived, you know, secret sauce. It's somewhat derived from the observing what situations I don't like being in and just putting other people into them.

Okay, that's very interesting. Yeah, that's. That's a. That's a cool concept because there are.

You're gonna put pressure and. And make people uncomfortable, and that's gonna, like, create the. The most opportunity for, like, mistakes, I guess.

Yeah. I mean, there's certain spots in poker, when you get into them, you're like, this is bad. Like, you just.

You just.

This is. This is.

I'm gonna bet. I have to bet. But if you raise, like, I'm beat, You know, like, exactly those moments, right?

It's like. It's like moments where it's like you have tens and someone re. Raises you, and you call, and it's like, 9, 7, 4, and they bet, and you're like, this is just gonna be bad. Like, like, right now, maybe it's okay, but, like, it can only get really bad. You know, it's like, or I'll win the current pot. Like, I'm never gonna. There's just certain situations in poker, you just. You just know our bad situations. And putting your opponent in those spots, that's a good way to play. I mean, you're making. You're taking advantage of those situations. Or like, for example, another one in poker that's kind of common is like, let's just use your. Your flop, where it was like, 8, 7, 6, or whatever. If you both check and an ace comes on the turn and you check, and now the guy bets. Check raising. People there is so good because they're always capped. I mean, maybe they could have a 76, but those probably bet the flop sometimes. So they're like, usually just have an ace, and you can have all these hands that trap the flop, and you could bluff, and you can value bet, and you can go giant. And so, like, I like to make sure I'm check raising enough in those spots, because you really make their life miserable in those. In those types of situations. So there are definitely those spots, and I think good players know how to sort of drag people out into those situations that they probably don't want to be involved in.

See, what you described sounds like a good time yeah, yeah.

When I.

When I get a big hand, you know, full house, whatever. I'm almost, like, ashamed. I gotta apologize. This is lame. I'm sorry. It's like, unfortunate. Reality of poker is sometimes people have it, you know, my condolences. You know, I actually, like, feel like it. Horrible. But when you're talking about bluffing, oh, man, you know, you got me going there.

See, actually, maybe that's one thing we can agree on. We both love a good bluff, don't we?

See, getting back to the best hand of all time, it's gotta be either an amazing bluff or an amazing call, right?

Yeah. What other hands are in the conversation here?

That's a tough one, I think. Didn't Dur and Ivy have like, a head, like, barreling situation again in the high stakes?

Oh, yeah, there was, but I think Ivy folded the river. But he thought about it for a long time with a really shitty hand. And if he had called. I know, I know. I think it's at Poker After Dark. I know the exact hand you're talking about. And Ivy had, like, basically nothing on the river and thought he might be good and was tanking it and legitimately thinking, you could tell he, like, yeah, he wanted to call.

I. I like the kind of quirky stuff. So one of my favorite hands was when Dur got an all in against one of the older guys, like a greenstein.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Very greensign. Yeah, The.

The guy that's known for, like, the ace on the river or whatever.

Barry Greenstone.

Okay, thank you.

I think.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He gets all in and he's got aces and dirt's got king, queen, and he's got a top pair and he's got a flush draw. And I think Dur asked him if he wants to run it twice. I might. I may have this wrong, but I think he asked him if he wants to run it twice and got green side and says no, but we can take like 10k out or take 100k out, like reduce the stakes. And why this hand's so good to me is there says no and he hits the. Hit the queen.

Yeah, yeah, that was a great hit too. Oh, there was a really good bluff from Tom Dwan on. On when he, like, got Peter Eastgate to fold a deuce. Do you remember that? Where he, like, raised queen 10 on, like 10 deuce, deuce. And Barry Greenstone had aces, I think, and called. And then Eastgate also called with a deuce. And then Duan barreled into both of them and got them Both to fold the turn with, like, just, like, a 10 on that board. That was a pretty. That was a pretty cool hand, too.

It's always interesting when tournament players come to play cash. You know, sometimes happens where someone wins a big tournament, then they want to jump into the cash streets. And I remember jrb. He'd always, like, be on the lookout. He's like, oh, who won a tournament? Let's get him in the cash game. I'm like, jeremy, no matter what, if you want a tournament, he's better than you. You'd be a little more careful.

I actually played with JRB online yesterday. We did this, like, little online promotional game thing.

That's funny.

I'm sure he was taking it very seriously.

Okay, now I've thought of a hand, and it's one that I like. I mean, I'm in it, and it's. I remember it because I liked it, but I got it in really dumb. Against jrb. I had a flush draw, just a queen, high flush draw, and he had a king, queen. So it was like a king, 10, nine board and with a jackery chop. And he goes, how many times do you want to run it? You know, that whole conversation. And I say, as many times as you want. He goes, you know, once or twice. And I say, as many times as you want. And he goes, oh, okay, three times. I'm like, hold on, jrp, that. That wasn't the. That wasn't the conversation. We're not trying to take all the risk out of this. We're not trying to give you two thirds of the pot, you know?

Yeah. It's funny to say, what, once or twice? And then. And they go to three on the response. It's a nice, Nice little upping of the production. Fun.

When it's like, there's. There's almost like a. A manhood thing where it's like, I'll go once if you want me to. You know, Like, I'm not scared. I'll go once. You know, I think.

Yeah, I think. I think, like, frankly, that dance goes on way too long.

It's pretty funny.

Yeah. And I feel like there should actually be more of a standard protocol with, like, what happens, because both people don't want to seem like they want to go twice, Right? So there's this, like, awkward, like, well, I'll do what you want. Well, I'll do what you want to do. I don't know, like, once or twice. And it's like, well, and then it's just like, you guys just agree just Just once or twice. Let's do this.

I like the dance. It's very revealing, right?

Oh, you like the dance? Yeah, yeah.

Because a lot of times, you know, when someone says, you know, once or twice, I don't care, like they care. Sometimes it's fun to find out how much they care. But I. I asked JRB and he says three times. I say, you know, that's too many. He picks twice. We run the board out. The jack hits. So we both have the straight on this board, the King, Queen, Jack, 10, 9, or whatever. And we go to the second board, and I miss the spades again. So I don't know how you do this math. You give them half your stack or whatever. I always make. Ask the. Not make. I ask the dealer to put it in because I don't know how to do the math on how to chop it when it's that way. But I go, hold on, Jeremy, one moment here. I see an opportunity. I said, how about one more board, you know, for 100k? And he kind of, like, laughs. He's like, yeah, it's a little late for that. You know, you've already lost. You know, he's counting stack. And I go, no, no, no, you don't understand. I'm offering you another run out. You have me, you know, beat here. You notice you got the queen. I only have the queen. Like, you got. We can trade hands and do it, but, like, you got me beat here. Let's do it for, like, another 100k. Right? That's what I'm.

Yeah.

And he's like, you got it. You got it, right? And the first card is. Is a spade. I just, like, air ball. You can hear him just, like, spit out this laughter, right?

Oh, that's amazing.

And it's like, kind of like trying to be respectful, but also, like, these are the moments I love, right? And so now he went from winning this hand, but minus the 100, he's now losing the hand.

Got him.

He takes the glass of wine and, you know, like, he. He puts it to his lips with such veracity that, like, you. You see the wine, like, splashing to his nose, right? And he just. Just completely downing it. And this wasn't the intention, but he goes on to, like, drink more and gamble away every chip he had in his stack, not only in his pocket, just, like, all the chips that he could get within, like, 30 minutes of phone calls, right? Like, over the next, like, three hours.

Oh, my God, dude, you put him on Life Tilt.

It was tremendous.

Yeah, yeah. Jeremy, Seems like he might tilt from time to time. I could see it. Yeah.

Yeah, I did enjoy noticing that he's on that Venetian Poker live. Yeah, I hope that works out. Good.

Yeah, that'll be interesting show. I know Joe Ingram's involved in that. At some point I'm probably going to come plan and I think I told him, just let me know when it works for you. I'll swing by. I actually have a story for you. I have a story I want to tell and this is a good one for the viewers at home. And you are probably not even going to remember this, Alan, but this is a great story.

Okay, I know what you're going to say.

You do?

I'm not gonna interrupt. I'll tell you like, honestly, if it is what I'm guessing.

Okay. Okay.

By the way, what's up? I knew you're gonna bring this up.

I don't think you're gonna. I don't think you know what I'm gonna tell you. I'd be. I'd be shocked. But maybe. Maybe you do. It's a good story. Okay, so this is like 7ish years ago. Okay, maybe 5, maybe 8, 9, I don't know, somewhere in that vicinity and there is a dealer at. At Aria. Is this the story you think I was gonna tell? No, you see, I don't think so. Now I wanna know what that story is. Anyway, so the dealer at Aria and he. He is. Steals in the high stakes game room a lot. You might actually still remember. His name's Joe Strazera. He's actually our GM in our Round Rock location. Anyway, so he's about to get married and somehow it comes up and like you're playing like high six game or whatever and like you're pretty drunk at this point. And you come up to him and you. And you go, hey man, congrats man. I just want you to know I'm excited for your future. And this is for me. And you take a flag, a $5,000 chip, and you put in his front pocket and pat it and say, this is for me, man. This is your wedding gift. So he leaves and he's like, this is the kindest thing someone has ever done to me in my entire life. And then he sees you when he goes on vacation, comes back and he sees you, he goes, alan, I just want you to know that was like the nicest thing anyone's ever done for me. And you looked at him, he said, what did I do? And you did not even remember doing it. You did not Even remember you had no recollection to you, this was just another day. And so Joe, he told me this story. He's like, I was shocked. I was like, this is the kindest thing anyone's ever done for me in my life. And he doesn't even remember that he did it.

That doesn't take away from it.

Okay, that was a very kind thing you did. That was very nice of you.

It's been cool, like, impacting people in positive ways. I have, I definitely have a connection with everyone that works in poker, you know, the floor people and the dealers. I'm very, very connected in that sense where, you know, I appreciate that they're there working for us and the effort they put in. It's like, it's obvious to me, you know, you can come in with a negative attitude or be slow or whatever. Like, they're excited to be there and I'm excited to see them, you know, like people working for a living and doing stuff in the poker, poker room. I'm really, really supporting. And it goes back to when I first moved to Vegas. I didn't have a place to stay or a car. Right. Like, I had, like a backpack with a pocket full of cash. You could tell my net worth based on, like, how big that pocket looked and what you would assume the thickness of a hundred dollar bill is. Right. And that was the case for a while. And I would be playing poker 2, 5, 1 2, whatever. And I would not have a place to stay or like a real plan. I was just adamant. I'm going to run this up, right. Like, I have these poker dreams. Yeah. You know, I'm going to get there. So I'd play for 24 hours straight, 36 hours straight, you know, get to

a point

where, you know, you make friends in the poker room, the floor people, the dealers and stuff like that. And, you know, always nice, like tipping and stuff. But there were different instances where a dealer would say, hey, you know, Alan, you're tired. You know, why don't you. I'm getting off my work in 30 minutes. Why don't you, you know, ride back with me, you can sleep on the couch and, you know, I'll drive you back the next day. Right. So that, you know, that kind of stuff happened a lot. And so I have a lot of friendships with the dealers and stuff.

Oh, that's really cool, man. Because one of the things, running a card room or owning a car, whatever you want to call it, I. I've gotten to meet a lot of the people there and they're good people that want to put in honest day's work and, and, you know, be a part of poker. And so I think, like, you can tell a lot by people, in my opinion, by how they treat the people that are beneath them or working for them or however you want to phrase it in, like, the PC way. And I think, like, you know, doing something like that is. It's insanely generous and kind and I think, like, it's great for poker to have people like that. So I'm going to go ahead and say you're not on the villain list. I'm just going to put it out there.

Not yet, not yet. Harvey Dent trajectory,

you're ready for the career arc. It's gonna all turn around now, huh?

Yeah, it's possible, man.

Now I, now I wish I knew what story you thought I was gonna bring up. Oh, Jesus. That might be an off air story, everybody. Okay, what do we got?

No, no, no, I, I thought you were gonna bring up me asking you to stake me.

Oh, my God. No, but that's another funny story, but that was like 15 years ago. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I had no money, but I was like, don't you see my talent? Let's go.

I don't know if I've ever, if I ever said. If I've ever said this before or not, but. Yeah, you emailed me in 2010. I still have the email. It opens. Hey, fishy fish.

Is that how I started the email?

I swear to God, I have the email.

These stories, I can't even show my face anymore. I'm gonna, I want to, like, hide in my hoodie.

Oh, hey, hey, fishy fish. And then, and then you, like, had a steak proposal and you, like, crunched all the numbers. You were in there. It was a very, it was a very well put together proposal. But I mean, I was too busted up to take people anyway. Like, we were both too broke.

Well, yeah, I've definitely had my broke moments.

Sure, you've had your broke moments, like when you're way younger though, right? Not like in recent times, not in

a while, but yeah, I mean, I don't know, maybe 25 last time, but probably, you know, half a dozen times in there.

You know, that's a lot of times going broke, man. I feel like I, I was on the ropes a couple of times and I was really on the ropes one time in like, yeah, my mid-20s. And I feel like when it got to, like, the absolute bottom of that, remember, just like being like, I never want to have to go this through this again. And I, I kind of feel like you have to go through one. I mean, maybe you don't have to. Maybe that's just like what I want to think. But I feel like the first time where you go through it really terribly, like, I lost like 99% of my net worth. And then, and then when you're down to like, just like the scraps and you have to like, hang in there and you're just thinking, like, if I ever get another opportunity, I'm not going to fuck this up, you know? And I feel like going through that gives you the mindset that you need to not do that the next time around.

Well, it's an opportunity to develop that attitude, but it's not an opportunity everyone takes. You noticed, and I think we've all noticed that some people oscillate between up and down pretty hard compared to others and. Sorry, there's a. Someone working on the pool.

Yeah, Maybe he's trying to catch some fishy fish.

Hey, fishy fish. I'm going to say that the rest of my life.

That's good. It's a good one, bro. It's a good one. All right.

Yeah. What else do you want to talk about? You have anything else?

Let me see. I got a couple other things on here. And then, and then we'll wrap it up. So I guess just a kind of a little million dollar game preview overview. What, what are we, what are we looking at lineup wise this year? You know, anyone that's going to be involved, like, like what, what do you, you know, is there. How did you. Maybe kind of a secondary point to that, too. I felt like last year the dynamic with some of the game was a little. There's a lot of politicking going on, obviously. So what's it looking like this year and what's it like to kind of be a part of that discussion with lineups and playing in a game that big?

Well, first, kind of like hitting on the politicking thing. It's kind of unfortunate. Like, I wish we brought some more of what happens behind the scenes to light a little bit, but there's like, nuance to that whole thing. But a lot of people have like, assumptions that they run away with or, you know, actually we talk about developing stories and characters and telling stories. Like maybe that's the arena that, that we move into to engage people more. But. So for this, this one, I think the last million dollar game you nailed, it wasn't very good. And what some things that I think Feldman, you know, correctly observed was that five days in a row is like not a good idea. Right. No one wants to play back to back days. Like if you're, if you're gambling, I never want to stop. Right. Like, you know, the game goes to 4 or 5 in the morning. Like, you know, I love that. But that'll impact the next day. And without time in between to rest, I think that was a huge mistake. So he's breaking them off where there's a rest day in between. And I think that's an opportunity. We'll see what he does. But I think there's an opportunity for Hustler to lean into sort of like a post game show and a pre game show, like wrap up. You know, if we're going to develop like this poker community thing, you know, we need our around the horn. We need our like, you know, we need our segments that are consistent, reliable, that people like kind of telling what's going on. But with this Million Dollar Game, I think it's going to flow a lot better with that break. And I think there's like some new exciting people coming up. I have like, I love this guy Steve. He just makes me laugh at all times. Right. He's having a good time, so I figured he'll be there. Charlie Hook, he's going to come out and I think we saw him in the last Million Dollar Game, but didn't really get to know him. But I think he's like one of the more captivating people in poker and I plan to, you know, tell a little bit of story with my channel in the future. But he'll be there and I think that's a great thing.

I'm good friends with Hook, by the way.

Oh, you are? Yeah, yeah. Good.

He's, he's actually coming out to play on one of our shows in a couple weeks here. So he's a great dude. Yeah.

And I think he just, he's really great to root for. I guess just to expand on that, it's, you know, if you're around poker or gambling, you know, it can be a bit of a trap. Right. You always want to catch up to, you know, this, the bankroll you had before, or there's a game going and you don't want to miss it. Well, like a lot of the time our personal lives, you know, suffer or, you know, underdevelop. And when I think of Hook, he's just like an impressive person as a father and husband. And I think what's missing and part of going mainstream is Getting guys like that out there, where people see that there's a balance there, that, you know, really good people are out there in the space. So I'm excited about him, I guess. I have a text with everyone that's in the name about who's supposed to

be going, but are we gonna get some breaking news here on the podcast? Is that what's going on, dude?

How did you come up with that? You just did it one time and it worked out.

I don't know, bro. I just, I just do. And then sometimes it like, sticks, you know, that's the thing, especially with, with, for me, like, I, I'm the exact opposite. I'm like, low, like, super high quantity, and then just like, the quality is variable. Whereas I feel like you're like, really high quality, low. The thing is, when you do enough volume, sometimes you just come across something. It's just kind of funny. You just keep doing it. It becomes a meme, you know?

Yeah. How did you not win these awards for, you know, best poker podcaster? Did you win this year or what?

I, I don't think. I, I, I, it was all rigged. I don't, I don't want to, I don't want to get into the. My, my, it's rigged. But let me just say it like this. When I, when me and Negro, what's up?

I want, I turned on this GPI awards and, oh, I'm going to be unpopular for saying this, but I didn't recognize too many people, you know, definitely should give awards to, you know, tournament staff that do the right things and grow the game, but we gotta rethink that whole thing, right?

You're just dragging me out into this conversation, huh? You're just gonna drag me out. Okay, so look, so the thing is,

what is a GPI award to you? I mean, like,

it's not, it's so, it's, it's an industry insider award. It's not about, like, actually who's best. It's about who's, like, the most well connected and the most. The exception is probably the Fan Vote 1, which is what we won. People voted us in. So in theory, like, that is going to be fair, but in general, it's just a way for companies that are sponsoring and paying the right people to acknowledge other people getting paid in the industry. And that's why when you look at who's being nominated, a bunch of them are like, I've never even heard there are podcasts that get nominated I've legitimately never heard of in my Entire life. Like, the fact that Joey didn't win Podcast of the Year, just every year is an outrage. I mean, like, in the poker community, he had by far the best podcast for, I mean, indefinitely. And it's like this in a bunch of areas. So, like, when me and Negroni were beefing, and I even say Negroni was involved with this, but, like, the companies are not going to nominate the person that's going after Negronu. Like, this is not good business. So it's just like a circle jerk. With the exception of the fans vote ones where the people decide, which is why I'm proud of that. But just like, generally speaking, it's a really stupid fucking show. And I. I basically had to spend like several years at the top of the YouTube game and never winning anything because of, like, whatever bullshit politics. And now we're all supposed to sing Kumbaya and I just don't. I just don't want to be a part of that. So. Yeah, man, like, there should be something better. It's not. I imagine a lot of awards reflect

the poker viewing, like, poker world more broadly, not just who's paying for or playing politics. Right.

100%.

Gotta be like, you know, remember what MTV like, video Music Awards when we were younger? Like, yeah, you know, that was a big deal. You were like, rooting for people. You had, like, when you were young, you watched that and you didn't watch, like the Oscars. No one cared, like, you know, in the same sense, like, or Grammys or whatever. Maybe there's a way to rework this thing and get a little more energy behind those. Those awards.

Yeah, I think. I think if you want to do it right, you have to have a real desire and thirst for truth and fairness. And it can't be based off of, like, some company is paying some port. It's got to be like, really, truly fair. And then you have to think about how does that happen? How do the incentives work? And, you know, the thing is, I will say about the show, it does get to highlight a lot of people in poker that are doing great things. And it's also been tough for me, Alan, because I have a lot of, like, either friends that can nominate or win stuff or associates or employees or whatever. And so then I feel bad saying something bad because even though I was wronged for all those years by this organization and they do this to lots of other people, I don't want to diminish the hard work of the people around me because, like, I have a lot of respect for what they do. So it's a very narrow tightrope to walk.

I didn't know that this would be such a thing for you, that the GPI awards is like a really sensitive thing. You felt snubbed for so many years.

I was snubbed. I was snubbed.

It's so personal. You're like,

I did. I. I did so many videos roasting gpi. I mean, it's been a little while now, so we haven't. We haven't gone into them, but I mean, I roasted these guys relentlessly for like a while. It was like maybe a one way feud. Who knows? Maybe. Maybe I'm the bad guy. All right. I think. Unless you had any other comments there, Alan, on that one. Are you gg? He's like, I'm out of here. I'm out of here. I'm not. I'm not doing these GPI awards. I'll show you guys what I think about the GPI awards. Alrighty. Alan has left the building. This is kind of like when Perkins jammed the river and went on his jet. Allen just. Just did the equivalent here on the show. So. Yeah, I think I'm getting a call from Alan Keating. Yo. Yeah. Oh, your battery died. Okay. Do you want me just. You can come back? Yeah, yeah, for sure. Hop back on. All right. Okay, cool. All right. He's gonna hop back on here in a sec. Apparently the battery died in his device. So we're gonna go full screen Doug, for a little bit. You guys are gonna be left with me, your podcast host, Code Doug. Thank you guys for tuning in and thank you for enjoying the show so far. Alan will be back with us shortly. I have a couple different topics I wanted to talk with him about. I want to talk with him about this creator game that he played in with a bunch of well known people, maybe a little bit of private game world stuff, and then maybe we could even open it up to the audience when that concludes. In the meantime, I am doing a 100, 000 challenge over on Club WBT Gold. I'm. There's a special code. You probably can't see it anywhere in my background that you can use to get in on the $100,000 giveaway. So make sure to head on down and use Code Doug today. And if you want to use a different code, that's fine. Just don't use Code Jamie. It's the only rule. Okay, let's see what we got going. Okay. Is he gonna get back in here? Is he calling again? Hold on. All right, where where are we at here? Don't you guys worry. Keating is on his way. I don't have any cards. I don't have any tables. I have nothing I can do in the meantime. But I do appreciate. I'll do a couple quick shouts in the chat here. Roy Payton is the pool guy. I think not King Keen. Did you guys like my Keating story? The. Oh, here we go. Keith's back. Okay. Alrighty.

I liked your Keating story.

Nice. I'm glad to hear that.

I didn't know that you could see. Without it logged in, I can't.

Oh, there you go. Okay, cool.

I look like I'm taking a DMV photo or something.

No, you're all. You're all good. You're all good. All right, well, thank you for. For. For rejoining us. I thought the GPI words were upsetting to you and you just had to leave, and I would have respected that.

I don't know how you're as funny as you are. It's crazy. Your mind goes,

I've got. I've got a couple things I'm good at. And luckily, jokes are debatably one of them. Okay, so I have a couple more topics I want to jump into here that I prepared. I want to talk. Do you remember playing in that creator game where it was like Mr.

Beast, where I lost a million dollars? I guess I have this faint memory of this game. Yes. Tell me more.

So I want to know, how does it feel to lose over a million dollars to complete amateurs?

Better than losing the super pros.

It feels better.

I don't know. It was fun. You know, I think my attitude going into it was the right one. It's like, okay, you know, I'm more experienced than these guys and I'm gonna kind of meet them on their level of action and fun. Unfortunately, that meant like losing a million bucks, but it was a lot of fun, honestly. I made. Made friends there. Also, it was really funny watching Hellmuth sit on his like, five thousand dollar stick and that.

And that everyone who has never played

poker is like ramming and jamming, you know, all this stuff. And he's like sitting on the sidelines like, man, can't wait till I get Jax. I'm gonna double up. This 5 will be 10 and the 10 will be 20, and then you'll never know what hit you. Just white magic.

So. So what? What is up with that, man? Because when I watched that, like, this is sad. Everyone's gambling straddle and playing crazy. He's over there. He's tilting his face off. He's on the shortest stack I've ever seen someone play at those blinds. I mean. I mean, do you think it was good to have him in that game? Like, would you. If you could run it back, would you have Hellmuth in there again?

Absolutely. That was hilarious. The whole thing is fun. You know, he's such a unique character. You can't. That's kind of one of my things. Like, expecting people to be different than how they are is, you know, a fool's pursuit, but it's also, like, not a nice thing to do. But he's just a quirky guy, and that's how he wanted to approach the game. And I like him a lot. I like being around him a lot. There's a story I don't know if he'll appreciate me telling.

That's the best guide.

I will. I'll shortcut it to, like, the smartest, smallest, smallest thing. This guy starting a business don't want to say which one. He reaches out to me and he's like, hey, you know, I really want to get to know these important investors. He thinks very highly of them, you know, the all in podcast guys and things of that nature. And I'm like, all right, well, I don't want them to think that I'm leveraging our relationship. So I'm not comfortable, like, making this connection. Like, it's clear that, you know, you'll give me something for doing it. And I don't want to position myself that way, but I know someone who will. So I called Helmuth, I called Hellmuth and I said, Hellmuth, like, let me, let me. I'm invested in this thing. I'm a believer. Like this young guy, like, make these introductions, you know, And I negotiated a deal for him where he has to put in $15,000 to get 4% of this business that was, you know, he's buying at like a 99% discount. And he's got, like, all these advisor shares. It's just. It's just like, I did him good. And the counterparty was happy with it, too. So he's like, okay, great. You know, you put him in that spot. He's amazing at this, you know, connecting. And so he shows it to all these guys, you know, maybe a half a dozen guys, all the. All the who's who's sort of thing. And all of them pass and say they're not interested. And so Hellmuth calls me and he goes, hey, you know, they all. They all passed. I'M not Gonna put the 15,000 in. You know, basically to his credit, like, these guys are crazy sharp, smarter than me in, like, every way, and if they didn't, like, it probably isn't a great investment. I guess he passes. And I called him. I got an offer in November of last year from this, like, secondary broker for my shares in this. In this business. And they valued the business at $2 billion. And so.

Oh, man,

his 4% at that time, you know, I don't know. What's worth now is $80 million because he didn't send in the 15,000.

Wow. That is tough. That is a tough beat. That is a serious beat.

If you're in my shoes and you get that call and you're like, oh, that's what it's worth, do you call Hellmuth and remind him of this gaffe, this $80 million mistake? Or do you just, like, let it pass?

No, I wouldn't call him. I would wait for a nice dinner

just to ruin it.

Phil, are you enjoying your steak?

The wine's on me. Surely we own the restaurant, but under these conditions, I have the wine tonight.

You're actually gonna have two kinds of wine that night.

$80 million. He was irate, like, four or five days when. When he kind of figured it out. Yeah, he went through all these stages of grief. It was just, like, wild to watch at one time, you know, like the. The. You ever see Terminator 2? And he gets, like, dropped into the. The oil, and he goes through all these, like, flailing around where he's the mother and then he's a guy with the stabbing arm, and then he's like, the cop or whatever. This happened in real time.

Yeah. Do you think. Do you think the more devastating part for Phil is not having the 80 million or the fact that he obviously missed out on such an. Obviously great. Or, like, maybe not obvious, but he missed out such a great opportunity that was right in front of him probably the second. I think.

Are you nuts? Yeah. I think it's, like, 80 million, right? Like.

Well, I'm saying. I'm saying I think, like. I think, like, part of Phil's personality is, like, being right at things. And I. I think, like, when you take an L like that, the L hurts almost more than the money does. To Phil. He's. He's a successful guy. Like, obviously, 80 million is a ton of money, so. But. But, like, he's a success. A successful enough guy to. Where that wouldn't change his life too much, right?

Yeah. He's done Tremendously.

Well, yeah,

it's certainly not enough to not upset him. Right. Like there's a better way to say that.

Well, congratulations man. I mean just, you're invested in this company. Right? So yeah, yeah, that's, that's a big, that's a, that's one success story.

It was kind of a cool thing to do. And the question I asked myself is like, wait a minute, maybe I should have done the interview. All that was available to me. I just thought to give it to him. Right.

Yeah.

I went through this whole like thing where I thought I was going to start a fund and a lot of it was like, okay, I want to make, get people involved in the things I do and bring awareness and that'll help like as these businesses develop, that'll help like the fundraising process. And then I like kind of stalled out because I just kept reading and reading and when you look at the, these different funds performance, it's really like the biggest factor, believe it or not, isn't where you invest or at what level and all that stuff. It's actually like vintage, you know, when you start your fund as like the biggest correlation between the outcome of your fund.

Yeah.

Because in the venture world. Yeah. So timing's everything. And as I was thinking about it, it was like 19, 20, 21 and every project that would typically, you know, start at 4 or 5, 7, 8 million dollar valuation was like raising at 2025. And so when you look at like the best fund performance, the top decile of funds do say 25% year over year return. Those are the ones that started when the prices to get in were really low. And then all this free money comes in, low interest rates and then a clear path to going public and everything, everything's like, it's all the perfect conditions. If I started then I, I realized you only have one shot at it. So I just kind of like waited. Still waiting.

Well, it seems like that that worked out for you. I. So going back to the networking thing, I've always, and this has actually been, I think like a, like a detriment to myself is I've just been so used to in my career not having opportunities that people give to me that I just like, you know, poker, I wasn't really allowed into games. By the time I was like well known, poker was banned in the us no company ever offered me anything. I'm like the worst demographic, just like white American man in the US market for poker is just the absolute nut low. We have way too many of those people already and So I just got to this point where I was like, I'm gonna go out there and fucking take it. You know, I'm gonna go out there and I'm gonna do it myself. And so then when I meet people, I'm always coming from a perspective of like, I don't want to ask for anything, I don't want to seem like I want anything. And so it's like made me not network and build relationships. Because a little bit like when you're well known, or, you know, within poker at least, whatever. I'm not saying I'm like super well known, but you're used to people trying to ask you for things and I don't want that. I don't want to be a one sided thing like that. I want to build my own stuff. And I feel like that's also a weakness because as long as you're fair with people and you're, you know, it's a two way street, then it's fine to meet people and discuss ideas or whatever it might be and, or raise money or whatever, whatever it might be. But like, I have tried to not be involved in that because I don't want people to think of me in a certain way. Does that make sense? Like, it's like, it's like.

And you know, it's a weakness, but it's like a dynamic thing, right? It's interpersonal, it's sensitive, it's uncertain. It's an incredibly difficult thing to walk. Asking for help, asking for support, asking for investment, asking for anything.

I'm with you.

It's tough. It's not easy to know what to do.

Yeah, yeah. And then, and then even when people like offer things, it's like, I always, I'm like, no, please. I like, for example, when I first moved to Austin, Bill Perkins was like, oh, you're coming. Can you stay at my place? I was like, oh, no, I'll stay at a hotel. He's like, dude, I have a spare house. You're good. And I'm like, no, no, I'm okay. And he's like, I have a, I, I have a spare house. Come stay. And I'm like, okay, Bill. And it was obviously awesome. And it was very kind of Bill to do that. But like, I just don't like being someone to even take advantage of. Not take advantage of, that's the wrong word. But you know, you know, I'm saying like to, to utilize other people's things or opportunities for myself. I just don't like that is part of it.

You don't want to feel like you owe someone that part of it too.

Maybe a little bit. I could see some of that. Yeah. I don't want to feel like. Like it's like a. What? Like a parasitic relationship, you know, you want symbiotic, is what you want. You want symbiotic relationships. And I feel like whenever it's like one person provides a thing, then it becomes parasitic, and I don't like the association with that.

I get it. I get it.

So that wraps up Doug's therapy corner. No, I'm just kidding.

I'll hit you with any new philosophy you want. You want one? I'll hit you with one right now.

Hit me, hit me.

What do we got as a concept, especially young people, we should be friends and regularly interact with people younger than us. Older our age and older than us. Basically, like every generation you have to meaningfully interact with. And the reason is, obviously, you learn lessons as you go, right? So you're going to learn the most from people that have been there. I get a lot of my temperament from Bob Bright.

Oh, dude. I used to play five' ten with Bob Wright in Hollis's Game Around Las Vegas.

Yes, yes, yes. I love Bob Bright. And about this time, it would have been maybe 15 years ago then, you know, big wig on the exchange. He's done all these incredible things in finance. I just asked him if he wanted to go to lunch, and, you know, I'd ask him questions about everything he did, like, you know, stories, everything. Like, we just really soak it all in, and we ended up going for lunch once a month for like 10 plus years anyways. I think I'm, like, passionate. And then it's also like interacting with young people. What you get out of that is it keeps you young, right? Like, life hardens you over time. And it's like the younger people that remind us that it's. It's not that serious, right?

Yeah, it gives you, like a. You know that the biggest thing for young people is, like, young people still have dreams, whereas I feel like older people get so jaded, like, the world is the world. Whereas young people, like, dude, we could do this. It's gonna be so cool. And I'm like, yes, that would be very cool. There you go, little fella.

It's like a road trip when you're, like, 40 and you're like, road trip?

Yeah, road trip. Yeah.

I get there faster if I fly. When you're young, you're like, all right, great. Like, you, You. You mix the CD or whatever it is, you know.

Oh, yeah, right.

Like, you know, bring your swimming seat. I don't know. You're right about that.

Yeah, I think, I think tapping into all the generations and learning from them and trying to improve yourself. Oh, and the other big thing too, I think is as you get older, you still have to have a commitment to trying to learn about the world. I feel like it's so easy to just get into, like these are my core beliefs. This is what I think. And that's it. It's like you, you want to grow and learn new things and develop and try. Like, I think it's for example, like what you're doing now with trying to do content. Like you're learning something new, right? And, and you're gonna get a lot of fulfillment out of trying that new thing and, and embracing it. And I think like, that's a huge part of getting older in the right way, is you should always be trying to learn.

Well, there's a philosophy of like, once you reach the top of something, once you think you're at the, you succeeded. You know, I talked to a friend who's like extremely wealthy but wildly depressed. I'm just like, it's like there's nothing higher. I'm like, pick a different mountain. That's the whole thing. Like, you get to a top, you got to pick a different mountain. But when you said you always got to keep learning, this one's a hard one for me because I always had this idea like, you know, once I, once I make it, then I can retire and I can do what I want to do. If this, then that. And it's, it's just like a wildly toxic way to approach life. Because what you end up doing is like deferring all the things that you want to do in order to get there and life just kind of passes you by. But Bob taught me actually that you do have to keep learning. I mean, he would come to lunch with a newspaper every time and like bring up an article and talk about the article. But he's so open minded. I had this idea, like, once I get there, then I'll be set. Well, if you have this idea, you'll, you'll be set, you'll stop learning and problems arise.

I've always found the idea of retiring really off putting because I love the things that I do. I'm passionate about the things that I'm do that I do actually. So one of my main attorneys, my main attorney, he is 81 of my main attorney. You know how it Goes, I guess, probably, but. But anyway, so, like, he's. He's 87 years old, and he still runs, like, a lot of my stuff in different areas. I mean, this guy is the most legit. He went Harvard, Yale, the whole. The whole shebang. He's had an epic career. Just all this cool stuff. And he was my neighbor when I lived in Las Vegas. And he's an older guy, has one leg. And so this guy, like, hobbling around in a warriors hoodie. And I like the warrior. So I was like, hey, what's going on, man? You like the warrior? We start chatting. So, you know, we're hanging out. We're like, we'd, like, watch sports together. And this guy is legitimately 50 years older than me. Like a straight 50, like, a half century older than me. And he became my best friend in my neighborhood, and we'd hang out all the time. And so when I left to move to Austin, we kept up with stuff. We still, like, occasionally, like, he'll come out here, I'll go out there, whatever, and then, like, you know. But he does, like, a lot of my legal work. And this guy is so sharp. And he's 87. You're like, this guy is sharper than me right now. That's like, this guy must have been a killer when he was, like, 30 or 40, you know, just to just. Just how good he is at what he does. But my big takeaway is I always thought when you get older, you just sit in a chair and die. Like, you just don't do anything. You're like, you turn the TV on, it's over. But what I've actually learned is that's just old people that don't give a. Like, you. You can choose the kind of person you want to be even in your older age. And I don't want to hear this, like, oh, well, if you're like, physically, this guy has one leg, you know, I mean, like, this guy is like. And he's, like, healthy, like, goes for walks. He's like, he does everything. So I guess, like, knowing someone like that and the passion he has for learning new things. And, like, he's. He loves working on my companies because he's like, oh, this is so much fun. Like, all these, like, crazy businesses and poker and gambling, and he's like, this is awesome. So, like, he's really enjoying the work he does, you know, for us, and I'm so thankful we have him on board. And it's given me this new perspective on life to be, like, first I'm grateful for what I have today. But then also, like, when I'm 87, I want to be that guy. I want to be 87 and I got like these like crazy kids I'm working with on some crazy shit that they're doing, you know, like, you know, I want, I want to be that guy one day. So I don't know, I don't really have, I guess, a point there other than that experience has, I think, given me some good perspective on life.

Well, I'm sure he's getting out as much out of it as you are as well, right?

Yeah, he loves it, man. He's still great. He's really, really good attorney. He's super sharp. Okay. So I guess just to. I feel like I had some private game world questions. I feel like we kind of gone through some stuff like that. I don't think we really need to go too deep down there. Oh, actually one more thing on the creator game. So I feel like that made a real splash where that brought a lot of people in and a lot of awareness, and I feel like we haven't seen anything kind of tap in like that in the last year or two. Do you think that's a, that's a game type that could be recreated? Is that something that we can, we can find a new way to embrace? Because when we have these kinds of personalities come in, then, you know, their audience has sort of come with them to some extent. So like our creator games, something that in the future we can look to as a source of poker content.

So that was, that was a special moment for sure. I mean, the amount of concurrent viewers, I think was something 150,000 something across the different platforms and stuff. And obviously that was driven by Mr. Beast, you know, just one of the most famous people on the planet and in a digital way.

Right.

So it's like, you know, DiCaprio wouldn't bring as much as Mr. Beast, right. His audience and everything. So it was a really special moment. It's hard to imagine that, like, moment being recreated, even though I think it's possible. But, like, that's a moment that's like locked in my mind. But then you look at the Neymar game and you're talking top five most followed person on the planet, right? Like, and he's relatively private and we get to sit with him for seven, eight hours and play cards. You know, that, that was really special. But it also didn't have the 100,000 viewers.

Right.

And so I think the weak point is like, us the poker community not being more innovative, reaching out and making these situations, like, a more attractive or facilitating them in a way that it's like you take away every responsibility. Right. I've got everything settled. It's gonna be all. This thing's gonna be worked out for perfectly. All you have to do is come and show up like that. That should be the mentality.

How did it go down? So it seems to me. And again, I don't know Mr. Bees at all, but it seems like he dipped into the poker world, had that stream, played a couple private games, I think, at Aria or something, and then was out. Did something rub him the wrong way, or is he just over it? Or did he not? Like, what? Is there, like, a reason why we're not seeing him back in there? Because obviously having someone like that, that has the platform that he has is, you know, beyond critical. I mean, that. That's, like, what really made that work. Right? So. So what. What happened with Mr. Beast? Why don't we see him in poker anymore?

He still plays. That man is, like, really busy. He's. Let's see what I can say. Inspiring. But I think there's nothing stopping him from coming back and playing in something meaningful. For sure. He's available, he plays. We just gotta set it up to a situation that he'd enjoy. Neymar, we've talked for years about different things we can do together. That's one of the things we're talking about. When I go down there in a couple weeks, he wants to do a show down in Brazil. Poker show.

That'd be sick.

Yeah, that would be really cool. I'm really proud of him. He's a lot of these guys. You know, people want to be around famous people or pretty or wealthy or whatever, but I think they miss. That was a gunshot.

What?

Where.

Where do you live? Why are there gunshots? Are you in Vegas right now?

Right, yeah, yeah, whatever. So, yeah, like, people. People are missing. Like, people treat, like, famous, rich, or pretty people differently. But it's. It's really like a huge mistake because you don't get a chance to really get to know someone. And sometimes you'll meet someone that, you know, reveals their character in a really positive way than you wouldn't notice otherwise. But Neymar is, like a really kind guy with his friends, like, gets him involved in everything. He's kind of like the main character in Entourage, you know, except his entourage is like 25 people instead of. So, I mean, everywhere he goes, like, even when we were in. We were in Vegas, like three, four years ago, and the World Series of Poker was asking him to put together like a one or two table tournament, you know, or Pam to show up or whatever.

Right.

His idea was, okay, well I want to include all my friends and the prize pool, you know, goes. Goes to that.

Right.

So he just kind of, he does like all the right things. People don't get a chance to see it. So telling that story and, and guys like Ryan Garcia, you know, you could see, you know, some outlandish headlines and, and some, you know, unpredictable behavior. But like beneath it all, like, that guy's heart is like enormous. Like, he's really impressive. So we're gonna become.

I saw him at the World Series of Poker once and I was like, oh, it's Frank. He looked at me to give you like a nod. I was like, oh, I think he knows who I am.

Who you are. He's watched as much poker as you and I. Oh, that's cool.

It is cool. When you see someone that's well known, they know who you are from, like, what you do, you know, I'm sure you get that all the time.

Hasn't happened to me. I'm not on Doug Poker, that's for sure. Even out there. Yeah, you're amazing podcast. How many views have you had over your lifetime? There's a weird thing in the YouTube creator where it says number of hours watched. Yours has to be like, yeah, these.

We've had a lot of hours watched. I think I've done like 150 or 160 million views over the lifetime of the channel. But it's been, it's been a good amount of time now. So let me look here. Lifetime we've got. It's going to be a big number, I think. 24 million hours.

Okay, so that's a million days of like someone's life. It's like how many? 80 times? 365. Like, what is that, 24,000? I don't know.

We have to get into the math. But yeah, it's 176 million views you've consumed, basically.

Like how many people's full entire lives consumed?

Enriched.

You know, I always felt like, you know, I appreciate art. I don't, I can't make it. I don't, I don't have an eye for it necessarily. But like, as someone who makes a great song, right? And it gets played over and over again like Wonderwall or whatever. Oh, here we go.

Yeah, so 176 million views, 24 million out. Dude, look how little Money. This is. That's crazy, right?

How little money? Wow. You have no respect for money. $500, dude, it's.

It's eight years of work and it's 24 million hours to only. I mean, I paid my team more than this. Obviously. This is a minus EV channel.

I think they all are now. You know, I watched. I've been doing like, a little research. I watched this guy whistling Diesel and he had like, you know, he's the guy that blew up the Tesla and got shared by, like, Elon Musk, all this stuff. And it's like, this dude's like, clearly spent, you know, tens of millions putting, like, buying this wild house in the middle of nowhere, blowing shit up and all this stuff. Like, is it. My question to you is, like, to be a good creator now, do you have to, like, run purely at a loss, like, and only you have to be this extravagant, this aggressive, maybe even come from money or something to.

Well, the Mr. Beast path is probably roughly optimal, where as you get more money, you spend it right. And you just use the money as a tool to amplify your reach. So from that perspective, I think that's probably optimal for growth. You could argue that for profitability, that maybe there's a different path. But the reality is the moment that he. That beast decides his goal is to make money, he's going to flip a switch and it's going to be like the money printer goes brewer, you know, because the amount of reach like the

companies would give, that's for sure. What's up prizes is worth quite a bit of money.

Yeah, for sure.

So this earmarks are like the numbers out there.

What's the number?

Like, 3.4 billion.

It's pretty, pretty good business. So I would say, like, it's different nowadays than it was like, even 10 years ago. And you also have to decide, are you willing to wait that long to make money? Right. Because so, like, for me, the way that I did it was I was like, I know YouTube's going to lose money. I know I'm going to lose money there. But, you know, Upswing will make money and then ultimately, like, you know, other businesses I do will make money. And so, you know, like, Upswing has done like 50 to 100. 50 to 100. Sorry.

It's a marketing tool that.

Yeah.

Spend effort on. Of course, that's the brilliance. I was talking to someone recently that we both know, and he was talking about how smart you are because you're. And this is what he. He and I both agreed not that you're smart, but that's. You don't interest me. Conceptually. A stream is not like something that makes a lot of money.

Yeah.

And we can agree on that. And it shouldn't be a standalone business as much as something to create attention and direct to some. Some other business that does make money in a meaningful way.

Way.

And you've done that better than anyone. So, like, I think that's one thing you understood in the beginning. Also, one of the things I struggled with thinking about the landscape was when you work back, who's going to pay the most? Or, like, how do you optimize for the attention you create? I think that the most obvious decision is you have like an online casino and you, like, you own it and you basically use the poker show to drive to that online casino. But I don't know. I've done a lot of thinking about the businesses I want to be a part of and the ones I don't. Yeah. Sitting in a super amazing house, you know, built by, you know, that the wrong means isn't something I'm interested in.

Yeah. So, I mean, there's a few different ways to look at this. And obviously recently I've been promoting another company that's not my company, which is. Has been pretty rare for me over the years. But, like, the existence of sweet sweepstakes poker, I think it's great to have. First off, just taking a step back. It is absolutely ridiculous that Americans lost online poker. Like, ridiculous. I mean, the fact that the government stepped in and was like, no more of this, guys. It's like, what the. This is America. We popularized poker. We have most of the best poker players, or at least we used to. We. We're like the most. We consume the most poker content. We love poker. I mean, it's called Texas hold Up. Like, I can't even believe that it got banned here. So just putting that to the side. Then as a professional player, I had to leave the country and go work in other countries so that I could make money so I could send my taxes back to America. Unbelievable. So the fact that we lost online poker to begin with was. Was horrific. And when I first saw global poker, because they were the sweepstakes site that kind of first made it big. Right. I didn't really understand what was going on. I just assumed it was like ACR or something where they were just breaking the law. But then as I learned a bit about the sweepstakes model and the legality, it is legal to run sweepstakes poker, and that's why, like, some states are actually looking to ban it because, you know, you call it a loophole. But I think the word loophole is a little bit almost misleading. If something is a loophole, it means it's legal. Like, loophole means legal. It means you're, like, going through a mechanism that maybe it wasn't supposed to, but you can. Right? So I think it's cool that we have C6 poker, and I am happy to be able to promote, like, a good company within that, like, wpt. They've been around for a very long time. This isn't like. It's just some, like, random bullshit. So, yeah, going back to, like, online casino, that aspect of it. Like, yeah, obviously online gambling makes a ton of money. It's a huge industry. But the way that you do it is important.

Yeah, of course. And then when, you know, I've been approached for, like, investment in these different ones or, like, you know, conversations about participating in some way, and it. And it's like, okay, well, to get involved, I have to solve for the morality of it. It. And make a decision, like, personally, that this one's okay, and I'm not sure that it is. And then secondly, like, I've never endorsed anything. So if my, like, vouch is on something, like, if you endorse everything, your vouch is, like, worth nothing.

So, Phil home or what?

Sure.

Sorry, sorry.

You are the villain. You are the villain. I'm just looking for jokes, but when it comes to, like, a business like that, I need to in order, like, the nightmare is you get involved in something like, say, Full Tilt Poker or, you know, ultimate, but you'd enjoy that. And then everything, like, falls apart. They were using the money for, you know, marketing, and they use the players fonts and all that stuff. Like, if you're gonna endorse a company that's, like, custodying all these people's money, like, I can't do that without actually getting there and opening it up. And I need to, like, personally look that you have that money, like, over time and see that you did, like, operate, like, in good faith, like, for a long period of time before you do it. Otherwise, you're just like, every day is like a unknown liability where something you didn't do, the legwork to look into could, like, collapse on you, and you'll be the reason why other people got collapsed on. You know, like, that's a big responsibility.

Well, so there's a few things with that. And I guess the first one is, like, a lot of times companies are not Going to be okay with letting like influencers have financial. Yeah, right. So that's the first, that's the first thing. And then, and then the second thing, there's like a, a level of due diligence and responsibility that is reasonable for ambassadors and, or influencers and, or affiliates and or whatever. You know, like, for example, like, I don't see people just like furious with Steph Curry because he was an FTX guy. I don't see that anywhere. Right. Because is it re. Is it reasonable to expect Steph Curry Was going through FTX's back end? That's pretty unreasonable. So, like, I think there is a level of due diligence that's important. And I'm not trying to like, obviously like, you know, as someone that's promoting things just in general, I don't, I'm not trying to like overly protect influencers and promoters, but there's like a level of which if you have done your own due diligence to some extent, then I feel like you're protected and it's unreasonable to expect everyone to be able to always prove financial solvency of every entity. Does that make sense? I mean, it's like that's insanely high bar.

Yeah, it's insanely high bar, but that's my bar. Like, and I'm not gonna get off of it. Right. Like,

You're involved in polymarket somehow, right?

I invested in it actually before it was Poly Market. Yeah.

Okay, gotcha. Yeah, with Poly Market, it's all public, but it's all public markets, so you can see the liquidity. It's all index contracts.

Right. You know, when I invested, it wasn't. There was no betting. You know, it was a different concept and it was actually a pivot. And I haven't had like really any hands on in any meaningful way. I just met a really young, energetic guy that I thought couldn't be stopped. And I just called a few friends and I said, a couple friends. And I said, I'm in New York visiting you. You know, I'm gonna give this guy some money. You know, why don't you do it with me? And so three of us like invested in it. And then he struggled and I gave him some more money personally. But that, that's like a pretty big public game changer. The concept of like betting on events in real life marketplace, it's like, it's kind of interesting if you zoom out. Like your sports and stocks are like the only things you can bet on and stocks are during the day and sports are at night. Right. But like the appetite for betting is much higher than what those two are satisfying. So when you zoom out, I think prediction marketplaces have an insane level of growth out of them.

Yeah, I think humans love to speculate. Like, we love to have thoughts and we love to have predictions and we love to think that we know better than the average person or the other person or people in general. And so I feel like those markets are an excellent place where fantasy meets reality. And it's just like what you. Yeah, it's basically. And this is something that tilts me. I was talking about this the other day. I get really tilted when I talk with like a non gambling person and they say something that's clearly wrong and it's easily provable. And I'm like, oh, I'll bet you on that. We can bet like 10 bucks. Like, oh, I don't bet. And it's like if you're not willing to bet $10 on the thing you just told me you believe in, like your, your opinion is so worthless. It's just so worthless because not, not only are you, first off, you're wrong, but on top of that,

I'm right. Change your behavior. Pay me $10. You're very demanding of other people.

You know, I mean, you agree to some extent. Like if someone in the gambling world says X thing and so while I'll bet you. And then they go, oh no, I don't bet or I won't bet on that, then there's like a power there. There's like a power dynamic. It's like the person that said that. Yeah, probably full of shit.

Isn't it weird? Like the gambling dynamics. Like when you say booked. Oh, then it's booked. You can't go back, right? Like in watch dealing. I met this guy Moses recently. He's like, he goes to the street and you know, buys people's Rolexes off the list and. But like the way they indicate that a deal has been made is they say Mazal. I don't know, we've got all these like funny terms. But like, how does it make sense? Like I played in a poker game and who was it? Was it Sammy Farha? This was like seven, 15 years ago. Is that the Bellagio? I think it was. Farha.

Farha. Not well liked in poker rooms, by the way. Yeah, well, he got punched in the face at Houston, I think somewhat recently. I don't know if you heard about this.

Yeah, yeah, but we went to the river and. I made this bet like, like an all in Bet a big bet. And you know, of course you knew me at the time. Like mine. Like, that was probably all the money in my. To my name that was on the table. But he's waiting and he's like thinking about calling and he goes, hey, you want to chop it? I'm like, yeah. And he's like, okay, deal. And throws the cards in the middle. And I'm like, wait, what, what happened? He's like, well, you. You said you want to chop it? And I was like, is that a thing? And then like some other person was like, oh, no, that's like Mazal, like, it's a deal. And I'm like,

I was about to

double my net worth.

How does that. I don't think I've ever had someone ask me that on a river spot. If we want to chop it.

I just had never heard of it before. So it was like, by the way,

that seems like a free roll of people asking when they're going to fold.

Yes, that's. That's clearly what it was.

Yeah, it's like, I'm going to fold, so how about I try and just get part of this money back? Yeah, seems like you should say. I think you should say no there every single time.

Yeah. Have you ever had like a ruling on a, at a poker table? You know, I've seen the floor in 15 years, but like back then in like, you know, public games, you. The floor gets called time to time. Like, have you ever had a ruling where you like, knew it was wrong and you were like aggressed in some way?

Oh, I mean, like as a player. I mean, I guess, like. I've had any major ones. I never had any major ones. I did have a spot I was thinking about the other day. Where did you ever see this hand where two queen of clubs came out on poker go. You know what I'm talking about? This.

No.

Okay, so I open up. I open this up. It's on one of the higher stakes poker shows. I forget what it was on, but I opened up like mid position. Couple callers. Fault comes. Ace, queen, queen, flush, draw. But what I didn't realize was the flush draw was two queens of clubs. So it checks to me. I see bet, fold, fold. I take the pot. As I'm collecting the pot, someone goes, it's two queens of clubs. And I was like, what? And I look at the board and I'm like, oh, shit. And then Scott Seaver is like, everyone gets their money back. Everyone gets their money back for sure. Everyone gets. It's there's not even a question here. And at the time, I was like, oh, I'm going to trust what Scott Seaver is saying. Which, in retrospect was like, you know, maybe I could have. Like, it's like a big pot, but, like, what about the other hands that happened to had two queens of club? Like, you see, I'm saying, like. Like, there's obviously a completion point where, like, the hand's gonna stand. So, like, there probably should have been a floor involved, but I just, like, gave everyone their money back just because Scott Sieber said so, which was, like, probably not the optional way to do it.

By the way, your Scott Seaver impression was, like, spot on. If we had him here, he'd probably just, like, dip out of the zoom and let you handle it from here.

I got it. I got you, Scott. Don't worry about it.

It was insane. I was. I'll tell you one ruling I had, and I forgot about this. I was at the Venetian, and I had, like, 12,000 in my name. And there was a. I ran it up a little bit. I think I had only, like, a few thousand in my pocket. I was sitting with maybe 15 or 12 or something. Whatever. Doesn't matter. And. But it only. The context is this pot mattered to me, right? And there was a guy there who played a lot of the table games. He had, like, a. You can tell when the guy has a baccarat chip instead of a regular chip. It's like, batter looks different. And I go, or like, this guy bets, and I ask him, is that all you have? And he's got his stack. Just normal situation. He's like, right here, and he, like, counts it all down. You know, it's like 4,500. And I had the type of hand where if it was like, 4,500, you put it in, and if it was like, all the money that you fold, right? And I put it in, and we run it once, and he wins. And he draws his napkin this way, and he goes, oh, what about this? And there's two 5k chef trips.

No, no, that can't count.

I can't.

No, no, no, that cannot count. You got to get the floor over here for this way.

The floor comes over and rules in my favor. And it was like, you know, did he ask you? And, like, you know, counted the number even. And, you know, everyone in the floor, you know, all the poker players are. Defended me. They're like, yeah, like this. This happened. And the guy stands up, grabs his phone, and he calls someone Come find out it's his host. His host comes over and whispers to the floor person, and they change the ruling and make me pay.

What?

Yeah. Yeah, it was pretty funny you had

to pay that bet. Oh, that's so fucked up.

Yeah, I was irate for sure.

Wow. Dude, that's messed up. I feel like you could. I don't. I don't know. Like, what. What response? I mean, I would. I'd go to my attorney with that one. I don't know. There's like, some, like. There's gotta be a gaming thing to that. I mean, that's just like, a terribly dirty angle.

Yeah. Happens.

Yeah. Wow. That's. That's fucked up. I've never had anything like that. That's. That's horrible.

Yeah. I mean, shit happens. I mean, I like one, like, parallel maybe, is, you know, people were really mad at Garrett for retrieving the, you know, chips. I think maybe in a heated conversation with Robbie afterwards, something along the lines of, you know, know. You know, what you did, you know, make it good. And I think she gave him the chips. Isn't that right?

Yeah. So I heard this story from Garrett and Robbie and Ryan. So I have a pretty good understanding of what happened.

Yeah.

Obviously, there's some arguments, but I. I think I have a general handle on this. I think he left. She followed him out. They started talking. Ryan was there, and Garrett was like, you know what you did? And then she was like, what? Like, I didn't do it. And he's like, I'm not playing this game. You know what you did. And then she goes, well, is there anything I can do to make this right? And then he says, well, you could give back the money you stole. And then she goes, would that make things fine? And then Feldman goes, I can't be involved in this. And, like, storms off. And then, like, the money ends up getting given back. That's like. Obviously, there's like, some differences. Like, was he intimidating? She thinks. And then Garrett thinks that, like, Robbie was, like, more pressuring to give the money back because you didn't want to get. There's some differences.

Yeah.

But, like, in general, that. That. That is, like, basically what happened there.

Well, I. I bring it up only, you know, regretfully maybe, but I bring it up because I actually understand better than maybe most where Garrett's coming from, because. And I think this wasn't really mentioned is like, Garrett's played in those private games out in LA for, you know, many, many years before then. And, like, when you think about, like, a Like any cheating experience you have, like, being cheated in a game, like, it happens in LA a lot.

Let's just say now we've seen that in the last year or two. Man. My God, the number of these stories coming out. Jesus.

The number one place to be careful. But if you're Garrett, I'm sure he's been cheated, like, you know, half a dozen times enough to know that, like, right then and in that moment is his only chance of getting paid the money. Right?

Yeah, that's a. That's a fair point. I mean, I think. I think, like, I think that the issue there was. It would have been a better situation for it to have gone to a third party, and then they figure it out, and then no one, because, like, I think, like, I don't think people are mad at the idea that she gave the money back. I think they're mad that she gave it back to him and he held it. You know what I'm saying? And so then there wasn't, like, a fair process or whatever. Now, what would a fair process have it entailed? You really. It would be super unclear what the ruling would be there, even with, like, a panel of. Of, like, you know, neutral, ish jurors or whatever it might be, or arbitrators or whatever you want to call it.

Wait, is. Is Garrett a hero or a villain?

I think Garrett's a hero. I think. I think he made a mistake with how he handled, like, an insanely high pressure spot where he probably got cheated. And so I don't. I think he. I think he. I think he made a mistake there. I think he could have done it better, but I wouldn't. I wouldn't want to just, like, throw away his entire career of, like, you know, being one of the more entertaining personalities in poker, being a great poker player, being a reputable guy, being someone that's like, you know, you can look up to in general over just, like, one moment. I think that's also silly. I mean, he's still human. We're all humans, so I think he made a mistake and how he handled it, but I think he probably got cheated. And I still think he's, like, a. A great person for poker, but I've known Garrett for a long time, so I'm a little. I'm a little biased on the subject, you know? You know, admittedly, we all have our, like. I mean, we're like, more than Negranu, but, like, not close. Does that make sense?

Isn't it funny how people, like, categorize People, like, you know, some people just say loosely, oh, this is my friend, you know, or this is my best friend and it's like their 50th best friend. But you have, like, these tangential, like, allocations along this, like, friendship line that.

Well, let me play this, Alan. Like, with both those guys. I've talked about those guys a bunch. Garrett probably more than Negranu. And like, I've known them for many years. But, like, we don't go get food. Like, we're not, like, when I get to Vegas, we don't all go hang out. You know what I'm saying? It's not like, it's not like we're having. It's not like I'm hanging out with these guys. So it's to say, like, oh, yeah, we're good friends. What was the last thing you did together? Oh, we haven't. I mean, that's like, it's like very, you know, I'm saying, to say friends

is like, well, I met him once, like 15 years ago in a game in LA and we did get cheated. I played with him once, like, 15 years ago. And that's it. But to your point, like, it's still a person. And when the whole thing kind of went down, I did feel bad for him a lot. Like, reading the comment section and, you know, people. I called him probably, like, I don't know, three, four times just to, like, I think I had to get his number from someone else. I didn't have it. But just to be like, hey, you know, don't worry about it. This is going to blow over. Everything will be fine.

Yeah, I mean, like, I talked with him a few times. That too. And yeah, I, I would say I view Garrett over overall as like, I guess, a friend. I just, I just don't want to feel fake with that because we don't hang out much in real life or whatever. But when it was going down, I did feel, I did feel bad for him because I felt like you're one moment where, like, it's going to be the most viewed thing you ever did in your life. And it's, it's in a very high pressure situation where you probably got cheated and you're not thinking clearly and then like, all of a sudden there are these, like, hordes of people coming after you for this, including, like, LA Times articles where it's like, people think she cheated because she's a woman. It's like, what. That is not what's happening here. There is nothing to do with sex.

There were A couple articles that were insinuating that it was because of sexism. People were skeptical of the hand.

Yeah, that. I mean, that. That. That gives you a little insight into the way that. So that popular media presents arguments. When I saw those, I'm like, oh, this is going to become a sexism debate. I think it was the calling of the all in with nothing. That is what. Is what did it here. But I guess we can. I guess we can go that direction.

Yeah. I'm thinking about this one thing that bothers me. When you watch a poker movie, doesn't it bother you when things are, you know, out of place? Like, things don't feel right. Weird. You know, the whole situation is weird.

Yeah. It's just, like, not set up correctly. Right, Is what you're saying. Yeah.

Just like the way it goes, you know, the guy. If you understand the character and how they write them, they write the guy brilliantly. And until he sits down at the table and then he says, like, some. The cheesiest lines in the dumb situations. Right. Like, it's hard to. For someone that's not in poker to write about poker.

Yeah.

But, like, I got to put this word out there, you know, if you're going to make a poker movie, just reach out to me. Like, I will come. I will consult you. I will. Like, when you're working on the script, I'll tell you if this makes sense or if this doesn't and whatever. Like, even on Dead Money, I was like an extra in one little corner at this country club. I don't even think that you could even see the chips. But, you know, there was a guy dressed to my right that was, like, conservative and a younger guy, you know, that was supposed to be drinking and stuff. And I'm like, wait, hold on. This isn't right. The way this guy would stack his chips is he would turn them so that, like, the lines line up.

Yeah, yeah.

He's calculated and all that. This sloppy dude is not even stacking them right. He's gonna be like, all this. Yeah, all that stuff. Whoever's making these poker movies, just reach out to me. Like, I'd like to help you with it.

I feel like that also kind of goes back to how you play poker, by the way, because when you're. When you're watching a hand, you're looking for congruency. And so when there's incongruency, that really bothers you. And then that's what, like, is probably part of where your reads come for from. It's like it's like when something becomes incongruent. That's very apparent to you.

Yeah, yeah. Back to the 9, 7 hand. It's like you're telling. When he raises me on the turn, he's telling me his pocket sevens and that's it. Right. But then on the flop, you're, like, genuinely confused about what, like, what to do. You might fold. Yes.

Yeah.

Call.

Oh, man.

Torturing me there. Like, genuinely stall called for a reason.

Well, I think it was good, by the way, I think for tv. And don't slow roll people, obviously, because that's, like, kind of fucked up, in my opinion. But, like, if you're ever. You're like, I know I'm gonna call here, but I want the clip to be better, always. At least wait a bit, because the length of the clip increases the average watch time. So this is something I learned on YouTube, which is the worst thing you can do is to filter out the tanking, because people will always sit through tanking. Sorry, guys. People will always sit there tanking.

So.

So what you do is you always leave the tanking in. And what people will do is they will aggressively bitch in the comments about it, but then they will. They will stay. So your incentives are actually, like, really messed up. Where, like, in that scenario, if you're going to call, just take some time. You know, you got nowhere to go. You know where to be, and then your clip actually will become more popular.

You've convinced me.

Some food for thought.

You think I had that thought before?

What? Sorry?

Do you think I've had that thought before?

Oh, you have. Oh, I see. You did that anyway. Oh, I see.

Oh, sometimes the best hands happen too fast for people to appreciate.

Yes. Okay, so you were already on that level. I see, I see. Well played, sir. Well played. All right, we're coming up on three hours here. I think this is a good amount of time. I really appreciate you taking the time to hop on the podcast, and this was a great. I thought we had an awesome conversation today. There's going to be some really excellent clips I'm sure we'll put out here in the near future. But is there anything like you got coming up? Anything that maybe you want to let the viewers know here before I call it a day?

No. Well, there's a Poker Go episode coming out in, like, three hours.

Okay.

So that's kind of cool. So support them. But if. If you're interested, it would be cool if you subscribe to my channel. I know you are, but the viewers as well, so that we can get this whole storytelling thing going.

Yeah. I mean, I'm sure that this is something people are going to want to see. Like, if. If you have. I mean, from just what you've talked about today and what you have out there, I'm sure your channel is gonna be one of the best in poker. So I'm really excited to see what you put out, man. Thank you.

Cool.

All right, it's gonna be a wrap here. Thank you, guys, for tuning in. I guess I'm going to play some online poker here in a second, so you can tune back in the channel shortly. I'm going to take a little break, get some water, and we'll be back with some club WPT gold, and I will hopefully not lose my money. Alan, thank you for stopping by, man. I'll see you around. Peace, guys.